Rooster Smarts

I readily admit to being clueless when it comes to what some might consider obvious knowledge or what I call 'upstate knowledge.' I do not want to paint myself as a city slicker with no appreciation for the rural life - on the contrary, I love the outdoors and have grown accustomed to living upstate. It's just that my exposure to things rural has been limited.

From age five to age eight, I lived in Italy with my family. We had a vineyard, a wheat field, walnut and chestnut trees, an apricot grove, and even chickens and turkeys. Sounds rural and farm-y, right? It was, except our neighbor farmed our property and shared the profits, while my family concentrated on their small business. I didn't observe much about farming, and all I knew for sure about the fowl was that they smelled. Foul.

My grandmother lived with us as well, and among a number of now irrational sounding warnings, she cautioned me to not wear red when I'm near the rooster because that would make him angry. I guess maybe they're like bulls in that way? Do we really care? Anyway, one afternoon, I wore my new red plaid coat and ventured down to the cages. Suddenly, around the coop wall, came the rooster, squawking and pecking at me. I ran in circles and cried for help. He was relentless! My father appeared and kicked the rooster aside and swept me up. Shudder. That beastly rooster saw my beautiful red coat and wanted to take me down and peck my eyes out! Little me! The rooster must pay. Kill him at once, father! And kill all these hens too! Of course, I milked that tragic event the rest of the afternoon and got everyone's pity, although I believe they secretly found it hilarious and mocked me after I went to bed.

When we returned to the States, we settled back in the metropolitan NY area, and happily lead la vita suburbana. At one point, my dad tried to raise chickens and a rooster in the shed, but after one too many mornings of sunrise cock-a-doodle-doos, the neighbors complained and threatened to notify City Hall - the chickens were eaten and that was the end of that.

I've been living upstate for a long time now - almost 10 years, and that's not counting college. I present to you a sampling of my amazing farm, outdoor, and general nature epiphanies and things I've learned over the past decade...things that simply missed my consideration growing up 'downstate'.

• Just yesterday I learned that the sunflower seeds that come in snack bags actually come from the centers of those big yellow sunflowers that I see growing allover the place around here. Sunflowers = sunflower seeds you get in a bag - amazing and tasty knowledge!

• Hay comes from really long, overgrown dried grasses. It's what would happen if we let lawns go crazy. Hay does not itself grow grass. You still need seeds for that apparently.

• Perennials = flowers that come back every year. Annuals = have to be planted every year. Hmm. Touche.

• Cows do in fact lie down to sleep.

• County Fairs are not just a mid-west phenomena. Ditto with State Fairs. I didn't know NY had a state fair until ca. 1997.
  

• Llama farms. Really. That's it. There's one half a mile from my house. They're cute. Yay llamas!

• If you don't know what that enormous, horrible, stinking piece of filthy, crazy looking machinery chugging alongside the shoulder is, it's probably a manure spreader. Do not look directly at it.
  

• Hollywood depictions of the young, virile, tanned, cute farmer driving a tractor on an endless field of gold are quite accurate. Good news, eh?

• Ditto with depictions of creepy old toothless ones.

• If you kick your rotten pumpkin off your front step and behind a bush, and ignore its rotting little pumpkin-y carcass, in about a year you will have a pumpkin vine growing near your front door. True story.