All of our neighbors have chickens and those fowl make regular trips through our yard to get the rice and other food scraps that wash down our kitchen sink’s drain. The drain, like many things about our house, is unique, in a Jed Clampett kind of way. The water goes from the sink and dumps into a 4-inch PVC pipe that travels at a shallow decline, through the wall and outside. The PVC then deposits the sink’s waste water into an open channel made of bamboo, split lengthwise and supported by a stick with a “y” in it, like a large slingshot. The bamboo aqueduct goes about 5 feet. The water shoots off the end and into a shallow pool, a depression in the dirt scarcely two feet across and an inch deep – perfect for chickens that scratch and peck the bottom for rice.
I’ve named all of our neighbor’s chickens, Tinola. There’s Tinola 1 through about 12. Tinola is the Cebuano word for soup. The native chickens are a bit scrawny and their meat is dark and tough. But they are delicious! And they make excellent soup when spiced with some onions, garlic, and peppers and then flavored with Magic Sarap and don’t forget to throw in some other local vegetables.
One of the young roosters was our first and most frequent visitor. Over the last six months, I’ve watched his feathers change from a dull brown and black to a multicolored array from his head to his tail. At 4 months, he was holding his head up high and letting out an occasional warble – a young cock’s attempted crow - standing tall and flapping his wings with all the gusto he could muster in his sinewy muscles.
From the time he first appeared, it was his primary objective to get in the house and check things out, maybe peck at the rock-hard floor, pick up a few loose grains, harden his beak and take a crap. I don’t know what he had in mind, really. Three fifths of that little rooster’s pea-size brain was devoted to tenacity. Four fifths of what remained was for instinct. That leaves a volume of about half a drop of water for making intelligent decisions.
In the summer, which is year-round, we leave both the back and front doors open to take advantage of any breezes off the ocean or coming from the mountains, in the opposite direction, behind the house. First, the young rooster would try to get in the back doorway, then, if that failed, he would walk around the house and try the front entrance. He did this over and over, on a daily basis.
Maybe you’ve noticed I’ve been using the past tense in describing this particular chicken. It’s neither accident nor error. He’s dead. How he died remains a mystery… to the neighbors. I didn’t tell them he was hit by a truck, but I mentioned the frequency of their passing. I also didn’t say how nicely he fit in my pressure cooker or how that instrument can turn a tough bird into tenderness clear through to the bone.
Happy Thanksgiving from Ginatilan, Cebu!
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