This is Joan Jett, erstwhile (now deposed) boss hen:
Joan recently adopted an odd routine. Shortly before sunrise, she leaves the hen house, hops up onto a crossbar in the coop, faces east and makes a bizarre, strangled cawing sound for 30-60 seconds. Then she goes on about her business.
We think it’s possible she identifies as a rooster now. That’s okay with us — who are we to judge? I looked it up, and while rare, this kind of thing does happen with chickens.
But the situation may become awkward with the neighbors if Joan ever gets the hang of crowing at dawn. We promised we’d keep hens only due to the noise factor.
Open thread.
narya
there is actually an instance of this in literature–in Owen Wister’s “The Virginian.” The chicken’s name was Emily.
Wapiti
So does she still lay eggs at this point? Or is she destined for the stew pot?
A Ghost to Most
Looks like prez snowflake is having hisself a temper tantrum
trollhattan
@Wapiti:
Our friends’ urban coops commingle the eggs and to my knowledge they don’t know which hen extrudes what egg, unless there’s a weird color.
Hey, Peeps!
Also, too edit and formatting gizmos back Yay!
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
Has anyone officially made a corollary to Cleek’s Law w/r/t leftier-than-thous to the effect of, “pissing off the ‘center-left’is at least as important than accomplishing leftist goals/it’s only Good Leftism if it pisses off ‘centrists’?”
Uncle Cosmo
It’s a flustered cluck!
Major Major Major Major
@A Ghost to Most: he’s an almost unbelievably horrible person.
Major Major Major Major
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): this needs some sort of additional bit about how any leftist ideas that centrists may advocate are only for political gain and were stolen.
raven
Chicken Train runnin all day.
Morzer
Man, you’d better not let the local branch of the GOP know about Joan Jett or they’ll be rushing to the statehouse to pass laws against transgender chicken bathrooms.
jl
If it’s only one chicken, and if the neighbors complain, Lady Cracker could say its her own morning ritual and take the blame herself.
Just trying to be helpful.
schrodingers_cat
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): Use neoliberal as an incantation for anything you dislike.
MattF
You’re going to have to start calling him ‘Joe’.
Morzer
@Uncle Cosmo:
Cluckservative! CHINO! (CHicken In Name Only)
trollhattan
@jl:
Performing the chicken dance at dawn al fresco would make the news even in Florida.
Morzer
@jl:
You want Betty to go out before sunrise and hop up on the crossbar next to the chicken?
Actually, that would make for great video and it would be the quintessence of Floridianity.
Betty Cracker
@Wapiti: I’m not sure who lays eggs. The hens are getting kinda old, so egg production has slowed down considerably for everyone. They’re like pets, though — no one is destined for the stew pot!
LurkerNoLonger
@A Ghost to Most: “Hey look over there!” God, he’s so transparently bad at this.
WaterGirl
Betty, what’s the backstory you alluded to? Joan Jett was deposed? Have you shared the details of that drama, and I missed it?
scav
I just read this only involving ducks — what will SC st al need to ban next!? June 8: How does a duck change its sex?
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: Who is the new boss?
MattF
@A Ghost to Most: It’s a reminder for the faithful that they hate all Clintons. Always.
Yutsano
Fun fact: if a bunch of hens have an extended time with no rooster one of the most dominant hens will take on the rooster role. Obviously there will be no breeding going on but Joan will call the other hens to food sources and yes even attempt to crow. It’s kind of neat/weird.
jl
@Morzer: The Crackers live in some kind of impenetrable jungle thicket on some hammock. Cracker can just say she opens a window at dawn and delivers a morning salutation to her own personal pagan god. I think it will work.
kindness
Deposed? Was there a palace coop? (please forgive my poor snark)
JPL
@jl: It’s a prayer ritual.
That way when Betty yells Jesus Christ Joan, the neighbors will be forewarned.
Morzer
@jl:
But you must admit, we’d get much better pictures if Betty hopped up on the crossbar and did the chicken dance….
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@schrodingers_cat: We all know the meme, but it’s not especially connected to the law.
@Major Major Major Major: I’ll take that as a “no” regarding it already being formulated, and inquire as to the corollary’s name (although it’s not a particularly original insight l).
gbear
You’ll have to change her name to John Jeff.
FlipYrWhig
@kindness: I literally LOLed at that. Terrible and also brilliant at the same time.
rikyrah
YEAH…our arrows are back :)
jl
@kindness: Good point. Will get some info on the new queen cranky Cracker chicken?
I think the jargon for that, for those who want to be ‘in’ and ‘savvy’ is the new ‘Q-triple-C’.
IIRC, a chicken has to maim Cracker in some way before elevated to top notch.
jl
@Morzer: Well, yeah, sure. If she wants to do that, pics would be nice. Not sure if I’d prefer her butt nekkid or wearing some kind of feathered ceremonial chicken cape. I’ll think on it.
Morzer
@jl:
Don’t give George RR Martin ideas! The last thing we need is for him to start developing a Game of Chicken Thrones show set in Florida. I already doubt that he’s ever going to de-constipate himself of the final 10 volumes of his original project.
kindness
Betty’s lucky. Last time I had chickens the dogs I had at that time got to them when they were free ranging the back yard (the chickens, not the dogs). The dogs were fine with the chickens when we were around. We had gone inside to do something and next thing you know, we didn’t have chickens any longer.
Morzer
@jl:
How about a revealing chicken feather cape? Bipartisan compromise!
Major Major Major Major
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): well, it might be already formulated, i am not aware of all internet traditions.
raven
@kindness: The great wheel if life. . .
Chris
If you can get her to sing “I Love Rock ‘N Roll,” you’ll be sitting on a gold mine.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Major Major Major Major: That’s because AFAIK there isn’t a name for it yet. What should the name be?
D58826
@A Ghost to Most: OH maybe because there is no video of the Clintons in Moscow on other than state visits. (Yes Bill visited in the late 60’s but i think that the statute of limitations has run on that one). ON the other hand we have Der Fuhrer at the beauty pageant in 2011 was it and the recently unearthed video of the Trumplites in Moscow on some kind of a visit in 2014. Just for starters. Being in a good mood we can ignore the male Trumplites talking about all of the money they get from Russia.
raven
Chicken Man
He’s Everywhere, He’s Everywhere!!!
If you were in Chicago in the mid-late 60’s
D58826
@kindness: but you had some very very happy dogs.
Mel
I have heard of a similar situation.
My mother’s family had hens plus one rooster when Mom was a child. A hen named Lucibelle ruled the roost for several years, dominating and terrifying into subservience every new hen.
Grandpa brought home a little Rhode Island Red hen named Martha, expecting nothing out of the ordinary. However, within three days, Martha had unseated Lucibelle, and was queen of the coop.
Lucibelle still produced eggs, but she took to hanging out with the rooster, who was a lazy bastard that usually didn’t announce “sunrise” until sometime after 9 or 10 a.m. Apparently, Lucibelle was always up at the crack of dawn, and would every once in while produce a weird, semi-yodelly squawk right as the sun was coming up.
schrodingers_cat
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): Let perfect be the enemy of good?
Morzer
@Chris:
I suspect that sitting on the chicken would rapidly reduce its value.
Jay S
@Morzer: I think you are looking for HINO, Hen In Name Only. Unless you were referring to Betty.
ETA or Uncle Cosmo
Barbara
@A Ghost to Most: Maybe if he would agree to switch places with Hillary Clinton so that she can be president the FBI can start looking at whatever dealings she had with Russia. I would definitely take that trade off.
piratedan
@JPL: obviously Joan Jett has converted to Islam and she’s facing Mecca for her morning prayers…
raven
Muddy Waters & Howlin’ Wolf – Red Rooster
the dogs begin to bark, the hounds begin to howl. . .
jeffreyw
@Betty Cracker: Maybe just one leg at a time?
Major Major Major Major
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): well, I would suggest Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)’s Law, but no offense that sounds terrible.
scav
@A Ghost to Most: Has it sort of slipped his mind which of the two sets (himself v those Clintons badsadbadbadbad) actually occupies the position of president with attendent scrutiny? Or does he somethimes think they were just in a bidding war for a specific house that happened to be white and he’s continually basically baffled why people keep handing him papers to sign on his golf weekends.
Jay S
@Major Major Major Major: Butthurt’s Law works for me.
Ryan
Converted to Islam?
Morzer
@piratedan:
Why, General Sessions, I do declare – that there is a MOOSLIM CHICKEN! And a BLACK MOOSLIM chicken to boot!
Major Major Major Major
@Jay S: that’s kind of perfect actually.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@schrodingers_cat: Often a motivation, but not invariable (ideological authoritarianism and refusing to work with others being at least as important). I see it as more of a horseshoe-theory dynamic.
Steeplejack (phone)
@A Ghost to Most:
I can relate! Everybody’s always getting up in my grille about my non-dealings with everything. Oops, I mean nothing. Nothing!
Jay S
@Major Major Major Major: You could expand it to Butthurt’s POE (Purity of Essence) correlary to Cleek’s law.
jl
@Morzer: Alligator suit? Hell, I dunno, it’s her morning pagan ritual.
Hey, Cracker, if you’d post some pics you crowing at dawn, we wouldn’t have to guess about it, would we?
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Jay S: For identification purposes I’d prefer XTPD be used, but Butthurt works fine (and it is more of a corollary anyway). Still probably not fine-tuned enough, and may need some ironing-out the kinks.
realbtl
@raven: I can always depend on you bringing the strange. Saw the OMD at the little college in Gunnison CO 1977-ish; great show.
Morzer
@Steeplejack (phone):
So you are denying non-dealings? Or not denying dealings? Or not not denying non-dealings?
Major Major Major Major
@Jay S: Butthurt’s Correlary has such a nice ring to it.
ingrediorum
@Betty Cracker: Local jungle redfowl (gallus gallus) are widely known to crow one note shy of a full bar, that is, their cock-a-doodle doo, ends at doodle. Nevertheless, a few callers merely strain out a solemn chord as though someone was standing on their necks with less than lethal force.
Morzer
@jl:
Didn’t John tell us a while back that this was a full-service blog?
WHADDA WE WANT?
Alligator suits!
WHEN DO WE WANT THEM?
Now!
TenguPhule
@Morzer:
But enough about Mcdonald’s nuggets.
amygdala
Forgive the intrusion, and if it’s in another thread and I missed it, but the afternoon WaPo dump begins: Pence hires a lawyer.
chopper
@Uncle Cosmo:
the thread, she is won.
EthylEster
Black Australorps are my favorites.
TenguPhule
@amygdala:
Slow as ever, I see. Next thing you know he’ll be asking for bail during sentencing.
jl
@ingrediorum: I remember bantam hens on the farm doing a throaty ‘rah-rah rahrah’ just before dawn. They didn’t sound like the other chickens.
Morzer
@amygdala:
But.. I thought Trump’s SUPERLAWYER told the White House staff they didn’t need no stinkin’ lawyers…
Ooopsy!
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Jay S: This should definitely be the law’s name.
D58826
Ezra Levin has an interesting tweeter storm. His bio on Tweeter
In a nutshell:
1. reconciliation means you can pass Trumpcare with 50 votes
2. but reconciliation allows for unlimited amendments
3. each amendment has to be introduce by a speech on the Senate floor and a vote must be taken.
4. He figures with a list of 40k amendments (at 1 hr per) the D’s could tie up the senate until 2018.
This is the first I’ve heard about this unlimited amendment option so I have no idea if it is a legitimate tool. The tactic most frequently mentioned is unanimous consent. The D’s are being very coy about what they plan on doing about the Trumpcare vote. Now maybe they don’t want to give YRTLE a heads up on their deep strategy or, as is more likely, they don’t want to reveal the list of fast food joints that will supply the food as they are getting rolled by the R’s. I’m sure no matter what tactic they chose Yrtle will find a way to change the senate rules, even if he has to go so far as to only allow the R’s to vote. Heck voter suppression works so well out among the voters, why not give it a shot in the Senate.
https://twitter.com/ezralevin/status/875383181079441408
jl
@Morzer: Pence isn’t staff. He holds an elective office and isn’t really as convenient to dangle him as a sacrifice rather than more easily expendable flunkies. So, maybe that explains it. Or Pence’s wife is smart enough to make him get one.
Edit: or maybe it was the Pence kids.
NCSteve
I have a stray Rhode Island Red hen who showed up out of nowhere during the bonechilling spring cold snap and decided my fenced in postage stamp sized back yard was home. She is thoroughly feral. She won’t let me get close, views all attempts to bribe her into capture with entirely warranted chickeny suspicion. She spends most of the day free ranging in the woods on the other side of my property line, with the odd prospecting trip for worms in my tomato patch or for spilled seed under my feeder. But every evening, before sunset, she comes to my house, hops up onto the ledge of my bedroom window, and nestles in for the evening.
She’s been endlessly amusing when she’s been around because chickens are intrinsically funny animals.
But now, of course, inevitably, I learn that one of my neighbors has put an amendment to levy fines for keeping chickens onto the agenda of my homeowner’s association meeting, along with a bunch of other amendments dedicated to getting the HO all up into other people’s business as well. (Kid’s toys and bikes must not be left in yards! No vegetable gardens visible from the street! No unleashed pets ever!)
So now I’m going to have waste a Saturday afternoon going to an HO meeting to make an impassioned plea against turning a heretofore basically benign association to an instrument of unneighborly passive aggressive busybodying oppression by whoever is the most anal retentive Lord Farquad type in our high-turnover ‘hood at any given time.
raven
@realbtl: They were so awesome. Spaceship Orion was incredible.
D58826
@amygdala: Yes and since he is a poor public servant I will represent him at a discount for 98 cents an hour
KS in MA
@raven: Oldie from Taj Mahal, Pointer Sisters on backup:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s49ZKlErMt0
Shell
Didn’t Freud call that “cock-envy?”
TenguPhule
@D58826:
Its not. Limited amendments in reconciliation, not unlimited. And debate is capped on time to prevent a filibuster.
trollhattan
@NCSteve: HOAs are the devil’s Republican Party. Enjoy your hen friend while you can.
Major Major Major Major
@D58826: @TenguPhule: From last time I remember this happening:
A Ghost to Most
In defense of chicken owners, one of our neighbors has chickens and rooster (s), and I enjoy hearing them, far more than the neighbor setting off high-grade fireworks for a month every year.
NCSteve
@trollhattan: Oh, I have a bomb to drop if it goes against me. Turns out, our HOC has no legal power to do anything punitive because no declaration of HOA got filed by the developers before the first lot was sold. But I really don’t want to have to drop that one and undo the few good things it does.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major: Thank you.
StringOnAStick
@NCSteve: Ah, yet another reminder of why we learned at our last domicile to never ever live in a community with a HOA. There are always petty dictator types who use it against everyone who doesn’t see everything exactly their way. Kids toys: a sure killer of property values as far as the Stick-up-the-butt crowd goes, instead of a sign of childhood joy and life.
We currently live in a home in a mid-range ‘hood, across a nice open space valley from the upper-range, utterly dominated by HOA rules ‘hood. Those people from the upper-range ‘hood have a stick so far up their butts that they are still bitching at city council meetings every month about the roundabouts and traffic calming that went in over 2 YEARS ago. When it isn’t on the agenda, they still go and bitch; I don’t know why people volunteer to be council members TBH. So far the one roundabout has caught 5 drunk drivers in the usually water-free center drainage pond; they bitch about that, not that it was good that the drunk drivers couldn’t get out of the drainage pond and drive off to kill someone. Nope, the “drunk trap” is an affront to their desire to drive as fast as possible (25 mph zone, average speed was 45, and the top measured in one week was 68) past a school bus stop and people’s front yards. One even entered the statement into the city council record that “their being able to speed through” our “crappy neighborhood is the price to pay” for their nicer neighborhood making our “crappy homes worth anything”. I do believe that was when the city council decided to vote to install the roundabouts and traffic calming structures, so sometimes there is karmic payback in small town politics.
Iowa Old Lady
I like Joan Jett’s name.
germy
I thought this was amusing:
Ordinary people recreate romance novel covers:
http://dangerousminds.net/comments/average_joes_not_fabios_regular_people_recreate_cheesy_romance_novel_covers
Elmo
As long as it stays near dawn, you’ve nothing to complain about. I discovered this last spring that some of my young chickens were roosters when they started competing with one another to be the first, resulting in the crowing starting at three in the morning.
I didn’t have roosters for very long after that.
Corner Stone
I don’t want to live in an area where raising chickens is acceptable. Therefore, I do not. Pretty simple.
germy
Rooster Cogburn.
germy
Any news on the republican who beheaded the chicken to make a point about abortion? Has he threatened any more killings?
Aleta
Joan’s a stunning beauty. (nice photo)
Corner Stone
Speaking of chickens, VP Pence lawyers up!!
Mnemosyne
@StringOnAStick:
I think I remember you posting when they were first whining about you guys trying to put in the traffic calming measures. I’m glad your side was able to prevail!
@Elmo:
There’s a reason why young roosters traditionally ended up in the stew pot.
debbie
Joan could be going through chicken menopause. The female hormones recede, letting the previously suppressed male hormones express themselves. Poor thing.
trollhattan
@debbie: Joan Jett becomes James Brown: “Macio, blow your horn!”
Steeplejack
@Morzer:
Yes. I mean no. All of the above.
SiubhanDuinne
@NCSteve:
What in the world is so (supposedly) unsightly about vegetable gardens, FFS?
Aleta
@NCSteve: what a jerk.
germy
PBS is airing right-wing-sponsored school privatization propaganda
Morzer
@Steeplejack:
Hey I just read you
And this is crazy
But here’s my comment
So give me “Maybe”.
Corner Stone
@Aleta: Mmmmm, jerk chicken.
Tenar Arha
@amygdala: Yeahhh! (Because he’s implicated in covering up too for lying about Flynn).
Morzer
@SiubhanDuinne:
As John Cole can now tell you: real men trim flowers!
Jeffro
@Corner Stone: well that makes sense – I thought I heard the sound of lifeboats being lowered
Corner Stone
@Jeffro: Looks like Pence picked a real pro who knows his stuff, too. I wonder how that happened?
ETA, speaking of lifeboats. If you’re a staffer making dirt money, and you see this happen don’t you basically poop your pants and start looking for anyone who can get you out of this mess?
Patricia Kayden
I hope that he recovers from being shot but have to point out how anti-Black Scalise is. Perhaps he’ll have a change of heart when he learns that two Black police officers put themselves in jeopardy to save his life.
Morzer
@Patricia Kayden:
Not much evidence that Scalise possesses a human heart, rather than an intermittently beating lump of deep-fried traditional bigotry.
Aleta
@A Ghost to Most: Given his compulsion to accuse others of his own misdeeds, this sounds a mite ‘whacky.’
debbie
@Patricia Kayden:
Not likely, but this is proof that the universe sees to it that you get what you give.
Morzer
@Aleta:
Makes me wonder who Trump’s husband could be… I am Putin on my thinking cap right now.
raven
@KS in MA: My grandaftha married some fine St Kitt’s woman!
ruemara
@Patricia Kayden: Ha! lol, no.
D58826
@NCSteve: We lived in the section of the subdivisioin that did not have a HOA. They tried to organize one and I think the vote was split 50-50. Either way they could not compel a current home owner to join. But they could require that the next home owner to join. What always amazed me about the whole;e process was you had a bunch of rugged individualistic anti government Murkins who were completely willing to submit them selves to a bunch of petty bureaucrats. If the HOA didn’t like the color green that you painted the house they could file a complaint and you had 30 days to repaint the house. Failing that they could file a writ with the sheriff who could schedule a sheriffs sale within 30 days and evict you w/o any due process. Now you do have recourse to the local district court but that involves time, lawyers, etc.
D58826
@Patricia Kayden: Nope , that is what you expect the servants to do.,
D58826
@SiubhanDuinne: One of the motivations for the HOA that I just described was one resident had a vegetable garden in the front yard. Now it seems roses and daisys are ok but tomatoes and carrots aren’t. The guy happened to be a botany prof over on the UNCC campus.
I can understand if someone want to park their cement truck on the street but that kind of stuff wasn’t happening. Just tomatoes in the front yard rather than the back where every red blooded Murkin knows they belong
Coppersmith
My neighbors had chickens, I came home from work one day and a bear was eating one under the tree in my backyard.
Omnes Omnibus
@Patricia Kayden: He’ll say they are a credit to their race.
mainmata
@Corner Stone: Spicey must be having a cow, at this point But the obvious anagram (h/t CPP) Priebus has to be seriously worried (and, of course Bilbo Bigot, especially the way he testified the other day).
D58826
@Major Major Major Major: @TenguPhule: As I said this was the first time I had heard about the tactic. Assuming the guy’s bio is accurate it seemed like he had some expertise in Senate procedures. I guess we will find out when we see how much time it takes for the D’s to get rolled. Unfortunately none of the clocks I have access to tell time in milliseconds.
Aleta
Chicken at 27:30 (Mississippi John Hurt)
ETA I can’t make the yt start at a place in the middle. It used to do it but I don’t know how.
Corner Stone
@Coppersmith: I honestly don’t even know where to go with this. It’s beautiful in its own way, a kind of “nature, red in tooth and claw”.
It’s also somehow symbolic for Russia devouring Trump.
Corner Stone
@mainmata: But even a layer or two deeper – how does anyone even bother trying to get their daily work done? Not that I think anyone is already actually doing that, but the point is why would you ever open a file or read a memo or sit in on a meeting? Knowing you’re almost certainly going to be asked about it soon.
O. Felix Culpa
@raven:
LOL! I wasn’t in Chicago (yet) in the 60’s, but I have a son who was crazy about radio from an early age and now works for WBEZ. He introduced me to the glories of Chicken Man.
WaterGirl
@D58826: Unless your front yard is your sunny area, in which case you’d be crazy not to put your tomato plants there.
Duhkaman
ancient adage:
a gossipy [person]*
a crowing hen
both shall come
to no good end.
* you know it was “woman” Of course you do. It had to be because only women gossip, amirite?
SectionH
@raven:
@O. Felix Culpa:
KXOK in St. Louis carried Chicken Man back then. And maybe some other stations (WLW in Cinti?). I loved Chicken Man. Pac-pac-pac-PAC!
NCSteve
@SiubhanDuinne: who knows? Petty fascists gonna fash.
Jack the Second
@Wapiti: Manytimes the hen that starts taking the rooster role will stop laying.
J R in WV
@kindness:
We took a young dog to a neighbor’s farm for a big summertime party. The guy collects poultry of all sorts, geese, swans, peacocks, and plain old chickens.
So there were a bunch of little chicks running around, maybe 6 inches tall. Young dog snarfs a chick up, and 50 people watching all scream “NO!!!!!” at the poor dog, who spits the little chick out, unharmed!!! So funny. The dog never touched another chicken the rest of her long life. The chick was a little traumatized, maybe a trifle damp around the edges, but shook it off, and strutted away like nothing happened.
I too have heard that in a flock of chickens with no rooster one of the senior chickens will start to do part of the rooster role, like calling at dawn, pushing the chickens around at dinner time, etc.