Dave Griffiths

Some images from a small town in rural Maine, as warmer weather beckons:

A few years ago, a family two houses down brought home six chicks. Fresh eggs were the point, of course, but one grew up to be a duck and other a rooster. Big surprise. Okay, the family thought, we’ll manage, and they named the duck Otis and the diminutive rooster Uncle Tony.

Being the kind of neighborhood it is, no one minds that the chickens wander from yard to yard, pecking away and jerking their heads back and forth spasmodically and clucking in a chorus that had no apparent meaning other than the bliss of being free range. In the middle of the clutch was Otis, looking confused but following a herd instinct of sorts. Now and then, Uncle Tony came along, sounding like a teenage boy jaggedly and hoarsely finding his adult voice as he pretended to be in charge.

Invariably, in warmer weather they drop by my Saturday evening cigar-and-adult-beverage ritual in the garden, when I listen to birds and watch the wind moving through maples and stirring the flowering shrubs and perennial flowers. 

(Incidentally, I’ve never seen a dead chicken in the road. I’ve seen dead raccoons and dead possums and dead cats and dead squirrels and dead deer, but not dead chickens. Chickens have tiny heads with brains the size of raisins, but somehow they always get to the other side, don’t they? And lest you doubt me, I have seen those hens cross the road — at a sprightly pace.) 

Nature did intervene, as it is wont to when things need balancing out. I began to notice that the hens’ tail feathers were tattered and even missing altogether. The culprit? Otis. Otis was chasing and nipping at the blameless hens, desperately dealing with raging male hormones. So it was a relief to hear that my friends gave Otis to people who owned a female duck. I’m sure he’s found peace and contentment. As to Uncle Tony, I don’t know. The poor guy is just too short to romance a full-grown hen. 

Then there was the time I looked out the kitchen window at a 300-pound sow sampling the grass and plodding in porcine grace among cinquefoil and euonymus bushes. As neighbors gathered to speculate, a cop showed up and said, “Not you again.” Within minutes, someone arrived and walked her back home. No telling what mama hog’s future held, but I was flattered that she chose my lawn for adding fat to her impressive bulk — without annihilating my herb patch. 

And one day I glanced out my front window to spot two pileated woodpeckers (remember Woody Woodpecker?) circling up and down a maple tree trunk in a mating ritual. On and on it went, a rhythmic dance that must go back millennia, out in the open on a quiet street for two critters who usually hang out in deep woods. Eventually they took their procreational impulse to the ground and circled tighter and tighter and tighter. Out of respect and decency, I had to turn away. 

The hens and Uncle Tony and Otis and the hog and the frenzied woodpeckers wouldn’t have appeared in the suburbs where I spent some of my formative years. Back then nature meant keeping your yard mowed to a level that approximated those of properties up and down the street.

Anything else meant you just didn’t quite fit in.

(Sadly, Uncle Tony is no longer among the living. Among the suspects are three cats I’ve become acquainted with over the years. Such is nature.)

Dave Griffiths, a writing and presentation skills trainer for businesses, nonprofits and government agencies, is a former journalist and member of the Penn State journalism faculty. He lives in Mechanic Falls.