This Chicken rules the repurposed roost

Molly and I went to visit an ironically named peacock this weekend on a charming hobby farm built almost entirely with repurposed materials.

Ducks swim in a pond that once functioned as a satellite dish, while chickens and sheep mill about in tidy structures constructed with discarded material from a torn down Olive Garden.

Overseeing the entire 22-acre property is a regal though currently androgynous peacock named Chicken.

Somehow, Chicken negotiates the perilous social structure of a farmyard with ease. As the only bird on the premises that gets to ride a truck off the property and return with his head and neck still intact, Chicken rules the roost.

Like a pale Little Lord Fauntleroy, Chicken travels around on human shoulders during the day, but he/she flops in the hen-house with the rest of the riff raff and roosters at night. If there’s resentment among the ducks and chickens, we didn’t see it.

Everyone defers to defer to the beautiful peacock, bread from the egg to believe he/she’s special. Peacocks strut naturally like NFL linebackers who have just sacked the quarterback and Chicken has that walk down.

Eventually, as Chicken gets older, we’ll learn whether he will develop the lush plumes of a male peacock, or the less obvious feathers of a peahen.

In the meantime, Chicken believes he/she is the king/queen of the farm and consequently so do we.

A lifelong fear of birds exacerbated by her freshman English class reading of “The Birds”, made Molly a little leery of Chicken at first. But, by the end of our visit, they acted like old friends.
Chicken and his/her trainer John came to visit earlier this year. Tiny Chicken already had perfected the art of human shoulder riding.
Hand fed since birth, Chicken eats worms from his/her favorite blue cup. Peacocks see in color.
These naughty sheep live in that beautiful house, made of repurposed wood. The day Molly and I visited, they jumped their white picket fence and made for the woods. Chicken has even these two wrapped around his/her little talons.
The chickens, ducks and peacocks live in peaceful harmony on this hobby farm.
This bird is beautiful and, like a pageant queen, he/she knows it.

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