Cabbages & Kings

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”

— Lewis Carroll

Tomorrow I will bid a gleeful farewell to Corn Flakes the rooster. While I had planned on bringing him up to the Agway yesterday, it turns out the Agway is closed on Sundays during the winter.

Lucky Corn Flakes.

Especially since my sister called this morning and has found a home for him! She’s going to come and pick him up tomorrow. He was singing goodbye to me all day long.


Yesterday we cleaned the chicken coop out. Earlier in the day I had been reminded of something I used to do to help entertain the chickens during the long, boring winters by my friend Melissa Caughey over at Tilly’s Nest, which is hanging up a cabbage by a string for the chickens to entertain themselves with by pecking at it; kind of like tetherball for chickens. I bought a lovely green cabbage at the grocery store, screwed a screw right through the core of it, and tied some heavy butcher’s twine to the end of the screw just before I screwed it in tight to the cabbage. Then I went out and screwed the other end of the string into a beam of the goat house porch and went to clean the chicken coop.


When I went out to see what I was certain would be dozens of happy chickens playing cabbage tetherball I saw this:


My stupid goats wouldn’t let the chickens anywhere near the cabbage.


But I fixed their wagons. Once the goat house was all cleaned and ready for occupancy again I tied it up inside the coop where the goats couldn’t get at it.