Athletics and Chicken Catching

Cliffy had a soccer game yesterday. His team won 6-2, prevailing mostly by way of teamwork, athleticism, and the never-say-die attitude of a great many of the players. Sam is fast and strong and knows how to position himself on the field. Harvey is big and tricky and lets the little guys run all around him while he calmly takes the ball right where he wants to go. Donovan is an opportunist and takes a great shot on goal. Graham is a classic soccer kid, skilled and fast, bursting on the ball and moving it down the field. Iva and Olive are afraid of nothing and fast. Molly can clear the ball halfway up the field. Nick is the athletic equivalent of a squirrel, zipping impossibly all over the field, stealing the ball away from the other team, delivering it to one of his teammates, and disappearing again into the pack. And Cliffy. Well, Cliffy likes to be out there and he had a shot on goal yesterday that was only a little wide. He likes his cleats and his shin guards and his silky shorts. He has fun and he doesn't care about his performance. It's not like catching chickens.

Cliffy could go to the Olympics for chicken catching. And chicken catching isn't easy. They are hardwired to scatter in all directions when threatened. I had to catch chickens when we first got them from Earl's brother, Berry. Berry had given away most of his chickens and there were something like forty left and Nancy and I were splitting them. We went over after she wrapped up the Creamery work for the day. It was late afternoon in February and I was more than seven months pregnant with Oliver. Kathy, Berry's lead caregiver and one of the most-capable women on the planet, was there and we had some big cardboard boxes that we were filling with chickens. I was wearing nice heavy winter clothing, complete with thick gloves, all the better to insulate my hands from actually feeling chicken parts. Nancy has a gentle, kind soul that animals recognize instantly and she proceeded to fill her box by cooing gently to her hens and then cradling them in her arms, lowering them into her box with scarcely a cluck. Kathy and I had a different approach and went for the all-out chicken rodeo. We had a net. We cornered them. We lunged. We ran fake plays and tried to sneak up on them. I'd get a few in the net and Kathy would fish them out by their legs and drop them in the box and we'd start again. The whole coop was full of feathers and clucking and the morbid laughter of three women who absolutely did not have chicken catching in their post-graduation career plans. Nancy filled her box way before we did, but she helped with the rest and before too long we were loading up boxes of chicken and I was heading back to the farm.


Cliffy was only six at the time and just starting to grow out of his little-boy-who-plays-on-the-floor-with-blocks body. Eight-year-old Cliffy, the current model, is a chicken catching machine. He would have made quick work of the chicken boxing and those Rhode Island Reds wouldn't have known what hit them.

Our current chicken catching project involves the meat chickens who are living in the Moop (mobile coop) for a few more weeks. The Moop is on skids and it doesn't sit exactly tight to the ground and these birds are either crawling out under the chicken wire or flying over the fence in their play yard. It's hard to imagine anything that fat and non-aerodynamic crawling through a small opening or flying, even over a four-foot net, but the chickens don't have a whole lot else to focus their energy on and somehow about five of them seem to be out every day by mid-afternoon. I have a few ways that I've used to lure them back in through the people door, but the best plan for getting them is to wait until Cliffy comes home from school.


He walks near them, looking at the ground, hands in pockets, talking softly around the lines of, "Oh no, Mrs. Chicken. I'm not going to catch you. I'm just going on little recreational stroll here. Nothing to worry about." And then he turns like lightning, grabs a leg, and tosses the chicken over the fence. Then his hands are in his pockets again and it's, "Oh. I'm just stretching my legs here, Chicken Friends. Just taking a little walk..." Sometimes the chickens catch on and do their scramble thing and he'll chase them, staying with their panic until they have a moment's hesitation and then he swoops in and grabs a leg.

And like all athletes, he likes to develop his skills. Especially if Pemma is here. They bring the dog inside, who doesn't understand it's just a game, and they ask if it's okay if they round up the laying hens and put them back in the coop. I let them catch the old Rhode Island reds because they don't lay hardly any eggs and if they died of cardiac arrest, it would save on the grain bill. Cliffy and Pemma run and laugh and hatch plans and they catch the chickens and come to tell me the thrilling tales.

I'm not a parent who needs her kid to be good at sports, but I'll admit that there is a part of me, maybe even a big part, who wants them to try. I want them to practice and get better at things and practice more and maybe even get really good at something. I want them think of themselves as improvable. This is a big deal with me and has carried me through a great many tricky spots. I have never been the fastest, strongest, most graceful, or most anything. I have, however, been willing to work myself into the ground to make a respectable showing. The thing is, it starts with caring about making a respectable showing. I think Cliffy and Jackson care about this a little, because it bugged them when they couldn't ride a bike when their friends could and they were willing to get back on after some spectacular crashes to learn. They don't seem to care about soccer. But Cliffy does care about chicken catching. He rubs his hands together in that time-honored gesture of Showtime as he struts out to the Moop. If the chickens are scattering, he doesn't give up, knowing in his heart that he's smarter, faster, and more persistent than they are. I have even heard him, dragging a struggling bird out of the chicken wire, say, "I...will....not...be...beat....by...a...stupid...chicken."

There was a farm boy who won a gold medal at the Olympics before last. He was a wrestler and he beat some Russian guy who hadn't lost in years and who had weighed over 15 lbs. when he was born. The farm kid, who was from Wyoming, said he grew up pushing cows around and the Russian guy wasn't much different. Later on, that same guy survived some dire-sounding plane crash on with a similar attitude of expecting to overcome difficulties through sheer strength.

I'm not sure how chicken catching might help Cliffy in the future, but as I was writing this, I noticed one of the meat birds had gotten out. I mentioned it to Cliffy, who said, "But I'm doing my HOMEWORK, Mama." I gave him a look, the Are-You-Crazy-to-be-Passing-Up-a-Beloved-Activity look, and he looked out the window, saw the chicken, and was off like a shot, calling over his shoulder, "You should take a picture for the bloggggg!" Jackson volunteered to take the picture and ran after him. Cliffy opted for the direct run-from-the-outset approach and went a lap and a half around the fence and and Moop before he zoomed in for a leg. He was faster than Jackson, though and had to wait, beaming, chicken aloft, for Jax to scramble out there and take the picture.

Later when we eat these chickens, and especially when we eat the last one, Cliffy will be our dinner-table hero, for all the birds who stayed safe in the coop at night, protected from coyotes, so they could make their way to our plates. And who knows, maybe at one of those dinners we'll be celebrating a particularly good outing on the soccer or baseball field.