Step right up, ladies and gentlemen!

The universe has heard my cry and given me a distraction from my drudgery.

First it sent Pilgrim.



He's about a year old and is a factory farm refugee. He showed up on his own Saturday. Found him sleeping in a stand of tall grass near the driveway. Looks like he spent a few days traveling the underground chicken railroad before finally reaching Spenardo del Sur.

I don't need another rooster. Pilgrim makes eight. That is a stupid number of roosters. But I'm a sucker for a hard luck story and he seems to be getting along with the three roosters he lives with - Pasha, Bart and Zevon - so he can stay.

The universe sensed that I was not impressed enough with this gift so it sent me another chicken.

An incredible chicken.

A stupendous, fantastical chicken that will amaze and delight kids from one to a hundred. Step right up and take a gander at the most awesome sight you'll see all day. Trust me when I tell you that you don't want to miss this. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you....

THE FOUR-LEGGED CHICKEN!!!!

It was culled from a commercial chicken farm yesterday. Sentenced to death for the crime of producing twice as many drumsticks as anybody else. What kind of country do we live in where someone is penalized for that? So I have commuted its sentence to life as a happy free range chicken who moonlights as a sideshow freak.

I don't know yet if it's a boy or girl. I certainly don't need a ninth rooster but, if it is a boy, I'm leaning towards the name Sideshow Bob. If it's a girl, I'm thinking Suzi Quatro.

This morning I put it with ten other baby chicks I have behind the house. The four-legged chicken is only a week older than they are. The meeting seemed to go okay. Nobody was openly hostile but they were all very curious about the extra appendages.