Strange Happenings in Dixie Part II

In part I, I explained where Dixie is and set the stage for what is to follow.

When I returned home at 4:00 p.m., with a pasty $1.49 junior bacon cheeseburger from Wendy's, since I had not had lunch, the interesting and strange happenings began.  The first thing we noticed was a message to check the front door.  We checked the front door and here is what we found, much to our surprise, and it wasn't a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer:

Note: unfortunately, I cannot post a photo.  Dang Blogspot won't let me search photo files to upload photos, link is defunct.  Spent two miserable hours trying to figure out.  Does anyone know?  I'm about to abandon Blogspot for something that works.  Also, I realize that this post will be on top of post I but there isn't any way I know of to reverse order. 

So anyway, to get on with story while I am in a Fowl mood from dang Blogspot, here we go.  I discovered a carton with a dozen golden eggs in it with a red ribbon tied around it and a message: to wit, "Special Delivery.  This carton contains Real eggs from real Chickens grown in the 'North country". Happy New Year!"

I looked around, expecting to see three French hens who delivered it, but quickly realized that it would take three French hens four days to produce a dozen eggs, assuming each one did one's duty each and every day.  So then I noticed a flock of twelver really strange looking chickens landing on the doorstep claiming credit for the delivery.  I asked the chickens, "How did you get here?"  The lead chicken, whose name I soon discovered, was Botilda, said, "We were in the clutches of the infamous Tanner gang in the frozen north and we were too miserably cold up there so, like magic, we flew down here to escape." 

In querying Botilda further, I she told me that the flock had patterned itself after the Penrose Relief Society in days of yore, and that the names of some of the hens were Botilda, Tilda, Minnie, Jane, Rosie, Lizzy, and VerDean.  Botilda explained that the flock had regular lessons, just like the Penrose Relief Society.  I asked for further information, and here is what I learned:

Lesson 1: How to Lay an Egg.
Lesson 2: What to say when you lay an egg:  The basic formula is "buck buck buck, baguck", with either one or two "buck bucks" acceptable.  That is the signal that the hen has done her duty and can now go socialize and peck around the rest of the day. A hen may need to fake the cackle on occasion just to convince the Tanner Gang that an egg has been laid, just for self preservation.
Lesson 2(a): Ladies, there are no roosters around.  Roosers are noisy because they wake folks up early in the morning, as the rooster did at our Orem neighbor's home.  Roosters go cock a doodle doo, and act like they are the kings of the kingdom.  So forget about roosters.
Lesson 3: What happens if you don't lay an egg.  You may get by with non performance for a few days, but beware, beware, fellow relief society fowls, if you miss for very long.  Do you know what they will do to you?  Oh the fate is horrible, horrible.  They will wring your neck, let you flop around headless on the ground for awhile, then stick your carcass, feathers and all, in a cauldron of boiling water, then pluck your feathers, then singe your pinfeathers with a torch, then throw your cold clammy body into a pot of boiling water and boil you for hours and hours.  Then they will make soup out of you.  They could care less how many eggs you produced during your short life.
Lesson 4:  When you get old and non-performing, you are now an old biddy.  Yes, that's where the term old biddy comes from.  Old biddies can be tough, however, and maybe even too tough for the soup pot.  Be sure you sign up for Medicare Part B to be taken care of in your old biddy stage.
Lesson 5:  Cultural enrichment.  Back in the day.  Learn to peck a peck of pickled peppers along with bugs, worms, grubs, box elder beetles, junebugs, slugs, and whatever else crawls, climbs, and flies.  In the winter time, your captors will provide you with expensive chicken feed, but not very much.  Yes, folks, that's where the expression "that's chicken feed" comes from.
Lesson 6:  When you get too old, your slave drivers will decide it's time for young chicks, just as movie stars do.  So try to escape if you can.

As you can see, feathery friends, your life will be sweet and short.  After you lay a few eggs, your owners will put all of your eggs in one basket.  Yes, that's where the phrase "don't put all your eggs in one basket" comes from.  Your owners will then fry, soft boil, hard boil, poach, scramble, make omelets and quiche, bake cakes and goodies, while you sit out in the cold fluffing your feathers and trying to stay wam in the twenty below zero weather.  Life is not fair, and can be fowl. 

Meanwhile, I am about to proceed with the demolition of my much appreciated egg gift.  The chickens, which so magically appeared, have now vanished, I hope to head further south where it's a bit warmer than nippy St. George.  I discovered the eggs are brown and not gold, so I wonder what color the yolks are.  I'm not so interested in chickens, but I'm thinking about a litter of pigs in my back yard for unlimited bacon and sausage.  Have a nice day.

Strange Happenings in Dixie Part I

For the uninitiated, Dixie is the term used to describe southwestern Utah.  The term came from the late 1800s when Brigham Young sent a colony of settlers to raise cotton.  J. Golden Kimball, one of the LDS Church's more colorful characters, is reputed to have said "If I had to choose between living in St. George and living in hell, I'd rather live in hell."  Dixie had nothing to do with the Confederacy or the Civil War.  It was a term just used to describe a place that gets to be in the middle one-teens in the summer.  Before air conditioning, that was hot.  Now scads of stuff around here is named Dixie as the first name--Dixie Regional Medical Center, Dixie Whatever, long lists of them.  Now the entire community is engaged in a civil war over renaming Dixie State College as it achieves university status.  The anti-Dixie types are squabbling with the pro-Dixie types.  Many speeches, many letters to the editor, much vitriol and bile being spilled.  But I digress.  I return to strange happenings in Dixie.

Yesterday, my dear wife wanted me to accompany me to Walgr een's so she could maintain the same hair color she had at 18.  So I bought a couple of six packs of Hawaiian Sun guava and orange passion, the only place in Utah I have found that carries it.  Hawaiian Sun has a strong tug of nostalgia for our many visits to Hawaii.  Little did I know after I left Walgreen's, following enduring a dear lady who sort of barged in front of me at the cash register with a whole boatload of stuff and who couldn't find her Rewards card and had to fish for awhile to find her cash.  But I tried to make allowances, since it is the New Year,  that I would be accompanying my wife to the Dollar Store.  Yes, I know this is a long sentence.  Live with it.

The one advantage of the dollar store is that you know immediately how much everything costs.  We bought exactly thirteen items.  But I was not through.  My wife then opined that the water softener salt was gone and I needed to buy salt at Lin's Grocery, next door.  Whereupon I quickly rounded up a few grocery items we were out of such as pancake syrup, paid for it plus five bags of extra course salt, and headed for the car with a healthy young man to load the salt.  Whereupon I asked him, as I ask every young person of college age, "Are you going to school?"  No, he said, I'm, a swimmer and I broke my leg so I'm working for awhile and then I'll go back."  He then informed me he was going into physical therapy, and I said, that's great, I have a grandson in the physical therapy doctoral program at UNLV.  So I had my college student discussion in the parking lot since I am of no use on a college campus any more.

When we returned home, the strange happenings began.  For that, you need to go to the next post.