Animal, Vegetable, Miracle : A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver

Author:Barbara Kingsolver [Kingsolver, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2011-07-07T03:02:26+00:00

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a n i m a l , v e g e t a b l e , m i r a c l e saved caterpillars I pulled off my garden so I could throw them into the chicken yard and watch Mr. Doodle run to snatch up each one, cock his head in judgment, and dole one out to each of six hens in turn before he started the next round. Any number of caterpillars not evenly divisible by six would set him into angst; he hated to play favorites.

But that was the ideal husband. The guys we had now were No- Second-Date. They’re still young, we allowed. Even a dreamboat has to start somewhere, getting chased into the boxwood a time or two before fi nding his inner gentleman. We’d be watching our boys closely now as they played a real game of Survivor. All but one would end up on our table, and we couldn’t get soft- hearted. Keeping multiple roosters is no kindness. They inevitably engage in a well- known sport that’s illegal in forty- eight states.

Who would get to stay? The criteria are strict and varied: good alarm calls, unselfish instincts for foraging and roosting, and a decent demeanor toward humans. Sometimes an otherwise fine rooster will start attacking kids, a capital crime in our barnyard. And finally, our winner would need a good singing voice. We’d be hearing his particular cock- a-doodle for more than a thousand mornings. Chanticleers, as the storybooks call them, are as diversely skilled as opera singers. We wanted a Pavarotti. Crowing skills are mostly genetic, arriving with developing male hormones. So far we’d heard nothing resembling a crow.

And then, one morning, we did. It was in July, soon after my summertime ritual of moving our bedroom outside onto the screened sleeping porch. The summer nights are balmy and marvelous, though it’s hard to sleep with so much going on after dark: crickets, katydids, and fi refl ies fi ll every visible and aural space. Screech owls send out their love calls. Deer sometimes startle us at close range with the strange nasal whiffle of their alarm call. And in the early hours of one morning, as I watched the forested hillside color itself in slow motion from gray to green, I heard what I thought must be a new Virginian species of frog: “Cro- oak!”

I woke Steven, as wives wake husbands everywhere, to ask: “What’s that sound?”

I knew he wouldn’t be annoyed, because this was no tedious burglary suspect—it was wildlife. He sat up, attentive. His research interest is bioacoustics: birdsong and other animal communication. He can identify z u c c h i n i l a r c e n y

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any bird native to the eastern United States by ear, and can nail most insects, mammals, and amphibians at least to category. (Like most mortals, I cannot. I can mistake mammal calls for birds, and certain insects for power tools.) He offered a professional opinion on this pre- dawn croak:

“Idunno.

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