WERE about to eat another roast chicken. The difference between this and the countless, truly countless, roast chickens weve consumed over the summer is that, 48 hours ago, it was running around our garden as one of three much-loved silver-laced Wyandottes.
Despite the cockerel doing his very best, neither hen became broody, so the Three Musketeers have remained just three—until Saturday, when some friends came to lunch, bringing their Jack Russell and two-year-old daughter.
I’m standing in the kitchen, prodding undercooked lamb and overcooked beans, when two things happen: the daughter is found climbing out of a first-floor window and a commotion leads us to our hen, dead on the ground with the terrier standing nearby, jaunty, fired up, mouth full of feathers.
The two year old is calmly rescued by her mother and Zam returns to the crime scene, where the cockerel is now lying next to the hen, minus his tail feathers. However, when Zam picks him up, expecting a corpse, the bird shakes himself and runs for cover.
What had he been doing? Playing dead? Lying next to his friend saying ‘Oi, get up’ or stupefied with fear and slumped in a terrified trance? I have no idea—and I’ve also no idea how polite I need to be when a visiting dog has killed my favourite hen.
Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin September 26, 2018 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin September 26, 2018 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds
