sad

Indiana Jones, the rooster has had to move to a new home. As big roosters usually will, he was getting nasty. It was comical in a way. He was sneaky, the kids had gotten used to keeping an eye out for him in case he was moving in. If you turned around and looked at him, he would also turn, pretending (yes, apparently roosters can pretend) to have never been looking! But, if they didn't catch him, he would sneak up and peck and occasionally attempt to scratch at them. All indications were, he would only get more and more dangerous. Since we don't keep them penned, he had to go. Decision was made and we told the kids.Our softy, Annette, spent all day and the evening in and out of tears at the thought of Indiana having to go. But the others kids varied from being mildly sad to trying to balance the strange sad-but-realizing-this-is-necessary emotion.

Misha, totally confused by this emotive challenge, opted to exhibit what he felt was what we wanted to hear, "Indiana is bad! I don't like him!" (said in babyish voice) Since it was obviously an attempt to please us, we didn't feel the need to validate his artificial feelings. We simply coached him by introducing the concept of "no, we are sad because we like Indiana, but we need to take care of our family so it is a good decision". We explained the difference between animals and people, too. Since it is always possible that he is not secure in the fact that if he's badly behaved we will still keep him, this is something we want to be careful to affirm.

Planning on putting an ad for a free rooster on craig's list, Steve was mentioning this to a friend at church. She keeps chickens and offered to give him a home. Her rooster would keep Indi in line. In fact, it was one of her little silky roosters that is our other feathered pet here.

Steve, Annette, and Misha put Indi into the Cat carrier for the trip to his new home. I tried to take a picture but only snapped one before my battery died. And the one I snapped had Max squarely in front of the carrier and, thus, Indiana Jones.

The good news is, the kids are okay with it now. Having Indi in a place where we can visit him is the best of both worlds for the kids and especially for Annette.

And, do you want to know something? When Steve and I turned out the lights that night, we both said how we missed Indiana Jones and even felt badly about him having to go. He was a good pet until the pecking started. He was comical and interesting and we never had to feed him! But most of all he was ours and we liked him. I am kind of looking forward to seeing him in his new place. I hope he does well there. At least he has a chance. Craig's list probably would have meant he would have been someone's dinner, or worse.

Oh, and one other thing: Besides being glad that Indiana is in a good home, Annette was especially pacified by the fact that her daddy, perhaps feeling a bit guilty, ordered some guaranteed-to-be-hen chicks online that will be arriving next week. The only problem is, you had to order at least 25 at a time....