- Re: 动物农庄: 阳光下的故事posted on 02/24/2008
- posted on 02/24/2008
旧文时习之,不亦乐乎。:)
Chicken Delight
She came, she clucked, she conquered our New York City backyard
By William Grimes
From “New York Times”
One day in the dead of winter, I looked out my back window and saw a chicken.
It was jet-black with a crimson wattle, and it seemed unaware that it was
in New York City. In classic barnyard fashion, it was scratching, pecking
and clucking.
How it came to a small backyard in Astoria, Queens, remains a matter of
conjecture. The chicken made its first appearance next door, at the home
of a multitude of cabdrivers from Bangladesh. My wife, Nancy, and I figured
they had bought the chicken and were fattening it for a feast. That hypothesis
fell into doubt when the chicken hopped the fence and began pacing the
perimeter of our yard with a proprietary air.
Eating it was out of the question. As a restaurant critic and an animal
lover, I subscribe to a policy of complete hypocrisy. Serve fish or fowl
to me, but don’t ask me to watch the killing. Once I meet it, I don’t want
to eat it.
Nancy and I next theorized that the chicken had escaped from a live-poultry
market about four blocks away and was on the run. Our hearts went out to
the brave little refugee. We had to save it.
Chickens were beginning to sound like the ideal pet.
The chicken took to its new surroundings easily. Its main social task
was to integrate into the cat society—a group of about five strays we feed.
How would the two species deal with each other?
One morning I looked out the window and saw four cats lined up at their
food bowls, and, right in the middle, eating cat food with gusto, was the
chicken. Occasionally it would push a cat aside to get a better position.
The cats, for their part, regarded the chicken warily. To the extent that
it was a bird, it was prey. But big prey. From time to time they would
stalk, press their bodies to the ground, swish their tails and give every
sign of going for the kill. Then they would register the chicken’s size
and become gripped by second thoughts. A face-saving, halfhearted lunge
would follow.
The two sides soon achieved parity. Sometimes, I’d look out back and see
a cat chasing the chicken. Ten minutes later I’d see the chicken chasing
a cat. I like to think they reached the plane of mutual respect. Perhaps
affection.
Although it was nice to know the chicken could eat anything, cat food
didn’t seem right. I called my mother.
Mom drove to the local feed store in La Porte, Texas, and picked up a
25-pound bag of scratch grains, a blend of milo, corn and oats. She began
shipping the grain in installments. The chicken seemed to appreciate the
feed.
Our care paid off. One morning, Nancy spied an egg on the patio. At the
base of the pine tree, where the chicken slept, was a nest containing four
more eggs. They were small, somewhere between ecru and beige, but this
was it. The blessed event.
After I wrote about the chicken in the New York Times, my mail-bag was
bursting with letters offering advice on the proper care and feeding of
chickens. Disturbed that she did not have a name, fans wrote with suggestions.
Vivian had a certain sultry appeal; Henrietta seemed cute. But Henny Penny?
The media jumped in. National Public Radio quizzed me about the chicken
for one of its weekend programs. “My producer wants to know, could you
hold the telephone up to the chicken so we can hear it?” the interviewer
asked. Unfortunately, I don’t have a 100-foot cord on my telephone. The
Associated Press sent a photographer to capture the chicken’s many moods.
(She had two.)
Then one morning I looked out my kitchen window, and my heart stopped.
No chicken—not in my pine tree or the tree next door. Nor was she pecking
and scratching in any of the nearby yards. There were no signs of violence,
only a single black feather near the back door.
She was definitely missing. But why?
Spring was in the air. Could she be looking for love? Or perhaps she was
reacting badly to the burdens of celebrity? Or maybe she was simply looking
for a place to lay her eggs in peace.
鸡之乐
她来过,她咯咯叫过,她征服过我们纽约市的后院.
英文原著者/ 威廉•格里姆斯 (中文译者: 尚能饭)
摘自“纽约时报”
隆冬某日,余自后窗外观,见一鸡婆。周身乌亮,颈下肉坠绯红, 宛若仓院觅食, 一如继往, 扒来啄去,咯咯直叫, 全然不知身处纽约市井之中也。
然鸡婆何以流落至皇后区阿斯托利亚一小院, 仍不得而知。其初见于街邻一帮孟加拉人 “的哥” 之家。妻南希与吾皆疑彼等购来饲肥尔后烹之。待其越篱入吾后院周边, 徘徊间大有喧宾夺主之势,吾等揣度遂烟消云散也。
食之? 断不可行也! 集饭庄评家与动物仁者于一身,吾素取彻头彻尾之伪君子心术。授吾以鱼鸭,则食不厌精; 倘令吾观宰, 则难再下箸。
南希与吾旋又思忖, 鸡婆或逃自距此仅约四街之遥一生禽市场,且尚在逃难之中。吾等顿生同情此勇敢小难民之心。搭救之责, 盖无旁贷者也。
至此,鸡婆似为理想之宠物是也。
鸡婆适应新境颇易。其社交重任咸在与其周围阿猫世界融为一体—盖缘吾处喂养约五只无家可归之野猫。然物不类, 何以聚乎?
某晨,余作窗外观,但见四猫一字排开, 立于其食盆之前,惟鸡婆雄居其中,风卷残云, 宛若饕餮!且时而搡猫于側,以近食盆。
诸猫则审视鸡婆, 以求对策。伊为鸟,乃阿猫盘中物矣。奈何大猎物是也。阿猫不时尾随其后,俯身地面,嗖嗖摆尾,作伺机出击状。旋即权衡鸡婆块头,乃临阵作罢。继之,为挽回颜面, 阿猫们再做一番半心半意虚幌突进之招式。
双方遂成平局。时而,吾向外观,见猫逐鸡。俄顷,又见鸡逐猫。可见鸡猫间已至互尊之态。抑或两厢喜爱焉可知也?
纵欣闻鸡无所不食,然猫食咸不宜矣。故电吾母。
母驱车至德州拉波特市饲料店,购一袋25磅蜀黍、玉米及燕麦杂拌, 并分批寄来。鸡食此料, 不亦乐乎。
种瓜得瓜。某晨,南希窥见院内有一鸡卵。鸡就寢之松树下有巢,复有四卵。虽小,介淡褐与米色间,仅此而已。犹可喜也。
余撰文“纽约时报” 以记 “鸡” 事,引得信箱爆满, 皆好事者函告照料及喂养鸡婆之良方也。复有 “追星族”为鸡婆尚无雅号而忐忑不安,便来函奉赠各种名号:“维维恩” 似太性感,“亨利伊达” 听之颇逗,然“小鸡婆•佩尼” 当否?
媒体亦蜂拥而来。“美国国家广播电台”在其周末节目里邀吾 “侃” 鸡。采访者问曰:“吾制作人欲知,君能否将电话置鸡婆前,以闻其声?” 所憾余无长达100英尺之电话连线。“美联社” 差一摄影师,来拍鸡婆之风情多种(无奈其仅有两种风情。)
此后某晨,余复作灶窗外观,心骤停跳。呜乎, 鸡婆不见矣! —未在我之松下,亦未在邻之树下。更未在邻院扒啄。无丝毫争斗之迹象,惟后门处落一黑羽而已。
鸡婆定是丢了。然何故也?
春已至。抑或她春心荡漾, 觅爱求偶去耶? 抑或她不堪成名之累, 愤然出走耶?抑或她仅在寻一静谧之处, 平安产卵去耶?
译者注: 标题下的一句警语 (斜体) 系作者摹仿莎翁 “凯撒大帝” (“Julius Caesar”) 剧中凯撒大帝在征服Zela城后的名言: “I came, I saw, I conquered” (veni vidi vici).
- Re: 动物农庄: 阳光下的故事posted on 02/24/2008
谢谢! 有意思!
我要去一个LADY的后园去看她的鸡! 她的鸡都是名牌的! 这是她EMAIL我的照片.等我看后我会在这贴些她的鸡的照片的!
尚能饭 wrote:
旧文时习之,不亦乐乎。:)
she wrote:
Crystal is a bearded Japanese Silkie but we are thinking Crystal is a boy. She has started growing the neck feathers of a rooster. OH NO! - Re: 动物农庄: 阳光下的故事posted on 02/24/2008
The message is, chicks are not to be harassed.
You were feeding them a bagel, not bread. Maybe that's why?
lucy wrote:
匆匆的读了"Animal Farm”, 也看了我断断续续在一家农场拍的一些照片! 先贴在这儿….
也想起在KEY WEST, 满街乱跑的都是鸡, 等我打听才知道有专门的法律保护鸡的! 骚扰鸡的罚款是$500美元! (Harass a dog, nothing happens, harass a human nothing happens, harass a chicken and get a $500 fine.) - Re: 动物农庄: 阳光下的故事posted on 02/24/2008
It's a good read.
尚能饭 wrote:
旧文时习之,不亦乐乎。:)
Chicken Delight
She came, she clucked, she conquered our New York City backyard
- posted on 02/24/2008
Don't know who made the change. It lost much of its original charm. -w
It Came. It Clucked. It Conquered.
By WILLIAM GRIMES
March 21, 2001
ONE day in the dead of winter, I looked out my back window and saw a chicken. It was jet black with a crimson wattle, and it seemed unaware that it was in New York City. In classic barnyard fashion, it was scratching and pecking and clucking.
I looked closer, blinked a few times and shrugged off the apparition. Birds come and go. Usually they're pigeons, not chickens, but like other birds, this one had wings and would probably use them. Or so I thought.
Two months later it's still there. Not only is it still there, but I'm also feeding it, and it's feeding me, at the rate of five eggs a week. I have made the transition from homeowner to farmer, from food consumer to food producer. All because of one mysterious chicken that came and wouldn't leave.
The protagonist of this story has no name. It is known simply as the Chicken, a nonname that seems right, considering its obscure origins. How it came to a small backyard in Astoria, Queens, remains a matter of conjecture. The chicken made its first appearance next door, home to a multitude of cabdrivers from Bangladesh. My wife, Nancy, and I decided that they had bought the chicken and were fattening it for a feast. That hypothesis fell into doubt when the chicken hopped the fence and began roaming around our yard. It began pacing the perimeter of the yard with a proprietary air, sizing things up with a shiny, appraising eye that said, I've seen better, but I've seen worse.
We now had a chicken. Very nice. But what next?
Eating it was out of the question. As a restaurant critic and an animal lover, I subscribe to a policy of complete hypocrisy. Serve fish or fowl to me in any way, shape or form, but don't ask me to watch the killing. Once I meet it, I don't want to eat it. Besides, Nancy and I had come up with another origin theory that roused our protective instincts. The chicken, we concluded, had escaped from a live poultry market about four blocks away. It was on the run.
Our hearts went out to the brave little refugee. Returning it to the market would be tantamount to murder. Eat it? Never. We had to save it.
Both of us suddenly realized, however, that we knew quite a bit about the consumption side of the chicken equation, and absolutely nothing about the production side. We didn't yet know whether our chicken was male or female, for one thing. It didn't crow in the morning, and it didn't have a comb, so female seemed a safe bet. But then again, neither of us had ever had to answer the question.
The sex enigma was only one of many. Would the chicken freeze to death out there? What do chickens eat? Do they have to live in a coop? Do chickens get lonely without other chickens? Do they need roosters to lay eggs? As I racked my brain for chicken knowledge, about the only thing I dredged up was a piece of trivia: they are easy to hypnotize. I knew this because Al Gore often recalled happy days in Tennessee when he would line up chickens on a porch and put them into a trance.
A colleague put me in touch with a real-life farmer, Steve Townley of Milford, N.J. He poured balm over my anxieties. "Chickens will eat just about anything," he said. "They'll eat vegetables. They'll even eat grass." Cold, it seemed, would not kill my chicken off. "They just fluff their feathers," Mr. Townley said. A chicken coop, it turns out, is aimed at protecting the birds from predators. If there are no predators, there's really no need for a coop.
Chickens were beginning to sound like the ideal pet. Not a lot of personality, but undemanding. Why doesn't everyone in New York have one?
The chicken took to its new surroundings easily. Its main social task was to integrate into the local cat society, a core group of about five strays that we feed. Two of them, enormous gray tomcat brothers called Bruiser and Crusher, dwell in an igloo. They have a strong sense of territory, although they do allow a B-team of lesser cats to drop by for a meal. How would the two species deal with each other?
One morning, I looked out the window and saw four cats lined up at their food bowls and, right in the middle, eating with gusto, the chicken. Occasionally, it would push a cat aside to get a better position. Dry cat food from Costco suited it just fine.
The cats, for their part, regarded the chicken warily. To the extent that it was a bird, it was prey. But big prey. From time to time, they would stalk, press their bodies to the ground, swish their tails and give every sign of going for the kill. Then they would register the chicken's size and become gripped by second thoughts. A face-saving, half-hearted lunge would follow.
The two sides have reached parity. Sometimes I'll look out back and see a cat chasing the chicken. Ten minutes later, I'll see the chicken chasing a cat. When the chicken gets too pushy around the food, Bruiser or Crusher might swat it on the side of the head. I like to think they have reached the plane of mutual respect. Perhaps affection.
One day, I saw the chicken writhing in what seemed like a death agony. Four cats encircled it, motionless, their faces a study in mingled horror and concern. This was it, I decided. The chicken was suffering from a terminal degenerative nerve disease. I couldn't bear to watch. Half an hour later, it was fine. It had been taking a dust bath.
The chicken showed real character the night that terror descended from the sky. It had already proved itself indifferent to bitter cold and heavy snow. But then it displayed bravery. A police helicopter, searchlight blazing, descended over my backyard, searching house to house for something or someone. I never did find out what or who.
But the helicopter hovered, and the downdraft from the blades set our pine tree swaying, turned over a wooden bench, flipped the cat igloo upside down and smashed heavy ceramic cat bowls. The chicken sleeps in the pine tree. I couldn't begin to imagine what was going through its tiny mind.
The next morning, amid wreckage out of "Apocalypse Now," the chicken reappeared, brimful of vim and vigor. I looked at it with new respect. It looked at me the way it always does, with a grudgingly tolerant expression. In the bird's-eye view of things, I am the useful idiot who brings food.
Actually, it took awhile to sort out the food. It was nice to know that the chicken could eat anything, but cat food didn't seem right. The bird expert at one PetCo recommended wild-bird seed. The expert at another branch said, "We have birdseed for specific kinds of bird, but because the chicken is not a specific bird, we don't have any specific food." That stopped me cold. It's specifically a chicken, I wanted to say. I ended up buying a bag of parrot food. Finally, I did what any mature, thinking adult male would do in a crisis. I called my mother.
It was the right call. Mom flew into action. She drove to the local feed store in La Porte, Tex., and picked up a 25-pound bag of Cargill Scratch Grains, a blend of milo, corn and oats. She began shipping the grain in installments. The chicken, although still keen on cat food, seemed to appreciate the chicken feed, and I certainly preferred seeing it eat grain, especially after the grisly evening when I set out a treat for the cats -- leftover shreds of chicken from a stockpot -- and saw the chicken happily join in.
It seems to like variety and resists direction. My impression, from farmers in movies, was that chickens come running when you scatter the feed. This one runs when the cat food hits the bowls, but it looks on chicken feed as a between-meals snack. In any case, it prefers to wander throughout the day, digging here, pecking there and only occasionally stumbling on clusters of feed. In restaurant terms, the chicken prefers a grazing menu, or the tapas approach.
Our care paid off. One morning, Nancy spied a round object on the patio. An egg. Her eye followed the probable path of the egg and saw a cozy nest at the base of the pine tree. In the nest were four more eggs. They were small, with a color somewhere between ecru and beige, but this was it, the blessed event. Along with the herbs, the tomatoes and the zucchini, we could look forward to an endless supply of fresh eggs.
But how did they taste? We decided to put our eggs to the test against two top-rated organic free-range eggs, Horizon Organic, produced by Glenwood Farms in Jeterville, Va., and Knoll Krest Farm in Clinton Corners, N.Y.
Horizon (motto: "A Clean-Living Chicken Makes Real Good Eggs!") uses no antibiotics, pesticides or hormones, and its chickens live in "a healthy cage-free, free-roaming environment."
Knoll Krest, similarly, boasts that its chickens are fed natural ingredients without antibiotics or hormones, and that, further, the eggs are hand-gathered from "free running" hens. Does this mean that the Knoll Krest chickens are more energetic than Horizon's? When does roaming accelerate into running? In any case, my eggs certainly qualified as organic, and my chicken both roams and runs.
I ate the eggs in hard-boiled form and fried in a little butter. The Horizon eggs, dark brown and preciously packaged in a tricky double-layer clear-plastic carton, had a café au lait shell and a pale yellow yolk. The Knoll Krest eggs were white and varying shades of brown, from pale beige to mahogany with speckles. Both were enormous It Came. It Clucked. It Conquered.
compared with mine, which had a thick shell and a bright, large yellow-orange yolk, which took up nearly three-quarters of the egg.
Horizon came in third. Some of the yolks had slightly metallic flavors, with a hint of fish. Knoll Krest was very good, with a richer, cleaner-tasting yolk. But the chicken, I have to report, carried the day. The gradations of egg flavor are very subtle, which means that freshness can easily tilt the balance. And when it comes to freshness, well, the competition was over before it began. Horizon and Knoll Krest yolks turned slightly dry and mealy with cooking, while my yolks stayed fluffy and moist. The whites had not a hint of rubberiness. No contest.
And now that production is in full swing, I can count on five or six eggs a week, although there have been factory rejects. One egg was quail size. Another had a strange squiggle on top, like soft ice cream. But on balance, the chicken has been a consistent, high-quality producer.
It says something about New York that no one in the neighborhood seems to think it's odd to have a chicken in the backyard. People have noticed. But they don't pay much attention. After all, it could be a snarling, frothing pit bull. In the scheme of things, a chicken blends in. And it certainly settles one age-old question. It's the chicken that came first. Then came the egg. - Re: 动物农庄: 阳光下的故事posted on 02/24/2008
Mine is from the author's own change--his book "My fine feathered friend" (2002).:)
He has at least several other versions in different outlets.:)
wence wrote:
Don't know who made the change. It lost much of its original charm. -w
It Came. It Clucked. It Conquered.
By WILLIAM GRIMES
March 21, 2001
- Re: 美羽朋友 :-)posted on 02/24/2008
lucy, 给你的鸡们添个伴。今日Central Park 所见....
"我丑,可我妈爱。管得着吗?"
- Re: 美羽朋友 :-)posted on 02/25/2008
- posted on 02/25/2008
moab: 不是bagel,是那种柔软的面包.
鹿希: 天啊! 中央公园仍被大雪覆盖啊! 羡慕啊….但愿可爱的松鼠妹妹还记得过冬前藏的果实…..
这些照片真漂亮! 太阳光照在雪地上, 很温暖的感觉…..还有那些铅色的纵横交错的枝桠也很有意思!
我也向你报告今天的天气! 时雨时晴….下午在BAYSHORE . 这些GEESE 很悠闲的在晒太阳!
- Re: 美羽朋友 :-)posted on 02/25/2008
lucy wrote:
moab: 不是bagel,是那种柔软的面包.
鹿希: 天啊! 中央公园仍被大雪覆盖啊! 羡慕啊….但愿可爱的松鼠妹妹还记得过冬前藏的果实…..
这些照片真漂亮! 太阳光照在雪地上, 很温暖的感觉…..还有那些铅色的纵横交错的枝桠也很有意思!
我也向你报告今天的天气! 时雨时晴….下午在BAYSHORE . 这些GEESE 很悠闲的在晒太阳!
是啊,虽然比前两天好些,可还是冷啊。冷得人都不想活了,还不如变鹅。
Please paste HTML code and press Enter.
(c) 2010 Maya Chilam Foundation