A Rooster named Joanne....

      It was April, right before Easter, when we received our shipment of chicks. They were all settled in the brooder and doing fine, when Tim came home one day with a small yellow chick. I said " Why did you get this chick when we have a whole brooder full of chicks?" He shrugged his shoulders and said, "A lady was selling them along side of the road and I just liked this one." Now mind you, I couldn't see anything special about this chick and had spent hours pouring over the hatchery catalog, choosing just the right ones to make my flock the way I wanted it. I always order all brown egg layers because my customers prefer the brown eggs. I told Tim, "It looks like a Leghorn and they lay white eggs. I don't want a white egg layer in the flock." Emilee was at the house when this all occured and of course she took "Pop-pop's" side and said it was the most beautiful chick she had ever seen. I could see I was fighting a losing battle, so in went the bright yellow chick with all my others. Over these last few weeks, I have been spending alot of time with the chicks. I love to go out in the evening and sit in the barn lot in front of the barn. The chicks, who now are small chickens, scratch  and peck in the grass, chase bugs and "talk" to me. That bright yellow chick soon turned to pure white, as I had predicted, but what I hadn't counted on, was the tall red comb that started to grow on top of it's head. I didn't need to worry about getting white eggs because I could see that this chicken would never lay an egg. I told Emilee, "That chick that Pop-pop brought home is a rooster. What are you going to name him?" She thought for a long time and then she said, "You know Grammy, he is so beautiful, he needs a special name. I will call him Joanne because I love that name." She completely caught me off guard... "You can't name a rooster, Joanne!!!" But Joanne it is. I had ordered a Silver Laced Wyandotte rooster with the chicks and I named him Chantecleer after the rooster in Canterbury Tales. I have been waiting to see which one would crow first. Yesterday we had a huge thunderstorm and I heard an awful sound coming from the barn. Dodging rain drops, I ran to the barn, only to see a little white rooster, "crowing" his heart out. Every time it would  thunder, he would crow. It would figure that he would start before mine...maybe it's all in the name.