(Excerpt from Tales From Heritage Farm)

“You are wrong there, Hildy. Is that really what you think he is saying? You had better clean out your ears. He’s not saying that at all,” insisted Frieda.

“What’s that you say?” Hildy cocked her head to hear better what her neighbor had just said.

“Come on over here and let me check your ears,” urged Frieda. “You’re not going to peck at me, are you?” asked Hildy defensively.

“Of course not. Come on… ha! Just as I thought,” she commented diagnostically. “You’ve got feathers in your ears. Let me wipe them out for you.” Gently Frieda feather-dusted over each of Hildy’s little ears with her wing feathers. “There now, ” she asked, “do you hear better?”

“Don’t talk so loudly,” shouted Hildy.

“Cock-a-doodle-doo—————————God-is-good-to-you———————!” interrupted Maximillian.

“Oh-h-h, he’s louder than before. He really did say, ‘God is good to you.’ Has he been saying that all along?” she asked in astonishment.

“He sure has,” was the reply.

“Well, I guess I stand corrected. Praise the Lord!! Maybe I should think more praising thoughts. It might help. A hen’s lot in life still isn’t easy though,” added Hildy.

“No, but a little praise to God goes a long way to lift anyone’s spirit. We can all face each new day with a better perspective and

… cluck…

                      cluck…

                                              cluck…

                                                                       squawk!!

“Oh, pardon me,” Frieda blushed, “I just laid an egg. Praise the Lord!”

The Bible says in Psalm 118:24, “This is the day which the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

You may have a list of hardships or misunderstandings to deal with like Hildy did. Talking it over with a friend and exercising praise to the Lord can turn the tide for you as it did for Hildy. And when you hear, “Cock-a-doodle-doo——————!” listen closely. In rooster vernacular, translated it means, “God is good to you.” Respond as Hildy did and “Praise the Lord!”

Sketch by Wenda Grabau

(Excerpt from Tales from Heritage Farm)

A hen's life isn't always easy.

“Come on, out with it,” urged Frieda. (She was a motherly type.)

Huffing and sputtering out her troubles, Hildy listed all of the things she expected to encounter that day. “I’ll hunt and get pecked by Annie. I will peck and be nipped by Dolly. After scratching a while, I’ll get chased and jabbed at by Little Red. Once I lay my big brown egg, Sophie will pick on me. A hen’s lot in life is a weary one. I’ve been cooped up all my life and nobody likes me,” she wailed.

“I do,” said Frieda.

“Yeah, but you don’t count,” she answered caustically.

“Oh,…I see,” retreated Frieda.

A brief moment of silence passed when Frieda recharged and blurted, “Well, maybe if you can’t change the others, you might try to change yourself … your attitude.”

“Yeah, well, how do you propose I do that?” snapped Hildy.

“I’ve tried a little exercise,” Frieda encouraged. “Whenever I think thoughts that weigh me down like yours do, I ponder some ‘praise thought’.”

“Praise thought? What do you mean?” interrupted Hildy.

“If I find a meaty oat or a tasty seed, I say, ‘Praise the Lord!’ Should I find a patch of weeds or fragrant green blades of grass to eat, I say, ‘Praise the Lord!’ When our rooster calls us each day I think, ‘Praise the Lord that Maximillian had to wake up first while I could catch a couple of more winks.'”

“Oh, now, Frieda, you’ve gone too far. That noisy fellow is such a loud, arrogant sort.  Don’t you hear him saying each day, ‘I’m so good for you?'” she clucked with sarcasm that Frieda could not ignore.

Sketch by Wenda Grabau

(Excerpt from Tales From Heritage Farm)

” Cock-a-doodle-doo—————-God-is-good-to-you——————–!  This abrupt, piercing chorus trailed off, not without ruffling more than a few feathers.

Brilliant pink and subdued rose washed the eastern sky as the twitter of the first morning bird began her melody. The warbling broke the silence of the night and dulled the zinging of the cricket’s chatter. A hush fell on the drone of the frogs down at the pond. A new dawn was breaking.

Frieda tried to turn her back to the rush of noise that aroused her. She covered her ears under her own wing and then, “Cock-a-doodle-doo———— —God-is-good-to-you———————!” broke into her consciousness again. She winced at how loudly the rooster, Maximillian, was crowing.

Roosting in the hen house had grown to be a rather cozy arrangement, snuggling up to feathers on all sides. Lights went out when the sun went down, only to return as the sun did each morning.

It was hard work scratching out a living each day. Twice a day the farmer visited her to replenish her water supply and fill her trough with fresh grain to peck at and consume. Even with his grain delivery, Frieda scratched and pecked most of the day (except when she tried to sleep in late on a lumpy bed of straw.)

“Cock-a-doodle-doo———————God’s-so-good-to-you———————!”

“Honestly, Frieda,” said Hildy from the perch beside her. “That rooster must think he is God’s gift to chickens. What a conceited blow hard!”

“Oh, I don’t know, Hildy. He seems pretty normal to me.” With that Frieda hopped from her roost, ruffled her feathers and straightened them. Up she jumped onto a nest that the farmer had supplied. Making a few turns to find a comfortable spot, she finally nestled herself on the clean straw.

“Now, what’s bothering you today, Hildy? There must be something.”

Sketch by Wenda Grabau