The Old Cowboy

After letting the animals out first thing after night shift

I grabbed -a one hour sleep, then took Chris down to the station, walked the dogs and returned

home to catch up with jobs.

I couldn't help noticing  the bundle of feathers lying quietly in the corner of a run when I entered the field......

Without a fuss the blind old rooster Cogburn, like his cinematic namesake, had finally faded into the sunset 

He Sat on his porch so to speak, with his face in the sun, and there, quite suddenly and gently, he had died.

You can't get too sentimental over poultry.

They are scatterbrained scraps of feathers connected together by a beak who die as easily as Christmas cards are thrown in the bin after Boxing Day .

But there was something always so very valliant about Cogburn who lived his small blind life in a chicken wire run without misery and without  resignation.

He just

Got on with  things.

Animals do

A bit later I will take his body down to the badger set in the next field

There is  no point not to recycle his remains

But for the moment

I can't  quite get around to move him from his small , earth floor home

So I will leave him for a while

My old cowboy

Asleep on his porch
with his face in the sun

My old boy