We Do Not Lick the Chicken, Horatio – Episode Two

If you’ve been reading lately, I mentioned there are some…interesting…sights on my normal route to Hastings. If you haven’t been reading lately, no judgement (ok, not much judgement) and here you go, if you’d like to get caught up: https://jessicasettergren.com/2021/01/21/this-is-not-what-i-meant-horatio-episode-one/.

So, maybe a mile and a half after the Blair Witch for stuffed animals tree (you didn’t go back and read the other post, did you, and now you’re confused and wondering what the fuck this weirdo has been drinking. The answer is nothing alcoholic, sadly, and this time it’s really not my fault. I didn’t create this creepy witch tree, I just took a picture, which means my soul is probably bound to be trapped in one of those things if I die and I sacrificed my own safety to bring you tales of the weird. Getting a horror story idea or two is entirely by accident. YOU’RE WELCOME.)

Anyway.

After checking the rear view to make sure nothing’s jumping from branches to my car, I drive about a mile or mile and a half and greet the giant metal chicken farmer.

Yeah. You read that right. No, it’s not Beyoncé, but I suspect it may be a Northern cousin from another clan. Would that make it a second cousin? A third cousin once removed? Ugh. None of that ever made sense to me anyway. So yeah, there’s a giant metal chicken, driving a tractor. It’s even silver, so its both obnoxiously bright in direct sunlight AND ethereally glowy in a mildly unpleasant manner in the moonlight. Particularly in winter.

It’s not your eyes: the picture is a little blurry. First, it’s 10 degrees below zero (I think that’s negative eleventybillion for you Celsius folk….or something like -30?) tonight, so even a tractor driving silver chicken wasn’t getting me out of the heated driver’s seat in my car. Second, there’s no way in hell I’m getting out of my car to get a decent pic when the owners’ house is just to the right of the frame, and since I’m not sure what sort of people put a giant metal chicken in their yard (other than The Bloggess, who I’ve met a couple times and is utterly fantastic) I wasn’t about to go ask them any questions.

But make no mistake, I have questions. What IS its name? Is it pressed into forced farming labor, or did it volunteer to drive that tractor? Who started these shenanigans (oh yes, there is one more for episode three)? Maybe most importantly, WHY? Maybe in the spring I’ll have enough extrovert energy to stop and ask one day. For now, I’m content to wonder.

And, in A Christmas Story fashion, I would like you remind you all that in below zero weather we DO NOT LICK THE METAL CHICKEN.

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, indeed. I’m willing to bet Shakespeare would’ve loved a giant metal chicken.