A brief Sky Update: Phyllis, the infamous if short lived Rooster of Sky, has left this unkind world. S/he arrived on the Sky scene a few months ago as a transplanted hen whose keeper could not longer keep her. Shortly after her controversial introduction into the chicken coop, it became apparent that she was actually a he. Over the next few months, Phyllis terrorized the home crew of hens and attempted to perfect her/his highly imperfect crowing. Phyllis would cock-a-doodle-doo to greet us as we tried to sneak into the house after curfew, and developed a reputation for waking the harvest volunteers more frequently throughout the night than Isobel. Despite the inevitably hostile feelings that develop at 4 a.m. when you really just want a little more sleep before getting up to pick grapes all day, Phyllis crowed his/her way into our Sky crew.
Phyllis lived under sentence of Sunday Dinner for the last couple of months. I took up her case and advocated for several stays of execution, but in the end, s/he wound up on the chopping block. The picture above was taken during her brief afternoon of freedom, during which she made a daring escape attempt, flying over the fence and up the hillside. After a mad scramble, Dad dove into the brush and retrieved her, just before she headed up to Random Ridge.
The details of her ultimate demise remain sketchy. Unreliable reports from Lore indicate that despite her tender years, she was very tough and the most remarkable characteristic were her incredibly large cojones. Although she was with us only a short time, I'm sure I will always remember our Sky Rooster when I see pictures of Phyllis Diller (which, thank god, happens very rarely) or when I hear AC/DC's Big Balls.
