I've mentioned Chanticleer, our attack rooster, before. Here he is strutting his stuff in front of the chicken run like he owns the place.
He doesn't, but not for lack of trying.
Whenever I load the kids into the van to go somewhere, he stands at the gate crowing at us, his fathers fluffed up to make him appear bigger and scarier (I think he just looks like one of the fat biddies on my Fluffy Birds game). If one of us heads into the garden, out to the play yard, or anywhere he deems his territory, he comes running--a crowing, fluffy bird-ball, that, I will admit, gets my pulse racing when no fence separates us.
We started using our green push broom to defend ourselves because it happened to be nearby. But lately we've learned that nothing else can successfully keep Chanticleer at bay.
Early one evening, as I walked out to our garden where my husband was watering, I passed Chanticleer. The rooster was pecking at bugs a good distance away, seemingly calm and nonthreatening. As I pulled even with him, I spoke to him in a quiet voice.
"Finding any good bugs, Chanti?"
The stupid bird jumped at me. No warning, no puffed up feathers or crowing, just an immediate, leaping attack.
Fortunately, I managed to kick out at him, catching him in the chest and knocking him backward. But almost immediately he attacked again. We stayed that way for several minutes as Chanticleer jumped and I kicked him down until my husband noticed what was going on and came running over with a large two by four.
He swung at the bird, and Chanticleer turned his attention to him. He continued his dancing attack, only with a new partner.
After my husband landing three or four strikes with the board, my teenage son walked out the back door. He saw the rooster leap at his dad, realized the wood did not deter Chanticleer, and grabbed the broom resting next to the door.
My son hadn't even gotten within four feet of Chanti when the bird saw the broom. He ran as fast as he could back toward the chicken run squawking the whole way.
I landed direct kicks on the rooster's chest, and my husband got in some pretty good hits with the board, but only the broom, which hadn't even touched him, scared Chanticleer away.
The green push broom was Chanti's weakness.
Even my little five-year old can chase Chanticleer away from his toy construction truck worksite with one wave of the broom.
Although we had to discover Chanti's weakness, Satan already knows ours. And he uses them against us as easily as we wave the broom at our rooster.
Fortunately, unlike our attack rooster, we can recognize our weakness with the help of the Lord, and thus Satan's attacks on us, and learn to overcome them.
