Hickory would have worked, too

We drive past a particular rural fire station just about every day. It’s a clean, well-lit place that is thankfully pretty quiet. The sign out front is one of those signs where you can change the letters. Today the sign cautions us to drive safely. Last week it congratulated a local family on the birth of twin girls.

We attended an open house last summer and enjoyed noshing on hot dogs while sneaking a peek at the inner-workings of a big fire truck. The guys who man the station (no women there far as I could tell) seemed like very nice, friendly, polite folks. Very welcoming and neighborly. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that the fire station seems to have warmly welcomed and adopted a new resident. Every firehouse needs a mascot, right?

We first noticed the black chicken a few weeks ago. It’s sort of small, as chickens go. It’s completely black with a little red thing on its head. It’s really too bad the chicken doesn’t have some white spots on it, so it could be sort of a reverse Dalmatian.

In any case, now just about every time we drive by, there’s the black chicken pecking around a corner of the fire station’s front yard. Since it appears to be a keeper, I’ve decided it’s time to name the chicken. I’ve given this some thought since, well, I’m me and I’m retired. My pick?

Drum(stick) roll, please.

Mesquite.

Sort of conjures up thoughts of a nice wood smoke (fire station) great for BBQing (chicken). Of course, if Mesquite ever goes missing, I’ll assume that it flew the coop and not that the firemen forgot to stop at Safeway on the way to the station.