Headless Chickens & Collie Pups

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Once a year folks flock to Fruita, Colorado, USA, to participate in a fun-filled festival celebrating a headless chicken named Mike. Really.

The Olsen family chose Mike for a dinner date for their family in September, 1945—but Mike survived the execution attempt. One of Mike’s ears was cut off and his brain stem was left only semi-attached. Mr. Olsen took pity on the headless chicken and fed him milk and water with an eyedropper. Mike learned to walk without eyes and without a head to help him balance. He wandered around the yard attempting to peck for food with his neck.

Mike traveled the country for the next 18 months and earned $4,500 a month in appearance fees for his family—more than the average U.S. citizen earned. Mike was featured in Time and Life magazines.

After Mike succumbed to a blot clot, he was immortalized by his home town in the annual Mike the Headless Chicken Festival—which is held every year in May.

Losing his head changed Mike (losing our heads changes us too!), but Mike was still a chicken. Even without a head, Mike scratched in the dirt and pecked with his headless neck because he was a chicken. God created him as a chicken and even without a head—Mike was still a chicken.

We brought home a rough collie puppy three weeks ago. She didn’t bark. Three weeks and never a bark. Because she isn’t old enough yet for her second set of puppy shots, Savannah has been isolated. She is not around other dogs and doesn’t hear them bark. We were overjoyed thinking that we had a quiet collie dog who would never disturb the peace barking. She barked today.

God created Savannah as a dog, and dogs bark. Even without the example of other dogs, Savannah learned to bark. Being isolated did not keep her from becoming what God created—a dog.

Mike and Savannah are good examples of the foolishness of people thumbing their noses at God and saying, “I don’t care what kind of equipment I have between my legs, I’m going to choose my own gender.”

A headless chicken is still a chicken.

An isolated collie puppy is still a dog.

“So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Genesis 1:27.

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Riches in Waiting

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Yesterday was a wild day, mostly spent on two different buses or at the bus station in between buses as we traveled from Dunoon to Glasgow, from Glasgow to Edinburgh, and then made the return journey.

First the purple, a deep vibrant purple more intense than a lavender field. A woman at the bus station was wearing it. She was tall and it reached from her neck down to her purple boots, so there was a lot of it. And her hair was purple—except where dark roots nudged through the head bouquet. The purple woman has absolutely nothing to do with this blog, except that some things once seen can’t be unseen and when I close my eyes, the inside of my eyelids are swathed in purple.

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Then the revolving glass door. I ran into it. Twice. The first time I almost panicked because the people in the other two sections of the glass door had a way out, but I was in the middle of a glass tunnel with no escape route. That just reaffirmed what I already knew: I am not and will never be a “city” person. I belong in the country with birds, wildlife, trees, grass, wildflowers—even purple ones.

Finally, we arrived at our destination, after a short ride scrunched into the backseat of a car so tightly that no one could even fasten their seatbelt. And we met Savannah. We picked up the tiny merle rough collie puppy and told her we would be her new parents soon and that her name was Savannah. When we left, I called, “Savannah,” and out of the mix of swirling, climbing collie puppies, she was the only one who looked up. She looked up at us and watched us until we were out of sight. Some things are worth waiting for, worth an all-day bus ride, worth getting trapped inside revolving glass doors, worth purple on the inside of the eyelids. Savannah is one of those things.

“Those who wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31

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