These exciting events transpired on March 5, 2009.
Brett Garvey:
Since Lauren and I moved into Peyton Place back in early September of 2008, we’ve had some restless nights because of a rooster in the neighborhood. I’ve spent several nights looking for it only for it to stop crowing so that I couldn’t track it any further, stranded in the cold streets, tired and furious. I asked our immediate neighbors about it and they said they thought it was coming from a Mexican Restaurant. I poked around there but no sign of it. I asked some college apartment kids about it and they asked me why I didn’t like the rooster. They said I’d get used to the noise. Turns out they were feeding it, but more of that later. Anyways, I call Animal Control because it is illegal to own a barnyard animal within the city limits. The first time I get information and they say to keep trying to find it. The second time I call them they tell me they don’t patrol in the middle of the night, which is when the rooster makes noise, but that they’ll send a patrol in the morning to investigate. I never heard anything else from animal control for a while but the rooster kept crowing. So, after 5 months or more of searching off and on and many restless nights, I hear the rooster on the morning of my birthday at 5:30AM and I throw my clothes on. I’ve been sitting in bed thinking of ways to get that rooster – if I could only get my hands on it. I know, poor rooster, but I was pretty angry by this point. I set off sprinting in the direction of the rooster and then it stops crowing again. I decide to stay in one place so that if I hear the rooster again I can resume the hunt. I’m not going back empty handed this time. It’s my birthday, I have to do it! I stand around in the street until about 6:30 AM. Then I notice something black moving in a tree right next to me. It’s very dark out and the sun is about to rise. I think I see a squirrel in the tree, as there are a lot of birds flying around and each one catches my interest. Then I think maybe it’s a cat and I get closer to the tree to notice that the rooster is hiding from me at the top of an evergreen. He jumps down onto the ground and I take off chasing after him. I follow him into the trees behind the house next door and there he hides. I figure he’s never coming out, but I remember the address. I’m ecstatic to finally come face to face with the rooster, but I’m worried that since he’s not penned that animal control may never find him. I couldn’t believe I had been standing right next to him for so long and I feel lucky I even found him. I call animal control this morning and they send a dispatch right away. Then they call me back to give me the news. They caught the rooster where I indicated. Not only that, but they said that no one would claim it and they knew the apartment complex nearby had been feeding him. They said their plan was to eventually track it and put it down since no one owned it, but since they found him and trapped him today they’re going to send him off to live on a farm. I’m ecstatic. This is the best birthday present ever, and now Lauren and I can finally sleep the whole night through. What a great day, and even the rooster gets a happy ending!
