The sweet sound of silence!

This morning was our first rooster-free morning since last fall when I got the idea that it would be really fun to have a rooster to fertilize our hen's eggs -- and hopefully, eventually, hatch out some chicks!

Lily was an easy sell. Quinn was too young to understand what was going on. John, on the other hand, was opposed to the plan from day one.

Unfortunately for my beloved husband, once I get an idea in my head (especially when it involves baby animals, or in this case the mere promise of possible baby animals), there is little that can be done to deter me.

So sometime last September a handsome young Dominique rooster joined our small flock of laying hens. Things were pretty good at first. He was still young and had not quite developed his full crowing ability. And then we moved into winter and the later sunrise and tightly-sealed windows made his morning crowing bearable for John and kind of charming for me.

Then spring (this year with its earlier changing of the clocks) and open-window season and a rooster who had most certainly found his crow -- and preferred to show it off starting at 4:30 a.m. and continue right on through to sundown -- was too much even for me to take.

I placed a couple of ads on Craig's List with no responses and was starting to feel desperate. He really needed to go. I composed another ad, posted it on the free stuff listing and hoped for the best.

I got a flury of responses this time but only one person who followed up and was willing and able to come pick "Roosty" up.

As we e-mailed back and forth I also offered her four of our laying hens (I want to clean out the stall and shore up the pen before we put the new layers in there), which she was happy to take.

When she and her son came to pick them up on Thursday, I felt a tiny pang of sadness. It wasn't so much that I was going to miss having a rooster around, but more just the realization that my vision of having a rooster home and how that would help to solidify the "farm" status of our yard, didn't work out the way I thought it would.

As the mother and son loaded Roosty into their truck, I heard her enthusiastically assuring her son that he'll get to have his chicks someday now that he has a rooster.

And I hope that's just how it works out for them.

Meanwhile, we are savoring the sweet sound of silence and the gift of sleeping past sunrise.