Bonnie’s Chicken

A Hardman Family Story

Bonnie Rollins Hardman grew up on a farm and had, of all things, a pet chicken. That chicken helped her learn responsibility, mortification and loss. 

Bonnie’s chicken liked attention. I have no idea how much attention most chickens need but Bonnie’s chicken liked to be noticed. If lonely or hungry, it would pop right up the back porch steps and pick at the kitchen door looking for her mistress.

At this time in her life, Bonnie had a number of much-resented jobs to do around the house. While Bonnie admitted that she didn’t have to sleep in the cinders, she felt that her stepmother assigned more chores to her than to her half-sisters so those duties were done without cheer. 

One Saturday while Bonnie had to sweep and clean, her chicken, watching her through the kitchen window, was particularly disgusted with being ignored. The chicken peck-peck-pecked at the kitchen door and Bonnie, annoyed, chased it off. The pecking came again and again so several times Bonnie stopped work to scoot the chicken.

Finally, totally annoyed with the chores and the chicken, she raised the broom as a weapon and ran to the door while screaming, “If you don’t stop that and get the heck off the porch, I’ll beat you with this broom!”

Eyes full of fire, she opened the back door to teach that chicken a lesson and stood face to face with the minister. Enveloped by embarrassment that was never forgotten, she ran off to hide in a closet, escaping the chicken, the minister and her stepmother.

Later that summer, when she was able to face people again, Bonnie had occasion to help make turtle soup. Someone, her cousin I think, had gone fishing and caught a very large snapping turtle. 

The turtle was perched on the chopping block for preparation after which its seemingly harmless head lay in the dirt. The chicken, knowing no fear of chopping blocks or turtles, came to investigate. It focused on a bit of pink at the turtle’s mouth and interpreting this as a snack, the chicken pecked at the dead turtle’s tongue.

In the same way that a chicken's body can retain enough life force to run after being beheaded, a turtle’s mouth can still snap. The chicken thought it would gain a treat but instead it lost its beak to the dead turtle.

Bonnie went to hide in the closet again that night because dinner was turtle soup and roasted chicken. If she were still with us, we’d know more of her childhood but at least we have the story of Bonnie’s Chicken.

Museum of the Earth, Ithaca: Science, Art, Stories

The skeleton of Right Whale #2030
in the museum lobby area.

ITHACA: The best museums are museums of stories. Stories are teaching tools. New ideas are Velcro hooks that find the loops of known information. Learning is connecting new information to prior experience. More connections mean strong, durable memories. Stories are the connecting loops and hooks of long term memory and solid understanding.                          There’s a story in the lobby of the Museum of the Earth in the form of the remains of Right Whale #2030. Why isn’t that protected whale still in the northern Atlantic filtering 400 pounds of krill through its baleen every day? Sometime in May 1999,  the whale encountered fishing gear with a rope long enough to wrap around the massive body 3 times.      

                Cutting an exposed rope from a colossal, wild, moving body would be a tough job but “wrapped” doesn’t explain enough. The rope was so tight that it tortuously cut through 7 inches of blubber.  Repeatedly, crews of people, skilled and compassionate, found the whale and tried to rescue it. By September, the weakened female had 2 of the loops removed but the third loop remained eventually killing her. 

                When the body was dragged ashore in New Jersey in October, a crew began “flensing” or removing the skin and flesh. The bones were brought to Ithaca to be buried in horse manure where beetles and bacteria finished cleaning the skeleton.

                The whole story of Right Whale #2030 is at the museum. Her 300 remaining but endangered relatives are at risk from ship collisions, fishing gear entanglements and habitat degradation.

                 The story of the museum started with Gilbert Harris. Harris taught geology at Cornell from 1894-1934 while collecting and protecting specimens. Not trusting Cornell with his work, he created the Paleontological Research Institution to hold it, gaining a charter from the NY Board of Regents in 1936. The collection grew from his home to the current 18,000 square feet, 3 million items and 50,000 texts now in The Museum of the Earth. 

The Hyde Park Mastodon was
an old male suffering from
arthritis as seen in the damage to
leg bones.

                About 100 miles from the museum there was a story of discovery. The Lozier family in Hyde Park brought in equipment to expand their backyard pond in 1999.  A massive bone was uncovered in the mud. The Loziers thought they had a dinosaur bone but they were repeatedly dismissed because nobody has a dinosaur in their backyard.

                 Finally a professor from Baird College examined the find. While it wasn’t a dinosaur bone, it was from a mastodon, a male as it turned out and the old guy suffered from arthritis 11,000 years ago when it collapsed in a muddy pit where its bones were preserved in a tight group.

Looking through the glacier exhibit toward the Hyde Park Mastodon.                The Discovery Channel brought the story to the country with Mastodon in Your Backyard. By 2000 the bones were assembled at The Museum of the Earth. As a bonus, it is among the most complete mastodon skeletons found.

                The museum has an extensive research facility but it also serves to inspire children. While we were there we heard high school and college aged students repeatedly asking, “Did you know...” followed by some curious fact that, actually, I hadn’t known. Periodically, areas of the museum sounded like a school cafeteria at lunch time.

                There was notable teen who had her imagination and mind captured by ammonites early on. She gave an impressive, private tour to friends exposing them to an enthusiastic and detailed vocabulary and knowledge base.

Erin Signor from South Jersey said, "10-year old
Erin would have loved this place more than I
love it now. My mother would have
never gotten me out." She is holding the
frozen part of the glacier exhibit.

            Erin Signor was visiting with friends and told me that had she been in the Museum at the age of 10, her mother might never have gotten her out. One exciting element was the frozen side of the glacier exhibit.

            For younger visitors The Dino Zone offers an enormous Stegosaurus rendered in papier mache in 1903 near a supersized sauropod nest complete with eggs to crawl over or sit on. There are dinosaur costumes to model and a nearby story nook full of books under the watchful eyes of a Quetzalcoatlus.

            For those who are slightly older, the fossil discovery zone is always open with trays of fossils free to examine, identify and take.

                Art on site includes the permanent display of 544 tiles, Rock of Ages Sands of Time, by Barbara Page as well as other murals throughout the building. There is a changing exhibition area currently hosting Mapping the Planets in Silk and Sound by Mary Edna Frasier.  

            Some might ask why we should study the past. Maybe there isn’t a hard line between past and present. Some ancient animals are still alive and have mysterious traits. The tardigrade is an aquatic micro animal found feeding on moss on every continent. The 1150 or so species of tardigrade can be seen with an amateur microscope and are said to be resilient, an understatement. 

               Tardigrads have returned from space on the outside of a capsule, surviving a vacuum, extreme radiation, and intense cold. When they sense a lack of water, tardigrades secrete a material to encapsulate their membranes so they won’t break, their proteins so they won’t unfold, and their DNA so it won’t be damaged. When safe again, they rehydrate ready to eat and reproduce even if the dormant period was more than a decade. Top that story.

Janice Brown, microbiologist, hosted vistors
at the tardigrade exhibit on February 17.

                 During our visit we saw living, eating, egg-producing tardigrades.  Can they teach us something about a process of stasis in space travel or help develop weather resistant crops? Isn’t it worth a look?

            The Museum of the Earth is a bit off the main road at 1259 Route 96 in Ithaca. Call (607) 273-6623 or find information at www.priweb.org.  Winter hours are on Wed-Sat. Admission is charged and there is no café.

                The Museum hosts a fossil event on every 2nd Saturday, 10am to Noon. Bring your fossils and funny looking rocks for identification. Sign up for fossil hunts this summer: July 1 - Hamilton, July 22 - Schoharie, August 19 – Tully. Check with the Museum of the Earth for specific locations, fees, and special events.

There are living things at the museum
including two salt water aquariums.