When chickens are left to their own devices.

I know he’s my kid and all and I’m sure this is just me, but I can’t stop cracking up at the triangle thing. You had to be there. Really.

I should be exercising right now. Or cleaning. Or doing laundry. But I’m not. Stop judging me. You aren’t doing those things either. You’re on your computer. We are the same. Except that you probably don’t have Price is Right going in the background. It’s embarrassing.

Anyway. Last night I came home from playing Trivia with some friends and wrote a blog. Then, in a moment of realization, my eyes got suddenly large as I looked up from my laptop and said to the husband, “Did anyone put the chickens away?” That was a stupid question. (There really IS such a thing as a dumb question.) No one puts the chickens up except for me. AG will put them away if I mention it. Beloved will, too. No one else cares about the chickens. So, of course, his answer to my panicked question was, “No.”

It was 10:15 and the chickens were still at large. So I donned the rubber boots, grabbed a flashlight, and went out into the night. It wasn’t long before T was out there, too.

As I started this process, I wondered to myself if the chickens might possibly put themselves to bed. The door was open to the coop. Might they just go in and get settled?

Nope. They are way too dumb for that.

Instead, four of them were 4 feet from the open coop door, huddled on top of the bunny hutch. Good grief. Come here, ladies. So, one by one, I picked them up and put them in the coop. But there were only four there. I was missing two chickens.

I was just slightly concerned when I started my search. I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I went, though, because the missing hens were not in the usual places. I looked under the deck. Nothing there. I looked under the sycamore trees in the side yard. No chickens.

Shoot. This was my fault. I should have told the boys to put them to bed before going to bed themselves. I scratched my head and looked around again. Then I did a sweep with my flashlight. It landed on something. It was Goldilocks, perched very uncomfortably on the edge of a wire fence.  She bocked at me. It was a cry for help. Was she going to sleep there all night? I have no idea. I put the flashlight in my mouth and picked her up to carry her back to the coop. She was clearly relieved and said so as I set her on her perch with her 4 little friends.

There was still one missing. I stood inside the coop in the darkness, counting them over and over, hoping maybe I had miscounted or that one had just wandered in while I was occupied. We still had just the five. I started noticing all the feathers on the ground inside the open coop.

“Do you think something already got her?” I asked Todd.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “That IS a lot of feathers.” As we stood there together, deciding what to do next, there came a kerfuffle above us.

Plegonkinbgggggwwwkg.

bonk.

There on the ground was the missing chicken. We stared at this scene like you might stare if a chicken fell out of a space ship. It really was that strange.

We really don’t know where she fell from. Maybe the roof of the coop. Maybe a tree.

I made a fairly strong mental note not to forget the chickens anymore. I better get some eggs out of this deal.