Cluck Cluck
I have chickens on my deck. They didn’t fly there, which wouldn’t make sense since chickens don’t fly. They were brought here by my friend, Alex, who is vacationing with his family. I guess you could say I’m chicken-sitting.
I was very entertained by Alex’s stories about the chickens. There was a tale about a chicken taking residence on his neighbor’s porch, and of Huldah, Alex’s wife, chasing escaped chickens down the street and loading them into her Volvo. The birds even laid eggs at Alex’s feet.
It seemed like a great source of entertainment. So when Alex was looking for a caretaker for his birds, I enthusiastically volunteered. With an agreement that Harrison and Olivia could rename the chickens for their brief stay with us, I welcomed them to my deck last Sunday.
Oh, it was all novel at first. As an urban woman who daydreams about life on a ranch, I first enjoyed tending to the chickens. Sweeping out their coop, filling their feed and water cylinders, sprinkling hay in their cage, it was all in the day in the life of a rural girl. My grandmother was a homesteader in Canada, and my grandfather was a farmer. This was in my blood! My ancestors must be smiling, I thought.
That was Day One. Day Two the smell started. I knew chickens pooped – after all, all living creatures do. But THAT much? It was simply unreasonable. So I decided to take the chickens down to our yard. “They’re easy to catch,” I recalled Alex telling me. “They just stop in their tracks, and you pick them up.” He demonstrated by hunching his 6′2″ frame forward and pulling his elbows into his side.
I wonder if Alex could hear me cursing him in St. Lucia as I ran across the neighbor’s yard, chasing chickens around bushes for thirty minutes. It was no better when I contained them on the deck. There is not a whole lot of dignity in chasing chickens around clay pots and under a table.
On Day Three of our relationship, our speaking terms ceased. I found the chickens to be uncooperative and quite frankly – demanding. They earned themselves an indefinite time-out in their chicken coop. They did not handle their consequences with grace. I picked up on their attitude every time I passed the sliding glass door to the deck. I could feel them staring at me, standing in a row, beaks pressed against the chicken wire. Discontent was brewing. Its amazing the presence chickens can command.
I had to feed them, but they were getting hostile. I know this because when I reached into their cage to retrieve their feeder, they pecked at my hand. You don’t know intimidation until three chickens circle your wrist and have at you. When they did the same thing as I returned the full feeder, I knew I needed better management skills. Which translates to “give the chickens what they want.”
Which translates to the chickens now own the deck.
Its not bad, actually. I can look out my kitchen window and see Henny Penny (formerly Louise) staring back at me, head jerking side to side. I pass the dining room door and Sweetheart (formerly Jane)
is standing on the coop door, looking like the Queen of the Deck. I’ve learned to tolerate the mine field of chicken droppings and I’m trying not to complain when I have to round them back into their cage. This morning, after I loaded them into the coop and returned to the kitchen, wiping my brow, I said, “Seems I’m now officially Pioneer Woman.”
“Yeah,” Harrison said from the sofa. “Pioneer woman in heels.” I looked down at my gold Betty Boop pumps. He had a point.
And yet, my maternal instincts remain. I greet the ladies in the morning and I call the kids over when the birds are doing something silly like burrowing in a planter. When they file into the coop at night and take their places on the roost, I take a verbal count of them to make sure all chickens are accounted for. I thank them for their eggs, which really are delicious.
And, when they’re asleep, I quietly reach into their cage to fill their water and seed canisters. I figure it will save me some defensive stress in the morning.
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