The Wild Critters Are Back

As the days have gotten longer, I keep watching the clock, waiting for the time to shut the chicken house door. Around 9:10 p.m. last night, the chickens had gone to roost, but an older movie I wanted to see had just started. It was a Barry VanDyke romance titled Foxfire Light shot in the Ozarks near Springfield, Mo. I decided to wait until the commercial five minutes later. That’s when I hustled outside at dusk. The yard light was on, but it wasn’t quite dark enough for me to take a flashlight. Although, the hen house was dark.

[image error]

Niece Katie opening the hen house door so the chickens could enjoy their free range freedom.

When I heard a hen squawk and wings flapping, I thought it was two hens in an argument. They have helped me understand the meaning of hen pecked lately. One hen took a dislike to another. She stands in the doorway and pecks the last hen wanting to enter. After I make several trips around the hen house one way then the other, I finally convince the dominating hen to back off and let the hen pecked hen into the building. I didn’t have time for that last night. Commercials are long only when I’m watching them. The minutes were ticking away. I picked up my speed to get to the hen house before the hens came out. I could have been wrong. It could have been the two roosters. I broke up two cock fights this last week. Maybe it’s the hot weather making the chickens disagreeable but not last night. I was almost to the chicken pen when a hen flew out of the hen house and right behind her leaped a large raccoon. She squeezed through the cattle panel fence. The coon squeezed through. The hen made a good impersonation of a road runner as the coon chased her, a tail feather length behind across the barn yard. I started screaming quit that and get out of here while I clapped my hands. I fully expected the neighbors to come check on me. The goats bolted out of the barn and came to me. The racing hen saw the the group of us as safety in numbers. She veered our way. The coon looked after her as he slowed slightly. His meal was getting away. He noticed my gyrated fit and decided the five feet three inch, squawking chicken with the flapping wings was too big to drag off. He picked up speed again, went through a gate and disappeared behind the barn in high grass. I’m sure he’s thinking there will always be another night and soon. Meanwhile, I’m thinking if I’d been a few minutes sooner and was standing in front of the hen house, that coon might not have been so fussy about my size when he bolted out the open door.