Beside the Stream

I looked out the window around dawn, and there were 20 little Dutch boys in grey pantaloons racing around the back field.  The chickens had staged a break-out.

They got out in a corner where a few staples were missing.  They stretched out the wire and left blood and feathers behind in their desire to be free.  When I looked closer I saw one chicken was still inside, but he had a big flap of skin and feathers hanging from his bloody neck.  

There was a group finding insects on the lawn,

and another group working the forest floor.

  These chickens want such simple things.   They want to scratch,

and to eat the delicious grubs they turn up. 

I stapled the chicken wire back into place, and got the chickens back inside by 8AM.  And the flock went from 20 to 18.  Bob found one set of body parts out back, and the other’s just gone.  Our local predators have marked us as the home of 20 tender tasty bites.

Meanwhile, we have two 14-yr-olds visiting from Ohio, so I called to make rafting reservations.  The owner of the rafting company said they started the winter with 23 peacocks, and at the end of the winter they had 3 left, which they gave away.  A bobcat took them one by one. 

The bobcat at Suzy’s has now killed two geese and one duck.  

And Miss Roberta says her mother loved her chickens, always had a flock loose in the yard, and there was never any problem at all.  Never.  Eighty years ago, there wasn’t a coyote or bobcat in the county.       

You can have a world that’s safe for chickens, or one that includes predators.  But not both.

PS.  I was told that the chicken with the flap of feathered skin hanging from his neck will be fine.  People said, chickens are tough.