Why did the chicken cross the road?
To get away from the thumping great fox.
No, no…everyone’s fine. Just. The chickens let out a terrible squawking a few hours past, and I ran to the window just in time to see Lucia flap by, followed by Vita, followed by a sleek young fox.
I yelled “FOX!” and hit the door, which was enough to turn him around. Bastard. He was within inches of getting one of my nice birds.
I scooped up Vita, found Violet (O clever bird, she had flown perpendicular to the commotion), checked that Mapp was in her usual place (sitting on the nest trying to hatch a lump of wood), but of Lucia…nothing.
She had lit out up the stairs and into the driveway into forbidden territory. Our drive is fairly long and lined with trees and shrubs and long grass and stinging nettles. There must be a thousand places a panicky chicken could lay low. We spent an hour walking up and down the drive calling her name and listening for the cluck before Uncle B spotted her — clear across the road, over the fence and into a sheep field.
Busy road. Lucky chicken. She was allll kinds of freaked out when I went to collect her and did a little panic dance every time a car went by. So really, having no other tools at my disposal, I shoved her under my shirt to get her back across. I’m not sure either of us will recover from the indignity.
Got back to find our outside cat, the unfixed male, had peed a streak of scent mark right across the face of my banjo. Is that a compliment?
July 11, 2011 — 9:10 pm
Comments: 29