So, is it the first day of my weekend. Being a Zookeeper means that sometimes I have a schedule where I work on the weekends and get weekdays off. I don't mind. Seeing a movie on a Wednesday morning pretty much guarantees my pick of seats in the theater and less of a chance of youngun's in there with me.
But I digress, it is my Saturday and I'm lazing in bed. The sun has just come up. I have a window open and the fresh, cooler morning air is drifting in. A cat sits on the windowsill watching the world. My dogs are snuggled against me, a comforting warmth. A chicken clucks outside...
Wait a minute... a chicken? I roll up onto an eblow to look out and don't see it. Maybe I just imagined chicken sounds as I was lazing in and out of sleep. I'd had a pretty cool dream about Nathan Fillion as Castle and we'd exchanged some very friendly glances (quiver ladies) so I was eager to try and get back to that, but then I heard it again, closer this time, along with rustling leaves. I look again and sure enough...there's a chicken in my front yard.
A little later I hear rustling in the front yard again. The cat has tried once again to catch the chicken, and failed, and now it is in my tree.
A little later, almost noon, I walk to the back door and let the dogs out into my fenced in yard, like normal. When suddenly, from behind the one big tree in my yard, races a frantic chicken with my 70lb Great Pyrenees-mix right behind it. Duncan almost catches the chicken, but I get his attention and like the awesome dog that he is, he comes to me instead of chasing it further. Daphne, my 7 lb chihuahua begins to approach the chicken and quickly decides this is not a fight she's going to win and comes back to me.
So, now I have the chicken in my fenced-in back yard. It obviously flew a little bit to get into the yard (I'm not sure how it would get in otherwise. I chihuahua-proofed it when I got Daphne, so there aren't any holes in the fenceline.) So it will probably be able to get out, but here it is, on my property, I wonder...did I just acquire a chicken?
A few hours later I heard a commotion and saw the chicken out front again, it was still just picking through my front yard. The neighborhood cat was laying on the other side of the street, apparently having given up its futile hunt. I watched the chicken for a few more minutes, went inside and didn't see it again the rest of the day.
I had thought the saga over but there was one last coda to this tale. Later in the afternoon, I had a knock at the door. A family was walking the neighborhood and they asked if I had seen three chickens. When I informed them that I had only seen one, they seemed distraught and left my house to continue looking for their lost chickens.
In my mind I thought...there were 3?! Were they on a grand adventure? How did the others get separated? Would they find each other again? Would this have a happy ending! And...I just don't know. It's been a day and I haven't seen or heard them.
They mystery remains in the case of the visiting chicken.