Hen House

Cackle cackle cackle..... Who doesn't love a good chicken?  I've always wanted to have chickens in my yard.  I have a nice yard that could be a terrific host to  a really pretty chicken coop and some beautiful chickens.  I would love to watch them roam the yard.  I would love to hear their soft clucks, watch them scratching here and there, enjoy their eggs.  Alas, we live in the woods where there are lions and tigers and bears.  Those chickens wouldn't last a week.  And that would make me sad.  I'm very lucky that I have friends who do raise chickens and I'm the happy recipient of a dozen eggs every week!  They're so gorgeous - shades of brown, blue and white.  I can stare at them for the longest time and appreciate their natural beauty.  And are they ever yummy!!! 
My dad's family were dairy farmers.  And because they were dairy farmers, they didn't waste their land or energy just milking cows; they had all sorts of livestock, including chickens.  But when I was a little girl, they were the "dreaded chickens."  Way back in olden times, when I was a little girl, every time we visited our grandparents, my job was to go to the dreaded chicken house and gather eggs.  Oh geeeeeez, how I despised that job, but I would do anything my grandmother asked me to do because I loved her so much.  I would obediently walk outside, take the path to the dreaded chicken house and stand outside and feel out the lay of the land.  I could only hope the dreaded chickens would be outside the house, in the yard, but it seems they never were.  They hated me.  Every time I had to visit the chicken house, those rotten chickens were always inside the house and I knew what they were doing.  They had probably been in there for the past half hour, laughing their rotten heads off (which they were eventually going to lose anyway), planning exactly how they would lure me in by appearing uninterested in me, and then jump on me and peck me to death!  That's what happened every time I went to the dreaded chicken house.  As I became hip to their behavior, I started a new pattern.  I would stealth up to the chicken house, then start humming softly.  I would slowly hum my way into the house, and begin singing softly, "Sweet little chicken, I'm going to steal your eggs, but you don't know what I'm singing, so you won't peck my hand or arm today."  I would continue singing softly, gathering eggs in the basket, taking one from this nest, two from another next and BAM!!!!!  PECK!!!  Damn chicken!!!!!  Grrrrrrrr..... Try to be nice and get mangled by a chicken!  I know there's a life lesson in there, and it took me a while to learn it.  I hope you can dodge the chickens pecking at you.