This Gang of Chickens

My father bought six Arcana chickens last week on a whim.

My parents don't live on a farm, they don't even live in a rural area. They live in a suburban neighborhood outside of Seattle, and now they own chickens.

The chickens live in a shed in the backyard. They seem pretty content in the garden eating whatever it is they find living in the grass and admiring themselves in the hubcaps of my parent's caravan. However, once in a while they escape. Or, as my seven year old daughter pronounces it, "es copey".

As I was driving back from the grocery store the other day, I saw them outside the yard. They walked on the sidewalk like a gang of short people with feathers. They looked as if they should be wearing little red bandannas. So far they have always managed to make it back home, and will stand outside the gate until one of us lets them in.

Last night they tried to make it home but somehow ended up in the wrong yard, a fully fenced one in which they could not find their way out. My father called in the house instructing me to help him with the chickens. I came out and he asked where my coat was, as if wearing a coat was standard uniform for chicken catching. I told him it was 70 degrees, I didn't need a coat. "Your funeral" he said pointing to the blackberry bushes that lined the fence between our yard and the neighbors.

My dad, armed with a coat, hat and broom, broke into the neighbor's yard. I was instructed to guard the hole at the end of the fence. He would flush them out with a broom, I was to grab them and throw them over the fence into our yard.

The chickens, however, were not the least bit intimidated by the broom, but excited to see my dad out side of the yard and went running to him. I could not see my father over the blackberry bramble, but could see chickens being tossed, one by one over the fence.

Our neighbor came over to our house about a half hour later. She had just returned home after seeing "Disturbia", glanced out her window to see a strange man wearing a wide brimmed hat and carrying a broom, throwing chickens over a fence, and had a major panic attack.

People ask me why we move so much, this is why.