Seriously…

I don’t know how far it is from our house to Tucker and Carol’s place; I’m not good with distances. Suffice it to say that it’s across the road, around the corner, and more than halfway to the schoolhouse – a respectable walk for a chicken. But, apparently the word is out among the feathered population of Oysterville: birdseed every morning at the Wachsmuth place!

So it was that yesterday morning Nyel got a call from Tucker that our chickens were over in their backyard! We have been aware that our girls have recently discovered a way to squeeze under the picket fence in one or two areas and that they have been quick to take advantage of this new-found knowledge. Usually, they stick to the flowerbeds just beyond the fence, although I have suspected that they’ve taken the occasional foray across to the church. But all the way to Tucker and Carol’s?  That’s a long walk for short legs.

Crossing the Road

It might be one of those ‘while the cat’s away’ deals, as neither Nyel nor I were home when Tucker called Nyel’s cell to notify him that the girls were on the prowl (or the move or whatever chickens are on) but Nyel was subbing at the high school at that moment and couldn’t be of help. Later we learned that the girls were, indeed, pecking around the bird-feeding area. Tucker tried to herd them home with a rake but they were having none of it! Carol to the rescue, leading them home with a trail of birdseed!

That reminds me of an old family story about a pig that got loose and somehow wandered into our house while my grandmother was preparing for a dinner party. Willard told the story this way:

Heading for greener grass?

…having arranged the setting to her satisfaction, she left for a moment to replenish the wood in the kitchen stove. On her return, she heard the table grunting, and saw it pitching like a dinghy in a storm; with each tilt, dishes slid to port or starboard, and glasses splintered on the floor. A hog was happily rubbing its back against the table’s underside. Mama beat the rear of the beast with a broomstick, but it went on contentedly scratching. Fortunately, Medora, then aged ten, knew better than her mother how to handle a hog; she ran for a bucket of swill and waved it before the creature’s nose. Eagerly grunting, it followed her back to the sty from which it had escaped.

Our girls seem to have gone hog-wild (so to speak) with the “free-range” concept. We’ll have to work on that…