Dear Kid,
A hawk in the neighborhood ate one of the chickens.
I can’t believe I just wrote that sentence. People who know me can’t believe I just wrote that sentence.
Even the hawk can’t believe I just wrote that sentence and he or she was in on the deed.
The dead chicken does believe it because A) she’s dead and B) chickens are very gullible creatures.
To be clear, it wasn’t our chicken because we don’t own live poultry. (And the only dead poultry we own come cleaned and packaged from the grocery store.)
But the very idea that I live in a neighborhood where hawks nest and hunt and chickens roam sufficiently free that they become raptor prey is very…what’s the word…um…
Basically, there are no words.
I am not a chicken farmer.
I’m not even a chicken farmer wannabe.
I like the idea of fresh eggs. I think.
Maybe I like the idea of liking the idea of fresh eggs.
I like the idea of meeting an occasional chicken. “Hello, how are you? Can I offer you a handful of grain? So nice to meet you but my very un-farmlike shoes and I have to be going now.”
I have no problem with the hawk chowing down on the chicken (although I’m sure the ex-chicken’s owners objected). Circle of life and all that.
And I rather like that we have a family of hawks living around the corner and screaming at everything. It gives me a sense of nature (even if I worry a bit about the Puppy becoming the lunch entrée one of these days).
I don’t object to the chickens in the neighborhood—I’ve never even met them. Dad tells me they are there. Dad is better at getting to know the people in the neighborhood than I am (apparently he’s better at meeting their livestock as well). I think I’d like to meet a chicken.
Someday.
I wonder what shoes one wears to meet a chicken?
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