Things continue to go well with the little chickens and the big chickens, and yesterday was the first day they let themselves out of the garden area. It was cute, but it did result in another chicken emergency phone call from T.
I was at dinner in Woodland with some folks I used to work with when my phone rang. It was home. I stepped outside and answered to hear T. breathing heavily on the other end. "When are you coming home?" he asked.
I said, "I don't know. What's up?"
"Do you think it will be before dark?" Now, I have to say that my first response was to ask whether he was worried about vampires, but I didn't because I could imagine he wouldn't find that nearly as amusing as I did. That turned out to be a good choice.
"Probably. Why?"
"Because all four of the chickens are out and they're running all over the yard and they won't go back inside." If you think about it, that's a pretty funny picture...four chickens of varying sizes taking evasive maneuvers in the backyard while a full grown adult chases them back and forth. The only thing missing is carnival music
"All four are out? Oh, that's great! The little ones are finally getting big enough to hang out with the big ones." As it turned out, that wasn't really the right thing to say either.
"Yeah, well, it's not so cute right now. I'm leaving them out and if they get eaten because it gets dark..." The implication was clear. My failure to return home before dark would certainly doom the chickens to a frightening and painful death and I would have no one to blame but myself. The sunshine (and fresh eggs) would depart from our lives, and it would all be because I was eating sushi and yukking it up with my friends in Woodland.
Ordinarily, I might have taken the bait and pointed out that human beings have been raising chickens for thousands of years so perhaps the wrong technique had been used. In fact, wouldn't it be worse if the chickens were savaged by a wild beast while someone was home who had just given up on making them safe, thereby assuming complete responsibility for loss of life and limb. The thing is, I still had sushi to eat, so I had to take full responsibility for the impending disaster.
"OK," I said, "I'll make sure I get home early enough to get them in before the chicken vampires come out." I just couldn't let the vampire thing go, plus I had to get in a little something. Overall, a very satisfying finish to the conversation. And anyway, it was still early and it's almost May in NorCal. It wasn't going to get dark until 7:50.
"OK. See you when you get home."
There are a couple different ways this story has a happy ending. First, there was still sushi left, and I got to eat it. Second, when I got home, T. had already managed to get #2 and #3 in. Only the little ones were out, and they were pretty easy to get put away. Finally, and perhaps best for all concerned, nobody was eaten or pulled limb from limb by night creatures.
In other news, I've been meaning to link to a couple things for a while so here they are. I spend a lot of time on a highly addictive trivia quiz site called Sporcle.com. These particular quizzes are in keeping with the blog theme, so I thought I'd give folks a shot at them. The first one is a sort of chicken geography quiz. This one is even more egg-citing!
