The Accidental Chicken

Growing up in a wooded area led to many adventures.  Forts, trails, stealing eggs from the neighbors hen coop.  It was all so fun and even felt a bit magical at the time.  Nothing compared to the delight I felt when I would find a little injured creature, like a bird.  I thought it was my duty to nurse the said creature back to health, where it would then show its gratitude by being my new best friend.  

 Yes, that was me a little bit.

When I found the poor bird, because it was normally a bird, I would bring it in the house, much to my mother's displeasure.  First, my mother hates birds.  Second, gross.  I would find a shoe box and place the poor dear in it, along with some toilet paper (for a bed), a piece of bread (to eat, obvi), and a small cup of water (to swim.  Just kidding, to drink, duh).

We'd place it in the back bathroom that no one really used.  And I'd visit it.  Often.  Obsessively.  

In the morning it was always the same: a cold, stiff, dead bird and my broken child-heart.

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The other morning Brendan let me lounge in bed until 8.  I padded down the stairs and immediately looked out of our front door window.  There was a chicken there, in the yard across the street. A lost chicken.  A chicken that obviously needed help because it was loose. That little girl inside me?  She awakened.  

I watched it for a moment before Brendan noticed an evil, black, cat stalking the chicken. 

Well, I wasn't going to let that tragedy happen, so I ran outside in my red and yellow socks, black and gray polka dot pj bottoms, and a gray and blue striped sweatshirt, looking good as always.  Luckily, no one else was out. (Or unfortunately for them! Ahem).

I ran across the street and tried to shoo away the cat and catch the chicken.  The cat melted my heart, it was so sweet.  The chicken ran away.  I went home, but I couldn't stop looking out the window.

I kept watch through out the morning.  At one point I watched as the chicken crossed the street (without looking both ways, I might add) to our side.  I ran out, thinking it was looking for me.  It wasn't.  It ran away.  I ran after it.  Still in the above described outfit.  Finally, after several minutes of herding the chicken, I tricked it into coming into our yard.  And then I shut the door of our white picket fence. It kind of sounded like an iron door closing.  Welcome home, chicken.

I then obsessively watched the chicken from window to window as it explored our yard.  Brixton was interested for a minute, but I was a little bit too invested.  I opened all the blinds half way so I could keep an eye on my new friend.

We went to church, then I decided it was time to find the chicken's real home.  I found a neighbor, who pointed me in the direction of another neighbor who was rumored to have chickens.  

I walked.  I knocked.  A guy sporting 1988 metal hair came out.  "Do you have chickens?" I asked.  "Yeah." He said.  "I've got one of them in my yard right now."  

He brought a rake.  The chicken left, squawking and running away from him.

I thought my chicken days were over.  Until that evening when Brendan came inside and said, "Kelley, your chicken's back."  Indeed, a mother and daughter found the chicken trying to crawl under our fence.  That's right!  She wanted to come back to me! She liked us!  

I named her Coco.

For two days and two nights Coco lived with us.  She slept in the garage and enjoyed her days in our yard, chasing bugs, sitting in the bushes and standing at our glass door, staring at us in an almost unsettling kind of way.  

The second morning, I went out to sprinkle some bird seed for her.  As I finished up tossing it I noticed a man and a woman standing on the sidewalk to my right.  The man had a rake, the woman a net.  

Guess her owners finally missed her.

After explaining I knew they'd come back for her and we'd just been watching out for her in the interim, the owners came in the yard to get her.

"Come here, Coco."  I called.

Yes, I called a chicken.  A chicken that didn't even belong to me.  I realized all this in about 1.3 seconds.  Feeling red in the face and a bit like a chicken thief, I had to explain I named their chicken, you know, the one I wasn't planning on keeping..??

Coco left that day to provide eggs for other people.  People with metal hair and wispy fairy skirts.  People who let their chicken stay outside for over 48 hours without coming to look for her.  People who clearly don't name their chickens.  

I miss you, Coco.