The Great Chicken Round Up

It all begins innocently enough. Your tiny, peeping balls of fluff arrive in a box at your post office one day, you raise them up and a couple years later you call your friend (the Desperate Horsewife) to tell her you've got a few too many layers, and would she like some?

And your friend (the Desperate Horsewife) comes with an old dog crate lined with soft hay to transport her new hens home, dreaming of those golden, farm fresh eggs.

The new hens are placed into their awaiting coop; otherwise known as the old sheep shed with the dog kennel door firmly attached. They spend their first week there, eating, sleeping and drinking, getting to know that this is now home, before the door is opened into their new world. Once out, the feathered ladies go straight to work, scratching and pecking about in the dirt in search of tasty insects. Finding none, they make their way to the patio behind the house, which aggravates the City Boy living inside said house.

"Get those birds off my patio! They're pooping all over the place," he grumbles.

So the Desperate Horsewife, along with her Darling daughter, slip into their boots (never mind that they're in shorts and would look a bit strange to anyone not familiar with Farm Diva fashion) and head outside in an effort to shoo the hens back towards their home.

Hens don't shoo well. They do cackle loudly and run blindly, however. Are you familiar with the term, 'running around like a chicken with it's head cut off?' Trust me, it's not a compliment! These girls darted when they should have dashed, scooting instead of scatting, and nearly caused an accident at one point as a passerby was so slack jawed by the sight of the Farm Divas chasing chickens that he nearly went off the road.

The dust was flying when Steven T. Cat (the T stands for the) meandered out to see what the fuss was all about. Certain he was capable of doing a better job than the humans involved, Steve slipped out of his 'assistant mustang trainer' hat and into his 'Head Chicken Wrangler' role and began to chase the hens around the barn yard. In Steve's mind, he was a lion after the kill.

Now Darling and the Desperate Horsewife forgot about rustling up chickens and instead began chasing after cats, for by now Steve's brother, Bob, had joined the fun. Kicking up feathers as well as dust, the two cats, two farm divas and five hens must have been quite a sight. The cats eventually captured, Darling packed one under each arm back to the house as the Desperate Horsewife finally coaxed her hens with some feed back into their home.

Covered in sweat, dirt, and a feather sticking out of her curly hair, one has to wonder if farm fresh eggs will be worth all this trouble.