The other neighbor complained.  Renters.

At first, he thought the chickens were ours.  So in the driveway he pulls, in the company truck, no less, as we were just getting back from a nice lunch.

“Are those your chickens?”, he says.  He is a burly and rather large. man.  I get the idea the seat has a permanent dent and the springs are singing.  “My wife hates those chickens.”, he says out the window.   “They are shitt’in all over the place.”

“Nope”, my husband says, “not ours”  

Never mind the fact that one of those chickens, despite the obvious affection previously demonstrated for my beloved, had the nerve to , well, shit on his tractor seat.  His beloved tractor-defaced.  There are some rules that just should not be broken when it comes to tractors and chickens.  But even then, he liked having the hens coo and cluck behind him as he wandered.  Men.

“Well,” Mr. Burly says( he never bothered to introduced himself), “I just might have one for Thanksgiving if they don’t stop shitt’in all over our yard.  “Free range my ass.”

My daughter is laughing at this point.  No doubt the use of “shit” and “ass” got her going.

With that, burly man is out the drive way and onto the neighbors.  The ones who own the chickens. 

And then, no more chickens.  No more mornings with the hens.  No more free ranging from here to there, a scratching and a clawing at bugs. The dance is done.  Cooped up for good.  Huddled together, red feather to red feather. Nipped beak to nipped beak.

And we always thought it would  be the raccoons and coyotes to get to them first.