Cat-and-Mouse With a Chicken...

This morning my husband and I went to breakfast, three different stores for birthday gifts, and then the post office. We left our little house in the pouring rain at 7 am, and we finally dragged ourselves home at 1 pm. As we approached the back door with armfuls of grocery bags, we could hear the dog inside jumping up and down. Not a good sign. As we opened the door he came racing out, running toward the back yard while knocking me over. I got my tired body up and quickly followed him. Two chickens had escaped while we were gone. One was just eating tomatoes in the garden, while the other one was in my neighbors yard!!! I was so tired from all the shopping, but off I raced. I grabbed the Koi fish pond net to help me and I ran into my neighbor's back yard. I am in this neighbor's yard a lot because I help with his fruit tree irrigation, so it wasn't a big deal to run into his yard, but...when the chicken took flight, YES, TOOK FLIGHT, into the next neighbors yard I was stunned. I have NEVER had any of my chickens fly that far before!!! Oh from time to time they will get the "grass is greener" inclinations and hop a six-foot fence and fly down, but not like this. This was flight like an airplane. It was amazing, and for a brief moment I could almost hear angels singing and distant trumpets playing praise as she flew over the barbed-wire fence covered in beautiful ripe purple grapes.

 

After spending about five minutes unsuccessfully knocking on the door of the house that my chicken was now hiding in the back yard of, I gave up and just went into their yard. The hen was hiding in a patch so thick of poky bushes, grapes, and over-grown pine trees, I feared I may never get her out. I would come within five inches of her and she would bolt either right or left. I would then proceed to dislodge the pine tree sap from my hair and remove my now purple jeans from the barbed wire fence to go in at a different angle. We played cat-and-mouse for a good twenty minutes before I started calling for my hubby to come help. By this time my glasses were steamy and I couldn't see, I was dripping wet from grape juice, mud, sap, rain, and chicken poop!!! It took Todd and I another fifteen minutes to catch the damn bird. I am afraid my converse shoes my be purple forever, a haircut may also be needed and I just noticed on the grocery list my husband has added what looks like enough chicken wire request to put a cover on the chicken run...or should I say chicken runway!