KittyAnne, A Night Alone

I wasn’t hopeful when Jon and I got home after seeing Visiting Mr. Green at the Old Castle Theater in Bennington last night and there were only three chickens in the coop.

It was after 10 pm and very dark out.  Jon and I got flashlights and went looking in all the places where the chicks usually spend their resting time, the places where a chicken might roost for the night if she wasn’t in the coop.

She wasn’t in the barn where I found both chicks the night before.  And if she was roosting in the lilacs, we didn’t see her.  Since Kitty and Anne are always together, I was pretty certain something happened to her.  That a hawk or a fox had gotten her.

This is why we don’t usually name our chickens I thought sadly.

Jon was more optimistic, and I remembered a hen we had once at old Bedlam Farm that roosted in the barn at night and I was never able to discover where she was.

I wasn’t sure which chick was missing, I can only tell them apart when they’re together.  But by the time we went to bed, I had resolved to call the surviving chick KittyAnne since I didn’t know which she was.

I woke up early thinking about the chick and imagining  I was hearing her little peep outside my window.  But I knew it was birds and frogs I was hearing. So I willed myself to sleep a little more, giving the chick time to wake up before going outside to see if she’d show up.

At 6:30 I fed the cats and dogs, and on my way to let the chickens out of the coop, there was Kitty or Anne (I’m still not sure who it was), walking around like she hadn’t just spent the night alone for the first time in her life.

The three chickens jumped out of the roost and followed me to the porch, hoping to score some cat food. All four chickens followed me as I walked to the barn clucking happily, and tossed out handfuls of mealworms for them to breakfast on.