the cost of complacency

quite a few months ago our three chickens took to roosting on the waist high boundary fence between us and our nice neighbours at no. 16.  they seemed quite comfortable up there, snuggled alongside each other.  they never went over the fence into the neighbours, possibly because of the couple of metres drop between our ground level and theirs on the boundary.  (nasty retaining wall that will have to come down in the future.)  seeing as the chookens (as percy and i affectionately call them) were happy to make their own nite time arrangements, and because it’s much easier to stay indoors on cold, wet, windy winter evenings, rather than tromp down in the dark to catch and stuff them in the coop, we left them to it.

chickens like to roost up as high as they can, gives them a sense of safety.  not for ours as it turned out.

one evening last week paul tore past the bedroom door calling “petra, wake up!”  i was on my feet and into the kids room, scanning for danger and calamity in seconds.  quite a few seconds later my brain lumbered off the pillow, crossed the corridor, climbed like a wet rag up my jamie bottoms, rested on my shoulder to catch it’s breath and then wheezed its way into my ear hole and plunked down in its usual spot on my brain stem with some grumbles and more wheezes.  it was only at this time that i realised the kids were soundly, safely asleep and paul had bolted out the back door.  i quickly followed him, colliding at the door where he asked me “do you hear that?”  yes, i did, and for just the smallest of split seconds i thought our not so nice neighbours daughter had taken up where the son had left off and was screaming blue murder.  yes, i’m an awful person.  of course it was not a person, it was a chicken, calling it’s death throes to the unconcerned nite at 2:30am. 

grabbing the torch I leave handy for checking on the kids at nite we tumbled down the back stairs and ran across to the coop and fence roost.  nothing to be seen, except one dazed chook who did not like being grabbed and rammed into the coop.  the other two?  no feathers, no blood, no incriminating evidence at all.  we didn’t spend a long time at that early morning hour searching and those of you that know our back yard will sympathise that a 3 metre plunge into a tangled jungle is not likely to be fun in your jimmy-jams and ill-fitting wellie boots.

 we gave up and returned to our beds.  temporarily at least.  within five minutes paul turned to me and asked “do you think anyone could have come into the house while we were outside?” no, I didn’t think it likely at all.  to get in our back door you have to come down a yucky bumpy driveway, open or leap over a country gate and then up the steps, or down the other side of the house which is even worse and climb or tear down the chicken wire fence on that side.  parents being parents, this was not good enough… paul got up and checked all the rooms and the kids cupboard to find no possible assailant.  parents being parents this still wasn’t good enough… i couldn’t sleep, now having the seed planted that my kids were in danger.  i eventually said to paul, “sorry, i can’t stay, i’m going to sleep with percy” (one good thing about your four year old having a double bed.)  so i spent the remainder of the nite, dozing non-restfully in my daughter’s bed prepared to defend her and her brother from the crazed chicken man that was still lurking, undetected because i was too fumble-headed to look, under her bed.

 

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