chicken little

We had an interesting visitor the other night.

We were sitting on our back deck eating dinner and we noticed that one of the neighbors' young chickens were headed our direction. We live in an area where the lots are about 1.5 or 2 acres each, and the neighbors always raise about 8 or 9 chickens each year. They wander past their borders every now and then, and we don't really mind because it gives us something to talk about and look at (and apparently blog about). This particular chicken wandered quite a way from it's borders and into our yard, over to the decks and was walking around down under the decks.

Shawn went down the steps and decided to see how friendly the little gal was. He went up to it and tried to touch it and it came up to him and let him pet it. I know... who pets a chicken?

The next thing you know, he tried to pick it up. I figured for sure the thing was going to squawk and run off...but to my surprise, it let him pick it up.

He sat with it for a while, his little pet chicken. He put it down on the stairs and then walked up the stairs, you know...thinking it would go away. I didn't realize chickens could climb stairs, but apparently they can. I mean, well, when I think about it, I don't know why they wouldn't be able to. They can cross roads, why not climb deck stairs?

He leaned down at some point or sat down by it... then, suddenly.... it jumped up from his arm to his belly, and onto his head and sat and perched on top of his head. I think he wasn't sure what to do so he just let it sit there. I was dying laughing.... seeing my husband with this chicken on his head.

We laughed so hard... then after a while, we decided he'd better take the chicken back to it's home so he carried it over and put it in it's yard and slipped away.

He came back to the deck and we were talking.... and we looked over and out of the shadows, this little chicken came. It came into our yard, under the deck, across the patio, up the stairs, onto the deck, over to Shawn... and jumped back up onto his belly and onto his shoulder and sat down. It. Was. Hilarious. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Did this chicken seriously just do that?

I was beginning to think he would bring it in the house and give it some lemonade and begin some kind of chicken relationship with the little thing.... but he came to his senses and realized he needed to figure out a way to get this thing back home.

So, he took it back over the the neighbors... and their boat was uncovered. He gently placed it in the boat so it couldn't hop out very easily and come back again, feeling a little guilty about trapping the thing in the boat. But, we never saw it again, so it must have worked.