The evil chickens have LEFT the building!

HOORAH! Woot-Woot-Woot!  Yesterday I happily boxed up Satan’s Minions our chickens for transport to their new home! (Oh allllll riiiiight. So I didn’t really help. I supervised, didn’t I?)

Begone, winged beasts! Oh pestilent poultry! Fowl land mine leavers most foul!  I command you to LEAVE THIS PLACE!  *Walks the yard holding a cross at arms length, swinging an incense orb in her other hand.

I. am. so. HAPPY!

For those just tuning in, I have a real thing about chickens. Their beady eyes, flappy wings and terrifyingly bold nature freak me OUT. Me noooo likey. I’ll spare the regular readers, but do a search for “evil chickens” in here and you’ll have reading material up the yazoo.

I was especially happy to see them leave after I spooked them by accident –with a plastic bag of all things– and one of them flew up in my face and hit me hard enough to bend my glasses. In. My. Face. In-my-FACE.

IN MY FACE!!!

*Waves goodbye while giddily breathing into a paper bag.

The absolute last, final word: Alektorophobics, you are NOT Alone!

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Day 146 of Chicken Hell.

(Not really, I just made that up.)

The evil peepers have infiltrated our routine as faux family members. Daily they’re brought food, water, hay and fresh straw. I see them out there, clucking around the yard in what appears to be normal barnyard behavior.

They think they have me fooled.

I know that a chicken’s brain is the size of a pea. This brings me no comfort as that’s one honker of a microchip. Have no idea what their armament capabilities might be. Hidden arsenal of WMD’s suspected.

Military training exercises apparent. Yesterday I watched them ice skate down their ramp from a strategic position. One after another. They did not fly, slip or falter down the icy slope into a confused heap. Oh no, one by one they struck a pose and SKATED. Once they reached the bottom, they laughed (laughed, I say!), fluttered back up into Hell’s Henhouse and repeated the exercise.

Deployment may be imminent.

Using a high-end Codex, I deciphered some of the encrypted cackling in their native tongue:

“Dude! Watch this gnarly tube..” 

“Pffft! That ain’t nothin’. Lookit, I can bunny hop the rail!”

“RADICAL! Seriously sick!”

Intentions unknown at this time. Will continue covert op to stockpile weapons and observe enemy movements.

End transmission.

Chapter IX: The Evil Chickens have LEFT the Building!

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Parenting Pressures -or- Yet another useless chicken post.

It is a proven scientific fact that some animals eat their young when they turn into mouthy adolescents. In the wild kingdom, formerly cute and cuddly baby critters turn into gollum-like creatures once the horror-mones kick in.

Not that my children are like that.

Take evil chickens for example. Yes, I know you’re probably sick of hearing about them, but with Hell’s Henhouse in my backyard it’s REALLY hard to get them off my mind. So bear with me, ok?

Do not be fooled by the fluffy exterior. Inside lurks the mind of an evil dictator.

Evil chickens begin their days as adorable peeping fluff balls suitable for any Easter basket.  (That is, if you don’t mind salmonella-bearing feces mixed among the Cadbury eggs.) But they don’t stay little and cute, oh no. They grow. They lose their cuddly appearance and turn into gangly, bad tempered, moody beasts.

Again, not referring to my children, you understand.

Worried chicken Moms try and try. They make them say “Please” and “Thank you” at the water dish. They show them how to earn a respectable living scratching for earthworms in the dirt. They teach them not to fear the inferior beings that present them with daily fresh food and water, and to assert themselves by scaring the bejeezus out of the the big one at every opportunity.

And still they rebel.

Chicken-Moms worry. Oh yes they do! They worry their lessons will go unheeded and their baby peepers might become chicken gangstas. What if they get a little older and stay out all night or grow weed(s) out back of the garage? In every neighborhood, there’s always a few bad eggs–please don’t let them be mine! And that’s why we……er……they fret so much. 

This could be the outcome.

This is all YOUR fault, Mom!

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Fern tried to kill me today.

She cut me. She cut me good.

<fade to black>

It’s day 56 of the Chicken Apocalypse, and I’ve formed an uneasy alliance with the Hens from Hades. Namely, I feed them treats and they don’t try to suck out my soul when I approach their pen. So far it seems to be working, as they’ve gotten much fatter and my soul is still intact.

Or so it seems.

Today I walked past their pen to get to the shed. As usual, they followed me the full length of their prison yard, eyeballing me the whole way. To ease their suspicions and diffuse a potentially dangerous situation, I took a leap of faith and put down the baseball bat.

They clucked their approval, and the two fat ones by the door put their lead pipes on the ground–but still close at wing.

Slowly, I reached for one of the ferns growing on the edge of our yard.

The chickens began to cackle with excitement and flutter about in their pen. After eating high dollar, perfectly balanced mash, oyster shell and hay all day, free and plentiful fern fronds are their favorite treat. Grabbing a handful, I yanked hard to break the thick stalks.

AYIII CARUMBA!!!! (and a few other Spanish words I can’t spell.)

One of the fern stalks sliced my hand wide open. Would never have believed it if I hadn’t done it m’self. It’s a PLANT, for pete’s sake!

I could see I was gonna live without stitches, but wanted to clean and bandage my hand. I dropped the ferns and walked to the house with the evil peepers trailing behind. They followed along the edge of their fence, clucking in disgust that I’d teased them with treats but didn’t deliver.

I think our fragile alliance is broken. 

I left the bat outside too, dammit, and the smell of blood in the air. I’m not going out there without backup, I can tell you that. Maybe I’ll make my daughter walk out in front of me like a shield. With any luck, they’ll eat the little one and leave me the hell alone. 

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Do you see? DO YOU SEE??

                 Wasn’t a Dingo that ate that baby!

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So there I was…

We lock the evil chickens in Hell’s Henhouse at night to keep predators from finding them finger lickin’ good. Every morning, the girls let them out so they have the run of a large pen all day. It’s like a dog run but for chickens. A chicken run. (BAhahahaha! I kill me!)

We’ve had 9 chickens for about 2 months now, and I can finally enter their pen without hyperventilating.  So this morning, when our children slept in, silly me thought Hey…I’ll let the chickens out so the kids can relax this morning.

I thought I could do it. Really, I did. 

Half asleep, coffee cup in hand, I traipsed outside in my jammies to the chicken pen. All I had to do was open their door, secure the run gate and go back into the house. Easy peasy nice-n-squeezie. Or not.

The evil little bastards knew I was coming.

I know they did, because they did not saunter out at a leisurely pace like they do every morning for the kids. Oh no, I opened up that door and those beasts all flew at me at once–squawking and flapping and gnashing their teeth! (Do chickens have teeth? They must…I swear these things had fangs.) I had a flashback to childhood, where a rat in the henhouse + a screaming Kelly led to the same performance–except this time I was trapped inside the pen.

As they flew at me I shrieked and backed up to the fence, my favorite coffee cup sailing through the air. Flying at me like feathered vampires apparently wasn’t enough, because then they surrounded me! Pinned up against the fence, trapped by Satan’s evil horde all hopping up and down and ferociously flapping their wings, I detected an odd sound. At first I thought it was chickens chanting, “Kill the old bat! Kill the old bat!”  but then I realized the guttural sound gaining momentum was coming from me. Without even realizing it, I was pleading, “Don’t do that! Don’t do that! Oh please don’t do that!”  

Loudly.

–And then just like that, they lost interest and wandered away.

I stood there almost in tears over my own stupidity. Picked up my coffee cup and bruised ego and hightailed it out of the pen wondering if the neighbors were laughing hysterically behind their blinds, of if the kids were watching through the window. I know I was a ridiculous sight.

Funny yes, and Funny no.

I know it’s stupid.  I see the humor now, but early this morning I felt like I was going to have a heart attack. No, really–take whatever irrational fear you might possess and multiply it by 9.

See what I mean?

(sigh) The human psyche is a weird, weird thing.

Chapter VII: Day 146 of Chicken Hell

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The evil peepers hatch yet another plot

The evil chickens are still residing in our backyard. They’ve shed their fluffball disguises and grown into half feathered, half alligator skin Gollum-like creatures with beaks. They killed off 3 of their own before we put marbles in their pen. It seems they like shiny things, and are willing to commit poultrycide to get them.

My Precioussss…

We haven’t found a horribly mangled body in weeks, so I think we’re in the clear. It seems the Evil Menace get bored and require entertainment. Straw piles to dismantle, feed strewn about, and a mean game of marbles every once in awhile. They want you to think it’s a harmless child’s game, but they’re more like thugs on the corner strong-arming tourists into 3-card Monte. Plotting bastards.

Yesterday, I found a soft pear in the refrigerator. Thinking it might entertain them a short while, I tossed it into their pen. They like a variety of fruit, but turned up their beaks at the pear. Perhaps it was too ripe for their delicate little palettes, which are accustomed to things like perfectly balanced feed, hay, fresh grass and–oh, I don’t know–the still-warm flesh of fellow poultry dumb enough not to sleep with one eye open. Then again, they may have already begun constructing a diabolical plan yet to come.

At dusk, our girls went outside to put Satan’s Minions in for the night. While trying to shoo a wayward beast toward Hell’s Henhouse, Pup stepped backward onto the pear. Horrified, she immediately closed her eyes, lifted her foot and asked Ems, “Did I kill it? Is it dead?” 

Recognizing a prime opportunity to mess with her sister’s head, our youngest took on a tone of mourning. “Oh no. I think you killed it. It’s not moving.” Pup was devastated  until she opened her eyes to a gooey pear. –Then she was so relieved she forgot to be mad at her little sister.

Creamed chicken, anyone?

Chapter VII (The Saga CONTINUES!):  So There I Was

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Just one more and then I’m done.

Yesterday we moved Satan’s Poultry to their permanent home — a former playhouse that our kids have outgrown now serves at their Evil Lair. Complete with nesting boxes (aka: incubators for unholy clones) and more insulation than we have on our house, (the better to keep the evil minions warm. It’s very, very hot in Hell you know), they’ve moved in and made it their own.

The change of venue started out smoothly enough. Once the fencing was complete, I even volunteered to put bedding in the coop while my family headed for the garage to retreive the giant box of feathery wickedness. My husband was so excited the fencing was up that he lost his brains completely. Seriously, if you find them –I’ll pay cash money.

As I was standing inside the back of the henhouse filling nesting boxes with bedding, Dh and the kids began putting the little Bastards peepers just inside the door so they’d ‘know it was home.’ Uh huh. All I know is I turned around in this little walk-in-closet-sized building to discover there were about 8 chickens standing between me and the only exit.

Ho Shee-ot.

I sucked all the oxygen out of Hell’s henhouse toot sweet. Dh glanced up at me, 2 more birds in hand, and suddenly realized his tactical mistake. He began removing poultry as fast as he was able and putting it back in the giant box. I couldn’t get out fast enough. I may have even vaulted over the fence–I can’t be sure. The important thing is I’m OUT, they’re IN, and I’ll never have to set foot in that thing again.

HOO-RAH!

Chapter VI:  The Evil Peepers Hatch Yet Another Plot

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Evil Chicken Update

It’s Day 6 of Chicken Hell. I know this, because I have 6 scratch marks on the wall next to my bed.

The evil beasts are still residing in my house, as we’re expecting snow today and it’s still far too cold for them to be outside. I’ve moved them into the main part of the house, mainly out of fear that they’d boobytrap our bedroom. Also, the bedroom was beginning to smell like a barnyard, and the makers of Febreeze don’t have a cover-up for that. Somebody tell their marketing department they’re missing the whole ‘chickens in the bedroom’ market segment–I’m sure they’ll want to know.

Now that Satan’s profane poultry are out in the open, with any luck the cat will eat them. (I wish. Thus far, he remains terrified and gives the box wide berth. Lousy cat.)

The chicks are growing rapidly and getting in their wing feathers. This means they not only flap about <shiver!>  but they’re also starting to lift off. Oh yes–for just a brief second, at least 2 of them know how to get off the ground.

BOOGETY.

If even one of the evil chicken hoarde gets out of that box, I’m kicking them all out toot sweet. I’ll buy them each an electric blanket and they can fend for themselves in the garage. Do you remember the scene from Ice Age with the dodo birds? I can just picture all 12 of these things chasing me down the hallway shouting, “Doom on YOU! DOOM ON YOU!” <oh heebie-jeebies, heebie-jeebies, heebie-jeebies!>

In a valiant attempt to placate his nerked out, chicken obsessing wife, my husband bought me a Slurpee. It was not enough. For this kind of stress I need chocolate and lots of it.

He’d better come home with Willie Wonka or I’m filing for divorce.

Chapter V: Just One More and then I’m Done  (Or not)

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A Day in the Life of Satan’s Spawn

As most of you know, I have a thing about birds. Not a ‘gee I don’t like them much’ thing, but a ‘Shall I faint or throw up first?’ thing. When my husband decided to raise chickens, you can imagine my joy. Before you read further, I suggest you read the backstory. It’ll give you much more insight into what I’m about to say. Go ahead, I’ll wait right here. <starts humming the theme song from Jeopardy>

Now that we’re all up to speed, let me just say that the Devil’s Fluffy Minions have been here for three days while my husband’s been out of town on business. He. Owes. Me. They are living in my bedroom where I cannot see them or hear them peep. I’ve locked the door and keep a stun gun on my person and a 2×4 in the hallway in case they gnaw their way out. The kids go in and out with food and water, and so far they’ve come out alive.

Here we have Satan’s Spawn pretending to be gentle critters doing normal critter things. But we know better, don’t we. They’re plotting, I can feel it.

This is their temporary holding cell until my husband (who owes me more than he can possibly imagine by this point. I’m talking Mercedes…or at least a damn fine Slurpee) …until my husband puts up the triple layer of chicken fencing and razor wire he promised. And maybe field mines. Yeah, a couple of claymores would would be good, too.

We live in a small house. Our bedroom is the only place they’re safe from both cat and kids. Unfortunately our bedroom is small. Note the proximity of these evil beasts to our bed:

 

MmmmmHmmmm.  I’ve been sleeping on the couch. There is NO WAY those peeping bastards are coming near me while I sleep. Oh look, they’re practicing the ‘Smother Kelly’ position now.

Our kids have fallen under an evil chicken spell. They have no idea the danger they’re in. They pick up those squishy winged rats and love every second of it. <boogety!> “Wash your hands!” I yell across the room, “Scrub up to your armpits with soap! In fact, just take a whole shower–climb in with your clothes on and don’t come out until half that bottle of body wash is gone!”

 My husband so OWES me for this!

Chapter IV:  Evil Chicken Update

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