Raccoons

Raccoons are not cute.

When I was twelve, I used to lay in my bed at night and listen to the neighborhood raccoons dig through our trash and tip over the cans.  The clanging woke me up every time.  Sometimes I saw their sinister eyes glinting in the darkness and it didn't help when one of the posse bit off my cat's ear.  She looked permanently lopsided and she was never allowed outside at night again.

Fast forward thirty- two years.  I am living in Bozeman, Montana and I have taken a fancy to chickens.  I'm allergic to cats and Lollipop is just a memory with her orange fur and half-eaten ear.  The baby chicks for sale at Murdoch's have tempted me and Peter and Griffin start drawing up plans for a coop of our own.

We consult magazines and websites like Backyard Chicken, and for Griffin, Design Within Reach, while considering a plan. When Peter and Griffin design our chicken coop, they take the threat of predators into consideration.  It seems safe but to find out if a coop is safe it has to be tested.

Spring and summer are uneventful.  The hens waddle around happily going about their business.  Then on a morning in September the hens look spooked and I find a decapitated chicken in the corner of the run, against the fence.  It was Bronco, my friendliest chicken with her crooked feet.  A rancher had thrown her in for free after we bought five chickens from him.  Bronco layed lots of eggs and even some double yolks.  Bronco was a great hen.

I didn't see the problem and the next night I lost two more hens.  Then I saw that the back lock of the coop had been ripped off and was useless.  I wish I had known but now I was down to two hens and I didn't have the heart to keep them.  A neighbor of mine with a safer coop adopted them and we wrapped Pearl and Flo in old towels and drove them to their new home.

Many people who knew better told me not to name my hens.  "They are just farm animals," said the woman who sold me chicken feed. "You can't get attached to them," she added.

But I did grow attached to them.  They not only had names but distinct personalities and they were a source of entertainment.  Molly, one of the Buff Orpingtons, used to follow me around and try to come into the house at every opportunity.  If we left a window open she would sneak in and roost on the window sill,  She once marched in and roosted on the toilet.

It has been five months since I had chickens and frankly, I miss them.   I think I should give the chicken experiment another try.