"Lay, Lady, Lay" or The Chicken Dilemma

Mystery Chicken - Henry? Henrietta?

For some reason, a Bob Dylan song has been running through my head all day; the one that begins,  “Lay, lady, Lay”. Maybe it has something to do with the chicken that has adopted our getaway home in the woods and the dilemma that this poses for us.

You see, a week ago yesterday we drove over to mow the lawn and found this chicken hanging around the yard. He/she was afraid of us but clearly was used to humans. Where did “it” come from? Why had it adopted this particular house that is so far from the road and on the edge of a vast woods? How long had it been there, and how had it managed to survive all the predators in the woods?

As we left, we checked the neighbor’s yards along the road but didn’t see any evidence of chickens or chicken coops and fully expected that the chicken would be gone when we returned for the weekend on Friday. Wrong! He/she greeted us not long after we pulled in and unloaded the car. Over the next two days it gradually became less wary and let us get closer and closer. In fact, it was very curious about our car and kept checking it out. That makes us wonder. Did someone dump it off “out in the country” like so many morons do with cats and dogs? And was it hoping our car would take it home?

I managed to snap some decent pictures of him/her (there is disagreement among my chicken raising friends as to what sex it is) and hope to do a painting in the near future. But, now we’re wondering what to do about this chicken who has adopted us. Should we feed it? Provide some sort of shelter for it? Capture it and rehome it?

I’m not too keen on the latter since neither of us has any experience with chickens. Perhaps I’ll consult our vets to see what they suggest. Or, we could call Animal Control, if there is such a thing in that oh so remote county. 

I had planned to do some plein air artwork over the weekend, but the weather was so abysmal that I stayed inside and went through old art magazines instead. It was cold, rainy and very dreary, but I enjoyed the luxury of having the time to read articles and cut them out to save. I’m only about five years behind in reading my magazines, you see.

flower bed, June 2011

Much of my time lately has been spent in gardening, and the yard is really looking nice this year, thanks to all the rain and cool weather we’ve been having. The new plants that were put in last year are really filling up the new flower beds, and some have already begun to bloom.  It makes all the hard work of the past few years finally seem worth it.

I will share more in future posts as the summer progresses. But, that’s all for now.