Chicken Scare -

Shall I tell you the tale of my latest sleepless-in-Seattle adventure for the week?

-last Sunday, the chickens accidentally got locked *out* of their coop at night rather than locked in. I didn't realize they were out until my daughter let our big black lab out around 10:30pm and he started racing around and barking and we heard great squawking as a result. We quickly got Jack back inside and I went out to round up the chickens. They'd been asleep, so they were kind of slow and loopy - Pearl staggered in. I caught Jasper sitting on the fence and put her in, but we couldn't find Jet anywhere.

I looked over the fence into the neighbor's yard with a flashlight, but didn't see her. I was afraid maybe Jack had caught and hurt her. We put his leash on and took him out because I figured if she *was* in the backyard, he would find her. She wasn't. We tried walking down the street a bit, but Jack was no help at that point. It was too late at night to knock on any one's door to ask to poke around in their backyard, so I reluctantly went to bed sans chicken. I hardly slept for worry - it was pouring rain, and there are raccoons out there (and they decimate chickens when they are unprotected...)(stupid chicken)(stupid me - for not being able to sleep over a chicken).

I finally got out of bed when it was light enough to see. Pearl and Jasper were up and 'calling out' and much to my relief I could hear Jet calling back. She was indeed in the neighbor's backyard calmly scratching away underneath their bushes. Since it had been pouring, the gate to their backyard was swollen and I couldn't open it. It was too early to knock on their door, but luckily my husband was working from home, so he got the gate open for me. It took me a bit chasing that darn chicken around their backyard - trying to be quiet so that I didn't wake the neighbors up while I tromping around outside of their bedroom window! Ed finally came in and helped block so that I could corner Jet and put her back in the coop, no worse for wear that I could see for her night out... *sigh*

We're a couple of weeks into November. Many of the leaves have fallen, but my blueberries are still startlingly vibrant -

-and if you look closely, you may even find a few lingering berries. All the sweeter for the lateness of the season...