January 12, 2007
Escapee chicken
This morning I went out to feed my leghorns and one had gotten out of the pen. It's amazing to me that chickens always want to get out, but once they're out they can't wait to get back into the hen yard they just left.
Today's escape was typical. The first thing that I noticed was something had been scratching at the base of the pen's fence on the outside. Then I saw the hen trying to figure out why all the other girls were on the wrong side of the fence. Hens never seem to understand that they are out of the yard, they think that all the other birds suddenly are on the wrong side of their fencing. Of course the hen ran away in circles around the hen yard until I finally went and got my big fishing net to catch her and put her back in with the other girls.
Like that hen, sometimes I feel like I'm perpetually in the wrong place. At work I wish I was home, at home I feel like I should be working. At night I can't sleep when I think of all the things I've left undone, in the morning I don't want to get up because I think of all the things I have to do.
It's not clear to me exactly what side of the fence I'm on or why I'm rushing to get back into my hen yard. My single hardest thing to do is to slow down, do one thing well and then go on to the next thing and do that one thing well too.
One thing at a time, done well. Sounds good to me.