My Chicken

Speaking of my chicken I think I just heard her sqwawk like she was being attacked and when I opened the door she was gone and my gate was open. I hope somebody didn’t steal her. That would be mean.

That night: As I was sitting on my porch, talking with Crazy, Ousmane II and Alpha Conakry, relating my early morning fears (hadn’t heard from Meryl all day and she had not tried to come home even though it was an hour or two past the time she had been coming home), Crazy said, “Hey, Meryl!” And pointed at the gate. Sure enough she was up there preening. I hastily took Yogi inside and put him in the bedroom but before I was even able to walk back out on the porch she was coming to the door and my friends were calling, “stay there! She’s coming in!” But I had to open the screen door so that’s what I did and then she just marched inside, way easier than any of the past ten days. I was amazed and grateful that my chicken came back. I mean, she’s just a chicken. And she poops A LOT…but she’s my chicken. She’s part of the family. Just like Jimminy (the cricket who lives by the door and sings every night) and Barry, the dog who’s about Yogi’s age that comes by to play (read: hump) every couple of days, and the mouse (forgot what I named her but saw her the other night! And this morning at 5am she knocked over a pot and scared the daylights out of me as I was dreaming about eating pizza [now plotting to kill mouse for pizza offense]). One time a frog squeezed under one of the locked rooms’ doors and there have been a fair amount of lizards who have found their way in but I don’t name them because I typically only see them once.

Which brings me to my other houseguest, the suspected bushrat! So one time when I went out to my latrine there was a GIANT rat out there who scurried up the palm frond enclosure and paused at the top, it’s foot-and-a-half-long tail trailing over the side. He only left when I threw a rock at him. Then there were peculiar animal droppings near the corner of my enclosure, which had been broken by termites and strong wind (yay for rain!). It’s not super broken, Yogi hasn’t even tried to get out that way, but something smaller than Yogi could get in and out. Like a giant rat.

He keeps leaving droppings that look like black beans right in the spot where I bathe and yesterday when I was fixing to go out there I opened the door and heard a scuffle, Yogi ran out and apparently just sniffed him and then he hurried around the enclosure. At the time I was too scared to jump out there like Yogi but kicked myself for a long time afterward for not getting a glimpse of the animal who had just left a fresh pile of droppings in my shower area.

I am going to give him an unpleasant name because I dont like him.