A Not-So-Dumb Cluck! (Tuesday, Jan. 11)

When we got home from our travels this afternoon, Gypsy was by herself at the bottom of the driveway.  We parked at the house and went off to feed the animals.  I fed the chickens and turned on their light for the night.  Only Wren, Victoria and Esmerelda were at the chicken coop waiting to eat.  (The "little" chickens are being confined inside the brooder house for a couple weeks until Chickadee gets over being wild and making the others go wild with her.)  On my way back to the house, I saw Gypsy walking along, feathers ruffled by the rising wind, still a way from the coop.  "Go on home, Gypsy!" I told her as I headed inside.

A few minutes later I happened to look out the front door, and there was Gypsy!  Far from continuing on her way to the coop, she had back-tracked and come around to the front of the house.  I opened the door, thinking I would actually let her in out of the wind, but she hurried away down the porch.  So I bundled into my rubber boots, coat and gloves, and  went out the back door looking for her.  We met up near the back door, and she was struggling to walk in the strongly gusting wind.  She looked tired and disoriented, so I started calling her, "Here, Gypsy!  Chick-chick-chick-chick-chicken!"  As I walked toward the barn, she followed me at a distance, staggering in the wind.

Finally, halfway along the side of the hay barn (still quite a way from the coop), Gypsy came to a halt and just stood in the snow without moving.  Despite my calls, she continued to stand still.  All my chickens are skittish, so I approached her cautiously.  Closer and closer I came--and still she just stood there.  Finally, I reached out and picked her up, hugged her to me, and started to walk.  She sat quietly in my arms as I trudged through deep snow all the way to the coop.  I petted her cold feathers for a minute before I set her down by the food, and she began to eat voraciously.  Of course, Victoria appeared from nowhere and tried to chase Gypsy away from the food, but I chased her instead--and all the while Gypsy kept pecking away.  Finally she seemed to have had enough so I went into the house.  When Herb went out later to shut the coop, he checked to be sure Gypsy was inside.  Sure enough, there were all four chickens safe and sound on their perches.

Our conclusion was that Gypsy wandered so far from the house in the cold and snow that she was too tired, hungry and weak to get all the way back to the coop as darkness fell, the temperature dropped, and the icy wind blew in.  So she came to the house looking for me, and when she couldn't walk any farther, she waited for me to carry her home.  I was deeply touched that Gypsy wanted me to help her and thankful that I saw her when she came looking for help.  May we, with the trust of a "dumb cluck," look to our Master to help us through the rough times of life and bring us safely Home.