Cooped up!

My husband has chuckled each time he has walked by me for the last hour or so. Why?

I just spent 30 minutes locked in the chicken coop.

No, don't read that again... for real, no exaggerating, I was trapped in the coop for at least 20 minutes with 9 of our chickens and the free rooster.

We had dinner with some friends tonight, and it was too early to put up the chickens when we left home. My chicken tutor assured me that when it gets dark, chickens will go into their coop. Thinking we wouldn't be too late getting home, we left the door open and planned to lock them up when we got back. No sweat, right?

Well, Scott went to "just shut the coop door" while I put the kids to bed. He still wasn't back in the house after everyone was in bed, so I went out to check on him. The chickens had all decided to roost on some lumber behind their coop, and he had carried them all into the coop except the rooster. I helped him herd Chanticleer into the coop, and Scott said, "Well, I think that's all of them." Worried about predators, I went inside to do a bedtime head count. I kept coming up one short.

Our flashlight was dying. OF COURSE it was... If you only knew about all of the flashlight troubles we have at our house... keeping a working flashlight is almost as difficult as making sure all of the socks have matches coming out of the dryer! (But that's another story...)

Scott headed back to the house to find some new batteries while I stayed to hunt around with the equivalent of a taper candle. Before he was even in the house, I realized that we had a powerful shop light and an extension cord coming from the house. Feeling quite self-satisfied, I took my glaring light into the coop to count again, just to make sure I hadn't missed anyone.

Click.

The door closed right behind me. This usually wouldn't be a big deal... chickens don't have opposable thumbs, and they wouldn't normally need to open the door to their coop from the inside. However, it meant I was trapped! Yes, trapped in a quite smallish space with a rooster and 9 chickens. Yes, there were definitely only 9... I had plenty of time to count!

I gave them some food, petted a few of them, picked one or two up... I was even wishing for that toenail polish... and finally I started wondering, "Where in the WORLD has my husband gone?"

I knew he was on the other end of the house, but I thought maybe the girls would hear me through their window. I began yelling for help, but I kept on laughing... both at my predicament and at the degree to which I was stirring up the chickens every time I hollered! Finally, he returned... both very impressed that I had a light and quite tickled at my location.

We found our missing chicken, restored her to her flock, and headed home. Sheepishly, Scott admitted that he had become quite sidetracked inside and was in no hurry to get back out there... I am glad he didn't forget altogether!