Hop Along Helen

The Journal of an Abused Chicken, Kamas Valley, Utah 9/22-24/21 to

9/22

Bob and I came back into town, up on the high bench below the Uintah Mountains. Deb was sitting on the brick patio eating a grilled cheese for dinner. Next to her was a a black and white flannel hen with peck marks in her back from being raped by roosters. This hen was in a wagon, clacking at us questioningly.

Deb said, “Bob, I had to bring her out. Six other hens were trying to kill her and she was hiding under the box. She's only got the one leg and couldn't defender herself.”

Bob said, “Poor thing. She hasn't been laying since she got hurt and I haven't had the heart to kill her. It's easy to kill those nasty roosters. But she was a good hen. She's dead for sure in the coop. I'll give her a taste of freedom and we'll see how long she lasts—death by dog most likely.”

Bob fed her a tomato and and leftover vegetables and we headed inside for dinner.

I will come back to this file each day and complete Hop Along Helen's journal.

9/23

Helen was nowhere to be found. Bob said, 'I think the big bad wolf got 'er. Used to be a dog that ran at night was shot and people kept them home. You can't raise sheep and chickens with dogs running at night. But the way of the Rich Man is here, no respect for anything with these coastal people moving in. We'll make the coop bigger. You know, I don't have the heart to kill these old layin' hens anymore. But, there are no feathers. So if she got et, it wasn't here.”

Helen's biographer checked the grounds in the morning and the evening and found no feathers and no one-legged chicken. He did here a chicken noise though, whether carrying on the wind from the pen of indicating that Helen was good and well hid.

9/24

Another search for hop Along Helen revealed no feathers or remains and suggested, in Bob's mind, a raccoon who, “take their kills off and stash them, then come back and feed.”

So goes the shortest biography of my writing career.