Last night I was clipping the babies' wings again, since one of them had flown out right in front of me in the afternoon. I had to wait until night because they are way too fast to catch, and it was too hot to chase them anyway. So this time, instead of disconnecting the igloo section from the cage, I took scissors and flashlight and crawled into the coop right behind them. The structure they sleep in is 3' square and 2' high - it was a tight fit, not to mention a very dirty one. I was dragging them out one by one to trim feathers, talking to them and telling them alternately to shut up and it was really for their own good and what pretty chickens they were. I heard voices and thought someone was visiting the next door neighbors. But then I heard someone say, "There she is!" Now who the heck was that, walking into my now pitch-black back yard, poking into the light shining out from under the blue tarp? Could NOT recognize the voice. Then, in a hurt tone, I heard, "It's your daughter!" So long since I heard from her I couldn't even recognize her voice. Now they can go home and tell everybody how they found her aging mother in the dark in the back yard in a tiny wire box literally knee-deep in chicken poop and talking to the poultry.
