What follows is compiled from my whimsical Facebook postings that began in the middle of February. It started when I was trying to figure out which of my chickens is not laying eggs. That chicken’s days were numbered, since we aren’t keeping chickens as pets. This scrutiny seemed to inspire a rash of intense egg production! That inspired me to turn this into a women’s prison drama, starring our three hens: Lucy, Ethel, and Gloria. my aged chihuahua, Plato has a guest spot. I will keep archiving the story here as it progresses.
In a starling new development, one of Ethel’s eggs was found to be pecked open and eaten! Crime scene analysis discovered that the egg had not been merely dropped on a hard surface when it was laid. There was a large hole that had been obviously pecked! Not only that, but Ethel had laid her last TWO eggs under the roosting area, and not in the nesting boxes. Why was Ethel concealing her eggs? Was she also concealing her crimes? Or did she feel threatened by her cell mates, Lucy and Gloria? Lucy’s attorney, Legal Eagle, released a statement. “This investigation should be dropped. It was an unfertilized egg, making this a misdemeanor. The imposition of a meaningless trial could cause stress on the whole flock that reduces overall egg production.”
Was Lucy smart to lawyer up and try to get ahead of this investigation? Does it make her look guilty? And is Gloria just an innocent bystander, or a jealous hen trying to cause friction between Lucy and Ethel? Stay tuned!
THIS JUST IN: At 2pm, at Chiefland Chicken Correctional, eggs laid by 2 different hens were found to have been concealed in the back of the coop. As they were being recovered, the warden discovered that one of them had been savagely pecked open and consumed! This comes only 24 hours after Legal Eagle, attorney for Lucy, had persuaded the warden to drop the investigation into the last egg assault. That investigation will now resume.
The warden made this stayement: “If this social contagion continues, and more eggs are destroyed, we may need some new chickens. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go clean my grill.”
Gloria, whose egg was laid in the nesting box, made this statement: “I’m innocent! I lay my eggs where they belong! There is no yolk on my beak!”
Why did Lucy join Ethel in this egg concealment conspiracy? Why was her egg NOT PECKED OPEN? They are both taking the fifth, even though chickens are not protected by the Constitution. Stay tuned!
Keep up with past episodes of the Chicken Chronicles http://donaldmarsh.com/chicken-chronicles/
In an attempt to outsmart a chicken, the intrepid warden at Chiefland Chicken Correctional installed a ramp in the back of the coop. Lucy and Ethel had laid their eggs back there, so now the eggs will roll down the ramp, out of harm’s way! Brilliant! After four days, no eggs have rolled down the ramp. And one day there were three eggs in the nesting box! No eggs have been pecked open since the ramp was installed. But a therapist in coming in this week to get to the bottom of those fowl crimes! Stay tuned!
The warden separated Ethel from Lucy and Gloria, chasing her around the back of the human habitat. Suddenly, she found herself face to face with Legal Eagle.
“Bawk! What are you doing here? I thought I was being sent to the therapist!”
“A therapist will just sympathize with your delusions about being a rooster. This is AN INTERVENTION!”
Suddenly, Ethel saw that she was surrounded by Chicken Little, Cheryl Crow, and Jack Sparrow! They all looked a bit cross. Ethel began to tremble.
Little was the first to speak.”Ethel, we, the members of the Bird Brain Trust, believe you have lost your way. Because you are in close contact with humans, you are becoming infected with the sin nature. Humans are always falling prey to stupid ideas. It comes from having too many of them. And remember, sin did not enter the world through us, but through THEM.”
“Sometimes, I just don’t feel like a bird,” Ethel lamented.
“Ya got wings, dontcha?” Jack chirped.
“Yes, but I can’t fly. They’ve been clipped!”
“So what? So now you’re a donkey? Snap out of it!” Cheryl crowed.
“That’s right,” said the eagle. “No amount of surgery will make you anything other than a hen. No rooster ever laid an egg. And eating them does not change that.”
“So knock it off!” Little scolded. “Lay eggs. Eat bugs. Be happy!”
Ethel sighed. “I know you’re right. I guess I needed to hear that.”
Suddenly, the other birds took flight, leaving Ethel alone. She put her head down, pecked and ate a beetle, and headed back to the coop.
Will Ethel get on with being a hen and find contentment? Will she be able to give up her peckish ways? Stay tuned!
Keep up with past episodes of the Chicken Chronicles http://donaldmarsh.com/chicken-chronicles/
In a surprising development, the warden at Chiefland Chicken Correctional discovered that the chickens have begun their own garden! He wasn’t sure what those plants were up against the chicken run, and at first he thought they were growing cannabis. Inmates in other prisons have been known to do this sort of thing, so the warden got excited that this might be a new profit center for his prison. But, upon closer evaluation, he discovered these are actually tomato plants!
“I wonder if this has anything to do with their recent counseling appointment,” said the warden. “At any rate, this will be a nice addition to the egg production. Of course, I’m going to have to fence these plants off so that the chickens do not begin eating the fruit of it themselves.”
Lucy was close enough to hear the warden, and she was outraged! “It just doesn’t pay to be resourceful around here! We turn his kitchen scraps into a garden, and all we are going to get for our trouble is more scraps!”
Do the chickens have other enterprises going on in the yard? Have they made contact with outsiders, or had they planned on consuming these tomatoes for themselves? Stay tuned!
Today, at Chiefland Chicken Correctional, the warden got a grim reminder of why these psycho birds are not allowed to roam free among us. When he went out to the coop to feed the inmates, he saw that his egg-rescue device had saved an egg that Ethel attempted to hide in the back of the coop. When he checked for more, he saw a silhouette of a second egg. After removing the chicken wire cover and reaching up for the egg, he discovered that it had been savagely destroyed! Was this intended to be a double yolk disaster? Are Lucy and Ethel conspirators? Are a couple of mad hens about to be written out of the show? Stay tuned!
Lucy, Ethel and Gloria huddled together to discuss the latest prison scuttlebutt, and it was bad news for Ethel.
“The warden thinks you are the one that’s destroying the eggs!” Lucy clucked, “and you are headed for the stew pot! It’s all over the Feather Underground!”
“Those liars! They’re a bunch of conspiracy theorists! Who told you that?” Ethel squawked in disgust.
“A little bird told us,” Gloria peeped.
“I want a name!” Ethel glowered as she got in Gloria’s crop.
“It was Tim Robin! He said you’re a Dead Chicken Walking!” Gloria suddenly pooped.
“That radical retread! He comes south to make trouble every year! He’s a moron!” Ethel was furious!
Lucy tried to calm them down. “Whether he is or not, we have to change the narrative here. We might want to get the word out that Gloria is bitter about the way we treated her when she was little, and now she is trying to frame Ethel.”
“Bawk!!” Gloria took another dump. “Thanks for nuthin!”
“I’m not saying we should frame you,” Lucy patiently explained. “We need to create uncertainty. If he is not sure, he will be hesitant about killing the wrong suspect. After all, he still wants eggs for breakfast.”
Will Lucy’s scheme work? Can Gloria trust the Mean Girls to not put the blame on her? Stay tuned!
Keep up with past episodes of the Chicken Chronicles http://donaldmarsh.com/chicken-chronicles/
After the warden at Chiefland Chicken Correctional had repotted three of the tomato plants that sprouted next to the chicken run, Lucy and Ethel embarked on a campaign of denuding the rest!
“They’re ours! That tyrant can’t have em!” Ethel crowed through a mouthful of leaves. Lucy had no comment, clipping and devouring branches at an industrial pace.
“Enjoy it while it lasts!” the warden snarled, while twirling his mustache. “I’ll be getting more pots and potting soil today! I’m gonna dig em all up and let em grow back, and I’ll sell them to your fans!”
The warden had hired a consultant from the Bird Brain Trust, a seagull named Jonathan Livingston. He suggested turning the chickens from inmates to sharecroppers. “Leave them a couple of plants so they will keep cultivating new ones for you. And start bagging their poop and selling to gardeners who want the fertilizer without the headache of owning these traitors.” Then Jonathan stole the warden’s French fries and flew away. The warden had to admire that move.
Will the chickens be able to thwart the warden’s plot to exploit them for maximum profit? Could this be what finally causes them to plan an escape? And just how much would you pay for a zip lock bag of chicken poop? Stay tuned!
Keep up with past episodes of the Chicken Chronicles http://donaldmarsh.com/chicken-chronicles/
The warden at Chiefland Chicken Correctional wrote in his diary:
“There’s something going on with these chickens. They are constantly up to something. Sometimes they seem to exhibit an almost human intelligence. And sometimes they are breathtakingly stupid, which is also human. I think they are trying to communicate with me, and they would if they had a human int7erface. So far, they seem to be communicating with other bird species. They have other birds that come to visit them. It’s as if they are planning something.”
A fluttering on his window sill startled him. It was a pigeon! And it had a note fastened to its leg. “The human interface,” he gasped.
He slowly went outside and approached the pigeon cautiously. It was very still as he gently untied a string no bird could have tied. He unrolled the note and his eyes grew wide as he read it.”
A few yards away, Lucy sidled up to Ethel and said, “I think the warden is losing his marbles. He’s talking to a pigeon.”
“So what?” Ethel said through a mouthful of tomato plant, “He talks to us!”
“He thinks the pigeon is talking back.”
“Well that’s just great! He was just getting manageable!”
Is Avian Intelligence becoming self aware? Is there a human mastermind behind it? Is Chiefland, Florida ground zero for the coming Hitchcock Apocalypse? Stay tuned!
Late in the afternoon, Lucy ran across the yard to Ethel and Gloria. Ethel turned a beady eye to Lucy and demanded, “What’s so urgent?”
“The warden tied a note onto the pigeon, and it flew away.”
“So?” Ethel turned back to the serious work of digging up mole crickets.
“Aren’t you even a little bit curious about who he’s communicating with and what it’s about?”
“Not really,” Ethel sighed. “He talks to the other birds, and we hear about it.”
“That’s because the birds are our kin, and they look out for us. But this note means he is operating out of our network. The pigeon is helping the warden keep secrets.”
That made Ethel stop and look up. Gloria finally chimed in, “Maybe he’s getting chicks and he’s gonna turn us into meat birds!” Then she shuddered and pooped.
Ethel was finally alert. “I guess it would be a good idea to find out, but how? We can’t catch the pigeon and make it talk.”
“We can make somebody talk,” Lucy said with an aggressive tone. The guard may know. He’s in the house almost all day. He’s pretty tight with the warden. And he doesn’t have any teeth!
Ethel nodded and agreed. “Let’s get him!”
How will they make officer Plato talk? Can he talk to the birds? And does he even know anything? Stay tuned!
The warden opened the door and Plato went prancing down the ramp and into the yard. After sniffing around in the grass he found the perfect place to relieve himself and got in the squat. He blinked once and suddenly there was a crazed chicken in his face!
“Do you mind?” Plato grumbled.
“We have to talk, mutt!” Ethel leaned in, beak first. Lucy and Gloria raced up behind him. So Plato broke to the right and made a dash for a bush that was next to the ramp. If he could get behind the bush and come out the other side he could run up the ramp and be home free! Unfortunately, once behind the bush, Lucy cut off his escape. He was trapped and surrounded!
“What do you bird brains want of me?” Plato was both scared and angry.
“What’s the warden telling that pigeon? They’re passing notes right under your nose!” Lucy leaned in while Ethel came up the back in pecking range. Gloria was the lookout.
Plato sputtered, “You dodo birds!! I’m the warden! That man works for me! What do I care about what he does on his free time?”
“What??” Lucy and Ethel squawked in unison.
“You never see me doing any work, do you? He is my manservant, and his wife snuggles with me when he’s off running errands. Scandalous, I know, but that’s the aristocratic life I live.” Plato wiggled his eyebrows mischievously.
“BAWK!!” Gloria just noticed the warden rapidly closing in on the hens. They scattered just in time, and the warden pulled Plato out from behind the bush, scooped him up and carried him up the ramp. Plato stuck his tongue out at his tormentors.
The chickens reconvened by the tomato plants. “Do you think he’s lying?” Ethel asked?
“I’m not sure, Lucy replied. “If he’s not, he’s a crazy old man with delusions of grandeur.”
“But,” Gloria interrupted, “what if he’s crazy AND in charge?”
Lucy sighed and said, “We need advice. It’s time to call Legal Eagle. Let’s go to the nesting boxes and crank out his fee.”
“WHAT!!” Gloria gaped at them in horror.
Ethel leaned close to her and whispered. “You didn’t hear that.” And Gloria pooped.
Will the chickens be able to get a straight answer out of their attorney? Can he get the pigeon to talk? Stay tuned!
Keep up with past episodes of the Chicken Chronicles http://donaldmarsh.com/chicken-chronicles/
Gloria ran breathlessly to the other hens and announced, “Eagle is back!” Then she turned and ran behind the house.
Lucy paused and said, “Eagle? That’s pretty familiar.” Ethel just took off saying, “C’mon!”
When they got to the shady back side of the house, Gloria and Legal Eagle were waiting, and the big bird wasted no time. “I found the pigeon. He was leaving the home of a certain parakeet who gathers human intelligence from the bottom of his cage. He’s a reliable informant to the Feather Underground. The pigeon had an interesting piece of newsprint tied to his leg.”
“How did you get it?” Ethel queried.
“How do you think? I swooped in and grasped him with my talons in mid air! Then I brought him to earth!”
“Oh my!” Gloria fanned herself and looked dizzy. Lucy and Ethel glanced at one another.
“So,” Ethel resumed, “what did the note say?”
“No words. Just this photo.” Legal Eagle unrolled the tattered paper on the ground. It was the warden, posing with a giant chicken! Lucy and Ethel just gaped with their beaks wide open.
“What does this mean?!” Lucy demanded. “Did the pigeon have an explanation?” The Eagle looked away. “I’m afraid I got carried away and ate him.”
Ethel squawked, “YOU ATE THE WITNESS??” WHAT KIND OF LAWYER ARE YOU??”
“A hungry one, as it turned out. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to depose a blue jay.” And with that, he flew away.
Lucy was immediately in Gloria’s face, “what are you and the Eagle cooking up?” Gloria pooped. “You don’t seem to be surprised at any of this!”
Gloria gathered up her courage and calmly told the hens, “Eagle is going to take we away with him and out of this toxic workplace!”
“AND EAT YOU!” Ethel crowed. “That pigeon was just an appetizer, you fool!”
“No!” Gloria shook as she replied, “he cares for me!” Lucy and Ethel knew that it was time for another intervention.
Can the hens keep Gloria out of Eagle’s talons? Who is the big chicken that is in the picture with the warden? Stay tuned!
Continued on http://donaldmarsh.com/chicken-chronicles/chicken-chronicles-2/…