Squawking at the Bar.

Somewhere between Sunset and evening Star I lost a hen.
My favorite renegade, Pearl, always the straggler and non conformist, the one I could count on to be away from the flock, looking for other places to go about 3 times out of 9 when everyone else was bathing together or browsing in a group.
Pearl was also the most curious hen, she was the one who would come over by herself and stand around beaming fowl thoughts in my direction, standing on open window sills or getting herself stranded on the porch.

She was the littlest of the original hens, but she let the new girls know she meant business if they thought they could move ahead in the pecking order.  She was the hen who figured out that she could be an Alpha girl in the Beta group.  

It's pointless to keep chickens and be sentimental about them if you live in the woods.  I knew from the beginning that I was going to have to share these chickens with the indigenous Sanctuary dwellers, the fishers, the foxes and the hawks.  I don't know who got her, but I will be grateful for what information about the nature of chickens she graced me with, and hope that her life has gone to support  some owlets or litter of foxes or even brood of baby fisher cats.  It is also possible [though not very likely, more like the kind of story you tell your 5 year old] that she took her independence one step further and is off on a grand adventure.  I hope she can come back as a raven and really use those wings for something.