Chicken

    I draw the line at dead chickens. 
    While I was out this morning, someone left a couple dead chickens in a cardboard box inside the perimeter fence next to John’s back porch.  I discovered them when I went over to his house late in the afternoon to pick up some printing.

    Perhaps I should explain. 

    Evidently, a friend of John’s sometimes drops off dead chickens for his cougars.  But John and Mom won’t be home until late tonight—they left after supper yesterday to drive down to friend Steve’s place near Mount Rainier to pick up more cougar caging.  So I was left with feeding Precious Fluffy Butt (John’s house cat) and Worf (John’s African jungle cat, who is house-cat size and totally tame and timid).  Note that I do not have to feed the cougars and bobcats.  When John is gone, they fast.

    I really didn’t think that Worf, who eats out on the back porch, would bother the chickens.  After all, he is very old and doesn’t have a full set of teeth.  Naturally, I was wrong.

    It could be worse.  All Worf did was to remove one chicken and deposit it on the ground near the box that still has the other dead chicken and a nice fat brown slug in it.  Momentarily, I considered using a shovel to move the chicken back into the box, so I could carry the box over to John’s basement freezer where he keeps the cat food.

    However, then I noticed Radio, our mutt who is part coyote, nosing around near the fence.  If I carried the box of chickens around to the basement door, Radio would surely steal them from me.  She’s very quick and really likes feathered chickens.  The other option would be to carry the box of chickens through John’s house to the basement, which somehow seems unsanitary.  Plus, it wouldn’t be polite to carry whole chickens past a hungry cougar.  (Talina’s indoor caging is right there in the living room next to the stairs.)

    So, I simply left the chickens where they were after I let Worf back into John’s house.  I feel a little guilty about leaving them there, but not guilty enough to venture out in the rain and the dark to move them.  Sorry, John.  I’m chicken about dead chickens.