We are enjoying our chickens so much. They have finally started laying regularly so we are bringing in eggs every day. The kids love going out and finding eggs.

We’ve even got a few they are sitting on and hopefully we’ll have baby chicks in a few weeks.

The dogs, of course, are dying for a taste of fresh chicken. They circle the cage when we are out there in a frenzy of excitement.

Sadly, we lost a pet this week. Our beloved Leroy was accidentally run over by my husband. He suffered a bit on Sunday while we debated our options. A weekend trip to the vet, shoot him, or let him suffer till Monday. It looked like only his back leg was broken and it didn’t seem bad enough to shoot him. Then I found a vet open so we took him in. At first it seemed like good news. His leg wasn’t even broken, just badly twisted and his ligaments were torn. He would need some stitches and some leg care. They would keep him overnight.

But the next day we got a call that he had died unexpectedly. Even the vet was shocked.

We loved our Leroy, and I don’t even really like cats. He tolerated our dogs so well. Letting them drag him around by the neck so often that he occasionally was missing all his fur around his neck.

But that’s always the problem with having pets. You love them and then they die.

We should be used to it by now, but we’re not.

Hank the Cowdog tried to warn us. Dogs love chicken. My kids love to listen to those cds at night in bed and I think they sort of secretly hoped our dogs would be like Hank, defender and protector of chickens. Now with that bit of foreshadowing out of the way, let me tell you about our chickens.

We love to let our chickens out a little while each day and watch them scratch around in the yard. They are so funny the way they act. They all have little chicken personalities. We got our rooster first and have had him quite a while so he knows he’s boss. The brown hens arrived only 2 weeks ago but they act like that rooster is their king and always has been.

This little hen/rooster hatched out in winter and had to be raised inside. Our friends gave them to us to raise him/her and so she has been in the house until recently. So, she is the friendliest. She is also the most antisocial with the other chickens. She’s timid and she gets picked on a lot. Especially by Delilah. She is one of the brown hens who has a bit of a mean streak. We also saw the rooster pick her up by the neck and shake her a few times. Which solved the mystery of why she had such a scrawny looking neck.

Which is why this morning I decided to put Peepers, our fancy, delicate black and white chick, in a pen by herself. I put her in the old rooster pen. I got her all set up, content that she would have some time to mature and learn to defend herself before we put her back with the rowdy crowd. I watched her a while as she adapted to her new space, fed her and then went inside. We had a dentist appointment to get to so I started getting ready.

If any mother out there is able to take care of basic hygiene as well as fix hair and put on makeup on a daily basis, please send me your tips and tricks. Anytime I ever make an attempt to do things like take a shower, put on make up, blow dry my hair, I am always interrupted by some epic tragedy.

Which is why when I heard screaming followed by howling today, I did not immediately drop my curling iron and run. I had not finished counting to ten yet on that one curl. But when my son opened the back door and yelled, “MAMA!” It had been a compete 10 seconds so I reluctantly left my curling iron and half done hair to sort out the problem.

The kids, the dogs and distress greeted me in the back yard. Peepers had frantically escaped the pen when my daughter let our dogs out and now her head was in one dog’s mouth and her body in another’s.

For once it was a true epic tragedy, and not just some fight over the hairbrush.

Amid the howling, crying and consoling, I knew we only had a few minutes to mourn before we had to get on the road to the dentist. In spite of our loss, the schedule had to go on.