The Missing Chicken

Every day I open the chicken pen and let the chickens out to roam.  When out of the pen they are able to find a more varied diet than the chicken feed which stays in the feeder inside the pen.  Chickens scratch and find bugs and stuff to eat in the dirt.  If a moth flies too near, a rather passive looking chicken can suddenly break into a neck stretching run which makes any race horse envious.  They are part of the farmer's entertainment package.   

When the sun gets close to going down and darkness is near, they instinctively waddle back to the safety of the chicken house inside the chicken pen.  Like the Biblical shepherd who counted his hundred sheep coming back to the fold, I noticed one of the five missing the other night when I went out to shut the gate to the pen.  I gave my best chicken call, but all to no avail.  She has been gone a day now which seems to say some predator found her while she was roaming the farm.    

There is always a sadness in losing an animal that belongs to the farm.  It was her home as it is mine.  There have been other such losses.  Moma cows and calves. Chickens.  And, a dog named Susie.  Farm animals are gifts.  They live here awhile.  They have a way of bringing joy in their living and sadness in their dying.  And, so my one chicken that did not return to the pen is missed.  She was not just a chicken.  She was a living part of the creation.  Thus, she bore the imprint of the Creator.  I will miss her waddling presence at my feet as I walk across this part of the creation which we shared together for a moment.