Boudica, Chapter Three

Five Days Gone

I look in the nesting boxes for the twelfth time today.  Still only 4 eggs.  My heart sinks once again.  

There should be five eggs from five chickens. Zoe the darkest one, Ruby the flappiest one, Jules, the loudest singer of the egg celebration song, and Sandy the lightest one, both in colour and weight. And then there’s Boudica.  Boudica the Brave, Warrior Queen of all Chickens.  My chatty gardening companion during lockdown.  Always the first one to come into the kitchen if the door is open. And the one closest to my feet when I’m digging in the garden.  The one who hasn’t been seen for 2 days.  I try to hold back tears but my eyes start prickling and my throat constricts.  Why is it always Boudica?  

Each night I go out at dusk to tuck the chickens in to bed. This ranges from a gentle pat on the back of each one as I count that they are all inside the coop, to carrying them one by one from their self-proclaimed roost at the kitchen door, into their coop.

Two days ago I return from the nightly tucking in with a worried face. 

“What’s wrong?” Asks the Husband Man.

“There’s a chicken missing.”

“Who is it?”

I give a look that says it all.

Boudica, it’s always Boudica.

So even though it’s always been unfruitful in the past, I wander the garden with a torch calling out to Boudica. But come back alone.

Every day I stare out the kitchen window, looking for the distinctive plumage of my special chooky friend. I check the nesting boxes and count the eggs.  I walk the back roads looking for Boudica. Calling out, and asking anyone I come across if they’ve seen a chicken anywhere, dead or alive. 

“Fox’s probably got it,” they invariably tell me.  Ok that’s helpful.  I never knew there were foxes here. Sigh.

Somehow, I never feel that the fox had taken her. But I become more and more anxious as days passed. Many tears were shed as I longed for my chicken to return home.

Five days later, I’m digging in the top garden. Hoeing up some potatoes and moving some rather boisterous Salvia that were monstering some of the more delicate plants.  As usual I am surrounded by chickens looking for something tasty to eat as I dig the soil. Looking down, making sure I don’t accidentally chop off a head or toe with the hoe, I look at one of the chickens. 

“Boudica?” I ask her, “Boudica is that you?” I can hardly believe my eyes, the chicken closest to my feet looks just like my Boudi. But then I count and only see four chickens and think I must be going crazy. It’s not her after all. Then the dogs come running up to the garden and the chickens disperse.

An hour later, I’m in the kitchen. I have the door open and can’t help but smile as one of the chickens takes advantage and boldly walks in to start pecking around for morsels. A few others start to follow, looking around the kitchen. Knowing the dogs are only going to round them up, I shoo them outside again.  One chicken is unphased by my shooing and has now wandered into the pantry.

Staring, amazed, I know this chicken!

“What? No. Oh! No,” but it is, “Boudica! It is you!” I look around and count, one, two, three, four, five chickens.  I swoop her up into my arms, insisting she tells me where she’s been!

Floods of tears and much chicken squeezing later I send the photo below to Husband Man. 

“Guess who’s back?” 

Miraculously, after five days missing, she has returned as if nothing ever happened. I’ve got no idea where she’s been. And she still refuses to tell me. 

Click here to read the next chapter of Boudica.