Hens are hiding out in their favorite location, a tangled overgrown twiggy mess which technically speaking is called a forsythia hedge. Forsythias grow like willows, that is, when a branch touches the ground, it will grow roots into it and continue sprouting more branches. The hedge looks like a jungle gym- hoop over hoop- like a giant twiggy fortress. Hens did not take a course in “Hen Security” but they found the safest spot in the yard and spend hours there unsupervised. Nature out-thought my best mechanization to create a safe pen! I really ought to spend more time thinking about nature.

The hens are ignoring me again but that is not unusual. The miscommunication starts with me not speaking “Chickenese” as my husband noted. The hens exist on another frequency that does not easily translate to my own. When I want the hens to come home, I usually sprinkle breadcrumbs to lead them to their safe hutch, water, and food dish. As the person, I reason this out to be necessary. However, on their frequency they’re having “hen time” doing “hen things” and don’t require any assistance.

The scene resembles when children are playing, and “mom” interrupts and ruins the fun. Mom is the interloper in that scenario. That must hurt a bit. It doesn’t hurt me that my hens ignore me, but I can see how it may hurt a mom or parent or God to be excluded from the action of the children they love.

It’s pouring rain and the hens have their exquisite outdoor gear on. Beautiful, weatherproof, apparel with camouflaging patterns. If I designed clothes that is what I would wear: all season protective gear that looks fabulous. Fur suits would be great, too. All the fuss about energy costs. How about dressing more warmly? We may risk looking like a Sasquatch, but things get slow in New England in winter. It might be fun.

After an hour or two of anxious vigil, my long bread crumb trail helped the hens get home for the day. I think, like children, once they have satisfied their eagerness for fun and adventure, ‘home’ is more welcome. Hunger and exhaustion from playing is good in a hen and a child. My job really isn’t to be involved in every little thing they do and hovering unnecessary. That is the Interloper!

Love and fear are often confused. I think that is where Job missed it. He opened the door to fear by obsessing what bad thing may happen even though everywhere he had evidence of God’s blessing and protection. Like me today, like helicopter parents, he kept an anxious vigil believing more in the thing he feared than he did in the power and goodness of his God.

Fear is such an unhealthy and debilitating habit: meditating on the unknown rather than seeking to know the truth. Fear is nature’s psychopath perhaps, closely related to weasels who killed a neighbor’s hens but didn’t eat them. Just killed them.     

Message from hens today: Have the courage to seek truth even when you are afraid. Especially when you are afraid!