One Way to Get a Workout

Yesterday I ended up getting a completely unexpected workout. I was grateful for it, since lately I've been leaving myself a lot of mental post-its saying "get more exercise" but I think I must be leaving them in the wrong part of my brain. Or maybe on the wrong color of post-it. Someone's not paying attention.

Anyway, what ended up happening yesterday was that I had to chase down three very wily chickens. Chickens can be hard to catch. They can run faster than me, so the only hope I have is to corner them. I probably could have caught them fairly quickly that way, except that I had to work up to the point where I was no longer too hesitant to grab at a mad ball of frantically flapping wings.

I have a theory that people who are raised around animals are more confident and assertive in their relationships with other people. When dealing with some animals, you have to hold your ground and be firm and decisive. If you hesitate, they take advantage of you. I personally think I would greatly benefit from spending more time with such animals.

So this chicken episode was good for me. Not only did I run around the yard until my heart rate was in the target zone, but I worked on developing some personality traits that I would like to have.

I shall explain how the chickens got loose in the first place. We went down to my friend Shannon's house, out in the country, to pick up some eggs. Shannon had just left on vacation a few minutes before we got there, and the eggs were waiting on the porch for us. While I was loading the eggs in the car I told the boys they could go look in the coop and see if there were any more eggs. They love to hunt for eggs. They found another dozen, but they also let 3 chickens loose. Normally when Shannon is home this isn't a problem because I know her kids can catch them and put them back, but the family was gone and I didn't know how soon the caretaker would be there and whether or not they would take care of the situation. Also knowing that Shannon's neighbor isn't very excited when the chickens come into his yard, I figured it behooved me to leave things just as I'd found them. First I told Bean and Fish to catch them for me but it quickly became apparent that though they weren't lacking in enthusiam they were somewhat lacking in experience. Returning the chickens was definitely going to be my job.

In the end I did leave everything the way it was when we got there. And I got a good aerobic workout in the process!