Bullied

Today is such a beautiful day. The sun is out, there is a nice breeze, it isn't hot but it isn't too cold. Lately things have been grey and wet and as much as I love that, it was time for a beautiful, sunny morning of sitting outside with my chickens.  I was out strolling next to them as they foraged. They keep me present as I try to spot what exactly they eat. I then decided to read a bit. I searched the clear blue skies and tree limbs for the hawk. No hawk but I remained vigilant getting little reading done.

Well, that's okay as the coop needs hosing down anyway. I start to hose down the coop while an eye is kept on the girls. I didn't want to get dirty but that's okay we should all start the year off in clean abodes. With the water swooshing so loudly from the hose I am not able to hear anything and that makes me nervous so I stop hosing down the coop. I figured I was done anyway.

I then feel nervous, the girls are no longer in one group. I search the skies and nothing. I realize that I am not doing what I want to do. My behavior has been completely altered because of the hawk. It angers me, I feel bullied.  At that moment I notice birds fluttering and scattering above me, I  notice that  Astrud and Elvis are under the table and I look up again to see that large, calm, cool bully flying overhead, not far up in the sky but close enough to cast a shadow. "Oh shit!", I yell out loud. I panic over who to get because everyone is scattered then run to pick up PeeWee and Fuzztop while commanding the other two , "Inside, inside, inside!" I pick up the two white Silkies as if they were cotton balls on the floor and run towards the coop. I slip and fall in the mud I created when cleaning the coop and Fuzztop and PeeWee go flying into the coop. I get up still commanding the girls to get inside and Astrud and Elvis finally file in. My heart is beating hard, my adrenalin pumping as I start to feel very stupid and realize I am now filthy. I'm a bio hazard, covered with chicken shit, wet and muddy, a real mess. I let that hawk turn me into a fool. I imagined my neighbor looking out her bedroom window wondering what all the noise was about and catching me running around like an idiot before falling in the mud. I felt my face turning red when I realized that I was visible from the street.

Something needs to change. I will not be bullied by this bird. What the hell.  I put the girls in their small pen and I sit and think. Hawk has managed to keep me present and aware lately. In fact I feel I am now tuned into it. But I want to do what I want to do and I want my birds to have the run of the yard like they once did.  It just isn't going to work out that way, it's hawk season. As long as I am emotionally attached to my four hens, I am that hawk's "bitch"... so to speak...bitch of sorts. How pathetic. Then there is this rather odd (crazy) feeling of being in this dysfunctional relationship with this hawk. If I had a real tough rooster or a good livestock dog then I could maybe be normal.