More Than A Thousand Words

It was morning and the door to the hen building had just been opened so the chickens could explore their pasture, visit with Crazy Maurice the weeping willow, eat their grains and exercise their wings, legs and lungs.  The clouds overhead held the memory of continuous rainfall and the much of the ground in the pasture was only visible through the ripples of standing water.

The hens rushed to the doorway.  And stopped.

The desire of their hearts, if I can be so bold as to pretend to know what a hen actually desires, was to eat that grain, chase a few moths and rest in the shade of the willow.  The building is, I suppose, nice enough for night-time sleep.  There are perches for those who want them and straw for those who do not.  But, it is the daylight hours and it is time to be out of this building.  There are dustbaths to take and clover to sample.  The turkeys in the nearby pasture often provide entertainment and the rooster sounds ever so much less obnoxious when he is OUTSIDE!

But the clover was under water and there was no dust to be seen anywhere in the pasture.  And thus, the debate.  Do I jump down and explore?  Do I dare hope that I will find tasty food and interesting things to do?  Or do I just stay up here?

In the end, the answer was simple.

There are many more hens behind these hens and they still have unaltered dreams of what may be outside.  Their dreams will force these chickens to visit reality.  A new group will stand on the precipice that is the doorway until they too will be forced to alter their dreams to face the reality of another wet day on the farm.

Not too worry.  They'll come back to the building again tonight.  They will find their perches and their straw.  And they will sleep so they can again dream of grain, dust baths, clover and the shade of the great willow in their pasture.