Sleeping Outdoors

http://s97.photobucket.com/albums/l212/oldwriter/?action=view&current=Elevenp-1.jpg If I didn't get these chooks into the coop early, they always roosted high in the bushes. I liked this idyllic scene and let them all roost "in the wild" for a couple of weeks--until an owl began taking out one or two a night. That took the romance out of their free, wild, and adventurous life. I was disappointed, but didn't want to lose any more of my banties, so, ever since, I have been keeping them in the chicken coop at night. I think the chickens also were disappointed, and only grudgingly took to the artificial roosts I had fixed for them inside the coop. If I was at all late shutting them in, I had to look in the trees, bushes, and vines to find them. I wanted my chickens to live with as few constraints and restraints as possible because that is how I like to live. Across the years, I have been burned several times because I chose to "color outside the lines," or think "outside the cliched box” and acted on those thoughts. Certain boundaries and regulations are unavoidable if we are to maintain a healthy and stable human society. I know this. I want to be a good citizen. But, like the recalcitrant chickens, I judge some of the rules of social correctness to be inappropriate. I still try to avoid all possible constraints I can. Like the chickens and the owl, I haven’t always gotten away with it. All the same, I’ve managed to become a septuagenarian survivor, and a productive, if not respectable, citizen.