The Chicken Coop is No More

We went out of town this weekend. Last night on the way home, we got a call from our local fire department. The woman said that our chicken house was on fire and that the fire department was on its way to put it out. We were an hour and a half from home, so there really wasn't much we could do. We debated amongst ourselves about who we could call to go to our house and give us an assessment of the damage.

Unfortunately, Matt's brother and sister-in-law were out of town this weekend as well. They live just down the road and usually take care of the chickens for us when we're gone. Our back up is our neighbor, but we couldn't get a hold of him before we left town. Matt tried several times more times to reach him, but to no avail. So the chickens were on their own for a day and a half. Had we had someone checking on them, maybe this wouldn't have happened, but that kind of thinking doesn't do any good now.

Anyway, I decided to call my friend Cathy, who lives just around the corner from our house. She said, "We're leaving right away." Their whole family piled into two cars and headed straight to our house. She called me about ten minutes later to let me know that our "house was totally intact. It's just the chicken coop," she said.

I said, "Yes, its the chicken coop." Apparently she had misunderstood what I said over the phone (we were in a bad spot for cell service) and she thought I had told her in a very calm voice that our house was on fire. Her older daughter was all set to run into the house to grab our family heirlooms.

My understanding is that a couple of farther away neighbors contacted our neighbor across the street who confirmed that the fire was on our property and called 911. Four fire trucks, two police cars and a sheriff's car showed up. Cathy said my kids were missing out on all the excitement.

When we finally arrived home, the place was deserted. We went straight out back and found that all of our big chickens were fine, but most of the eleven chicks we had just moved into the chicken house the previous week were gone (3 survived). They could have gotten out, they just didn't. We're sure the light that was keeping them warm was somehow dislodged by a bigger chicken and fell into the wood shavings onto the floor of the coop.

Cathy met us as we assessed the damage with our flashlights. She said the fire department had shooed her family away, but she wanted to come back and check on us, which was awfully nice of her. We are thankful for great neighbors and that the damage was limited to the chicken house. It was quite windy last night and more damage from flying embers definitely could have occurred.

The whole thing has been a bit rough on Matt. He worked so hard to build that chicken house for me. He had it moved across town when we moved into this house. He tinkered with it over the years, adding little amenities here and there.

Getting a new chicken house built will now be top priority around here. Skunk season is about to begin and those little critters would love nothing better than to partake of an easy meal as they go on their nocturnal wanderings.

When Matt received the call about the fire and then relayed the news to the rest of us in the van, Paul got pretty upset (he's a big boy, but he has a tender heart). Daddy asked, "Paul, what does Pastor say at the beginning of service every Sunday?"

Paul responded, "God is good." Then Joel added, "All the time."