How I Avoided Being Arrested In My Underwear at Three A.M. Wielding an Umbrella

It all started a couple of months ago when we were woken by a godawful racket outside, and hubby and I rushed out with flashlights in hand to find a chicken flopping around on the ground and a raccoon staring at us from a nearby tree. The chicken coop hadn't been closed up properly, and one of the cute but vicious little furry thieves had gotten Gloria, one of our hens. Unfortunately, she wasn't dead. This is the moment that all hen-keepers fear, at least wimpy ones like me: the chicken is not dead. One look at her told us that she wasn't going to make it though. It's never a good sign when your head is on sideways. So did I do the brave thing? Of course I did: I yelled at hubby to kill the damn thing already.

Hubby grabs the nearest chicken-killing implement, which happened to be a hoe, while I kept the raccoon at bay with a rake. Unfortunately, killing a chicken with a hoe at three in the morning is a lot harder than it sounds. For one thing, remember the whole "chicken with its head cut off" cliche? This chicken was flopping around like crazy, I mean like three to four feet with every flop. Meanwhile hubby is running around in hiking boots and a bathrobe hacking madly at it with the hoe and I'm yelling helpfully in the background. Feathers are flying and even the raccoon is starting to look scared of the crazy people. But we did it. I cornered the chicken and hubby beat it into submission. I didn't have the time at the moment to be sad about the fact that this was Asa's favorite chick from last year, one she rescued from being the last baby chick at the Feed-n-Seed store and hand-raised.

So, fast forward a few months and I am once again awakened by some sort of loud noise at three in the morning. This time I didn't stop to even pull on a bathrobe, just rushed out in my underwear and cami, quickly grabbing the nearest raccoon-fending devices that came to hand, namely a big-ass flashlight and a long-handled umbrella. Luckily, this time all was serene in Happy Hen land and there were no fuzzy bandits to be seen. This is where my bad luck began however. As I was trooping back up toward the house, a patrol car pulled slowly into our cul-de-sac. Uh Oh. Maybe what woke me up was a prowler? And maybe he was somewhere nearby in the trees next to our house?

Even worse: the cop car was shining its spotlight around the cul-de-sac and I was nearly naked and carrying two large weapon-looking devices in my hands. Awful scenarios flashed through my head: My kids in tears as their underwear-clad mother is hauled off in a patrol car in front of throngs of neighbors. Even worse, the cops accidentally shooting me thinking I was an armed would-be burglar. Being taken down and tasered before I could even explain what I was doing out there (don't laugh, police in my town recently Tasered an unarmed exchange student in his sleeping bag because he couldn't communicate in English to them that he wasn't a prowler).

So I did what any reasonable underwear-clad chicken defender would do: I hid behind a tree. It felt like a surreal scene from a thousand movies. The searchlight playing along the trees surrounding me. Holding my breath to prevent it from steaming out into the night air. My heart pounding a thousand beats a minute. And then, after what felt like an hour or two, they were gone. I crept up our porch stairs and gratefully back into bed. No one knows what I sacrifice to keep my family fed with wholesome local eggs!

The Ironmom Extra Mile:  Perhaps I should carry a Samurai Sword-handled umbrella next time? Or maybe a light-saber umbrella to fend off the dark side? Check out the Twenty Coolest Umbrellas you'll ever see for more cool gadgets to carry when hiding from police and defending chickens.