This story should not have had a happy ending

This isn't getting sent out as a newsletter, but I needed to jot this down, because everything tha happened took place suddenly, and I want to preserve this as best I can while it's still fresh in my mind.

If I were reading this in an article or story, I'd have a little skepticism. Typing it out, this feels like I've exaggerated things to heighten the stakes of the story. That's not the case: this all happened.

CW: animals in distress / death.

There was a brief moment while I was standing in the river where I thought: "I need to be careful, because this is how people die." I took a breath, ducked down under the tree, and grabbed the chicken, who had ended up in a small, calm pocket of water, and ducked out the other side with her clutched in my arms.

On Saturday, I got an urgent text from my wife. "I have some not so great news. There was a loose dog in the yard."

I don't like getting messages like that: they're on par with "we need to talk." We live not far from a road, dog park, and bike path, and I immediately called her back, thinking the worst, that one of the kids had been bitten or something. She was upset: a small terrier-type dog had shown up out of nowhere and gone after our small flock of chickens, scattering them. One had been bitten, our rooster had flown across the river, two had found safety, but four were missing. Bram had seen one floating down the river: Megan thought the rest had also gone in.

I raced back home, and took a little time to walk up and down the opposing bank, thinking that maybe one or two of them had flapped across, and were just out of sight: there's a construction company that uses that side of the river as something of a dumping ground: there's rotting machinery and vehicles, boards, metal, and plenty of places for a scared animal to hide. I didn't see any, and drove the rest of the way home. Bram was distraught: they're his girls, and he's spent a good part of the year learning about how to keep them and has been pretty attached to them. He named them: the brown ones for baked goods (Donut, Cupcake, Pop Tart, and Pancake), while the black ones were named for candies (Licorice, Sprinkles, Kit and Kat – when Kit or Kat turned out to be male, he became Noodles, while the other just became Kit Kat.)

They've been good birds, and we knew going in that there was always the risk of losing some. All nine of our chicks grew, and they've been laying eggs regularly, something that our children have delighted in finding in the afternoon. We lost Sprinkles last December: she had gotten sick and had to be put down, but the rest endured the last couple of cold snaps and weather pretty well, with a couple of cases of frostbite (Poor Noodles got it the worst, but he's recovered nicely.)

I hugged Bram, then went back to work. There wasn't much I could do. I ran into my neighbor on the way out, and he explained that he'd heard a commotion, and saw the dog had one of the chickens (Cupcake) in its mouth, and was able to save her.

Our little flock had just been cut in half. By the time I got back, the remaining birds had been shuffled back into their coop, and Megan had spent hours stalking up and down the riverbanks, looking for any sign of any survivors. When I got back from work, I joined her, probing the neighborhood's nooks and crannies for any sign of a survivor. There was some good news: Pop Tart had turned up at the coop. She was wet and muddy, but alive and unscathed. It was a good sign: maybe there were others. The lot across from our house had some giant puddles, and I began looking around there. By the time night was beginning to fall, I went to check on the others, and thought that I heard some clucking from across the river. I looked, walked around the road to the opposing lot and looked again, but didn't see or hear anything again. I thought my ears were playing tricks on me, trying to hear something that wasn't there.

We tended to Pop Tart: she was wet, but not totally soaked. Megan turned a hair dryer on her, gave her some food, and we turned her back out to be with her sisters. We turned in for the night, happy that at least one girl had returned home, but sad that the others were still missing.

I got up early, dressed, let the survivors out into their front porch. (Our coop is essentially two sections, built into a former woodshed: the actual coop, with perches and nesting boxes, with a door that opens into the other half, which has their food, water, and is screened in.) I got a container of food and walked up and down the road, checking osme of those nooks and crannies again. Maybe some of the chickens had just scattered, and they had hunkered down for the night. None appeared, and more than once over the course of the day, we'd head out, walk up and down the road or forest paths, and try to find some sign. We scanned the river banks and trees. We'd return home, dejected. Licorice, Pancake, and Donut were probably gone.

We still had the survivors to tend to, and in the afternoon, Megan and I went out to clean out their water and clean out the coop a bit. We walked down the path again, when Megan abruptly stopped. "That wasn't the ones in there." I listened, and heard clucking – across the river. It had to be Donut: she's a distinctive little chicken: she's the only one of the four Speckled Sussexes that's managed to retain her tail feathers from being pulled out, and has a knack for complaining – she's loud.

I didn't wait: I sprinted for the house, grabbed a large blue shopping bag, and pulled the car around to the other side, jumped out, and began searching. There are a bunch of places a chicken could hide: under a bunch of things, in barrels, and we only had a general idea of where the sound was coming from. Megan was on the other bank, and pointed out the general area for me to search. I couldn't find anything, and was about to turn back when I slipped down the bank. It's steep and icy, and I slid almost all the way to the edge, where a lip of ice jutted out over the water. On a whim, realized that there's some empty pockets under the ice, and the water had gone down from the prior night. I jumped in, and leaned down to check the cavities.

Donut was perched on a block of granite! She'd found a spot that was dry and hunkered down. I haven't the faintest idea how she got under there: there might have been a hole nearby that she got into, or hit the edge of the water and crawled up, and was able to keep warm enough to dry off.

"It's Donut! She's alive!" I shouted up to Megan. I reached under and grabbed her, and pulled her out. We handle all of our birds quite a bit, but they still get startled. I had brought the bag with me to haul her out, but when I tried to put her in, she spooked, and took off... and landed right in the middle of the river behind me, and got sucked under a tree that had fallen across the river.

It all happened in a split second, but it felt like time slowed for a brief moment. I heard Megan yell or scream as Donut vanished from sight. I had a moment of despair: we'd saved her only to have her drown seconds later. That was followed by a realization that going under after her was stupid, and that people die doing that sort of thing.

I honestly didn't think: I just ducked under the branches and held on tight. Donut had ended up in a small pocket under the branches. The water wasn't quite as fast, and she was floating on the top. I reached out, grabbed her and pinned her to my chest, and looked for a way out. Going back wouldn't work: I'd be fighting the current. The other side was caged in by branches, but there was enough space to get my head under without going under the surface. I took a breath, hoped that Donut wouldn't drown in my arms, and went under.

We got out the other side, and I stumbled over to the other bank where it got shallower. Megan yelled something: I couldn't process what she was saying, but I yelled up that we were okay and that I got her. The banks on that side of the river are steep: maybe 30 feet, with trees and exposed roots. It's tough to climb at the best of times, but it's coated with ice and snow. I made it half way up, and told Megan: "I need help." She came down halfway, and I was able to hand Donut off to her: she was able to scrambled back up the hillside, and with two hands, I was able to get back down, climbed over the tree, and crossed the river again to take a quick look for anyone else. Megan brought Donut back into the house to warm her up and get her dry.

Don't ever do this: I was completely soaked, and that's a sure way to get hypothermia if you aren't able to get warmed up. I made it back up the other bank to my car and drove home. I don't know if it was the adrenaline or cold but I was shaking and broke down into some heavy sobs when Megan reach me. I got in, filled the bathtub with hot water, and got in. Bram was clutching a towel-clad Donut, who just sort of stared at us like we were making a big fuss over nothing. Once I'd warmed up, I got dry clothes, and we tended to Donut, getting her some high-calorie food (our vet had recommended feeding Sprinkles cat food when she were sick a while back), and dried her off with a hair blower. The cats were very curious and wanted to get into the bathroom. Once she was dry, we reunited her with the rest of the flock.

This shouldn't have had any sort of happy ending. The sequence of events are entirely too unlikely. By all rights, our little flock should have been half of their numbers, now adjusting to their new pecking order: a rooster and three chickens. I don't know how Pop Tart got home or where she was, and I haven't a clue as to how Donut was able to survive for a night under a sheet of ice, inches from the water. They're resilient little birds, and the survivors are all back to normal, although they aren't thrilled with being cooped up. So far, Pancake and Licorice haven't returned.

That's hard: from day one, Licorice has been a favorite of the entire family, especially Iris, who delighted in picking her up and carrying her around, putting her on the baby swing, or pulling her in a sled.

We're going to be hurting for a while with this loss. We've grown attached to the girls and their quirks and their personalities, and while we'd known intellectually that there's a good chance that we'll lose some or all of them from animal attacks or illness or something, we'd taken nine chicks and brought them to adulthood. I've always had a tendency to anthropomorphize things, and we've bonded with all of members of the flock, talking, playing, or scolding them as they run around the yard and forest.

This weekend hit Bram hard: he's learned a lot from raising them, and this is just one hard lesson that we'd have to get to eventually. When we walked out to check on the chickens this morning, he asked where we'd rescued Donut, and broke into tears pointing out where he saw Pancake floating away. I took one more look this morning, taking a skiing pole with me as I climbed down the bank and along the slippery rocks and ice.

There's no sign of them, and I think at this point, if they were going to come home, they would have already. Maybe they're out there, and maybe it was Pop Tart that somehow got out of the river and back home. We'll probably keep looking when we go out.

I don't know if there's any sort of moral to the story or anything here, other than that optimisim is not a bad thing, and that sometimes, a bad situation turns out a little less worse and that sometimes, the unexpected outcome happens.

This spring, we'll make some changes: it should be reasonably easy to sink a fence along the end of the coop to the edge of the hillside to stop anything from coming from the woods into the yard, and another fence across the back quarter of the yard to keep them somewhat contained near the shed and coop. It'll be a while before we let them out unsupervised. There's not much we'd be able to do against a determined predator. Megan spotted a bad eagle a couple of weeks ago, and I've definitely seen hawks perching on one of the trees in our yard over the years.

When it's warmer, we'll likely make the trek over to the hardware store and pick out some new chicks to raise, and we'll name the brown ones for baked goods and the black ones for candies.