Why the chicken crossed the road

Here's a fact, you may or may not know: Chickens are not big-picture thinkers. They think only in the here and now.

This is both a good thing and a bad thing: It's good because you're unlikely to find yourself in some heated argument with a hen about the existential meaning of egg production. (In fact, you could ask a chicken what came first, the chicken or the egg, and I can reliably inform you they don't give a shit.)

But it's a bad thing because, as they only care about the present moment, drama can kick off at any time even in a perfectly settled flock - Say, for example, one of them digs up a worm, and one of the others decides that worm should have been theirs. That situation can rapidly develop into complete mayhem.

Yesterday in the backyard of Tweddley Manor, there was a major fracas as one of the white chickens ( Senga) was in the nesting box defensively trying to lay an egg, while another chicken (Bruiser) wanted to lay an egg in that self-same nesting box and not any of the others. Not being particularly solution-based, they both just yelled at each other. And nothing - not even the calming sounds of Chopin on Classic FM piped into the coop - could calm them down. Meanwhile, in the yard Norma joined in because Norma loves a drama, which set Genghis off, telling the ladies to calm down.

Margo and Nuggets joined the chorus as they figured if Genghis was yelling, then there must be danger.

And all the time Chopin plucked away on Nocturne Number 9.

Since I started writing these Notes every week, I’ve found my perspective is changing and I think much more about the here and now.

I mean, I can't write about what might happen in the future ( because I obviously don't really know). And sure, I can dabble about in the past when the notion takes me. But mostly I deal with what has been happening in the present. This week. This day. This moment.

I’ve also realize I’m definitely not part chicken because being in the present is a relatively foreign way of thinking for me.