animal anxieties

The day after Gilbert the Cat left this beautiful world, a baby bunny appeared in the garden. I could live with a baby bunny. But then on Thursday a tiny, wet, bedraggled opossum harassed the chicken, who likes to hang out on the back stoop watching me in the kitchen.

I went to the door to find out what seemed to be upsetting the hen, and there it was, climbing the steps. For a moment I feared it was a rat—but when I realized it was not, I resolved to shoo it away. When I opened the door it charged to get inside the house. It charged. Like I was inviting an old friend to come on in. “Oh, why thank you! Don’t mind if I do. It’s a bit damp out here.”

The chicken entirely lost its shit.

I don't blame her. Let me tell you, wet baby opossum is not cute baby opossum.

Good grief.

Then I worked today, all day, in the garden, and just as I was putting the tools away, I remembered to collect the eggs. I figured the hen must be broody, because I hadn’t seen or heard her even once. Opened the coop, no hen. Called for her. (“CHICKEN?!”) Not a peep.

So I resigned myself to searching for remains. Checked the way-back garden. Peered into the wilds under the apple trees. Looked down the road both ways.

I figured if there were no remains, then either she’d had enough with all the interlopers, the bunny and that terrifying baby opossum, and had decided to hit the road, or, she’d been cleanly dispatched. But both scenarios seemed unlikely. I assumed there would be remains.

I was just getting ready to compose her obituary when I heard that comforting choock-choock, and there she was, coming out from her tunnel all casual, like, “Oh, hey.”

It was almost-but-not-quite like that time I thought I’d lost baby Eli in the store and found him in the lingerie, one tiny hanger in each hand, switching the delicate unders up to his body, left-right. Not the same relief, of course, but the same variety of relief.

If only the chicken had presented herself trying out undergarments, like wee Eli. That would have been the perfect Beatrix Potter ending to a perfect day.

But fearing for that stupid hen got me to thinking about domesticated and wild animals. When I finally sat down to dinner, tired and sore, but satisfied with a productive day, I saw an article defending “glamping” — according to the headline. I didn’t read it. Our whole lives are a kind of glamping. Maybe it's time we get past our idea that the wild is Out There in preserved places. “Wild” is right outside the door.