My parents have a lovely house; it’s in a nice quiet suburb, and close to everything in the city. For the first couple of years while I was studying, I lived at home with my family. What I liked about this house was the surroundings. We had a small open field right in front of our house. It wasn’t very big; about 3 houses could fit on it. It was this very small piece of neglected field, with nice houses all around it.
When you stood outside our gate and faced to the front you would see the little field, and if you turned your head slightly to the left there was an old abandoned house. So what is so special about an old abandoned house and a small field in the middle of a city suburb? Well, the old house and field was home to a group of wild guinea foul.
My mother and I both have this maternal instinct when it comes to animals that seem to need help or food. So we started feeding them every morning and every afternoon, which was very cool. But, this is not what my story is about today.
I have a younger sister; we differ about 3 years in age. For the sake of her anonymity (and possibly publicly humiliating us both on this blog) I will call her Kayla. According to the whole world Kayla and I look pretty much the same and to top it off most people say we talk alike and have the same facial expressions. But we both know better. Yeah, maybe we look a little alike and so on, but personality-wise we differ a lot. We have both agreed that I am the more patient and caring one, and that I care about the world and other people around me. I am a kind and soft person. Kayla on the other hand has a very short temper, she gets annoyed easily, and people in general piss her off. She is also a very caring person, but like Donkey said in Shrek – onions have layers. So if you peel of a couple of onion layers, you will get to her soft side.
One fateful day she convinced me to go jogging with her. Now there is one thing you should understand, I don’t do jogging. In fact I hate it. Why the hell do you want to run around the block? I have hated running or jogging since I was a kid. It is not my style, and I do not see the point.
“Yah, I ran 2 miles today!” Yeah, on the same damn path you jog on everyday. Don’t you ever get bored?!
So Kayla convinced me to go jogging with her, and I convinced her that we should rather make it a brisk walk. We agreed and off we went.
We decided to turn left into the street right above our street and see where it leads, because we have never seen it before (it is a very quiet and almost hidden little street). We were giggling the entire time because apparently one of our country's Olympic swimmers lived in the house on the corner, so we were gushing about how hot he was.
Our goal of burning calories was well on its way until I got distracted. On the side of the road I saw a hen and her chicks. Now, as I explained before, I love chickens. So I had to stop and stare at them. Kayla did not like this very much because she thinks chickens are stupid, but not cute-stupid (like I think of them), but dumb-and-useless-stupid. Regardless of how annoyed she was about this abrupt stop in our fitness mission, she stood with me, because under all of her onion layers there is a lot of love and compassion for her older sister.
I was so caught up with this hen and her chicks I did not realise that other chickens were emerging from the bushes around us. But Kayla sure did.
Obviously I was thrilled about the fact that there were now MORE chickens around me. Wild chickens, living in a suburb in the city – how awesome is that?! I just wanted to take all of them home and group hug them till the day I die.
And the chickens just kept on coming. Entire families of chickens with little chicks of every colour and size you could imagine. I felt like a kid in a candy store. Kayla was getting uneasy because this mass of chickens was starting to freak her out. I couldn’t care less. Until I realised the same thing she realised quite a while back. We were basically surrounded by about 20 chickens.
So we realised (or I realised) that they weren’t coming out of hiding or their nests to mingle with us, they were strutting around there because we were a threat to their chicks, and they were ready to strike the moment we made a wrong move. So we started walking away slowly.
But the damn chickens still kept appearing out of every bush along the side walk.
It was at that point where I got scared. It was not like they stood still and stared at us. They were FOLLOWING us, and walking alongside us in a very threatening way. One of the roosters was starting to pick up pace and made his way right towards Kayla. She yelped and started running. Monkey see, monkey do. So I was right behind her. Running away was not a good idea, because it made the mob of angry-ass chickens run as well. I wish I could have seen us that day, two girls being chased by a very large and angry group of chickens.
Thanks to the boost pure adrenaline gave us, we managed to outrun the chicken mob. While I was gasping for breath, I turned around to see if we were safe, and all I saw was one rooster standing in the middle of the road. He looked like a warrior chicken.
I swear if that rooster could talk, he would have said this to me: “Don’t ever step foot in our neighbourhood again, or else you will have to deal with me”.
Note taken. So we continued our exercise mission and took a different road back home. Even though I am scared to go back to that street full of chickens, it still intrigued me a lot. In a radius of about 2 kilometres, our little suburb has wild guinea foul and free range chickens (that’s what I call them now).
So the next day I drove (in the safety of my own car) down that street. I wanted to make sure we did not over exaggerate, or imagined all those chickens. We didn’t - while I was driving I saw it: the chicken fest - it was like I was standing in the middle of a chicken farm. I was once again flabbergasted by the amount of chickens living in between the houses in that street. It is so unusual and weird that it should be a tourist attraction.
But, until these free range chickens win over the hearts of tourists, I am their biggest fan. When I used to feel down I would drive down that street and park my car on the side walk and just stare at all the chickens and chicks walking past and eating. It was like my happy place. In the safety of my own car.
But now I've moved, not too far away, but far enough to rather buy a chocolate to cheer me up than to drive to the chicken street. Yet, they are still there, slowly increasing in numbers and power. For all we know they can be a bunch of ninja crime fighting chickens, who only tried to keep their identity secret on that faithful day that Kayla and I went for a ‘brisk walk’.
The end - for now
OK - so I decided to go back and walk among the angry mob once again (in order to take pictures and make a little video to show you I am not making this up). Therefore behold:
Ninja chicken:
Chicken Mob
And finally: The community cares
I also took the time to make this short video for you guys, just follow the link if you want to check it out :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui39KcgW_Z0
If you can't see the link above (which is invisible for some or other reason), just copy paste this link in your browser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui39KcgW_Z0
