Rex We Hardly Knew You

We have not seen a chicken for about three weeks. And I must confess Rex, was not our chick, probably we were more like Rex’s people. I guess if there was anything that best describe Rex, it would be that Rex was the neighborhood chicken. If there ever was a free range chicken it was Rex. I want to say he but in actuality Rex was a “she“. She gave us some very fine eggs.

I have to admit I miss Rex’s daily gift of an egg but more than that I miss Rex. I miss, when opening my front door in the morning to have Rex greet me busily scratching for bugs in the front yard.

I first noticed Rex couple of months ago. I thought sure the bird was a rooster ergo the name “Rex” but when we first found the clutch of eggs a few months ago in a small   space  between our garage and our stack of firewood 15 to 20 eggs, some broken some looking way old and some  okay. Dianne  put together a  cute nest, in a cardboard box. Dianne even fashion a roof out of scrap  tin to go over the box and straw nest. Rex obviously loved the space nest because we found a egg in the nest almost every day. And again it is not about the eggs it’s about our friend Rex, the chicken, who genuinely seemed to enjoy interacting with Dianne and I. Many times on returning home in the van, Rex would see us all the way at the other in the block from running to greet us. Many mornings Dianne and Rex would have long conversations out on the ramp.

As I indicated earlier, Rex was a free range chicken. We kind of believe Rex was housed out of the neighbor’s house a few doors down. This neighbor collects many stray animals especially cats, feral cats. The postman thinks that Rex may have escaped from a caged chickens in the other block. He indicates there other fowl in this cage that look remarkably like Rex. So possibly Rex escaped, captured by the Catwoman, who basically then let Rex wander and who recaptured Rex when she realized Rex was spending too much time at our house. But everybody misses her, the postman my neighbors and us… Having Rex around was like being a little bit rural.