I had planned to post about our chicken Roxanne and her new talent of laying eggs last week, but some other happy thing just made me keep postponing it. Roxanne was one of the three meat birds that were "rescued" from a local hardware store and we later adopted. Roxanne was my favorite and had the best personality of any chicken I've ever known.
I would come home from work to find her on the sidewalk waiting for me. She would come running over for a hello and would sit there while I pet her. She would even let the little one kiss her! Just two weeks ago she started laying eggs. She would go to her little nest under our porch stairs, lay an egg (or two!) and announce it by squawking from her little nest, all the way around the house, onto the sidewalk, and back down to the yard via the other side of the house. It was quite a scene!
We had those first two eggs for breakfast one morning, and meat bird or not...they were delicious! We were so very thankful for them and we all let her know we appreciated them very much. Little did we know she would spend the next two weeks laying her eggs in someone else's yard!
But today when I returned from some errands, Roxanne was nowhere to be found. Construction started in front of our house today, and I assumed the chickens were scared and hid in the yard. But when I called her name and still no sign of her, I knew something was wrong. I went into the barn and found her. Penelope (her sidekick) was in much distress because Roxanne had suddenly passed away.
We're not sure what happened, but perhaps it was just her time. She did live a good five months longer than she would have anywhere else, and they were a very good five months indeed. We had a special goodbye for her in the backyard, but it was just so sad to see her go.
Anyway, I wanted to give her a tribute she deserves. She was amazing. And yes...she was just a chicken, but a very fine chicken! So thanks, Roxanne. We really, really enjoyed you. xoxo
