It's a final, feathered chapter to a fowl saga.
Editor’s note: Last month, some 16 chickens and roosters were abandoned by someone at Molas Pass. In our last report, the number had dwindled to just three, as some wild animals apparently saw them as a free lunch This is an update on the free-range fowl.
By Barbara Ransehousen
Jim and I thought that the three remaining chickens at Molas Lake area were surely some coyote’s dinner. They weren't in view any of the last times we went to look for them.
But on Sept. 10, by chance, the elk hunters who are camped up there came into Henry Smith’s Gifts where I was working.
Imagine our excitement when they said that three chickens were “camping” under one hunter’s trailer, and were eating whatever scraps that Mark and Dan could provide.
Edith Mary leaped into action. There would be NO rest until someone captured the three chickens and took them to a better home.
She hurried home to get bird seed, and ran into John Wesley (Bible John) who not only had a cage big enough for the chickens, but knew how to catch them. Off the two of them went!
In no time, John had snared one with a net. But now the others were onto the scheme. So John, who knew that the chickens would try to outrun him, but would tire quickly, grabbed the other hen and the beautiful red rooster.
He tied each one’s feet together so they would stay where he wanted them, caged them, and he and Edith Mary triumphantly roared back to Henry Smith’s!
The final chapter reads that Edith Mary took them to Joe and Sherry Jepson, at Canyon View Motel. Joe took the chickens under his wing and talking to each one, promised Edith that he and Sherry wouldn't eat them.
Barbara Ransehousen is a resident of Silverton.
