This must be how the rumors start . . .

Last night, just before being picked up for a birthday gathering with friends, I went to check on the chickens and found Crazy Nellie dead -- dead -- dead, blocking the door to the hen house.  Fortunately the other three hens were already tucked in on their roost for the night (because you DON'T want your chickens to have access to a dead chicken lying around, the little cannibalistic dinosauritas).  I got some gloves and a plastic bag and hauled that sucker out of there.  Now I know what "dead weight" means.  Sheesh, she was heavy!

She was close to 6 years old, so she has lived a good, somewhat productive life (she was called Crazy Nellie for good reason -- her little feeble chicken brain seemed to have fewer cylinders than your average chicken brain, and when she would molt she would hole up in the hen house like a pms crazed woman, not allowing any of the other hens to come in at all).  But we loved her and we will miss her.

I placed the bag with the chicken (which did not fit well in it -- her feet stuck out the top) by the garbage bin, for my husband to figure out what to do with whenever he would get home from working late.  When I came back to the kitchen door I almost stepped on a little gift Ophelia the huntress garden cat left -- a dead chipmunk, with head neatly severed lying along side.  Scooped it up to place with the chicken.

And I thought, this must be how those rumors get started . . . the ones about voodoo rituals and animal sacrifices.  If the neighbors were to see our garbage . . . .