Standing In The Coop

We were awakened in the middle of the night that night by what sounded like a toddler screaming outside in our yard. As we shot out of bed to look out the window we saw the bear wreaking havoc in our chicken coop.  

We raced to put on jeans and sweatshirts, and then ran in to wake up our teenage son, Mo, to have him help us.

“Mo, wake up! We need to go get a bear out of the coop!”

“Okay,” came his half-awake answer.  Then, already out of bed but not really awake, the realization hit.  “Wait.  What?!”

We turned on the back porch light and ran outside.  My husband Geoff reached for a shovel and started swinging it to chase off the bear.

There was a dead chicken just inside the gate and a couple of bloody wings lying on the ground.  A group of chickens were squawking, huddled together in the far corner of the coop. A quick head count revealed that we were missing a few.

The bear had broken through our neighbor’s fence which forms one side of our chicken coop.  As we ran outside shouting the bear had quickly ducked back through the broken slats to get away. 

Lucy, our yellow lab, had come outside with us and was pacing inside the fence, growling, the hair standing up along her spine.  And we could hear the bear, pacing on the outside of the fence, huffing and snorting, probably tracking Lucy.  

I picked up the dead chicken and a couple bloody wings.  We hunted around in the dark for the bodies of the missing chickens but didn’t find them, and guessed that the bear had escaped with them.   Then we turned our attention to the rest of the group huddled in the far corner of the coop.  We started coaxing them out, trying to usher them back into the hen house.  They squawked and flapped their wings, letting us know how upset they were.  Understandably so.  

Violence had just broken out in their neighborhood.  And I think they wanted to make sure we knew just how awful it had been. How we had failed to keep them safe. They weren’t too sure about being here anymore if things like that were going to happen.  There were casualties.  This was upsetting.  

We reassured them, and tried to encourage them back into the hen house.  

And the whole time we were out in the coop, restoring order, the bear was just outside the broken fence, huffing and snorting.  Letting us know that it was still there and that it planned to return the second we got out of its way.

We shooed it away a few more times, yelling at it to “get outta here.”  Each time we did, it would turn as if it was going to leave the neighborhood.  Pretending. But with no real intention whatsoever of leaving.   It was planning to return.  To kill some more.  To terrorize more.  To wreak more havoc. 

Over the course of the next couple hours the bear tried four more times to climb back through the gap in the fence, only to be met by Geoff with the shovel blocking its way.   He’d force it back out of the coop, yelling at it to “git.  Get outta here!”  We’d finally gotten all of the chickens to go back in the hen house, amidst lots of arguing and flapping of wings from them and lots of reassurances and encouragement from me.  

They were finally settling down some.  But we had to stay out there.  Standing in the coop in the middle of the night, keeping watch, to protect against the bear.  

When we finally did go back to bed the first rays of light were already in the sky. We didn’t sleep anymore, we just laid in bed straining to hear even the slightest hint of the bear’s return.  

Over the next few days we kept extra lights on outside, and kept listening for any more bear activities during the nights.  And I thought a lot about vulnerability.  

As much as we try hard to keep our chickens safe from predators, they must generally feel pretty vulnerable most of the time.  In the event of an emergency there isn’t much they can do to protect themselves other than stay close together and do a lot of flapping and squawking.  

I felt like we had let them down in our efforts to protect them, and I wondered if they felt the same.  Somehow, a major predator was able to come right into the neighborhood, right into their home, and violently destroy all that was normal and safe.  And we hadn’t prevented it.  

By the following week my thoughts on the event had broadened and I was  thinking of it more as a lesson in reclaiming space.  When something bad happens, an intrusion or an act of violence, anything where we are made to feel vulnerable or helpless, there are steps we take to reclaim the space.  

First, we go in and try to clear the area of any further violence or threats.  We pick up the carnage and debris.  We tend to the broken and wounded, reassuring the victims and coaxing them back to safety.  We may even have to make some physical repairs afterward, like fixing the fence.

But if we’re really going to reclaim the space, we also need to stay.  Just stay.  We don’t reclaim space after the intrusion of violence by swooping in to restore order and then swooping back out.  We reclaim space by staying.  Because often whatever the intrusion was, whatever violence broke out, it’s still right there.  Just under the surface.  Pacing on the outside of the fence.  Waiting for a chance to return.  

If we’re to reclaim a space, in our home, our community, our country, we need to show up. We need to stand there in the middle of the chaos and debris. We need to tend to the wounded and the broken. To reassure them that we’ll do our best to protect them. We need to make it safe again, and fix whatever needs fixing. And we need to stay. Because it’s our presence that reclaims a space.

I think that’s what I learned that night. Standing out in the coop until the first rays of morning.