When I got up this morning, the Gray Hen had disappeared. She is never in the roost any longer, she is always by the back door with Minnie, the barn cat. She gets fed there now, I looked for her in all the usual spots, but no hen. I  told Maria I thought she had been taken by a fox or coyote or hawk, she is always by the back porch now.

After four or five hours (I looked on and off, not continuously) I decided she was almost certainly dead, I wished a peaceful and quick ending for her. I was thinking about what I might say about her, I don’t usually write much about chickens, dead or alive.

When Maria and I went out to look for her one last time, or for traces of her, we wound her sitting by the Schoolhouse Studio looking curiously at me.

She seems to have disappeared again. She is not broody, this is a very different behavior. I don’t think she has long to go.