Hoisted by His Own Petard.

Sunday brings another round of "to do's" around the house and some of that involved puttering around the chicken run doing this or that.

Today, it was time to go into the run and change out the fly trap. Also, a good time to remove the swing that had been hanging in the run for the chickens. The 'swing' was a two foot length of 2x4 suspended by nylon cord. Strong though that it had been, after hanging for a few years the cords had given up the ghost and the swing had come down.

I could've gone through the trouble of rehanging the swing, but at no point have any of the chickens taken any enjoyment out of it! So, time to remove it.

Warm day. Shorts on.  Scattered some meal worms to keep the flock bust and out from under foot while I set about these minor tasks. I reached up and took down the full, nasty, and somewhat smelly fly trap. Coq Au took notice. I hung the new fly trap and Coq Au became agitated. I removed the remnants of the fallen swing and Coq Au strode over. I removed their near empty water font to fill it and Coq Au hit his limit.

Upon returning with the freshly filled water font he had about enough of my intrusions into his day and he squared off to strike. My bare legs be damned, he was going to go for blood.

Oddly enough, this encounter did not require a sound kick from my flip flopped feet, nor did it result in bloodied legs on my part. The coincidence of our relative positions to each other found me holding the heavy water font fairly high and, though it was unintentional, hovering just above his head.

He leapt upward into his attack. His head made direct and profound contact with the unyielding underside of the water font. He leap was cut short and he was momentarily stunned. Thwarted by the 'rock' that was the power of his own energy meeting the proverbial 'hard place' of the font.

He staggered off, more embarrassed with himself than injured.

Font in place, doings in the run complete. A few more mealworms. And thus off I was to complete the next round of chores elsewhere ... Whistling a merry tune as I went.