Angry chickens

My chickens aren't speaking to me.  I've locked them in the barn and they DON"T like it a bit.  I've tried to explain that it's for their own protection, but they're not buying it.  One of my big, egg-laying chickens disappeared a few days ago, leaving nothing behind but some big chunks of feathers drifting around the chicken pen.  I rounded the remaining chickens up and locked them in the coop.  One escaped and I was trying to corral him back inside using a rake.  Have you ever tried chicken herding?  It's not easy.  Eventually, I got her in the pen and locked up with the rest, then our neighbor came over.  I assume he saw me chasing a chicken with a rake and was thanking his lucky stars that he's got such entertaining people living next door.  He asked if we lost another chicken and I said yes.  Then he told me that he found feathers and a wingtip on the roof of his house and said he thought it was an owl. Oddly enough, I never thought to ask him the obvious question:  Why was he on his roof looking at chicken parts?  Instead, I gave him my theory:  I saw/heard a couple bald eagles flying over the woods on the very day that the chicken disappeared and I think our national symbol had a chicken dinner on me.  Either way, the chickens are now locked in the barn until we can get bird netting over the chicken yard.  I'm now down to 4 adult chickens, one healthy chicken from the March hatching and one sickly chicken from the March hatching - the only reason she's still alive is because she's got a bad leg and I figured she was going to die ages ago, so I put her in her own little pen in the barn to protect her from being harassed by the other chickens.  So, ironically, the gimpy bird I figured was going to die is only alive today because...it's a gimpy bird I thought was going to die.  Life's strange sometimes, eh?  Oh, and I ordered 70 baby chicks from the coop this week.  I'm getting 20 layers and 50 broilers.  So, on July 10, I'm going to have a bunch of chickens in my bathtub again.

I went to an estate sale today.  I like estate sales because they've got everything in them as opposed to rummage sales, which is just stuff that people want to get rid of.  So, the people who lived at this house went into a nursing home and their kids or someone were getting rid of all their stuff for them.  You know, there comes a point when you just have to admit that it's time to throw something away.  Some things are stuff that NOBODY wants.  These people diligently put price tags on everything - every washcloth, frying pan, box of screws and - get this - a half a bottle of Scope.  Yeah, these people were trying to sell used mouthwash for $1.  That's not it either, there was also opened containers of dental floss, half empty bottles of shampoo, an open bottle of suppositories.  Everything with price tags on them.  I'm having a hard time imagining customers snapping those things up.  All I could do was imagine some old, toothless man taking a swig of mouthwash directly from the bottle.  I left the sale before I started getting gaggy.