A.P.D.--The Irrational Fears Edition

We've been losing hens lately to a fox. At least, we assume it's a fox. All I see in the morning is a big swath of loose feathers on the ground, but pretty much only a fox is smart enough to figure out that first thing in the morning the chickens are out, but the dogs are still shut up. Two hens have disappeared.

We haven't been shutting the door to the chicken coop at night, so that they can come out first thing in the morning, which is actually before we wake up. Obviously, I have to shut them in now.

So last night I went out to round up the chickens. I found two on the roof of the coop. Real smart, hens. I used a stick to prod them off the roof and into the coop. Not, of course, without some chasing of the one rebel hen around and around the coop a couple of times before she finally ran into the coop.

That just left Penny.

Penny is our old hen. We've had her about seven years now. She's taken to "roosting" at night on the ground behind the dog pen. Penny is about as far from aggressive as a hen can be. She's quite unlikely to peck or kick or flap or do anything else unpleasant when picked up.

But I still put on a coat to cover my arms and gloves to cover my hands before I picked her up. And that is because I have a quite irrational fear of being pecked.

Logically, I know that a peck from a hen isn't going to result in any serious damage. This is an animal I outweigh by over a hundred pounds. There's no reason to be afraid of it.

But I still cover up, because fears are often irrational. And that's why I was wearing a heavy winter coat and work gloves to carry a docile six-pound hen thirty yards to the chicken coop*.

Now it's your turn to confess: What fears do you have that you know are irrational but you just can't help?

* I was doing this in the lead-up to our third very violent thunderstorm yesterday, two of which featured some significant hail. We didn't sustain any notable damage--other than the fact that our gravel driveway essentially washed away--but not everyone in our area was so lucky.