FARMINGTON – With gusts reaching up to 50mph in some parts of the state, Monday’s wind storm caused significant tree damage and hazardous conditions. Thousands were without power through most of the day Tuesday, and people were encouraged to play it safe if out and about during the storm.
For the area’s poultry population, it was a day of blustery misadventure.
Emma is a tiny Bantam hen described as “slightly larger than a softball”. She is the only chicken in Mallory Lewis’ flock with a name, and serves as the matriarch in her assumed old age. She was one of two chickens out and about during one of the windiest days of the year.
“She doesn’t even leave the coop on a nice day,” Lewis said. “I think she must have just…blown away. She would never just leave.
Lewis was out of town when she received a phone call from her roommate reporting that a few kids had just been to the door asking about a lost chicken. In their hands was a chicken, but it wasn’t Emma.
“I was carrying the chicken because, well, we have chickens too, and my friends and I like to joke around with chickens. So we were carrying it around and pretending it was the FBI,” Ryland Dumont said.
Ryland is almost nine and lives in the neighborhood with his brother, Koa, who was also investigating the neighborhood mystery. Three of their friends completed their team, the self-declared “Street Light Roamers”.
“That was their name last year. I’m not sure what it is now,” Ryland and Koa’s mother Velda Yamashiro said. “It was all very comical. You kind of had to be there. I had just gotten done taking the dog for a walk and I see these five boys running down the street with a chicken. People were doing double takes.”
The boys were playing, as they often do, when a few college kids asked them if they were missing a chicken.
They were not.
Neither were their nearby neighbors who also had backyard poultry.
“The college kids were keeping it at their house and feeding it bread, so they asked if we had any chicken food,” Koa said.
Through Facebook, and a small town network, Lewis was able to track Emma down.
24 hours later and she is finally back in Lewis’ care, thanks to a few caring college kids, the Street Light Roamers and one unidentified FBI Chicken Agent.
