This week was a hard one for chickens. When I heard the warnings for pet owners not to let their dogs stay outside in the frigid air, I worried. Really? A Siberian Husky is in danger but my barefoot Marans will be fine? Piling on extra bedding and turning on the heat lamp felt like small potatoes against the wind chill predicted for two nights. I decided to take action. 

The twins agreed and helped construct a small pen in the basement. We used window screens, my quilting frame, and netting to keep them in an eight by eight corner, with layers of newspaper and old fabric. It looked almost festive. 

The hens seemed confused when at bedtime we carried them two by two, not into an ark, but in the house and down the stairs. We let them loose in the enclosure and they adjusted with a minimum of squawking. Their feed tray and waterers looked familiar, and after they perched on the bars we turned out the lights. I felt proud of our efforts. 

The next morning after the girls left for school I went down to refill the feeders. Chickens were everywhere. It had not taken much to break through the gaps between the screens and once one curious chicken started exploring, sixteen followed. I scooped them back up and put paint cans to reinforce the cracks, but there was evidence of their wanderings like chicken pox on the cement. And it smelled. 

After forty eight hours I decided they could again manage the great outdoors and carried them back up the stairs. They adjusted with a fluff and a shudder. Then I dealt with the basement. While I try to keep my trash output to a moderate level, I recklessly filled an entire can with the poopy floor of their home away from home. 

"It was a failure," I told John.

"No, a failure would have been if they had died of the cold."

He was right. When the hawks killed my Silkies I cried because of the unspoken promise I had made to keep them alive. Even though the basement experiment had been messy, and a lot of work, they were safe. They had even laid a dozen eggs in the cardboard box. 

Marriage is messy. And a lot of work. While you are in it it may feel like a failure, especially if you believe the lie that no one else's relationship has a smelly basement. 

But there is comfort in knowing you kept it from freezing to death.