Fishing for Chickens

This morning I was looking back through some post drafts that I'd written and somehow never scheduled on my blog.  I actually wrote the post almost 3 years ago, but now that I've found it again, I want to share it with you.  I hope you enjoy it!  

Don't you just love it when your kids come up with creative ways to entertain themselves?  (Well, at least when they aren't destructive!!)    I would love to tell you about a time when my children and my sister's children came up with a novel idea for entertainment that didn't cause anyone to get hurt or cause any destruction of property, and they actually totally enjoyed themselves doing it! 

One spring day, my family went to visit my twin sister's family at their house.  Our kids were looking for things to get into do for entertainment.  Several of our kids (2 boys ages 13 and 10 and 2 girls both age 7 at that time) were outside exploring and playing.  After they did all the "regular" activities like swinging, jumping on the trampoline, playing chase, and those kinds of things, they began to look for other things to do.

My sister has some chickens that she raises for their eggs.  Sometimes she lets them out in the yard during the day so they can eat grass and bugs and just stretch their little chicken legs.  For a while the kids chased the chickens around, and sometimes the chickens chased the kids around too!  Since Daniel (the 10-year-old boy) feeds the chickens, they often flock to him whenever he goes outside because they think he is about to feed them. 

After the chicken chasing was over, Daniel noticed his and his dad's fishing poles that had been left outside after a recent fishing trip.  Seeing those fishing poles made him think that it might be fun to go fishing for chickens!  After assuring his parents that he would take the hooks off of the fishing lines, he got permission to do just that. 

Now, you know that kids are always hungry and wanting to snack on something, so all of the kids had been snacking on some yummy fresh strawberries while they were outside playing.  They had put the little green stems (with tiny little bits of strawberries still attached) back into the bowls that they were eating the strawberries out of.  The strawberry stems were handy, and they knew they would need "bait" if they were to catch any chickens, so they carefully tied the strawberry stems and pieces onto their fishing lines.  Then they went onto the front porch (which is actually a deck that is a couple of feet off the ground) to stand, and they dangled the fishing lines (with strawberry bait tied on) over the heads of the chickens.  I have to admit it was quite funny watching those chickens run like crazy to try to get those strawberry scraps! 

After the chickens got tired of trying to reach the strawberries, the kids had mercy on them and lowered the lines a bit so the chickens could actually reach them.  I thought those chickens were going to wound each other as they ran over each other in hopes of being the one to reach the berry!  They (the chickens--not the children) pecked at the berries until they came off the line, then they carried their little treats off to finish devouring them. 

The whole episode was really so funny!  And we parents enjoyed watching them just because they were enjoying themselves so much and laughing so hard that it was fun for us to watch them.  (Isn't it funny how parents often have more fun watching the kids doing fun things than we would have if we ourselves were the ones doing the fun activity?) 

I don't think I am creative enough to think of an idea like fishing for chickens!  Kids are still able to "think outside the box" though, so they saw all the items necessary to make up a fun new game, and they took the opportunity to do it.  The only thing I regret is that I didn't think to take pictures of them while they did it!

Do you or your children ever make up fun games or activities using whatever you have around the house?  I would love to hear about them if you do!

NOTE:  The photo at the top of this post came from www.freedigitalphotos.net.