Living on a ranch, you’re a little closer to life in a lot of ways. Every year, we see life birthed, we watch life grow, and we witness how life ends. This slightly fabricated tale is about the life one little chicken experienced at Drowsy Water Ranch. 

Once upon a time on a little dude ranch in Colorado there lived a hen named Uno Mas who lived all alone. Each day she would eat alone, lay her eggs alone, and sing her famous “buu-oook!” all alone. She was very lonely.

Uno Mas was not always a lonely chicken. Not too long ago, she was a member of a group of ten chickens that had come to the family dude ranch in the spring. The hens had a nice coop to live in. Each day they pranced around the Colorado ranch scratching up bugs and plants to eat and take turns laying eggs in their coop.

One night a big, bad bear came down from the mountains that surround Drowsy Water Ranch. The bear was very hungry. A few of the hens were still out of the coop scratching for food. The bear spotted the hens and thought to himself “Yum, Yum chickens for dinner!”

The bear started to chase the hens. The hens ran, squawking and wildly flapping their wings, as fast as their little birdie legs could run all around the ranch. They couldn’t escape. Gulp! Gulp! The bear ate two of the chickens then headed back up the mountain to take a nice, long, nap.

The surviving hens were terrified. They were so scared they couldn’t lay eggs and they didn’t want to leave the coop. The next night, the bear, hungry again, returned to Drowsy Water for another dinner. Munch! Munch! Munch! He ate three more of the hens.

Now only a few chickens were left. In the coop, they had a meeting and decided to make a plan to stop the bear. They squacked and buu-ocked all morning working on their plan. Three chickens would wait outside for the bear while the other two hid in the coop and waited for the perfect moment to rush the bear and hit him with their wings and peck him with their beaks.

The next night, the bear returned and the plan went into effect but the bear was much stronger and smarter than the hens had anticipated. The hens tried with all of their birdie-might but their little wings were no match for the bear’s fierce teeth and gruesome claws. Chomp, Chomp, Chomp, Chomp! The bear ate four more hens.

Now only one hen was left. The people at the ranch were sad that the bear had eaten almost all of the chickens and decided to help this last chicken fend off the bear. They brought in a big trap and put snacks inside the trap to lure the bear in.

When the bear returned, he smelled the delicious snacks in the trap and sauntered right past the chicken coop towards the bait. He was just about to take his first bite when SNAP! The door of the trap slammed shut and the bear was trapped. He roared and growled, pawing and biting at the metal, but nothing helped.

The last lonely chicken had been nervously watching from the barn when the bear passed by her on the way to the trap. She danced and pranced and screamed an exuberant “Buuuu-oooook!” when the trap snapped shut.
The next morning, the people at the ranch found the bear in the trap and sent him off to a different forest. They were happy the last chicken had survived and decided to name her Uno Mas, which means “one more”, in honor of her survival. And that is how Uno Mas came to live all alone at Drowsy Water Ranch.

The End