Guinea rescue

Farmer John dropped me off at the farm after school today before he headed back to town for some errands. It was raining - because it's always raining. I heard a bit of guinea squawking as I went in the house, but that's normal. This was the scene I observed from the kitchen window:

There was a guinea inside the chicken yard. Not a big deal, except that it was panicking. It was running back and forth in front of the fence, to the point where it had made a long muddy rut. It was also making panicked-guinea noises (use your imagination here). There's no telling how long it had been trapped inside the fence, but the rut was pretty deep and the guinea was soaking wet and muddy. During it's entrapment it had forgotten to just...fly!

I decided to try and rescue the pitiful thing before it got dark. Once inside the fence with  the panicked guinea I learned that guineas may be dumb, but boy are they FAST! We did quite a few laps of the chicken coop, in the rain and mud, before I took a break. 

After taking care of the chickens I decided I needed the right tool to finish this job. Farmer John's fishing net is generally the tool of choice for catching poultry around here. However, I couldn't find Farmer John's fishing net, so I grabbed a rake. The guinea and I did a few more laps of the chicken yard, this time in the POURING rain and with the rest of the guineas watching from outside the fence. (Imagine even more squawking) 

Finally I was able to use the rake to catch the guinea against the fence and grab it. Then I set it outside the fence and it ran off to join the rest of its flock. My favorite part was that cow just stood and watched the chaos while chewing her cud.