Bead-Chickenfeather Brown Black Acrylic Triangles TB

I maintain records on my trackables. For a US-based trackable, this one is unusual for its longevity and movement. In the six-year period, 2010-19, the owner released a total of 3,793 trackables in the United States (96%) and Europe (4%). This trackable is one of the 5% of the total that circulated for at least 5 years and had been moved at least 25 times. That is a target rate of at least five drops per year for five years, or a drop every 73 days. The average drop rate of my trackables in the US is 124 days, in Europe it is 71 days. As of 5-Feb-24 this trackable had survived for 7.6 years and had been moved by 32 cachers, for an average drop every 86 days, or 4.2 drops per year. Please keep it moving, then drop it in a safe place!

No permission is needed to leave the U.S. While in the U.S., please drop it at an event, in a Premium Member only OR a rural cache near a busy trail or road. Do not place it in an urban, non-premium cache. Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and dry, protects the number and prevents tangling with other items. Otherwise, take the trackable anywhere you wish.

This is one of a series of large beads obtained from different places and converted into travel bugs.  They are named for Texas towns with interesting names or histories.  Much of the text is from the online Handbook of Texas or texasescapes.com.

New Hope, which would later become Chickenfeather, began as a community around 1901 when C.B. and Bonnie McLemore donated land for the New Hope Community School and a church.  According to a pioneer of the community, the name derives from the misadventure  of a group of young boys who decided to go hunting one autumn night around 1910.  They failed to bag any game so they swiped a couple of chickens from a farmer, built a fire behind New Hope Church, then roasted and ate the birds.  To hide the evidence of their theft, they tossed the feathers and viscera into a well where churchgoers and schoolchildren drew their water each day.  Contaminated with the chickens’ remains, the well had to be cleaned out and salted to restore the water to drinkable quality.  Thereafter, New Hope was better known as Chickenfeather.  Today, the rolling hills around the former Chickenfeather community have been smoothed away by giant lignite mining scoops.  Little remains from the community’s existence except for Chickenfeather Road which once passed through the town.