backyard chickens – Under A Hen's Wing

The Turning of the Year

January 3, 2022 chickenmomma1 Comment

It is with some trepidation and a lot of hope that I welcome the new year of 2022. As I look out my window, the world is awash in gray: skies, winter bark on maple trees, relentless rain which forms puddles in every hollow, and the gray-winged birds which flock to our feeders. The world is seeming to pause, somehow, as if waiting for what will happen next. As I wait too, wondering if I am ready for whatever comes next.

It’s been a long year, folks. The pandemic did not go away with vaccinations as most of us hoped. We have had to soldier on through surge after surge. Masking has become commonplace in our household, as is testing to make sure we are not passing COVID on to our loved ones before any gathering. Severe weather events are becoming more common. The climate summit in Glasgow did not accomplish much. Politicians are still fighting. You know all this stuff. It gets OLD. I long to see a new change, while realizing that the only change that can and indeed must occur is change within myself. So at the turning of the year, I have a lot of reflecting to do. Do you?

I do not wish to recreate my old list of resolutions, which begin in hope only to get ditched about three weeks in. This year I hope to live in more grateful awareness of what is already around me, and inside me. I would like to focus on abundance rather than lack. I would like to notice the smallest of precious moments. I would like to hold them as candles in these dark winter days to illuminate what is good in my small world.

I present to you a few bright moments, beginning with this example: ( my husband noticed this first – he is my best teacher) I did not bother to put a quilt around the base of our live Christmas tree as has been my habit in years past. Be it pure laziness, it did lead our cat, Thomasina, to use the water in the tree stand as a personal fountain. Each day she goes to the tree stand and daintily dips her paws into the water (this is the coon part of her Maine coon heritage) to wash her face. If I had covered the base she would not have had access to the water.

The chickens are some of my greatest teachers, as you might well know. I daily admire the courage and tenacity of our oldest hen, Buffy, as she hangs on to her place in the flock despite suffering injury from one of our more aggressive hens. Buffy shows up every day to forage, dust bathe, and nibble at treats. She waits in the evening until the other seven are ensconced on the roost upstairs. She slowly makes her way up the rather steep ramp, speaking softly to them all the while, and then settles herself at the top of the ramp as guardian of the flock.

I am blessed every day by our newest four hens, the Dream Team. They have never had a pecking order squabble. They hang together and help each other out. As a bonus, they present us with beautiful brown eggs every day without fail. They patiently wait their turn at any treats I provide and snuggle together each night on about one foot of space on the roost. I wish the whole world could get along like the Dream Team.

What about so many other small and large treasures? The new calendars hung, full of possibility, the Christmas cards gathered on the side of our fridge waiting to be taken down and wreathed in a whispered blessing for the thoughtfulness of friends and family, the anticipation of a new cup of tea, a warm bath in glowing candlelight, a brilliant sunset seen especially vividly through the bare branches of trees, the garden, now dormant, resting under its blanket of compost and leaves, the fact that even though I am rather isolated by the pandemic I still have my meditation companions, my life companion (no small treasure, but a HUGE one), our golden retrievers who are the best at cuddles and companionship, the marvel of children and grandchildren who finally get to visit and the fact that I play some small part in their lives and abilities. Wow. Just wow. May the actions I take this year serve to nurture, and protect these small and large treasures.

It is my hope that in reading this, you are perhaps reminded of the treasures large and small that your life holds. The most wondrous gift of all is the light and life inside each one of us. May we nurture our light and extend it in love and compassion to the rest of the world.

Please comment below if you have a thought or a treasure to share!

Sometimes in September

September 7, 2021 chickenmomma1 Comment

September is a favorite month. I love the crisp mornings with a hint of fog. I love the new coolness in the air after the burning heat of July and August. The lower temperatures of nighttime signal to both the tomatoes and to me that it is time to finally slow down and begin the slow savor of warmth and sunshine; a harvest of its own against the winter months ahead. As I stated in an earlier post, I have been rather immobile this summer, which has forced me to read instead of weed! I have done a lot of armchair gardening, admiring my flowers and the growing weeds surrounding them from afar, allowed the deer to munch my lilies and roses, and given up a more than fair share of the garden to the rabbits. A lesson in being less attached to outcomes, perhaps?

My better half (shall I call him Mr. Windy Hill?) has taken over morning and night time chicken care with me only helping when my ankle permits. I am so proud and grateful that he now knows all the chickens by name and personality, and they look to him as affectionately as they do me. Our little flock has grown to eight robust pullets and hens. My older three are as greedy for treats as ever, and the only time we have a fuss in the chicken yard (other than nighttime roosting drama) is when the “Big Girls” chase the “Little Girls” off in order to gobble down more mealworms or sunflower seeds. The older ones still will NOT allow the younger girls to roost with them at night and I am beginning to doubt that they ever will. I have never had such a dysfunctional bunch of old girls. They fight every single night over who will roost where, and poor Buttercup, who is at the bottom of the pecking order, often sleeps either in a nest box or in the broody coop with the younger girls.

I have taken to calling my younger four pullets, who are twenty-four weeks old now, the “Dream Team.” They really hang together as a little flock, and go to roost without a fuss, cooing and singing each other to sleep. They look out for each other, and remind me a lot of my first flock of four from eight (can it really be eight?) years ago. They have distinct personalities although they look so much alike that even I have a hard time telling them apart. Their distinctive combs have not developed yet which is the feature I mostly use to tell my hens apart. They do have real personalities, though. Tansy is one of the larger hens, and is laying now almost every day. None of the others are laying yet. Her best buddy is RBG, named after the famous Supreme Court Justice because she is small, feisty, and not afraid of anything. Rosie Mae and Tinkerbell are a bit darker than the other two and both are less friendly about being handled.

Even though I cannot work much in the garden, I have harvested loads of tomatoes and made several batches of roasted tomato sauce for the freezer. I grew my own plants this year from seed and they all have done well. Even the heirlooms, which is a first for me. I also harvested a fine crop of both hardneck and softneck garlic, and braided it for use throughout the year.

Hopefully by the next time I write I will have three additional hens laying and I will be a bit more mobile.

Meanwhile, I leave you with some excerpts from a ramble I wrote today. I hope you may read them without judgement. Suffice it to say that although I am committed to “living in the light,” sometimes I am weary of life in these pandemic times. I long for spontaneity and a day without a conversation about the numbers of people in our area who struggle with a positive test result. So yes, sometimes:

Sometimes

Sometimes I wish that every single full moon and meteor shower for this year would not occur on a cloudy night but would politely wait one more day so I could view it and get a sense of the universe expanding around me instead of shrinking down to close me in.

Sometimes I wish I could sleep at night in dreamless slumber instead of wandering through strange rooms peopled with past acquaintances and souls I have not met on a rational plane of existence, futilely attempting night after night to accomplish impossible tasks that sometimes wake me in their urgency only to fade as quickly as dust motes in dawnlight.

Sometimes I wish I could just believe that a verse of holy scripture could answer all my questions and anxieties. Sometimes I wish prayers were answered the way I want them to be as if the prayer were a prize piece of candy at the candy counter and God were the accomodating clerk instead of the sometimes and not nearly often enough perceived presence beyond even the center of my being.

Sometimes I wish I felt a sense of purpose as I age instead of feeling rather useless at times. Sometimes I wish I really felt that my meditations truly helped the shattered world, even one small part of it mended like placing a handle back on a cup enabling one to drink deeply again or at least pause for one appreciative breath.

Sometimes I wish love would truly save the world and that with this task of being a loving presence in the world, given me one April day in 2020 would make me as able to move mountains as Gandhi – that I could send love like Cupid’s arrows flying forth to change the twisted hearts so bent on greed and destruction and make them whole and shining again.

Sometimes I wish that I really could keep and share the joy I feel when I look up through the branches and leaves of a sheltering tree to the blue and clouded sky above because I realize the tremendous gift a green leaved tree is in a world on fire. And it gives all the shelter, shade, life and oxygen while remaining completely rooted.

What do you sometimes wish for?

Dog Days of Summer

July 31, 2021 chickenmomma3 Comments

It has been a while since I have had time to reflect and write about anything! I have a few minutes now. Blackberry cobbler baking in the oven, dogs napping, in the mid afternoon quiet I can admire the flowers and garden awash in late July sunlight, and share a few updates and thoughts with you.

May was not the best of months for me. I threw my knee out and when I finally recovered from that I developed an infection which led to a secondary infection to the mystification of several doctors and left me unable to do much of anything! A wise nurse practitioner saved the day when she correctly identified what was ailing me and sent me in the right direction. Within two weeks I was back to my best self. Late in May we moved the little chickens out of the basement into the Grow Out coop. They had not been there a week until three of the four broke or cracked their beaks by getting them caught in an area where the hardware cloth overlapped. Rosie Mae had the worst damage. She broke a large portion of her upper beak off. She was bleeding profusely and I had to isolate her in the basement again until it was healed. It has grown back now but it took two months. I could take her back out to be with her flockmates after four days or so, but she still couldn’t pick up food very well for weeks. It also left her traumatized and afraid of almost everything. In fact, she really didn’t want to go back into the Grow Out coop because she was afraid of it happening again. We covered all the hardware cloth with nylon screen netting to prevent that from happening again, but Rosie Mae had her serious doubts. I had to feed her wet mash in an elevated bowl for about a month.

That cost me a lot of June as well. I did have a lovely visit with two of my Charleston grandchildren. We did all the usual things one does around here: swimming in the river, campfires at night, games on the screen porch, and even ice cream for breakfast one morning! Two garden highlights in June were a great harvest of chamomile (which had sown itself so I had nothing to do with it!) and Jessica’s strawberry basil lemonade which has become a staple around here. Seriously, chamomile tea from garden chamomile is SO much better than what one can buy in the store.

Chamomile for tea plus calendula and edible flowers for salad decoration

Dog Days set in around the 4th of July. The heat and humidity have been oppressive. So working in the garden has been limited to the early morning hours after chicken care. Luckily the garden coop is shaded for much of the day so the chickens have remained pretty comfortable. We have gone to a system of rotating outdoor paddocks, leaving the chickens in one grassy area for a week while resowing the bare spaces in the paddock they were just in. We have three paddocks so they are only in one paddock one week out of three which gives it a couple of weeks to recover. Ideally we need one more paddock but I don’t think that will happen because we are really out of space. We integrated the flock around mid-July when the littles were sixteen weeks old. They are basically operating as two separate flocks at this point after three weeks together, although now the big girls are tolerating the littles in their same foraging areas. They still won’t let them roost on the big girls’ roost. Buffy FINALLY gave up being broody after almost six weeks. She is rather a calming influence in the pecking order battles because she seems to like the company of the younger girls. And they are all pullets, thank goodness. The little girls turned nineteen weeks old today. We are still waiting for that magical first egg. I wonder who will lay it?

Left: Coop garden in full bloom. Middle: Rosie Mae all healed. Right: Tansy

July is Sadie’s birthday. We celebrate it the week after the 4th of July because that is a miserable time for her with the noise of fireworks. She had a grand old time with our grandson from Ohio there to help her celebrate. She LOVES wearing the birthday hat and eating pupcakes and doggie ice cream.

July is a busy time in the garden! We harvested blueberries, peaches (the first in several years from our old trees), and garlic. I froze the blueberries and peaches (after a couple of cobblers and peach ice cream, of course) and the garlic is drying now for braiding early in August.

I also put out my knee again and turned my ankle which has allowed me the blessing of having lots of time to read and work on my art. Since the pandemic I have been dabbling in learning watercolor from Kateri Ewing http://www.kateriewing.com and Anna Mason http://www.annamasonart.com

Practicing art has the added bonus of putting me totally in the moment and is suprisingly relaxing. I have enjoyed the time I spend in my little “studio” (an art desk in my bedroom) very much. Please see below a couple of my efforts. These are from Anna Mason tutorials at the above website, so they are not my original ideas but completed tutorials from her excellent teaching on this site.

Kateri Ewing just published a new book entitled Drawing Is For Everyone. It is available at Amazon, or on her website listed above. I just purchased a set of graphite pencils and have worked my way through two lessons so far. I look forward to trying more. She has a very Zenlike approach. Check these two artists out if you feel inclined!

Finally, as July comes to a close I reflect on these weeks of blessings and trials. This summer, after the pandemic year of 2020, I find my energy much changed. I am surely feeling my limits. I am far more settled to simply be at home and not anxious to resume my busy life from before. It looks right now as if we will be back to masking and maintaining social distance for the foreseeable future anyway. I find the need to be appreciative of the tiniest moments: the nest of baby wrens in a hanging basket, birdsong in the mornings, fireflies twinkling at night, the sweet musical murmur of my hen Daisy Sunshine, the soft fur of my cat Thomasina, tummy rubs and lovin’ on our dogs, Sadie and Caitlin, sweet companionship with my husband, the voices of my children and grands over the phone, friends dropping by to join in a meditation circle, dew drops hanging like diamonds on the petals of my flowers, the crumble of warm soil in my hands and the taste of peach ice cream melting on my tongue. Life is unbelievably rich and fragile. It is a treasure, for sure! Enjoy the last of your summer.

Lovely April

April 30, 2021 chickenmomma3 Comments

It seems that I never think to post until the last day of the month rolls around!
We have been so busy this spring! Numerous projects have kept us outdoors this year: especially the revamping of our vegetable garden. We replaced one raised bed and my dear husband built two new raised beds designed to have a trellis running between them. We also redesigned our garden beds into wide planting “neighborhoods” rather than single long rows. This is a new idea I got from a companion planting book. More on that later!

It has been a long cool spring. This year we have not had spikes of eighty degree weather. Lots of temperatures in the sixties and low seventies, which is just fine by me! We have had a couple of frost scares, including one for tonight, but I am hopeful that we may actually have some fruit on our peach and apple trees this year. Of all my lilacs, only one bloomed, but I have treasured those blooms with their amazing scent, and brought one small bouquet in to the house. I made lilac honey with some of the blossoms.

I have developed a new appreciation for the humble dandelion this year, thanks to an herb of the month box from The Herbal Revolution. The first box focuses on dandelion. The book included in the box has a recipe for dandelion lemonade which is so easy and just wonderful. I am making a quart every two or three days. It is such a nice way to get all the essential nutrients of the dandelion. They have a wonderful herb farm in Maine and a great website. http://herbalrev.com I am letting the feathered ladies out almost every evening to free range in the garden while I pluck plump yellow dandelion blossoms. I also made a tincture with the dried root included in the dandelion box. Next month’s box features nettles. We had pasta with nettle pesto (frozen from last year) a few days ago. Pat is the nettle guy and we are looking forward to nettle season in May. I picked enough violets to make violet syrup which is a real treat, and I made some violet flower essence as well. A friend brought us a lovely bag of morel mushrooms the other day too. We fried those delightful mushrooms up and enjoyed them right away. I have looked in vain for morels in our woods for the past two years, so I was grateful to receive some from a friend. Thanks, Leah!

The big news for April is that our dear older hen, Buffy, turned eight years old! I used Melissa’s recipe from http://tillysnest.com to make a birthday cake for her. I decorated it with plain yogurt, strawberries and mealworms. The cake was real hit with the hens. So we celebrated all their birthdays and Buffy was nice enough to share her cake. Buttercup is five, and Maisie and Daisy are two.

The little chicks are growing up fast. They are still in the basement, in a puppy playpen, but have enjoyed a couple of afternoons outdoors. I have named them all and I am hopeful that I truly have all pullets and no roos. Their combs are still small and very pale at six weeks. I have not had that kind of luck in my two prior broods. Tinkerbell and Rosie Mae are about the same size now and are fully feathered out. Rosie Mae is the friendliest and always flies out of the playpen to sit or pretend dust bathe in my lap. Tinkerbell is not as friendly. The other two have not completely grown their tail feathers. Dandelion is smaller and pretty fiesty. Tansy is probably the largest chick of the four and is very friendly. I have read that you can’t really tell about roosters until one starts to crow, though. So I will keep you posted.

I hope everyone enjoyed April as much as I did. I am looking forward to May planting and putting my young chicks out in their grow out coop.

These things are all silver linings on which I chose to focus. Spring is a good time to look for silver linings. What are yours? Please comment below!

March Thoughts

March 31, 2021 chickenmomma5 Comments

First things first: The biggest thing that happened to me in March was a hug. Think about that. We have reached a time when a hug becomes the most precious thing. On Sunday, March 21 at 2:30 p.m., because of the miracle of vaccination, I received and gave my first hug from someone other than my bubble and life mate in over a year. In fact, two lovely shining warm hugs – one from my son, another from my grandson. Warm, rib crushing, lengthy, luscious hugs which set my heart aglow in such a way that weeks later I can still feel them. They lit me up inside. I had not truly realized how much I missed them. They also unlocked some feelings in me that I had not realized were locked away.

Grief. If I was that starved for a hug – ME, with a loving healthy husband who cooks dinner occasionally, reaches out to hold my hand or wrap his arm around me in the dark. ME, with two golden retrievers, queens of affection who push their soft furry heads into my hands to be petted, roll over for tummy rubs and gaze at me with eyes which are brown pools of love. ME, with a home that is warm in winter/early spring – wood stove glowing, piles of yarn ready for knitting, paints on the table upstairs, stacks of books to read and treasure, woods for walking and a garden alive with birds, chickens and flowers in the summer….how starved must people be who are waiting this pandemic out in lonely nursing homes or hospital rooms, quiet houses, apartments, corners of alleyways. How starved are they? I grieve for them. I grieve for those who lost a loved one this past year, unable to say goodbye or mourn with the support of friends and family.

All of a sudden zoom meetings, FaceTime, texts and emails are not enough. I long to build a big bonfire and burn all my ways of coping up.

And yet – yet – as we approach the end of this pandemic I realize I am at times terrified. I sometimes feel like I am a vehicle rolling downhill with no brakes approaching the edge of a cliff. How can we get back to normal and what will that even look like?

It is like all the people who believe in science and have a healthy fear of contracting COVID, or worse yet, giving it to someone else – we have built these carefully constructed safe places but they are really houses of straw. Or perhaps they are more like caves we have tunneled into the ground or hillsides. How do we crawl out of our safe places and resume life again? It is hard to imagine resuming book clubs, even playing music with friends again. My dulcimer stands dust covered in the corner as if I had died. How to enter a church, take communion, attend a funeral when a card sent from a safe distance will no longer suffice? How can I have people in my home again? How do I dare? I am sure by now you are laughing. I am surely overthinking this.

I loved the vacant blue skies with no streaks of air traffic pollution. I loved the variety of birds at my feeders and seeing species I had not seen before. I loved the quiet. I loved not hovering around WalMart like a fly on rotten fruit. I loved baking our own bread (mostly my husband did that), hanging wash on the line, never going anywhere and having time to think.

And yet I yearn for hugs and to see lips smile and an occasional road trip or dinner out. How to balance? How to grieve? These are what we ALL must learn. We cannot shove this pandemic under the rug like a bad dream. We need to spend time in gratitude for the simple things we have learned to love, incorporate lessons learned into our lives, experience a rebirth of kindness and compassion. We need to be patient and kind to ourselves as well. I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Suggestions too, on how to proceed mindfully out of the tunnel into the light.

Ok. Now that I have gotten that off my chest, I do have newsy updates on a much lighter note. FIRST of all, my feathered ladies have resumed laying! Even Buffy O, who turned eight years old! She teaches me resilience every day. She is determined to keep up with the others in every way. What a joy to find four eggs (one from each of my hens) in the nest box every couple of days.

And I got four more little baby Buffs. They will be two weeks old this weekend. So far they are very healthy. I haven’t named them yet except for the smallest one, which I have called Tinkerbell. They are supposed to be pullets and I sure hope they are. I haven’t had much luck with that, having had a roo in each bunch I have raised for the last couple of times. But for now, they are adorable little balls of fluff.

It has been a beautiful Spring here so far. The temps have been consistently cool and my fruit trees are budded but not blooming. The daffodils and forsythia have been prolific with bloom. What a delight to have flowers again!

In the garden I have planted sugar snap peas and snow peas. We are planning a couple of new raised beds, and recently Pat built a cold frame which will come in handy. I have pansies, tomatoes and peppers up and under lights in the basement. I plan to plant flowering sweet peas after the predicted cold snap of this weekend.

So that’s all the news from Windy Hill at this time! Please write your comments below. I would love to hear from you!

The Love of Ordinary Things

February 23, 2021February 24, 2021 chickenmomma3 Comments

All you need is love. My husband of fifty years taught me this. It is a familiar phrase from an early Beatles song. Around our house, the tempo of our lives is graced with those well loved Beatle lyrics playing in the background. Indeed this past year of pandemic, political crisis and seemingly hopeless divide has sorely tested the truth of “all you need is love.” And yet when life narrows down to simple everyday existence, and all the things we seemingly thought we could not do without are gone, love remains. Think on that! I recently read the words of a friend who reflected on how the simplest of ordinary things have become beautiful and dear in this time of pandemic isolation. She admits to smiling fondly at her coffee cup. Perhaps she has lost her mind? She invited the reader to reflect on the small things which have become beautiful and dear. After my chuckle at her reflection I found myself noting certain small, beautiful and dear things as well. Consider my favorite wintertime companions, the birds: how the cheerful Carolina wren holds its jaunty striped tail feathers up high like a salute; how the scarlet cardinal males with their garnet grey partners cause the bare branches of my crabapple tree to bloom; how the snowbirds (juncos) nestle in the snow covered branches of our discarded Christmas tree to munch on bagel treats which we hung there.

February is an in-between month. Winter lingers on like a visitor that has outlived its welcome. We look to see if the groundhog sees its shadow, and begin to yearn for spring. The snow has lost its charm. I tire of the indoor tasks which were so beguiling in late autumn: reading, knitting, writing, drinking endless cups of tea. I sort my seed packets and count the days until I can begin to push those embryos of life into the waiting soil. Yet the days pass slowly. I make homemade valentines and treat my feathered ladies to a special heart shaped seed cake. I hang the carefully cut out hearts where Christmas decorations and snowflakes were. I studiously avoid my sewing room where a quilt is waiting for my silver needle to flash in and out, in and out. I drift as lazily through my days as the snowflakes which aimlessly float in the air outside my window.

In recent winter issue of Bella Grace magazine I came across an article entitled “Beautiful In-Betweens” by Elle Harris, a writer I much admire. https://thisquotablelife.wordpress.com/ She invites the reader to reflect on the “in-between” times in life. In particular one such invitation invites the reader to examine their hands. Think of what evidence those hands provide of a life well lived. What a small, seemingly ordinary thing to cherish: one’s own hands. Yet if I look closely at my own not so young hands, they do provide a kind of roadmap and I looked up a journal entry I wrote not long after my mother passed away. I will share parts of it:

Journal Entry: Hands (summer 2014)

Today I had to move a box into Mom’s old closet. To make room I had to dismantle a box of framed photographs which she had had at Serenity Care. As I went through the photos, mostly of her great-grandchildren, I got such a sense of time passing. It seemed so recently that these sweet children were just born, yet that was ten to twenty years ago. Where have the years gone? It seems I blink and a year goes by. I found photos of my oldest son holding his firstborn in his arms, my second granddaughter as a baby in a Moses basket, wedding photos, and one precious photo of my son at age four dressed as a clown for Halloween, my daughter’s senior photos. My what a beauty!

I found Mom’s baby pictures, deeds to property, checkbooks, my last accounting of her estate, jewelry no one wanted. That is what is left of her: a paper trail, a lock of hair, a strand of crystal beads.

I found the rings I had to take off last summer when my arthritis got so bad. My twenty-fifth wedding anniversary emerald, my fortieth anniversary ruby. I thought —maybe?? My hands are not as bad this summer. I slipped each on the ring finger. They stopped at each enlarged knuckle. No.

I am reminded again of my age. My hands are just like my mother’s: wrinkled, brown with age spots, mountain range of blue veins traced across the top. My own Blue Ridge.

These Hands

These hands have cradled babies’ heads,

and stroked my mother’s tear-streaked face,

kneaded warm smooth mounds of fragrant bread dough,

dug into the garden’s rich deep earth

to weed and plant seeds,

clapped with pride at a concert or swim meet,

typed endless lesson plans,

grasped firmly a child’s hand to give a lift up,

stroked a silky golden retriever’s fur,

strummed a dulcimer’s plaintive lament,

patted a chicken’s down fluffed breast,

wound around a husband’s strong shoulders,

folded in prayer for a friend,

laid idly while river dreaming,

twisted long red locks in agitation,

curled around a pen to record life’s questions,

composed a letter of comfort or a poem,

pressed on a keyboard to send a missive

bearing connection and love.

These hands.

Saving the Wisdom

January 14, 2021 chickenmomma10 Comments

I think I am writing today to purge my feelings so I beg your forgiveness ahead of time. We are one week away from the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and I find I am going through the classic stages of grief. At first I was stunned. I struggled to believe such a thing was happening. When a friend texted me that the protestors (as we called them then) were storming the capitol, I denied that such a thing was happening, or ever could happen. Then I sat through a series of days where images, like those of 9-11 were burned into my brain, interrupting my sleep, and invading the peace of my days as I struggled to place the events that unfolded into context. Then I grew angry, and I confess I am trying to process that anger now as I watch our leaders bargaining to see who will remain in power. The next stage is depression which I feel is very likely and I hope that stage doesn’t last long. Finally, acceptance. We are not there yet.

As I move through these days I have wished I could be like the birds who flutter cheerfully around the feeders on my deck, blissfully unaware of the turmoil we humans have inflicted upon ourselves. Watching them has been some solace for me. I have walked in the woods and watched the trees who teach me patience gently swaying in air currents far above my head. I have watched the sky clear and become the pale blue of winter, and the watery sun shining down offering its small cheerfulness and warmth. I have been in rebellion in my thoughts, sick of COVID isolation and dreaming of spending time anywhere but here.

And then, I go about my daily round. We are blessed to have animals which need us to care for them and so the hours of my day are arranged around feeding and caring for them in various ways. And as usual the animals are such good teachers. The dogs want fed, walked, brushed and petted. They wake us before dawn each day, joyful to have another day of loving. The cats are imperious dictators, demanding their share of attention and treats, and yet able to curl up peacefully on their mats confident that they will receive their evening meal after a nap. The chickens greet me each morning with soft chatter. They follow me around the coop and the run, hoping for a scatter of sunflower seeds. When I speak to each by name, each cocks a head and looks at me with an inquisitive eye. I watch their interaction in the flock which is much like how humans order their society. A couple are good friends, some really do not like each other, and the oldest limps around still in charge of the flock and getting the respect to which she is due. She is too old to hop on a roost any more yet no matter what the weather, she takes her place at the top of the ramp into the roosting area, ready to protect and defend her flock.

Tonight as I put my chickens to bed for the night, securely locking them in after I gathered a couple of warm brown eggs, I had a thought. I was thinking about how lucky these birds are to be a flock in a backyard where they are fed every day, cared for with love in a clean orderly coop, and locked in securely every night. Even though Buffy is too old to be productive, she is still a valuable member of the flock. Even though Buttercup is at the bottom of the pecking order, in the end she still has a place to roost and her share of food. What if human beings cared for each other like that? What if we could create a society in which each person is valued for the light in their soul, regardless of their place in the pecking order? What if we cared for everyone knowing that each has worth?

Our governor called the first round of vaccine distribution to those eighty years of age or older “Saving the Wisdom.” Think about that. These folks are the elders of our society, and they have a lot of wisdom to share. I am not that old, but I am as David Whyte called “on the threshold of the great disappearance.” What wisdom do I have to share? I certainly hope that I have shared some with my own children who occasionally call me and ask for advice. What wisdom do I have for these days of chaos into which we have entered? I would advise that we stop drawing dividing lines and focus on what brings us all together. Once again, E Pluribus Unum, out of many one. We are all Americans first. Let’s stop the labeling and name calling, and like a feathered flock, work together for the common good.

Last week I lost my dear Uncle David to COVID-19, as the nation rocked with the insurrection. In my grief at his passing, I thought of the loss of this good elder in my life. I thought of how he was slow to speak or give an opinion, thoughtfully considering all sides, a skill we have lost. But when he spoke it was wisdom. I thought of a wise teacher I once had who spoke of a circle of souls, elders, surrounding our planet, guiding it and keeping it safe. I like to think that is so. Our wise ones do not ever leave us, but if we remember their wisdom, it may guide us forward through these tough times.

I leave you with this poem I wrote while feeling sad and hopeful at the same time :

 
 Saving the Wisdom
  
  
 Another wide smile lost,
 another voice silenced.
 And
 as darkness grows across the land
 another bright light fades out
 and passes into memory.
 Not lost, 
 never lost
 behind the veil of death,
 but journeying on
 toward a greater work.
  
 Envision this:
 the souls of wise elders bound together
 to form a band of love
 around a world that looks like it is broken,
 encircling the planet to guide and save it.
  
 Below, we try to straddle the chasm of grief.
 Our aching hearts seeking connection
 found in beauty, laughter, memory and
 steady hearts which hold inner light.
  
 We hold the future by the grace of our actions,
 a tiny seed entrusted to us by these wise elder souls.
 What will grow in this ground
 so well-watered with our salt water tears?
 We place this seed of wisdom in this hallowed ground
 and hope
 that healing will one day take root.

Thanksgiving Thoughts

November 23, 2020 chickenmomma8 Comments

It has been a long time since I have posted so I have a lot of catching up to do! In this time of staying at home, I have actually had the time to enjoy my chickie girls and really harvest my garden before putting it to bed. I am down to four chickens now, having lost two this summer. I have two young hens, Masie and Daisy Sunshine. They have plenty of energy and it did not take them long to destroy all the grass in their paddock. They are diggers as well so I have to watch my steps to avoid stepping in one of their dust bath holes. Buttercup is a little lost soul. She has lost all her original flock mates and is like a middle child with no real friend to call her own. She wanders around trying to stay away from Masie, who chases her and bullies her. Buffy Orpington who is almost eight years old tries her hardest to keep up with these youngsters. She has a slight limp though which slows her down. She has also taken to napping a lot in the pine chips. She is still the leader in the flock, though, not hesitating to peck Masie on the head when in competition for a choice tidbit. I have recently been allowing the little flock into the garden now that they cannot destroy it. We go out almost every day close to dusk, a time when I hope the hawks have finished hunting. They have a fine time exploring. Buttercup has developed a taste for red fruit, which was always something Henrietta preferred. She discovered tiny little tomatoes on a volunteer plant and even raspberries on my one lone bush. Who knew I would have red raspberries in November! But I did have a few.

Note Buttercup on the left, and Buffy hiding in the asparagus ferns on the right.

As for the garden, I have fallen in love with Juliet tomatoes. Look them up in the seed catalogs which are arriving now. I found seed at Johnny’s. They look like small Romas, but have clusters of tomatoes like cherry tomatoes and so are quite prolific. They also do not have a ton of juice and so are perfect for quick sauces. I made loads of sauce and froze many bags to enjoy this winter. Basil did well too and we made weekly batches of pesto. So bring on the pasta this winter! For once I actually planted short rows of beans so that one picking would work for a meal. I did not freeze many of those. A-n-n-n-d I am proud to say that not even one zucchini went into the compost, although I did give away a few! I even got a nice harvest of little picnic sweet peppers which were so pretty in a blue and white bowl and tasty as toppings for pizza. We still have chard and I have discovered a delicious way to prepare it: Slice the leaves away from the middle stem. Chop the stems up and cook them too if you prefer (I give mine to the chickens). Roll the leaves up and slice them into thin strips with a good knife. In a skillet heat a little olive oil. Pop in a couple cloves of minced garlic and let it just warm up for a few seconds. Add a handful of sliced red peppers (I used those little picnic beauties) and then toss in the chard. Saute till just wilted throughout, and enjoy!

How are Y’all doing eight months into this pandemic? We are staying pretty close to home. I do miss seeing family. We talk weekly and Facetime some. One time my grandson gave a Zoom piano concert which was so fine. He has become a gifted pianist and plans to pursue this talent in college. I am getting used to the new normal. Oh, there are moments of angst, but largely I have found that my new simpler life suits me just fine. Now that I am not running all over the place to meetings and such, I find I have time to complete tasks, like all summer I actually hung out the laundry on a line. Who knew sheets could smell so fresh! I felt like my own grandmother! I also have learned to knit and am really proud of what I am turning out. I have taken a few retreats via Zoom. I have found that the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. has some fabulous events online. Check it out, friends! The latest one which I attended via Zoom was an Art as Spiritual Practice workshop. I painted this holly wreath for Advent:

One of my new hobbies is watercolor art. I love it because it takes me totally out of my head and becomes a meditation. I am certainly no prodigy and you won’t see my paintings at any art show, but I do send a piece occasionally (notecard size) to people I cherish.

I find that in living more simply I do not spend time wishing things were different, or even just wishing for THINGS. I look around me and find that I have enough. I can now treasure what is around me: the beauty and generosity of our Mother Earth and her many natural treasures, my loving husband, good neighbors, sweet friends, animal and plant companions, and my breath. Let’s not forget how precious breath is when so many are struggling to breathe in this pandemic. I call these blessings “pandemic silver linings.”

What silver linings have you discovered in these past months? Please share in a comment below. I would love to hear from you.

Yellow Feet, my sweet warrior

July 20, 2020 chickenmomma7 Comments

I write this through tears. Today I said goodbye to my dear Yellow Feet. We had her euthanized this morning after a trip to the vet and x-rays revealed a large mass in her abdomen. Ovarian cancer. This cancer can appear in hens 2 years of age or older. The better layer a hen is, the more she is likely to get it, ironically. Also I read recently that hens are the only animal to get this very female and human cancer. Yellow Feet was almost seven and a half years old. She had a good, long life for a hen. We buried her near Henri in the rose garden. I am not a big fan of the Rainbow Bridge thing, but I do believe that somewhere out in the universe, Henrietta and Yellow Feet are happily hanging out together. I sure hope they check in on me once in a while. Meanwhile, I want to take the time to recall the life of a very precious flock member, my little warrior, as we came to call her as she bravely fought this cancer until it got the better of her.

Over seven years ago, in April, my love affair with chickens began. I have told this story when I wrote about Henrietta. But here is what I haven’t told you. I came home with three baby chicks. I was certain one was going to die so I went back to the feed store and got one more chick. This one was a bit smaller than the other three. From the start she eyed the world with wariness. She was NOT a people lover. She did not like her flock mates and preferred to keep to herself. She was difficult to catch and having a nice cuddle was her idea of torture. All four chickens lived and became my original flock. I named this little feisty one Amelia Chickenheart because it was clear she intended to forge her own way. Eventually, though, she named herself. Because she was smaller than the others, and had the most dainty yellow legs and feet, she became Yellow Feet.

As Yellow Feet grew, she became quite a little bully. She terrorized Miss Roo until Miss Roo became good at hiding from her. Her only friend was Buffy Orpington. Yellow Feet and Buffy were the first to lay eggs and they would strut their stuff around the chicken yard, lording it over the others. We had to put Yellow Feet in “chicken time out” more than once. This was a little chicken tractor in our garden, surrounded by a makeshift fence. She LOVED chicken time out because it meant she could live by herself for a few days. One could see her happily pecking and digging away out in her own little space. She could have lived there happily forever.

Once back with the others, Yellow Feet became a brilliant escape artist. She daily inspected the fence for weak areas and quite often she would come up missing along with Buffy, her partner in crime. I would find them happily in some other area in the garden. When I put her back in the repaired fence, she immediately stood sizing my repair up and measuring the height of the fence in her head so she could fly over it. Which she did.

When new chickens came into the flock, Yellow Feet appointed herself chief intimidator. She would strut back and forth in front of the grow out coop, chest puffed out like The Little Colonel,” giving them the evil eye. She quickly put them in their place in the pecking order.

For all her sassiness, Yellow Feet did have some good qualities. She consistently laid the most perfect rather small brown egg. And at the end of that first terribly cold, snowy winter, she started to sing. It was amazing to hear such a sweet song come out of this little scrapper. But sing she did, when she was happy. However, if Yellow Feet went broody, which she did often, we quickly learned not to mess with her. One was likely to get a nasty peck if one ventured anywhere near the nest box. She could growl and scream like a banshee too.

Yellow Feet invented social distancing. She was a master at it. She never did anything with the rest of the flock. As she got older, her favorite thing was to sleep alone atop a large plastic bag of leaves. She came every morning to the run door for a handful of sunflower seeds, but that was her only social interaction.

We always thought that Yellow Feet would outlive the other members of her original flock. In all the time she was with us she was never sick. This last week has been rough for her. I guess the tumor was pressing against her other organs so she couldn’t eat, or drink. It is the only time she ever allowed me to pick her up. The last two mornings I took her out to the rose garden and she went right to the little stone statue which stands over Henrietta’s grave. I think she was telling me she was ready to quit this earthly scene. Well done, good and faithful warrior.

The vet presented me with this, this morning.

Take Joy

July 4, 2020 chickenmomma1 Comment

I have not posted lately mainly because there has been little new to say. These days mostly blend into each other and it becomes difficult to recall what day of the week it is. My daughter and I started an “isolation journal” on Google docs and we eventually abandoned it in early May because all our entries started sounding alike. We have been self isolating almost four months. I have been nowhere except for an occasional foray into curbside pickup at Tractor Supply or the grocery store. Health issues and an extended course of antibiotics lowered my immune system so doing more than that seemed and still seems risky.

I have been taking delight in my garden because in spite of everything, it has been a delightful Spring. Sometimes I could blink my eyes and swear I was back in Scotland where the weather persists in mists, rain and cool temperatures. My roses have been loving this extended moist spring. They usually struggle in early scorching heat but this year they have bloomed beautifully! I even have larkspur which seeded itself in my flower bed and in the coolness grew to heights over my head, and shouted glory to the sky.

Sadly, I lost a hen at the end of May. My Nellie, died suddenly and mysteriously. She was perfectly fine one minute and the next my husband found her dead in the run. She was just one year old. I cried. We buried her in my rose/daylily garden beside dear Henrietta. We repurposed an old bench from our basement family room and placed it in the garden among the roses and day lilies which are just now in full bloom. I sit there on sunny mornings with my tea and feel grateful that I have had the companionship of my hens over the years. I feel they are with me still in the spirit world which is so closely intermeshed with this one which we think is real.

Buffy Orpington decided to go broody in April, and because it was cool and she is over seven years old, I thought, “Why not? Just let her stay in the nest.” Stay she did. For way past time to be over broody. For over thirty days I had to go out three times a day and lift her off the nest so she could go down to eat and drink. When she finally stopped being broody, she started sitting at the top of the ramp into the henhouse each night near dark and preventing the other hens from going up to roost. So I had to go out at dark each night and remove her from the ramp so the others could go up to roost. To say she is a difficult personality is an understatement! About two weeks ago, just when summer heat was starting, she went broody again. This time I put her in a crate below the nest boxes where she could stay cool and protected from the weather. Day after day, Buffy held court from her crate as her flockmates kept her company, dust bathing near her or just quietly talking. This time she kept the broodiness up for about a week before she abandoned it. She probably figured it was not worth the effort to stay broody in the heat.

I have been working in the garden in the morning while it is still cool and resting in the afternoons. I am usually busy all through the day, but lately I have been using my rest time to absorb the vibrant beauty around me. The chickens seemed happy to have Buffy back to normal. There is real tension in the flock when one chicken is “off” for some reason. So I watched them do everything together as a flock. First they gathered in the big run for a dust bathing session. Each hen rolled about in ecstatic delight, thoroughly coated in dust. After that they all paraded out into a grassy area to preen, thus cleaning and polishing their feathers much like I might blow dry and style my hair. All that effort called for an afternoon snack, so I treated them to a pan of chopped apple. They dug into that with little squeals of excitement. Once the apple was devoured, one of the hens jumped on a stool at the side of the coop and began to sing. One by one the other four joined in and the whole flock was singing in glorious cacophony. Now I can’t say it was lovely. Chickens only know one song: their egg song. And it is not exactly melodic. But it is JOYFUL. And to observe these five hens all singing together so joyfully touched my heart. They only rarely do this. The last time it happened was over a year ago when Henrietta was still the flock leader.

I have said before, these chickens are a part of my spiritual practice. They have taught me so much! Yesterday they reminded me to take joy in simple everyday routines. So much of the time we are burdened down these days with concern about the growing pandemic, the seeming unwillingness of community members to do something as simple as wear a mask to protect their neighbors, the ignorance and even spitefulness of our elected leaders, and fear for the future as this world struggles to recreate itself between two polarized points. One can feel pretty helpless and hopeless. It was good for me to be reminded that I have very little control over these big issues, but I can control my JOY by focusing on simple daily routines, much like my chickens. And when I am right here, right now, I can be surprised by joy. So TAKE JOY!!!