Every reference I have ever consulted on caring for chickens warns that carnage is a question of “when” not “if.” “Chickens,” they say, “are the snack food of the animal kingdom.” That concern helps explain the electric fence around our chicken yard and our vigilance about securing the girls each night. I don't have much emotional capacity for carnage. We do all we can to keep them safe.
Nonetheless, on Monday evening as I was gathering eggs I grew concerned that one was missing – one of the Iowa Blues that I had had such difficulty acquiring, and that had gone broody over the past few weeks. That's how I missed her. I had grown accustomed to finding one or both sequestered in a nesting box, trying valiantly but vainly to hatch one of these unfertilized eggs. On this particular evening, the box was empty; one was scratching around the yard but her sister was nowhere to be seen. We searched – underneath, around, behind – but nothing. As darkness descended we shone flash lights into thickets and behind trees in the surrounding area, but nothing. The next day, outside the fence, I noticed an abundant clutter of feathers.
I don't know what happened. My guess is that, always an adventuresome sort, she had fluttered over the fence in pursuit of greener grass and met a malevolent and hungry stranger.
I will readily admit to grief. Suspecting that her own initiative brought about her demise in no way salves the sadness. Reaching under a brooding chicken to retrieve an egg develops a certain intimacy only deepened by the punctuating pecks, as counter-intuitive as that sounds; and I miss her. Our happy 23 has been reduced to a soberer 22.
I prefer to think of it as prudent protectiveness rather than vengeful bloodlust that led me last night to bait and reset the traps. And I have no way of knowing if the raccoon I found this morning contained in one of them was the culpable party or not. Regardless, I can definitively say this evening that he no longer poses any threat. “An eye for an eye…”
Meanwhile, bright and early this morning the Post Office called to let me know that a box had arrived with my name on it. With live birds. Two 10-week old Lavender Orpingtons I had ordered from a hatchery in Southern Illinois. A new breed for me, softly beautiful in their grey-lavender sheen. Released into the Annex for a couple months of quarantine and bulking, they leaned first into the feeder after their 3-day journey, and then the water. Only then did they explore their new territory before settling in for a nap.
So, “sunrise, sunset.” One step back and two steps forward. Death and life in maddeningly familiar juxtaposition. “Rest in peace, sweet Blue.” “Welcome home Lavender beauties.”
And so it is that almost without blinking our sober 22 becomes a promising 24.
And seeds are sprouting in the greenhouse in the very days that tomato vines in the garden are getting pulled and composted.
All of which counsels me to believe that life has more curve than trajectory -- more circle than line.
And at least for the moment, soft and chirping with adolescent vigor.
But just in case, the traps are baited and set.
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