The Sad Quietude of an Empty Egg Basket

There are no eggs.  

OK, that's not literally true.  Tonight there were 2.  It has been that way all week.  There was a one-day high of 5, but otherwise the daily retrieval has been light duty.  This, when a more typical collection would have been 18-20; a dozen on a bad day.  These from our 34 heritage breed chickens. Truthfully, that number is deceiving.  One of that number is a rooster with very dubious prospects of ever laying an egg.  Three of the girls are pre-pubescent.  And a few — some indeterminate number — are slowing down as they age out.  

But 2?

There is yet one more numerical revision that must be factored in.  We had a massacre.  We don't know the specifics — we were out of town — but sometime a week or so ago a predator claimed the lives of six of the flock.  That, in addition to one that apparently and unrelatedly simply died in the coop.  So that 34 has tragically and suddenly been reduced to 27. 

But still:  2 eggs?

I did some research.  Trauma is likely to blame.  The girls are off-balance.  Their minds — along with the rest of their bodies — are shaken and they will need time to heal.  They are significantly off track.  Several of the girls have, ever since the attack, even taken to roosting, as darkness approaches, on the roof of one of the coops.  Darkness, they have experienced, is when the bad stuff happens.  They've never done this before.  It's the trauma talking.  This, according to the literature.  This isn't simply me anthropomorphizing -- projecting human reactions to my feathered friends.  It is, according to the experts, the nightmare that keeps recurring.  They don't want to sleep, and they aren't able to lay eggs.

Because trauma stays with you.  It's a stain not easily laundered.

I've been thinking, of late, about the children of war, the children separated at the border from their parents, the children of abusive parents, and all the rest of us who are forced to see what should never cross our field of vision.  

And the paralysis that results, and lingers; the stain that never quite fades away.

The inability to bear fruit.

And the myriad ways we try to climb out of harm's way.

There is a sad and silent numbness to the empty basket…to the exploded heart…that perhaps time will heal.  Or not.

In the meantime I stand amidst the chickens each evening well before dusk settles, to reassure, to calm.  I talk to them.  I move among them.  I attempt to counter the darkness.   I don't know if it makes them feel any more secure but it makes me feel better — like I'm doing something.  And next week a few new hens will be arriving from a happier place.  Perhaps they will be able communicate something to these shaken girls of a better way, a better life; a happier prospect for the days ahead.  

For now we will simply ache, and grieve the empty, chasmic space that remains — the chickens, me, and the basketed void.

Nature’s Call for Respect and Responsibility

Nature.  

It is…well…so natural.  It is the "what is" of all that surrounds us.  As essential as it is precious, nature has nonetheless gotten short shrift in recent years — indeed, recent decades — by we "superior beings" who presume to know better and routinely manipulate it to serve our higher priorities.  Nature, we have deduced, is simply one more benign raw material for us to variously plunder, ignore or bend to our will.  "Respect" is, of course, conspicuously absent from that characterization, as is any recognition of the simple fact that we are necessarily but one constituent part of it.

Since arriving on this farmstead almost 7 years ago we have tried to maintain a different character of relationship with this small expression of the nature of which we are a part.  We have resisted quick interventions on the land until gaining some observational experience with it so that whatever we do is more evocative than coercive.  We have sought to emulate its patterns and cooperate with its contours rather than strong arm it into the shapes and behaviors we might imagine or even prefer.

But it isn't always easy.  There is a ruthlessness to weather patterns, a relentlessness to growth, and a Darwinian cruelty to the natural prunings, predations, and witherings.  

I've tried to be philosophical about it.  Nature is, indeed, "red in tooth and claw" as the poet observed.  When the worms attack the apples or the bugs destroy the squash or the storm breaks the fruit-laden branch or a chicken dies in the coop I have swallowed hard, taken a deep breath and reminded myself that "this is nature," right along with the blossom, the harvest, the waving prairie grasses in the sunset, and the eggs.  But I am coming to realize there is an element of "cop out" in my repeated refrain.

Gravity is surely a fundamental element of nature, but when I clumsily step off a curb and twist my ankle I don't hear myself cursing nature.  When two cars collide at an intersection, playing out certain loud and tragic laws of physics, no one says, "well, that's nature."  No, we openly weep and think what might have happened differently.

And so it is that we live and thrive here in the midst of — indeed, as part of — nature, constantly discerning how best we can effectively, respectfully and responsibly play our part.  We honor the patterns and the forces, but we don't simply acquiesce.  Yes, it is the nature of rabbits to eat leafy green things, but that doesn't stop me from surrounding the garden with preventive fencing.  Yes, in a perfect world rain would satisfy the thirst of all our fruit and nut trees, but just in case nature's watering schedule doesn't match our needs I have assembled an irrigation system to fill in the dry spells.  

And yes, I am fully aware that chickens are nature's snack food — at least when viewed through the eyes and appetites of foxes and raccoons, among others.  Nevertheless I am constantly relearning the painfully hard way that 99% of such predation happens after dark and is easily preventable as long as the vulnerable birds are secured inside before the light fades.  I know that once inside they are completely safe.  Outside is a different story.  The six dead hens, victims of just such a recent intrusion, are reiterating the lesson.  They count on me remembering.

There is one more part of nature I've been lately observing:  terror leaves an imprint.  In the past few days, as darkness has approached, four of the surviving hens — all related to those that were lost — scramble up onto the roof of a coop and crouch down...

…as if to get above harm's way down below…

…where terrible things happened after dark…

…as nature took its course.

The surviving hens remember.  

Hopefully the rest of us will, as well.

The Cacophonous Order of Bearing Fruit

"It's a jungle out there; disorder and confusion everywhere..."  ---Randy Newman

  The weather has been a study in polarities -- flooding one week followed by drought the trailing two; scorching heat for days on end followed by sweater-worthy evenings.  In the garden we delayed reworking two beds because of muddy conditions, and then overnight it turned to concrete with all the heat.  Even the power harrow was panting from exertion.  And while our bodies shift into slow motion from the peaking mercury, the weeds and garden grasses have been very happy.  Couple that with a few days out of town, several days of relational distractions around the death of a dear friend, and a day or two of the "blahs", the overgrowth has been very happy, indeed.  We hoe for awhile; we hand pull for awhile; we lean on the hoe for awhile and then work it a little more.  And if the mosquitoes don't kill us, the ticks surely will.

Meanwhile, the good stuff has been growing, too.  The tomato plants are inching toward the height of an average middle schooler.  The squashes have overtaken any and every available space, and the okra is patiently, steadily stretching upward.  The peppers seem quite content as well, although I have yet to see any blossoms portending the spiciness in our future.  It's increasingly difficult to differentiate the beds.  It all presents as a cacophony of viney green.

"It's a jungle out there; disorder and confusion everywhere."

At least by appearance; on the surface.  The truth, closer to the ground, is a more complicated story.  Everything was planted in rows, in 30" raised beds.  The spacing between plants was precise.  The distance between each row on the beds was intentional.  True, as the stems grew and the leaves spread the inevitable sprawl of vitality ensued.  That's not a sign of chaos; it's a sign of life.  Some things grow up; others grow out; still others do a little of both.  Some fruit hangs down like droplets beneath high leaves; others sprawl on the ground.  It is the glory of diversity and its very manifestation.  What was precise in its nascence has become precocious in its growth.

You may call it a mess; I rather call it a vegetative frolic.  Everything has a personality, and I rather encourage its expression.  It will make it a little challenging to harvest the squash, but that will invite some kind of a dance of my own, stepping lightly over stalk and leaf to tiny patch of clearing.

It is, in other words, less than it looks like -- and more.

I consider that horticultural example as I read, with deepening concern, the paper each morning and follow the updates throughout the day.  It IS a jungle out there.  As the Randy Newman song goes on to note,  

"People think I'm crazy, 'cause I worry all the time.  
If you paid attention, you'd be worried too."

It feels increasingly like chaos -- social, moral, political and intellectual anarchy.  We are constantly at each others throat, and we aren't much kinder to ourselves.  We are committing murder and suicide in what feels like record numbers.  Increasingly, those who manage to stay alive lubricate the effort with more and more antidepressants.

It could be, however, that this snapshot is largely the view from the garden's edge -- from Facebook chatter and special-interest mailings and outlets for the 24-hour news cycle that constantly need high-octane stories to churn and burn what would otherwise be benign white noise.  It could be that it is not a jungle out there at all; that closer to the ground an ordered and civilized pattern is more apparent.  Maybe all this sprawl of leaf and limb, this splash of blossom and bud,is, as it is in the garden, merely the evidence of vigor and reach.

I'm not astute enough to say.  I only know it's likely to be more complicated -- more interesting and maybe even more fruitful -- than we are prone to think.

I suppose we'll see.  In the meantime, I'm going to go dance among the vines and check for squash.