Feeding This Circle of Things

 Yes, it’s cold — 22-degrees according to the thermometer in the window.  Balmy compared with some of the mornings we have already experienced in recent days, and nothing compared with the depths of winter to come.  Chilly, though, nonetheless.  And yes, I forgot to wear my gloves — a careless mistake that will become more and more costly as the season progresses.  But despite the discomforts I rather like feeding the chickens on mornings such as this.  They need me, after all.  The feeders are empty and so I scoop the mash into the bucket and distribute it into the various tubes and boxes from which the girls — and SamtheRooster — spend these chilly days nibbling.  They are increasingly dependent on my handouts as the austerity of winter descends.  Their free-ranging, these days, affords little enough nourishment; the worms and bugs long-since having descended or departed to warmer climes.  And so I am attentive.

There are other ministrations.  In recent days I have unloaded the annual supply of straw bales and stacked them around the runs, creating a compostable barrier against the wind and eventual snow.  That, and they love climbing the towers and enjoying the elevated view.  Just in time I stretched the extension cords from the sockets at the solar panels to the warming waterers inside the coops.  The “winterizing,” in short, is largely done.

It’s the daily work that remains and is ongoing.  Repetitively resupplying the food and water.  Stirring, refreshing, and occasionally replacing the bedding.  Reconnoitering and repairing the fencing.  Retrieving, perchance, a gifted egg.  It is a rhythm.  A life-sustaining discipline, along with releasing in the mornings and securing the hatches every evening.  Clock work.  Because if they are to survive, what I do matters.  The fact of it -- the concreteness of it -- unlike in most other pursuits, is readily, viscerally, apparent — quite literally before my eyes and at my fingertips.

There is no appreciative feedback.  There are no clucked “thank you’s“ or nuzzlings against my leg.  SamtheRooster rather stalks around me, making clear his opinion that I am a nuisance intruder.  Well and good.  They have their work to do; I have mine.  Theirs is to go about their living.  Mine is keeping them alive.  And the thanks I receive is not their mindful gratitude, but my own for the privilege of having a part to play in this great circle of things that purposes my getting up in the morning and paying attention throughout the day to basics like food, water, shelter and warmth and the lives that depend on them.  From me, whether those lives are conscious of it or not.

And so I get out of bed because I am conscious of it, and with numbing hands scoop the mash into the bucket and distribute it among the boxes and tubes all over again, suddenly and gratefully conscious, as well, of the other lives of which I have a part in keeping alive within this great circle of things.  Cold hands and all.

It’s Not Easy Being Green

The grass is still green — brilliantly so; Irish emerald green. This, despite the multiple nights we have already seen the temperatures drop below freezing. The leaves have long since autumn-hued and dropped, carpeting the ground below with their red/bronze/gold mottle. It wasn’t until yesterday’s mowing — almost certainly the season’s last — followed by Lori’s sweep of the clippings into the compost pile, that the lingering green was rediscovered. 

It’s a little disconcerting. The cornstalks in surrounding fields have long-since crispened and browned; for days now the typically quiet countryside has growled with the mauling mouths of combines hurrying to gather in the crop before snow flies. The garden looks more dormant and drab by the day. The firs, pines and cedars — by now expecting to assert their verdant monopoly on the season — are confused and jealous.

What, then, to make of this persistence? After all, though Kermit the Frog of Muppets fame had other reasons for confessing it, it can’t be that easy for the grass either — “Bein’ Green.” There is little enough sun these days to encourage it, the hours becoming briefer with the changing season. More and more frequently we wake to frost on the ground and the sight of our breath in the air. Inside, the fireplace has helpfully added warmth by day, extra blankets encourage closer snuggling by night, and flannels and corduroys have replaced linens and cottons throughout the hours between. Is it willful pride — the turf’s smug resolve to hang on as long as it can, like a rebellious toddler refusing to go to bed?

Or is it nature’s testament of resilient grace — that though winter is coming and will surely blanket and paralyze us for what will seem to be “forever”, spring will be reliably and close behind.

Let’s go with that. Generally speaking, I’ve come to trust that, whatever the alternative options, grace is reliably the preferable choice. If the grass wants to assert it as well, who am I to argue?

Whenever winter chooses to arrive, then, I’ll welcome it for the temporary shiver that it is, having heard it on good authority that it won’t be the final word.