For this moment….

everything is calm and as it should be …in my little world, my microcosm…

Last Wednesday I came home after shopping at the open air farmer’s market and took my time about getting out into the back yard to check on the hens…much to my shock and dismay, I found one of ‘the girls’ dead on the coop floor. Let’s just say that I wasn’t prepared for the emotions that would ensue. I mean, after all, the girls just had their 1st birthday on Ava’s birthday, May 28th. It was one of the Barred Plymouth Rocks, “Big Bird” as we affectionately called her. It’s been a while since I’ve had to deal with the death of a pet, the last was Ebony, my 15 year-old black lab. That was so very difficult as I had to make the decision to end her suffering, tough stuff. I had no idea that I could get so attached to a chicken…just a chicken. Those silly hens each have their own very special personalities and Big Bird had a lot to say. She was the first one to speak to me when I walked out into the back yard, she used to fly up to the roosting post outside in the run as I approached just so she could look me in the eye when I came to the coop door. She also had a fetish for sweet clover leaves and flowers as no matter where she was pastured she just knew that the grass was going to be sweeter on the other side of the fence. She would fly the coop just as soon as I would put her in the enclosed pasture that the girls were supposed to be ‘tractoring,’ just to prove her theory.

The shock and sadness of Big Bird’s passing was so very powerful, a zillion thoughts filled my mind..she was just fine Wednesday morning when I came out to give them their morning cracked corn. Bob went out to see them later in the day but hadn’t checked the inside of the coop. One or the other of the girls is always in and out of the coop and nesting boxes either laying eggs or checking on somebody else doing the same. It just seemed like a normal day on ‘the farm’…no need to take a head count. By the time I went out there around 6:30 she was stiff and cold, not a sign of what might have happened, no struggle, no blood, her eyes closed, neck stretched out..just lying in a fresh clean pile of pine shavings as I’d just cleaned the coop the evening before. I lost it, like I have before….when human loved ones passed…denial “NO, NO!!!!”….”WHY WHY?”…then guilt…”What did I do, what didn’t I do…what should I have done?”…then….fear, “Oh my God!…what if it’s something contagious and they all die!” ..then the tears, sobs…moans and such deep painful empty loss…over a chicken…A CHICKEN! I can’t begin to tell you how much of a sense of peace and appreciation for life that those chickens have given me.

Everyday we go about our daily business…get up, go to work to a place we don’t want to be going, doing things we don’t want to be doing just as fast as we can while we multitask in order to do as many of those things as we can, looking at the clock and waiting for the moment that we are released, to go back home to the filling station and get recharged to do it all over again…ok, it may not be quite that mundane but for me the moments are superficial. Those moments are all about earning money to pay for things like food shelter and clothing…but MUCH more that that…many material things that cause me to serve THEM instead of the other way around.

I have had this opportunity for the past year to observe life from a different angle, a slightly familiar and nostalgic one. Through taking charge of growing some of my own food, my life had suddenly been slowed down a bit to the point of being able to be both a participant and an observer of the precious miracle of how things grow…first a patio container filled with a tomato plant, pepper plant and some herbs…then a 4’ x 8’ raised garden bed overflowing with tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, okra and cucumbers. I couldn’t stop with that, next were 8 fuzzy 2 day old chicks in a homemade brooder in my laundry room with them looking up at me wondering if I was their mother…well, I was the next best thing, Mother Nurture but not Mother Nature. The chicks grew up so fast, as did the garden, first the tomatoes and then…they were laying eggs. It didn’t take long for me to become enthralled with it all and the possibilities that may be ahead….bigger garden, more animals…goats, goat cheese, more chickens and maybe someday ….a little farm! It all started with 1 tomato plant on the patio.

Big Bird’s untimely passing has been another reminder of how precious are life’s moments. Her death is so very fresh on my mind, but it’s her life that I must remember as it’s given me more reasons to want to be a good steward, to plant, to nurture to watch it grow and to be hopeful, knowing that with every harvest there will be some loss and that love can be found in the most unusual places…even in a chicken coop in your own backyard.

Big Bird died on June 3, 2009 was cremated on June 4th at Paws Whiskers & Wags Pet Crematory. Her ashes will rest in the garden and in the fields of sweet clover of Coop d’ville Farm ….wherever that may be now or in the future.