Romancing the Chicken

It's almost Easter, and images of chicks are everywhere.
I recall when I was about eight years old, and Mama and Daddy took us kids down to the feed store the week before Easter. It was a thing in those days for feed stores to have big incubators full of chicken eggs, ready to hatch. Farmers could replenish their chicken supply after a long winter. Of course, before Easter, some of the eggs had been injected with dyes, so chicks would tumble out of the egg already colored a fashionable peach or green or purple. Easter chicks. That one year, our parents bought each of us a freshly hatched chick.

Geese, Gennie Hens and Chickens for sale at a flea market. I bought two geese that day, but that's another story.

Maybe that's why I found myself wanting chickens a few years back.
We had three acres in town and it was legal to have a certain number of farm animals. My husband is patient and tolerant. You might imagine that chickens make for good water cooler conversation at work. Besides, my daughter-in-law Jennipher wanted a half dozen chickens or so, but you had to order at least 25 chickens at a time. I don't know why. Free shipping or a chicken discount or maybe to get them sexed (where they just give you females or males). One day she stopped by with the Chicken Catalog and we split the order. Bill built a coop and a fenced in chicken yard, and I became a city girl chicken farmer for a while.


My grandson feeding the chickens, about 10 years ago. Every kid likes to feed the chickens.

Then again, maybe I wanted chickens because I come from a long line of farmers and chickens are in my blood.
When I was a kid, we went to my grandparent's farm every summer. Sometimes I'd get to help Grandmother do chores. Certain chores, that is. For example, Grandmama didn't usually let us go with her to milk Birdie, her beautiful brown cow. Birdie was a delicate old girl, and didn't appreciate cold little hands upon her sensitive teats. Icy, ill fitting fingers made her hold her milk back, as you can imagine. (Especially you nursing moms!) And that was bad business for Grandmama.

But if we got up early enough, we could help gather eggs. Grandmama would hand my sister and me a wire basket, and we'd go through the pasture, over the crude little foot bridge that straddled the creek, and up the hill to the whitewashed chicken houses. There were two of them. They smelled like old wood mingled with dirt, feathers and chicken feed. The smaller one was made from my grandparent's first one room cabin. The second one was their first two room cabin. Granddaddy had built nesting boxes across the walls, and when the chickens weren't scratching around on the farm, they were laying in those boxes.

There's something about being eight years old and reaching your tiny arm right up to your elbow between a straw filled nesting box and a chicken's soft, warm featherd body, feeling for eggs.


Granddaddy's farm from Echo Hill. The chicken houses are the two roofs in the front.



Soon the basket was full, and we headed back to the house, where we sat around the kitchen table cleaning and boxing the eggs for market.

Chicken Dogs are bad for business:
One day we saw Granddaddy walking thru the yard with his shotgun and a shovel. He had a big Collie by the collar, and he was headed for the back of the barn where he was going to shoot and bury it. Of course, my sister and I didn't understand. Why would our granddaddy want to kill Lassie?

"It's a chicken dog," Granddaddy said. "He got into the chicken house and killed about fourty hens. Most animals kill for food. But a chicken dog kills for sport. Once a dog started killing chickens, it'll never stop." I remember the crack of that shotgun. No more chicken dog. It was a hard lesson in reality.

Unfortunately, (speaking of chicken dogs and reality),  my own chicken farming days didn't last too long. They ended less than two years after they had begun, when two neighborhood dogs were running loose. They dug under the fence to kill all dozen of my poor chickens while I was out. In about 30 minutes, they managed to maul and slaughter every one of them, just for fun. Like Granddaddy said. The poor rooster, good husband and defender of the hens that he was, had fought bravely. But in the end, his limp body was carried down the road in the mouth of one of those dogs. Chicken dogs.

Every now and then, I miss those chickens. I miss hearing the rooster crow. I long for the cooing and clucking as the hens scratch around in the yard. Most of all, I want to experience once more the feel the warmth of a hen sitting on a freshly laid bunch of eggs as I gently reach in to gather them. 
Yes. The notion of raising chickens is romantic and old-fashioned these days; it's instinctive for many of us. But frankly, I'm getting too old to go out on a cold winter's day to feed chickens. But that's a story for another day.

My oldest daughter Kathleene, on Easter morning. About 1971. Sponge curlers, flowered panties and jelly beans.

Happy Easter!

Hello, Baby!

We are grateful to God to be blessed with another little child in the family.

Hello, World!

On Saturday, my youngest son and his wife called to ask me a couple of “labor” questions, and then called the obstetrician. They next called sister Sydney to come and watch their 3 ½ year old son, and they headed for the hospital to meet their new daughter for the first time, face to face. She came into the world late that night. Tiny, bright-eyed and strong.

Izzy loves Annabelle

We went up to see the baby yesterday, arriving just a little after 1:00 pm.

I’d like to share a few pictures with you, and some thoughts on babies and new life. I doubt that anything in here is original. Birth is one of the greatest wonders of the human experience. We are all kindrid spirits when it comes to such a miracle. Nevertheless, I offer these thoughts to you:

Though Bill and I missed seeing my grandson meet his sister for the first time, we did get to see it on film. Big brother has been anxiously awaiting his new sister for months now, calling her by her name (one of the lovely things about modern technology and learning the sex of the baby before birth).

We were told that he ran back and forth in the room for a minute, until he could get his excitement under control. Then they sat him on the bed beside his mamma, and put the baby gently in his arms. He sang a song to her. “I love you Annabelle, o’ yes I do…” Twice.



There's something about a man who knows how to handle a baby.



Lots of people get teary eyed when they first behold their tiny new family members. I do, and some of my mushier daughters do. Looking into a newborn’s eyes absolutely melts me like warm butter on a summer day.



Grandfathers have a knack for rocking babies. At least, my husband does. He always has. There’s nothing quite like observing a professional, well seasoned father doing what comes naturally.

Good fathers (…eventually aging gracefully into granddads…) are incredibly sexy, by the way.



One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten little piggies.



As I said earlier, we’re grateful for another child in the family. Ten fingers and ten very long toes! But I also meant, we are grateful for this particular child. There's only one like this one. Sure, she may come into this earthly kingdom with Mama’s eyes or Aunt Joie’s gentle disposition or Grandpa Bill’s energy, but she also brings into the family her own special way of participating with and contributing to the family, and later, the world.

You may remember a certain TV mom who used to tell each of her children, “I love you best,” as she tucked them into bed.

I could always identify with that. If you’ve got several children, you know what I mean. The one you love best is the one you’re with at any given moment. (Of course, if you’ve got them all there for the holiday dinner, it’s the one who talks to you while helping you clean the kitchen. All of mine always help, so what am I saying?...I have to say that or else...)



The whole beautiful family.

 


I want to leave you with this verse from Psalms. It's good to remember the author of life at a joyful time such as this.



Psalm 139:13-16 ESV 

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.


deber