My three hens. Fontina—a Black Star—is my favorite. She’s a friendly, glossy hen with a few rusty red feathers around her throat like jewels. She has two sisters—both Columbian Wyandotte. Brie and Pecorino wear a necklace of black feathers and a skirt with more black feathers peeping out from pure white bodies. Obviously, I named them after cheeses. The three form a little community.
Long ago they had another sister—a Rhode Island Red. The Reds can be a nice breed, but this girl was nasty. Possessed, perhaps. Velveeta harassed the others until I could hear them shrieking in their pen, wings whipping, dust flying, beaks clacking. Running out to see if a fox was attacking them, expecting the worst, I would find her threatening Fontina, Brie and Pecorino who were cowering in the corner.
Finally, that was enough. I had to get rid of her. So, I listed her on Craig’s List for $20. She was in good health, shiny satin red feathers and a good egg layer. It was her obnoxious personality I couldn’t take anymore. A man with 20 other hens bought her. I figured with that many, Velveeta would surely meet someone who could out peck her. I wasn’t sad to see her go.
As I expected, the hen house instantly became a sanctuary for three lady hens crooning and contentedly scratching.
It’s been a long winter. Not with snow so much, since so far, we’ve only had one major snowstorm during the month of March, but there were days when 20 below turned the bare ground to stone with temps staying in the single digits for days. Each day I made three trips to their enclosure, the wind tugging at my scarf and coat. First, in the morning to open the hutch to let them into the run and check their food and water, second, to hand them an afternoon snack they greedily snatched up, and the third time after sundown to close their hutch and shut out the wind while they snuggled together on the roost to keep warm. This daily chore helped keep me active. I know it hardly compares to what you probably do. Still.
During all the winter months the hens did not lay a single egg. Not one lick. I didn’t blame Fontina; she was molting, her black feathers floated around the pen for days. Bad timing. She was cold until her fuzzy down undergrowth grew back. Chickens stop laying when they molt. Brie had just finished molting in September but was apparently still on vacation. Pecorino? I have no idea what planet she was on. She just sat around and did nothing. The winter days were cold and dark by 4 pm. Without enough light, chickens will claim they can’t lay which is why some owners keep lights on in their chicken house 24 hours a day. I think that is a bit unnatural and a little cruel.
Then the bird flu epidemic hit and millions of chickens country-wide died or had to be killed. 44 million at one point. We didn’t know it was happening until one day at the store there were no eggs. NONE. Then egg prices exploded through the roof. In my hometown of Baudette, my family is paying $13 for a flat of one and a half dozen eggs.
I was getting annoyed. Why weren’t my healthy hens making us some eggs? And after all I’ve done for them? No number of threats about the soup pot made a difference. Then about three weeks ago there it was! A single gorgeous coffee-brown egg in the nest worth about $1000. Just one, but you’d have thought I discovered a way to pay for diamond crusted teeth. So beautiful. The egg, that is.
It has been a long winter and we’ve been through a slew of events, some of them dramatic. But today I sit at my desk with the window open. It’s supposed to reach 76 degrees—a record for the month of March. I can hear the hens, their voices softly mummering. A robin sits in the magnolia scolding about something as robins will do. Chickadees are singing their two-note spring song from the forsythia bush. We are up to three eggs a day and I am happy to be here.
I continue my journey farther up and farther into old age finding there is still much to see and hear that makes my heart pleased to be alive.
These small snapshots of beauty help me store up thankfulness and patience, not just for life itself and all its vagaries, but for medical procedures I face. One especially. My neck and I are getting some help for the vertebrae and discs that have deteriorated. I picture them as having turned to ash and sand, and yet they manage to grind and send out pitiful calls for help. Sometimes turning my head or even holding it up is a challenge. Medicine has found a way of shutting down the shouts for help, temporarily, at least, by punching a needle through to the nerves and zapping them with radio waves designed to burn them.
When I am tired and a little afraid of life’s path and wonder how long it may take, when it will end, and if I’ll make it, I’m reminded of Up-Hill, Christina Rosetti’s lovely poem, and I take heart:
Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.
But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.
Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight
They will not keep you standing at that door.
Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.
Photo credit: The author and husband with their iPhones.
