Chicken Scratch

    After ten long days of a late January cold snap, complete with snow, sleet and bone-chilling winds,  I ponder from inside, warm with my tea and a wood stove, looking out the kitchen window to the little wooden coop that houses my nine hens. I haven’t seen the actual structure itself for weeks under a collage of tin, tarps, and insulating hay bales finished recently with another fresh icing of several inches of snow. It stands now, transformed into a miniature fortress against cold and wind, unlike its airy sun-porch version of just four months past; a cedar beauty designed and built by my husband last spring. I wonder about the possibility or likelihood of “coop fever” in free-range chickens as I watch them peer out towards the house patiently waiting for my return with a treat of spotty pears. I decide that they must be happy and content in their fortress. Unable to forage for themselves now they return the treat and have given me six eggs today. It seems other neighborhood gals have given up their delivery months ago.

    Distracted from my work, I am pacing about, having discovered some conspicuous, circling, canine-like tracks in the snow earlier this morning. When I’m not looking out, I keep my ears peeled. A chicken in distress is not a quiet endeavor. I am always vigilant of the threat of winter hungry predators upon my vulnerable, unsuspecting charges. Having grown up with chickens, I cannot forget the grim leftovers of an occasional night raiding weasel or skunk left strewn about in our barnyard. However, the responsibility (and ultimately the clean-up) of such a raid fell solely on the shoulders of my father, as did most of the day to day tending. I was more inclined for hunting eggs, plying the hens to perch on my shoulder or just sitting with them at dusk while they quietly readied themselves for roosting. Most of my early chicken memories are vague now, some 30-odd years in the past and I’m sad that I didn’t pay more attention to the details of the keeping of chickens. My father’s passing 15 years ago has left many, many questions of mine unanswered; Of course, there are the obvious spiritual ones but just as importantly, to me, are the day to day practical questions. In this case, with regards to chickens, I believe the two might dovetail together nicely.

   I sometimes wonder if my father recognized the simple rhythm of responsibility that raising hens brings to the person who cares for them. It may possibly be as close to a practiced meditation as he ever came. Although he never spoke it, I would like to think that the caring of our barn menagerie afforded a way for him to reconnect with a quiet, thoughtful part of himself. It was obvious to all that my father was a keen observer of the natural world. However, it was much less apparent to me if he felt a deeper, more spiritual or philosophical connection to these observations. I will never know for sure, but I’m hoping, for his sake, that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

   For instance, the phrase “getting up with the chickens” or “going to bed with the chickens” makes me conscious of paying attention to living life simply within the rhythm of day and night. Along with that is the parallel of literally “opening the door to a new day” in the morning and closing the door on worries of the world and resting safe and warm with others of your kind when darkness falls.

   But that we could all spring up from our beds when dawn arrives, eager and hungry to begin our work and literally leap through the door when it is opened for us every morning, grateful for another day. More than once I have sensed a change in my own grumpy morning attitude simply by observing that morning ritual of my ever consistent hens. I am reminded to be here, in this moment, fortunate to have the sunrise shining on my face and my east facing coop.

   Regardless of what the rest of the day might bring to distract me from the peace which I begin each day, there is always the evening ritual to look forward to. Tucking in the hens offers yet another opportunity to reflect on their gentle, clucking mantras. Their work for the day slows as they make their way back to the coop to linger and visit, bellies full, as the sun sets in the west. It is often at this time of the day, that I clean out the coop and offer them the luxury of a clean layer of hay to retire to. Will I ever tire of finding a still-warm egg on clean, sweet hay? Lord, I hope never. It is a pleasure that, for me, borders on the sublime.

  I would describe my early memories of our chickens as “sensory snapshots” now. I simply remember how I good I felt when they clucked around me as a child. It is these snapshots that I have carried with me all these years while I waited patiently to have more chickens of my very own. Well-loved dogs, cats and other animals have happily passed through our family but the deep, sentimental fondness for hens has remained and cannot be replaced.

 As I look again out my kitchen window towards the coop, I am keenly aware that I have been given the gift of also looking inside, several times a day, if I choose. I am grateful for the quiet lessons that living with chickens brings me and I won’t wait for my children to ask me. They have observations of their own, but I hope, for their sake, that these apples also fall close to the tree. Chop wood? Carry Water? Yes! But, personally, I will add Feed Chickens to that spiritual to-do list, as well.

                                                                                Susan Hess- Winter 2004