Category: An Ongoing Journal…

Various and sundry writings. This is the page where the most recent posts appear as well.

Quandary

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So, let’s say you’ve thrown out your back. And this time it’s really bad. You can hardly get out of bed, you can’t walk but instead must crawl across the room on all fours. You certainly can’t get in your car and drive. What do you do? Your kid can only eat nutella and toast so many times. At some point you’re going to have to feed him some real food. But you can’t. What do you do? I know – you call your doctor. Right?

Ok, you could do that. But see, your doc only sees you once a year for your annual pap, and what with her hundreds of other patients, she hardly even knows let alone remembers you. You think to yourself that you maybe should have left her your CD as a calling card last time. Might have helped you stand out. But you didn’t, and she doesn’t know who you are. Besides she’s completely booked up. And anyway, she can’t prescribe anything for you unless you come in. Plus it’s a half hour drive to her office. Aah! I can’t possibly do that! I can’t even imagine getting into the friggin car! But oh well. Can’t help ya, the nurse says in so many words. Then she tells me to take ibuprofen and try an ice pack. Ok. Thanks.

It occurs to me that if I could get into the car and make my way down the twisting hill road, I could visit the local emergency room. I don’t know the financial ramifications of that, and it makes me nervous. Don’t want to risk it (however, I’ve yet to file for bankruptcy and might be able to throw that bill in with the rest…?) so I think I’ll just see what the ice does. We’re not an ice-loving household, so I have none. I might have a pound of frozen raspberries…

This sucks. I’m trying to find the lesson here. Learn to delegate? Ask for help? Take on less? Argh. I don’t know. I give myself a couple of affirmations – I am supported, I have all I need – and while yes, I do trust in those things, it kinda seems irrelevant to me right now. I need to get Elihu’s tuition assistance form turned in for Waldorf. I need to get a hose down to the garden asap. I need to go food shopping. I need to pay a stupid parking ticket in person downtown – by today or else it goes up. But I can’t do any of it! I can’t even keep my kid company. Even creating this post and sending a couple of emails has become too much.

Maybe that’s it. I’m just doing too much. I don’t know. But hey – can’t we pretty much agree that if ‘Mama don’t do it it don’t get done’? Not much this mama can do for the moment. Guess I’ll throw in the towel and try and get myself back in bed with a pound of frozen fruit. What else can I do? Not much for now…

Back at It Again

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Can’t say I’ve actually thrown my back out again; there was no one event which landed me on the ground in a lightening flash of pain, but rather this time it’s been gradual. Each day my back has been springing up in pain at a certain twisting or bending point culminating in a situation today which has me unable to sit in any one position for long or pick anything of substance off the ground.

I know, I know. Core muscles. Yes, got it. I spend so much time fixing things and doing chores and taking care of chickens and kids that it just hasn’t made it into the daily routine. But I know, I know. I should floss, meditate and do sit ups. Yeah. Not quite there. But with this being event number three in the back department in as many months, I’m seriously thinking about a couple of reps in the morning. Doesn’t sound so intimidating. Not when the alternative is walking around bent over like a humpback octogenarian.

I did get a fair amount of work done this week as I slowly worked my back into submission. After having driven eight fence posts into rocky soil (Greenfield is notorious for being very hard to dig in) and having put up some 120 linear feet of chicken wire – complete with working gate – my body was feeling it, but not so much my back specifically. So with no red flags, I continued my work. My new fence was not the success I’d thought it to be when I made my up-beat post about DIY pride. Yes, it was up, no it did not keep the hens in. Oh, initially it did. For about an hour or two. When they first realized their confinement they lined up at the perimeter, staring out at my with big ‘love me’ eyes, pleading to be released. As I would not help them, they helped themselves. Within a couple of hours everyone save Max (too big to squeeze under) was out and about, underfoot and leaving fresh poop all over my front steps once again. This required the big guns. Our neighbor and his dad have a homemade mill, and they were kind enough to not only cut some scraps for me, but to deliver them. Zac even placed the big ones neatly along the bottom of the fence where they were intended. I simply placed down the rest. Not much labor, but again enough to begin to tip the scales.

My hens were now contained – a huge advance for us and one step closer to getting out of here this summer – yet I had more before me. I’d made nesting boxes last fall but petered out of DIY steam and left them on the floor of the coop for the winter. Tired of waiting for some handyman to come to the rescue (this is a busy time and none will take my piddly little jobs. Very frustrating.) I decided I’d just do it myself. So I screwed on some L brackets, then hoisted the shelf up and above my waist – oh oh, it’s getting dicey, I can feel it…  Out-of-shape muscles shuddered to hold it in place while I leaned in with my drill and tried to get them secured to the wall. I did it, and it was something that had to be done. But I do think that was the moment when my back had had enough. I noticed I was unable to stand up straight after that project.

A few more chores later – several trips carrying two five-gallon buckets of water down the hill to the garden, beginning to shovel the year’s poop and litter out of the coop (heavy stuff), washing the grimy walls of my house that face the driveway, moving all the unused tools back to the garage – after these tasks and more, my back has finally had it. Slept last night on a heating pad despite the fact that it was 85 degrees in my bedroom. Felt better this morning, so I know I’m on the right track. And I’ve just about accomplished all that I can do myself. So in the end, it was worth it. I’m used to muscling through things, but what I’m not used to is a body that doesn’t follow my lead. I never thought aging would get in my way. Getting older is for other people, right? Reading glasses? Those are for wimpy mamby pambies… and me. Who can’t open a jar? Can you imagine arthritis so bad that you can’t even do that? Well, yes. I can.

Ah, mortality. I still don’t get it; that I too am being swept down the river. I too am aging. My body is simply not able to plow through life’s tasks without a bit more TLC. Damn. Really? Me too? There must be some mistake. Right? As I make the merest shift in my seat while sitting here, writing, a searing mass of pain stabs at me from out of nowhere, reminding me that it’s all true. Crap. Still so much to do, but alas, I just don’t think I can do it today. I have students coming later; I need to make sure I’m doing ok by the time they arrive. Elihu can amuse himself with his rc helicopters and books, so I suppose the best thing I can do right now is accept my mortality…

…and go back to bed.

One Night in June

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These photos are from an evening last week. We were just beginning to enjoy our free-form days and nights…

Elihu changes the blades in his biggest RC helicopter

They’re on, now let’s see if they work…

They do!

Now we’re downstairs to the music room for a bit. Elihu starts off on my Wurlitzer.

My old Moog – how I loved playing that thing back in the day…

Elihu goes back to his drums and the two of us play for a bit.

We had a nice little jam session that evening. Kid’s got a natural feel. There were a couple moments when I forgot I was playing with my nine year old son. Before we quit I suggested we do a jazz ballad. “Oh – that’s my favorite kind of music” he says. ?? He pulled out his brushes and jumped in without a second thought. Fun day. Love that kid.

A Summer Free

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It’s here. Summer vacation. In years past I’d approached summer with a certain apprehension, as I assume many parents do – those who have jobs which continue after school comes to an end must dread this change in schedule – but this year it is a refreshingly different situation for me. While folks with unrelenting day jobs may be faced with some daunting child-care related logistic challenges in the summertime, that had never been my particular problem. In the past my difficulty was that by this time of the year I was knee-deep in producing a summer music festival – and doing it all myself – with a young kid at my feet whining to me that he was bored. In ‘my’ day my mother had no room for my boredom. I was given a bicycle and complete freedom. That was my summer. At the time I really hated it, but looking back now it seems rather idyllic. Classic, timeless summer. (But I suppose I might have been a year or two older than Elihu is now at that point.) What we did or how we passed our summers as tiny children, while my own parents were themselves tending to the same Baroque Festival that I have been running since I moved back, of that I have little recollection. The past three years have been great feats for me; keep the show going while keeping the small kid happy. A juggling act I didn’t have to repeat this year, because last year we wrapped up dad’s 52 year run of the Festival of Baroque Music. Lots less stress this year for sure.

It just hit me the other day as I stood in the Studio, conjuring the memory of harpsichord and viola da gamba ringing out so vibrantly in the hall, that we wouldn’t hear such music in this room again this summer. The Festival, as we all know it, has concluded. The thought hits me in my gut, and I am more than sad. I feel decades of memories become fainter and fall farther away into the shared oblivion of past performances everywhere. Many who were here to witness those performances are themselves no longer with us. Fainter and dimmer the memories become. I remind myself that the spirit in which all of that was created will continue on. It will take different forms too. But I promise myself something important: I will find a way to make Baroque music a regular part of the Studio’s offerings one day. But just not this year. Taking a year off isn’t so bad I tell myself, but still, it makes me sad, nostalgic. This is the first year here without music. I think of how far my dad has slipped since just last year. He might not even be able to attend a concert by next year. I know it, but I just can’t fully embrace it yet. I take in a breath of air, and I let a concept linger until it doesn’t hurt quite so much: I realize that we have come, quite definitively, to the end of my father’s era. It sits heavy in my gut. Yet I know that also means it’s now the beginning of mine. I’m still feeling the sorrow in my stomach, but I can’t deny that I’m also beginning to get excited here… Once again, I’m beginning to see the Studio’s new future and I can just feel possibility growing…

For now I am not personally hosting any classes or performances, but Ceres, my partner is. I chose not to take part in this season because I was feeling a bit overwhelmed. I had lots on my plate what with the new well and other infrastructure details – plus there’s been so much going on with us personally the past few months – a change of schools, family issues and such; I just couldn’t summon the extra oomph to do it all.

I’m letting my role in the Studio rest for a bit as I turn my attention instead to simply spending the summer with a nine year old boy. And I gotta say – it feels great to get up in the morning with the day wide open before us. While there are things we’d really like to do this year (like visit far-away family), we hope to keep things as under-scheduled and free-form as possible. Today we had a destination in mind, but knew little of what to expect once we got there. With the agreement that we might be disappointed – but that we’d go anyway – today we were happily surprised as we discovered some impressive waterfalls, visited an old-fashioned mill, got our feet wet in a lake and tried some homemade, spicy sauerkraut. Elihu ran after moths on a vast, shady lawn while I sat in an Adirondack chair under some tall maple trees and looked out at the Hudson making its way past huge outcroppings of rock. As we meandered through the small town Elihu found himself a couple of matchbox-sized airplanes. Then we came home and learned a bit more about the place we’d just been. Perfect.

Finally it’s summer. And finally… we’re free.

Sweat Equity

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After waiting and waiting for some magical sum of money to find me in order to do some much-needed tasks around our homestead – and realizing that it simply wasn’t going to appear from nowhere, I set out, full of purpose and ambition to git her done with what I had or could glean from the land. As it were.

What seemed an incredibly daunting project came slowly to fruition as I plodded forward, one task at a time. Get the kid in the car. Get to Home Depot. Get fence posts (they cost what I made in lessons this week – so far, so good.) Get home (after feeding pigeons and taking an rc helicopter break – oh, and then lunch…) and finally set to work. The goal? Create a larger run for my expanding flock. One that will finally keep the goose and the roosters contained so that I don’t have to personally escort my piano students into the house for their own safety. A run that will keep my hens happy and healthy and prevent me from accidentally stepping in piles of poop every time I step out of my kitchen door. A much needed improvement. I’m not sure what I was thinking when I had a variety of handymen and fence guys over to give me bids. The highest was $3,800! Can you imagine? Sheesh. Guess I thought I’d present the project to my good old mom for underwriting. Couldn’t bring myself to. Glad I didn’t.

Yesterday was a long, hard day. But after a good eight hours of hard labor, I now have an expanded run, complete with gate and even flower boxes under the coop windows. Lovely and functional and a source of great DIY pride. I must credit my generous neighbors for donating the chicken wire, which relieved me of a good $200 purchase. As I’d loaded up the second-hand roll of wire into my car, I still didn’t believe I would transform it into anything useful. I truly doubted my abilities to deal with the mess of wire with any success. But aha! I have! Invigorated with what I accomplished, I have also now begun other little fixes. The door that won’t close. Done. The nesting boxes that are coming apart. Done. And after having used my chop saw once again I can feel my blood boiling with the possibilities of added improvements…

I was utterly exhausted last night, yet ironically find it hard to sleep in this morning for all the things I’ve yet to do. My goal is to simply “de-sketchify” my place. Make sure it’s in basic working order. And in the back of my mind one goal looms, still cloudy and unattainable as yet: to make my place easy to watch over should Elihu and I go out of town. We really hope to – and have for these past three years, but it has been our feathery charges which have blocked our escape. If I can make it easy to feed and water them, to get them in at night, then I can hire someone to do so. I need the girls to stay put for this to work! I am fueled by the vision of everything in perfect working order. There is no going back to bed for me.

One Up, Two Back

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Today has been a classic ‘one step forward, two steps back’ sort of day.

First off, I did call the gal at the drilling company, and we had a good talk. Ended up getting a lower grade pump with the same warranty. As this pump isn’t for non-stop household use but rather for part-time hours (and at this point only seasonal as well) I figured I could go with the less expensive model. Plus she assured me that any other pumps I found on the internet by the same name weren’t the real thing; they were black market knockoffs. Really? Sounded kinda silly to me, but I didn’t know enough to counter. Plus these pumps were made in Denmark. That I liked. (Much more reassuring than had they been made in someplace like Texas.) I’m already a big fan of Danish design, so I’m going to trust that they make good pumps too.

I joined the crew at the site and watched as they dug the trench from the well to the building, moved some immense boulders and finessed a new line into the Studio. All went well. Satisfied, I left to go pickup Elihu at school.

Elihu’s classmates are each contributing a small drawing of a rainbow which will be used to fashion a larger, end-of-the-year thank you card for their teacher. I carry the pens and paper in my purse and plan to have him do a quick drawing before I pass it off to the mom who’s putting the card together. I linger at the school looking for her but can’t find her. I know she lives a bit further out in the country in our general direction, so I make a mental note to drop the art off at her place later on that afternoon.

By the time I got home and checked my messages, I found the workers had made several attempts to find me – there was a situation that needed some attention ASAP. Apparently a couple of pipes had burst over the winter, in spite of my having drained the system. Or at least I’d thought I had; some friends had come over in October and offered to help me drain the pipes for winter – only we may have been one freeze too late. I don’t know – it seems kinda crazy to me that there should be such damage done in so short a time – but it whenever, however, it doesn’t matter. It’s done. “We looked everywhere but couldn’t find a mop or anything” the kind fellow went on; he felt pretty bad, but there was nothing he could do. I called the shop right away and thanked them. They’d done their job, and they’d done what they could. Which was really just shutting off the main valve after realizing that the place was flooding fast. And we were so close to finishing this project and opening our doors for the summer. So close…

After hearing the messages, I pile a laundry basket full of old towels, drag the huge dehumidifier up the basement stairs, get it all in the car and head next door. When I first see the situation, it doesn’t look so bad – although the carpet in the bathroom hallway is dark with water, it still seems ok. But then I walk on it and feel the volume of water beneath my feet. Phooey. I sop up what I can, get the machine cranking and set up the tubing to drain into a sink. Now I too have done all I can, all there is to do now is wait. Ok. Time to turn my attention back to school business.

Back at home Elihu begins to work on the rainbow for his teacher’s card. He needs to finish his book report too – something he’s been dragging out for weeks now. His teacher has been more than kind granting him extra time for having joined them late in the year. As he adds lines to his arch I test out the markers on a sheet of paper first before handing them to him – as he of course cannot see the colors for himself. He finishes his rainbow then adds a soaring eagle. He signs “Love, Elihu” in the teensiest letters possible a the bottom. Perfect. Now back to the book report. Where is it? I can only find the paper on which I’ve tested the markers. Oh no. Oh no. No! I have been testing out the markers on his book report!!

It’s actually not so bad, because at Waldorf, kids do their assignments in a large lesson book. Elihu has been told that he can do his report on another piece of paper and then glue it into his lesson book. So this will be fine. We can easily cut it out. But this is not acceptable to Elihu, who has now become a raging, crying, frustrated little kid who is fully invested in using this as his ultimate reason not to continue. The next hour is spent with Elihu lamenting between sobs that he’s “been working on this for months“, and that “all his work has to count for something” and therefore he “shouldn’t have to do any more” and me countering that all the hard work in the world is for naught if the assignment is not completed. Crappy job or not, it must be finished. I even use his beloved Waldorf as a tool. I am ashamed of myself, but I am desperate that he finish this assignment. I stay committed to my act, I say that perhaps he should return to Greenfield Elementary if he can’t do the work at Waldorf. It is a veritable battle of wills, of egos. He nods his head yes, that maybe he should go back to Greenfield, because he will NOT do any more on this book report. Wow. He’s committed to his act, too.

I let him writhe on the couch for a bit, to let off some steam. After some time he comes to me as I sit in my chair writing, and he slides in next to me. He doesn’t need any more discussion, any more lecturing. He needs mommy now. So I say nothing, I just hold him. His tears are drying now, but he’s still a little sniffly. I give him the opportunity to ease up on his stance. “Want to just try one sentence at a time?” I ask in a much softer tone, to which he nods yes. I hug him again, and we sit for a moment. He gets up and walks into his room.

Just now Elihu returned with the entire book report finally completed. He threw it at me and said “don’t thank me. Don’t say anything at all or I will be really mad.” Then he left the room. A few seconds later I can hear the whirring of his helicopter moving about the living room. In a while we will have supper. By then things will have settled down. If he’s playing with a flying toy, I know he’s already feeling better.

I’m feeling better too. But I’m not looking forward to spending the money I’d saved on the cheaper pump by way of plumbing repairs (and then some. !). So much for the windfall of a bonus interior paint job! Sheesh.

One step forward, two steps back. Ever onward…

Digging the trench for the new water line

Getting closer…

Down to the nitty gritty…

Good news: we have water. Bad news? It’s in the wrong place. Sigh.

I can’t forget the goal… what a beautiful room, huh? This room has seen over forty years of music and theater and will continue to do so as soon as we’re over this little hump…

Post Script: The Studio used to get its water from a shallow, hand-dug well a hundred yards away (which belongs to the 200 year old farm house in which my brother now lives) but the line ruptured last year. We supplied the Studio with water using a hose from my parent’s house to get us through last season. This year we’re going to have our own water source, making the Studio a true stand-alone building. (We still need heat – but that’s another chapter for the future.)

All Is Well…

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Here it is. Finally, after having our new well’s location dowsed and then successfully dug last summer (the dowser was right on, btw!), today we are having the well plumbed to the Studio. Lights, camera, water…

I’ve encountered a slight hitch, however. I really should have attended to this months ago, as I’ve had the estimates for a while now, yet it was only just this morning, on a whim, really, that I looked up the wholesale cost of the pump that was being sold to me for over nine hundred dollars. My mother is funding this, and that’s been the agreement from the start, but nonetheless I don’t want to spend a penny more than possible on this – and it seems we are about to spend lots more than we should.

I understand markup, of course I do, but should a pump that wholesales for $435 be sold in turn by the well drilling company for more than twice that price?? That seems crazy! So I’m sitting by the phone, just waiting for the hour to strike nine. As soon as that office opens, I’ll call the manager and ask her if we mightn’t have a chat about the price. I’m prepared to buy the same pump at another place and then have her install that one – that way I stand to save a couple hundred dollars. Money that I could use to paint the battered interior of the Studio. Money that I could use to have the grass cut. So if she might see her way to giving us a better price, I won’t pull the plug on today’s job. Hope that doesn’t sound too bitchy. I’m not great at this business stuff. I do know, however, that she’s already scheduled the backhoe guy and would rather get this job underway than postpone it. I also know that she has a bunch of pumps sitting in a stockroom that she can sell for whatever price she chooses. It’s her business. She knows what she can handle.

This is my business too, and I know I gotta at least try to get a better price. Dare I even say that I’m “pumped up” to do it? Here I go.

Spoons and Drums

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Yesterday Elihu’s Eurythmy teacher at Waldorf  brought the local trad music folks to school as an end-of-the-year treat for the 3rd graders. The trio played and called as 3rd graders, 7th graders, teachers and this mom joined in the dancing.

Local favorites Peter, Paul and Margot explain traditional music to the kids

Looks like Master Elihu has a question…

…he wants to see the spoons that Peter plays up close

Abigail Reid (standing) is the 3rd grade teacher

Susan Birkas Dent, Eurythmy teacher on left, Paul Rosenberg, caller, multi-instrumentalist and well-known founder of the Dance Flurry here in Saratoga on the right. We’re about to dance, so sorry – there aren’t any pictures of the dancing in progress!

Peter Davis shows Elihu how to play the spoons

During recess Elihu shares the djembes he brought to school with classmates

…then he and Phoenix play together (these two are the drummers in the class for sure!)

After school is out, Adam Witt, baker of the best bread you could ever hope to taste and west-African-schooled drummer leads the kids in a drum circle

A late spring rain has the drummers running to squeeze into the gazebo.

What a magical day. How much do we love this school??

Night Snack

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I think I’m dreaming, but I’m not quite sure… my son and I are running through the tall grass of my parent’s property in the dim light of early night, searching for the source of a skirmish we hear. A bird of ours is in distress, she is being attacked by something. He is far away from me, nearing the hen and her attacker faster than I am, and I begin to fear for his safety. ‘It can’t be any creature that would harm him’, I think as adrenaline comes over me. It looks a lost cause as I get nearer to the spot. The grass is too long to pinpoint the trouble, and it’s dark enough now that I believe our attempt to save her is lost. I am now aware that if it’s a dog moving in on her there may be more dogs closing in soon. My son himself is hardly tall enough to be spotted in the undergrowth and he seems all of a sudden vulnerable to the imaginary pack now sifting out of the woods and coming in closer. I call to him to stay back, I tell him we need to call this off. “Just come back!” I yell across the darkening field whose perimeter of forest now appears as lightless as black velvet. I feel some relief to hear his feet rustling back to me, the sound of his footsteps blending with the terrorized movements of our hen.

I now realize this is a dream, and the fearful mood dissolves just a bit, enough for me to begin to consider that I am replaying a version of what might have happened to the hen we had recently found dead in the garden. Then I begin to associate the dead carcass we’d seen in the garden with the meaty, tangy and tough strips of cured beef we like to indulge in every so often, and note how that kind of food feels as crude and real and death-like as the event that’s going on before us. As my focus now begins to turn in earnest to the idea of beef jerky, I realize that I would very much like some of that now. My dream fades a bit more; one half of me wants to remain in that dark field and finish our quest, retrieve our bird and scare off the predator, yet the other half of my mind is now seriously attached to the idea of beef jerky. I realize I’m hungry…. hey, I didn’t really have supper, did I? No, just broccoli. Man, I really do want something like that.. do we have any? Now I am indeed waking out of the dream. I am still able to shout one last thing to dream Elihu, but now I’m not sure he’s with me anymore. He’s still putting his energy into stopping the kill… so I finally leave him there, and open my eyes.

12:12 am. I smile to myself. That’s a number been in my world a long time. Got married on 12/12. And I am hungry. Salami. Got some of that. Started to buy it only recently for Elihu’s lunches. Is it enough to get me out of bed? I wonder, as I take an assessment of just how comfy I am, lying here under my warm covers rather than with cold, wet feet out in the middle of a field as I just was… Ok. Now I am awake. Yes, salami it is. And then the other half of the second-to-last sleeping pill to make sure I can truly get back to sleep.

I’m up. The salami does a good job. Not jerky, but salty, chewy. Kind of. I step outside and notice that it must be cloudy, because it sure is light out for the middle of the night. All that light from the mall, from the stores on 50 that stay lit all the time. All of it bouncing up onto the ceiling of low-lying clouds, keeping the land underneath bathed in a constant glow. Maybe something healthier to cap off this snack. A strawberry. Have one, leave two for Elihu’s lunch tomorrow. Just as I finish it, I realize I have bitten the inside of my mouth ever so slightly, and I notice the sour taste of the small cut mix with the tang of the strawberry’s last flavor. For a microsecond the two tastes are almost one. I worry it with my tongue to check how much it actually hurts. It upsets me for the briefest moment, til I remember what a familiar sensation it is. All the dozens of times throughout my life in which I’ve ever so slightly bit the inside of my cheek by mistake, the lingering salty, sour taste of an open cut left behind. I imagine myself if I were dying of some disease, thinking with nostalgia on something as preciously mundane as this, and becoming happy instead to experience it once more. Hm. One swallow of seltzer water will end this snack perfectly. Without checking the bottle, I grab it from the door of the fridge, take the top off and take a swig. It is not what I’d intended; instead it is the sickly sweet, no calorie sparkling lemonade I’d bought in anticipation of Elihu’s school chum coming over. Our seltzer water is too foreign and fancy for him, so I’d bought this. A taste of plastic hits me, and immediately I see the flourescent lights of a grungy corner garage where they sell Mountain Dew and stale candy bars.

My snack ends. So many images, all in a matter of mere seconds, wafting up from disparate corners of my memories. Waking in of itself becomes a dream. I shuffle back to my bed still going slow, energy mellow, hoping the transition back to the dream side might be more seamless than other nights. Roll into covers hardly pushed back, my body’s form still held by the pillows and blankets. Onto my right side, for I am a mostly a right side sleeper. Tuck it all in around me, and very soon am dissolving into the mysterious dimension of dreams once again.

Dead Hen

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I guess it’s a little easier now than it was in the beginning. But it still feels kinda crappy to see a little creature that you’ve nurtured from birth, lying ripped open and dead on the ground.

Yesterday, Elihu and I took a walk down the hill to our garden to check on things when he spied a form in the tall grass. “Mommy, there’s dead chicken here!” he told me. I was surprised, and not. The chickens, for some reason, don’t often venture down the hill to this spot; the only times I’ve known them to come down here is when they’re following me. Even Max doesn’t bother with the garden. (He does, however, become a threat to the young plants when he carelessly tramples over them with his big, webbed feet as he waddles along after me.) I came to look and saw that it was one of our dark red girls. Who? I don’t know. It’s most often the head and comb shape that tells us, and the head on this girl was missing. And honestly, even after having had them for two years now, I can’t always tell the dark red ones apart. A couple stand out, but for the most part they’re just red hens. I’m relieved to see it’s not Thumbs Up or Madeline or Shirley Nelson, but nonetheless I’m sad to think that this little gal, who’d made it through two winters and all the many nighttime attacks on the coop, had finally met her end.

The question we chicken farmers always consider first is ‘who did it’? But in the end, there’s never a definitive answer. One can speculate all day – and indeed, one can spend hours online in various chicken chat rooms discovering all sorts of anecdotal evidence that ends up telling us everything and, well, nothing. Raccoon, weasel, fisher, hawk, fox. All equally possible. All may well take off the head. All may well leave the prey and return for it later. Just yesterday Elihu had told me there were two young hawks outside talking to each other. I’d thought they were probably just blue jays – but as usual, he was right. We looked up to see some juvenile red tails circling above our yard and immediately made sure our flock was close to the coop for safety. So it might have been one of them. But really, there is no sure safety for a free-range flock. You do what you can, keep your ears open and use common sense, but ultimately there will always be a missing hen at some point.

I picked up the headless hen and saw her breast flayed open; I recognized the pink flesh – it looked just like the chicken breasts I cooked for supper nearly every night. I wondered to myself why the animal hadn’t eaten the meat. Seemed a waste.  She was still flexible, so we guessed she had been gotten fairly recently. That she should not go to waste, I flung her body over the steep edge of the hill into the brush for some lucky animal of the forest to come and finish.

Ironically, that night we had chicken for supper.