For those of you who have known me for a while, we live up in Amador Pines and have a few livestock. My son, John, was in 4H for many years and we started out with rabbits and chickens. Then we replaced the rabbits with Nubian dairy goats, thus starting our decade-long love affair with those crazy caprines. A horse for me came along to round out the pasture. Son went off to college, a mountain lion came to visit, and the goats are no longer resident in the pasture.
During last Thanksgiving's record snowstorm, a tree fell on the chicken coop and flattened it. John crawled in commando-style to retrieve the chickens and we moved them up “temporarily” with the horse. She was lonely without her goats, so it seemed to be a match.
Then my friend Janice gave us a charming little rooster named Gregory Peck (yes) to round out our little flock of six. We rarely name our chickens, but one little hen stood from the crowd. She had a severely crossed beak and we wondered how she would be able to eat, let alone lay eggs. We thought about euthanizing, but just couldn’t do it. I ended up naming her Flossie, because she reminded me of a sweet girl I went to school with that had a similar dental problem.
When the other five girls started to lay, they were pretty diligent about hitting the nest box, unless they were otherwise occupied in the pasture. Then it became an Easter egg hunt. We figured Flossie never would lay and that was okay. She thought she was a dog and followed the horse around the pasture keeping her company. If Flossie saw my husband Keith working in the yard, she would let herself out and coming a-running. She can spend hours with him, chatting away.
We often leave our utility room door open in the warm weather, so one day a few months ago as I was walking out, I heard a soft clucking from up high. Imagine my surprise when I looked up on top of the steel shelving rack to see Flossie tucked onto the top shelf where I store all the artificial Christmas wreaths! Shortly thereafter, she flew down and ran back up to the pasture and let herself in through the fence.
Curiosity got the better of me, and I got a step ladder and climbed up to see. I was amazed to see a blue egg nestled in the wreath! Now the egg-in-the-wreath has become a daily event. I guess her thanks to us for letting her live is egg delivery to the house. There is a philosophical life lesson here – something about “live and let live” – a daily reminder that an act we commit or choose not to commit can impact lives beyond our own.
(c) Cathy Koos Breazeal 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment