every day is a good day
Being a mother hen is a twenty-four hour job. It’s mid afternoon and it’s time for a break. Some of her chicks are taking a warm nap under her, while others still scamper about. Her chicks may nap during the day, but Lucky doesn’t. Which might explain while mother hens tend to go to bed early. By dusk, they are bedded down with their chicks underneath them.
Every trip into the vegetable beds is a voyage of discovery. You don’t have to look far to find beauty. Mother nature can’t touch a single square foot of land without leaving behind breathtaking splendor.
I had a laugh today listening to Ira Flatow on Science Friday today. He was interviewing Michael J. Sheehan about facial recognition. As I listened, it dawned on me that Ira Flatow must spend almost no time with animals. He commented how animal faces all look the same while human faces are very different. His comment made me laugh. Has this man not even looked at two dog faces side by side? He certainly hasn’t looked closely at a flock of chickens.
It’s gradually becoming the cool, wet time of the year. For Lucky and her chicks, it means having a big breakfast before spending the day outdoors in the cool, drizzly weather.
In the village, the last flowers of summer are as beautiful as ever. The butterflies are enjoying the last sips of nectar. The beauty of the Pacific Northwest is that the seasons change gently and slowly, giving plenty of time to enjoy the transformations. Each day is just slightly different than the day before it.
The first fall leaves are dropping. Ahead of me are weeks and months of gathering leaves to compost and use in vegetable beds in the spring, summer, and next fall. They are much more satisfying to use than artificial fertilizer sold in plastic containers. Raking the leaves provides plenty of exercise. The earthy smell as they break down is enjoyable. The crumbly texture of composted leaves soothes my fingers. And as the leaves break down, they attract an infinite variety of bugs the chickens love to eat. The bugs eat the decaying leaves. The chickens eat the bugs. I eat the eggs of the chickens. In a way, when I crack open an egg and eat it, I am eating the autumn leaves. If I close my eyes, can I taste the autumn leaves in the eggs?
On the way home from delivering eggs, there’s time to enjoy my favorite cows.
After just two days, Lucky has taken her chicks outdoors to enjoy life. In the clip below, you can see how little chicks bury under their mother when they want some warmth.
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During the day she takes them further and further into the grass to explore and find good things to eat.
Near the post office is this long row of fifty or so trimmed poplar trees. Whoever trims them must spend a lot of time trimming them as they are always trimmed. Only, it turns out that it’s not a person who keeps these trees looking so neat. It’s a pair of cows. They go along the fence by the trees, nibbling at the trees and eating all the branches and leaves they can reach. In the process they keep the bottom branches of the leaves all trimmed to the same height.
The next time you are in the country and see a row of trees with their lower branches all trimmed neatly. Look for cows. They’re most likely the ones trimming the trees.
