nesters, not roosters

When the hens turn in for the night, they gravitate to the highest roosts.  We learned this by error, not trial. As new chicks would grow into hens, it would dawn on us that we were low on roosting real estate, so we’d add another crossbar. Since the roost sits on a slope, the new roosts were higher off the ground, and in no time at all, the alpha hens had taken possession of them. Though we had not anticipated this, it had a certain logic and we accepted it as the way of nature.

Last spring, we brought home to black bantam chicks.  One grew into a very unbantam-like giant which often lays double-yoked eggs.  She struggles to get her heavy body over the roost’s threshold in the morning, so hopping up onto the roost in the evening is out of the question. She spends the night in a little hollow on the ground, where’s she’s safe as long as we remember to latch the roost door every night.

The other black chick grew into a sweet little hen with only one good foot. Recently, she, too, has started spending the night on the ground in a little hollow. The other hens probably won’t let her stay up with them, since she’s by herself, or she may not be able to get around on the roost very well.

Like Mary, she likes to linger in her bed in the morning, and so, like Mary, she receives room service. Mary takes hot tea, and she has to be on a pretty tight schedule before she’ll decamp without it. The little hen didn’t fill out a room service card, but she seems to appreciate the handful of scratch I scatter near her when the flock is busy elsewhere.

So my understanding of chickens, and my own life, progress in unexpected directions. Hens now roost on the ground, and my life as husband & father takes on increasingly unforeseen roles, first husbandry & now bellhop.

On the other hand, though I did not see this coming, neither did I foresee the rewards of long-marriage, or kindness to chickens.

Coo, coo, ca choo.

the manner of chickens

It’s been a good summer.  Having built our endurance with several hikes already, on Saturday four of us made it clear across Jefferson Park before circling back off the trail through sub-alpine terrain, before rejoining the trail for the return trip to the car. This comes at a price, of course, 13 miles, and each successive mile extracts a higher toll.

My companions were naturally curious about why I had chosen a destination so far from the trailhead, and whether I had long been disposed toward fanaticism.  The answer to the first question is easy, because it is there, and I want to see it, and to the latter, yes, but usually with games involving cards.

True, it makes for a long day, but it’s still a simpler proposition that backpacking in for the night, & hiking out the next day.  Do you trade away aching feet, or a night of sleeping in your own bed; a home-cooked dinner or a pot on a camp stove?  This, and an abiding faith in the doctrine of fitness, pushing the envelope, testing your limits, working through pain.

None of which is manner of chickens. Chickens rise early to cherry-pick the scratch, forage about the berm while the day is still cool, and then settle under a shady bough to wait out the heat of the day. Have I learned nothing after a decade of chicken husbandry? Chickens would hike in & chill out, then rise early to hike out in time to chill again.

Maybe their message is making inroads. On Sunday, I puttered about the yard before taking a late lunch, then took a long nap, and woke up feeling refreshed. Chickens are not long-lived themselves, but the human who heeds them might well add the span of a chicken’s lifetime to his own.

Coo, coo, ca choo.