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.