Chickendad

I'd always called jokingly called John "Chickendad" and now that we had this place, he immediately planned our new family by heading over to the local hatchery and ordering 6 Highlines, 6 Ameraucanas (hybrids of Araucanas), 6 Cornish (meat birds), a quail and a pheasant, the latter two to indulge my visual sensibilities and substitute for my lost roosters. They would arrive in 6 weeks so he was driven to get their home built.

It never would have gotten done if John wasn't the most ambitious, brute strength, tenacious procurer of foodstuffs ever born. His entire existence is centered on keeping the fridge stuffed. He pawed the earth, licked his chops, rubbed his hands together till they started smoking and got down to business.

From a strictly visual standpoint, I've always enjoyed the results of John's 3X a week weight lifting habit and now his commitment to lifting was about to pay off big time. Even though he was very well equipped to deal with this project, it turned out to be no small job even for a guy who lifts pianos for entertainment. There was 20 years worth of old rotting construction materials symbiotically lashed together with 20 years of prolific vine growth. Within that tangled mess he extricated a bath tub, a hot tub, a tombstone, a generation of kid's toys, a brigade of really cool flat sided red buckets, tires and even uncovered an old street sweeper!! No kidding.

Eggstatic

After looking at many disappointing, overpriced apartments and hot, dingy little houses on busy streets our collective karma (John's, mine, our dog Licky and John's son Shaun, the basketball guy and Licky's best friend) kicked in and we found the most magical little house by a dry stream with a very large yard. Room enough (with the landlord's permission) to have a garden!! And keep Licky! And chickens, just hens, no roosters! Every one was happy.

The price? We'd have to clear the surrounds to make it happen. John immediately got to work preparing the way while I tried to get over losing my chickens by writing this story and mooning over my thousands of chicken pictures & the memories I carried of our Moa family. I'd spent the last 6 months totally immersed in a series of Moa paintings and had studied them intimately everyday…their life was my life. Gosh, I wondered if they missed Seedmother like I missed them, they were always waiting on the front steps when I came out in the morning…Sigh…

The paintings were all gone to the gallery and I was alone.

We left our Gallus gallus behind but I needed to focus on starting a new little family with G. gallus domesticus. Cheer up Seedmother, new chicks were coming but much had to be done first.

Separating Eggs

We had to move. It was a disaster, what about the chickens?

That I had bonded with them in reality, probably mattered less to them (except for the seeds) than to me. They were, after all, wild chickens who belonged to the forest. But I was tortured nevertheless over being separated from them. I thought of capturing Sola and the chicks and bringing them along but as John pointed out, it would be so unfair to them.

What about Rusty? Well, he would stay and help protect Sola, besides the forest was full of food, they really didn't need to depend on our largess at all to survive. And our new neighbors whoever they turned out to be certainly wouldn't appreciate him. I tossed and turned every night.

What about the chicks? Well, they were getting to be teenagers, less than a month away from emancipation, think of how they've grown. Their flight feathers were in, and they were roosting up in the guava trees at night. They were well past the mongoose vulnerability stage. In fact, they were so able to take care of themselves they were stealing cat food from the old cat on the property, she was scared to death of them.


This would be really hard, logic demanded that I had to let go of chicken life. But my heart & mind were scrambled.