Circle of life...

 Last week, forty new broiler chicks arrived via USPS in a peeping box. We set them up in the kitchen for a few days so we could enjoy the totally overwhelming adorableness of them. 

The Owlet is enchanted by them and immediately gathered a pile of her favorite books to share.

They outgrew the little nursery quickly, so on Friday, they were promoted to a big hutch in the garage. They have a heat lamp, a deep bed of clean shavings, and lots of food and water. They eat, drink, sleep, and poop- and then they poop some more. But they are still cute. 

Later that day, a fox slipped into the pasture and killed two of our good laying hens. We had been fortunate; in twenty years of enjoying chickens, we had only lost one to a predator. Having two taken in one day was a sad loss.  I kept all the birds locked up the next day, and today I let them out since we were home all day to keep an eye on things. The rooster kept the ladies close to the coop; he's a wise bird. The fox did not make a repeat visit, but it certainly could. 

When I did chores tonight, I peeked into our little coop, where the diminutive Olandsk Dwarf chickens live. I've had a broody hen there for a while. When hens feel in the family way, they sit on eggs. For most breeds, this means that for 21 days, they rarely move, leaving their nest only once or twice a day to eat, drink, and defecate. I figured chicks would be due mid to late week. So I was surprised when I saw an empty shell, perfectly split in half, at the edge of the nest. I carefully lifted the hen and saw a pile of intact eggs, but no chick from the empty egg. I then ruffled through her feathers and, sure enough, found a teeny, peeping baby bird snuggled close under her mama's wing. 

Then I remembered this breed has a slightly shorter gestation period than most, 18-19 days. I gave the chick a little cuddle, tucked it back deep in its mamas feathers, and grinned all the way back to the house. 

Living with animals, one experiences the circle of life at an accelerated rate. I am sad about my fox-food hens, but happy to welcome new life to the farmlette. 

And then my eyes leaked...

 When my older sister Dicy was around sixteen years old, my parents bought her a horse. Dad built a little one-stall barn with a tack room and Midnight came to our place to live. I don't remember her, but she was part of family folklore. 

The barn is still there. It was turned into a pool house when I was a little kid, but there was a sign that the building once had a different purpose. Dicy had carved a little two-dimensional horse and our dad hung it between the diamond pane windows that faced the house. When I was a little girl, I was in awe of that horse. It amazed me that my sister could make something so pretty from a blank piece of wood. 

My sister Deb and her husband now live in the house where I grew up. A few years ago my brother-in-law mentioned to me that they were replacing the windows on the old barn. I asked him about the little decorative horse. He didn't know what I was talking about, so I described it to him. He said he suspected it may have disintegrated and disappeared, because he had never noticed it. After all, it was over sixty years old. I was a little sad, but I am a pragmatic person, so I filed the memory of the small figure away in the happy place where such memories live. 

For Mother's Day Rachel and I packed the little girls up and drove to my sister and brother-in-laws house. We had terrific weekend that included fun and delicious family meals, time with my adorable new great-niece and an outdoor flea market on a perfect spring day. We also poked around a huge antique mall and took all the tiny girls for a swim at a beautiful heated indoor kiddie pool. 

At one point, when my brother-in-law and I were alone for a moment, he handed me a slight, flat object wrapped in red tissue paper. "I've been saving this for you." he said. "It needed a little repair, and I can make it look more perfect if you want, or you can keep it just the way it is." My curiosity was piqued, and I carefully opened up the light package. And then my eyes leaked. 

After I mentioned the little carved horse on the barn he went out and looked for it. It had been painted over numerous times and was camouflaged and unnoticed until he searched. He managed to gently pry the little equine from where it had been fused to the wall for decades, a small nail through its eye. The tail was broken in two places, but he carefully saved the fragments. He left it on his work bench for safe-keeping, then recently he glued and clamped it. 

My brother-in-law is a genuinely nice guy. He is also thoughtful and talented. "You are the only person who remembered Dicy's horse," he said. "So it should be with you." 

I opted to keep the pony just as it is, and she is now safely here at FairWinds. My eyes have stopped leaking, now I smile every time I walk past her. Thank you, John, for the amazing kindness.