2009 October | Chickens in the Road

Happy Halloween! I want to show you my costume.
halloween2009
Oh wait, that’s not my costume, that’s what I really look like. I’ve been working my fingers TO THE BONE, I tell ya!!

I also want to tell you…..if this creature comes to your door tonight?
halloweenmeanrooster
DON’T OPEN IT! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, SAVE YOURSELF!

P.S. I may have taken that photo of Mean Rooster, but the graphic wizardry credits for both images in this post belong to Charleston photographer Jerry Waters.

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Posted by Suzanne McMinn | Permalink

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Almost two years ago, I wrote a post called This Post is Stunning. Many of you may not have read that because it’s so old. Check it out, for context on this post.

Chicken, contemplating the meaning of life.

This rooster is stunning. Even though he doesn’t belong on my porch.

Yesterday, there was a veritable invasion on the porch. For the past couple of weeks, one rooster in particular has been hopping up to the porch every day. A Dominecker. Just him. He’d come eat some dog food then hop back away. I figured he was keeping the whole thing a big secret. I mean, what chicken in his right mind would share his dog food gold mine?

Maybe he didn’t share. Maybe the others just sneaked around and followed him. But yesterday, there were chickens all over the place.

And yet they were all so stunning.

I had to force myself to chase their stunningly fluffy butts off the porch and lock the porch gates.

Straggler.

They took their fluffy butts down to the goat yard where they were….

….just as stunning.

And speaking of creatures with fluffy butts.

(Not you, Boomer!)

The ducks.

They’re trying to kill me.

I love how ducks walk in a line. They are so stunning.

They stick together, near obsessively. They are creatures of habit. In the mornings, they come out of the chicken house and head for the goat yard. They hang out there for awhile then in the afternoon they head for the hill behind the house, up into the woods.

They do mysterious things there. Hold meetings. Enter secret portals into other worlds. All sorts of secret spy stuff. Then in the evenings, after dark, they come home to the chicken house.

Only the other night? They didn’t come home.

I’ve lost ducks before. Once a duck disappears, they don’t reappear. When a duck is gone, a duck is gone.

And all six were gone.

I mourned.

I gave them up for lost.

I looked for them anyway, and called to them, and hoped.

But I knew they were gone.

The second night, I got ready to shut the chickens up and I heard a low chorus I knew very well.

A chorus of ducks, quacking quietly to each other in the still darkness.

My ducks who had disappeared had reappeared.

I forgave them immediately. I can’t help it. I love my ducks. They’re stunning. Every day with them is a gift. I gave them bread in the morning and begged them not to run away again.

Coco has been re-relegated to the goat yard. She’s depressed.

She’d gotten pretty excited about Spice opening the door several times a day, and she and Boomer got a set of playing cards and were setting up for business at the dining room table. Between the dogs and the chickens, something had to give.

I mean, I have ten cats in the house, isn’t that enough????

I’m in love with this little brown duck, by the way.

She’s stunning.

I also think there’s something terribly stunning about Jack’s giant velvety head.

That head is every bit as soft as it looks. And he nuzzles. I love how donkeys nuzzle.

Annabelle is stunning. Even when she’s too busy to talk to me.

They are all stunning.

And I am stunned that these gorgeous, sweet, funny, demanding animals are part of my day, every day. I’m lucky to live on a farm. I’ve wanted to live on a farm all my life. I never really thought I would. (When you live in the suburbs, the notion of living on a farm sounds like an unattainable dream. How do you get there? Answer: you take the first step and then the next and then the next….)

But there are so many ways to live the simple, stunning life, and a farm is only one part of it and not absolutely necessary. I look back now and realize how many ways I could have lived more simply, and more stunningly, in the suburbs. It’s not where you live but how you live. It’s a lesson I am still learning, every day.

They help me learn it.

I want to thank you all for what you did yesterday. More than one person asked me in the comments if I could feel the love. YES. I don’t have the words to express it. Yesterday was surreal in some ways. I just want to tell you that you are STUNNING. And THANK YOU. (And if you can possibly stand it, please vote again today. You can vote every day until the voting closes–November 6.)