I thought this was a writing blog! Hah! I want to write about chickens.
MONDAY the guinea hens screeched at the boy-gang of marauding young roosters, who invaded the vegetable patch for my ripening tomatoes. The guineas have no sense of volume. Everything is at high volume - they sound like a high-pitched pitbull barking. Then the old rooster, a Rhode Island Red with a huge black-feathered tail, joins in crowing to protect his tiny harem of five overworked girls. Overworked, because one rooster is more comfortable servicing ten chickens, and mine have developed sore spots which means they need to wear chicken bras - a saddle made of canvas to protect their backs from his spurs. It's all at full volume and I'm wondering what the neighbors think.
The turkey is spectating from his strawbale hutch near the vegetable patch. He's a bronze-breasted, and his head turns red when he's upset or hungry. He must be enjoying the shenanigans, because his head is its natural shade of gray. He has a soft too-whit, too-whit as his call, not a gobble, and he's huge. He's too big for his legs - an unfortunate genetic modification that I didn't understand when I ordered the poults. He's so fat, he looks like one of those 300lb men at the zoo, who use a zimmer frame to hold up their stomachs. At least they try - and so does Christmas, waddling to his feed tray, scooping up huge beakfulls of grain.
We wait until dark and put on our gloves and jackets, even though the night is still warm. I tuck a flashlight in my pocket. We are robbers with chicken crates. We go to the main coop, push the crate in front of us, and close the door behind us. I shine the light on the sleeping chickens, my husband picks up the first one and puts it in the crate. I count. We put ten to a crate, load it onto the trailer, and bring in the next crate. By the last ten chickens, we realize we don't have enough crate space. Ten chickens go into a cardboard box while we rustle up cat carriers and dog cages from the basement. At the end of the night we have 78 chickens, 3 guinea fowl, and one turkey loaded into the garage, waiting for dawn.
TUESDAY my back hurts. I beg my husband to come to the slaughterhouse with me, but he needs his vacation days for the grape crush this year for his winery. My son has new muscles from a year on swim team, and he gets drafted for the job. We leave at 7.30am for Kings Poultry near Troy, Ohio (USDOT inspected, chickens chilled to 40 degrees and sent out on ice) for our 10am appointment. I try not to think about how much I love the chickens, how funny Christmas is, how the guineas protected him with their screeching. I try not to think about how I will have to buy my eggs now from the grocery store, or about the massive freezer in my basement. Most of all, I try not to think about leaving my chickens on the slaughterhouse loading bay, because even though the people there are terribly nice, it means one thing only for my birds.
I wonder how my son is going to take it. He loves Christmas, and used to spend time crouched near his coop just sitting with him. But we gamely unload all the heavy crates, line up our tubbies and coolers, and get our return time: 2pm. I keep saying to myself - this is the food chain. This is the food chain. But I also think - I'm going to become a vegetarian one day, when everyone in the house can eat beans without us stinking each other out. Then I'll be able to keep chickens just for the eggs and for the pleasure of it.
We arrive home at 6pm after problems strapping the empty crates to the trailer. We are exhausted, but still the chilled carcasses have to be unloaded directly from the ice into the freezer. One by one my husband hands me all the birds, and we fill it up. I identify several of them - here are the older girls, the layers, and their rooster, here is the Americauna, they were a bit runty. And here's Christmas - 40lbs of him with the three darker guinea fowls. I think of all the people lined up at our holiday table, waiting with forks.
This is the reality of eating meat. You take a living thing, you cut off its head and scoop out its guts, and then you bake it at 350. This is the reality of the most disposable meat in our culture - the chicken.
WEDNESDAY I can't wake up properly without the rooster's crow. I really miss him. We only got rid of the layers because we want to go on vacation this year, a proper family vacation, and can't leave livestock at home.
It's too quiet around here. I look over at Christmas's coop, and he's not there. He's in the freezer. I wonder what we will have for dinner. It's too early to eat chicken.
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Friday, August 21, 2009
Good-bye Thanksgiving
...he left the gate open, and the coyote seized her opportunity. We found you by the orchard. We are meat eaters too, and this half-chewed reminder proves everyone loves a turkey dinner. Happy coyote, happy coyote pups. Happy vultures, happy crows.
The three remaining guinea hens stick close to Christmas.
LESSON LEARNED
Predators and opportunists live by their own rules. If you don't want to lose something you've carefully nurtured, make sure you maintain your fences and close the GATES.
The three remaining guinea hens stick close to Christmas.
LESSON LEARNED
Predators and opportunists live by their own rules. If you don't want to lose something you've carefully nurtured, make sure you maintain your fences and close the GATES.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Dances with Chickens
(Thank you Reg for the title)
Dances with Chickens
One day I will have an immaculate garden
with a deer fence, six-feet high
made of silvered wood. A sprinkler
system I turn on with the twist of my wrist
and squash that don't lie in a green mattress of grass.
One day I will write full pages of work, my train
of thought uninterrupted by the Simpson's latest mischief
or a request for food.
I might keep our rooster, even though he dances and flies
at me with his spurs,
his 20-hen harem long gone
to the slaughterhouse.
What will he do with those nesting boxes? Who
will he show the worm to, no
favorite to coo?
One day we will lie by a pool together
my husband and I, and wish for the noise of teenage boys
even though the price is a wrinkled pool liner
and a bottom gritty from unwashed feet.
The turkeys come toward my daughter, shaking
the feed bucket. They are so loyal and grateful
and wary.
One day it will be silent here, no bumping into dogs
the kids insisted on, no disgruntled cats
only the obsessive hum of neighborhood mowers.
You all will be gone from the messy garden
and vases I put down
will remain on the counter, unbroken
in a house
as still as a snapshot.
On strong, long wings
my children fly.
Dances with Chickens
One day I will have an immaculate garden
with a deer fence, six-feet high
made of silvered wood. A sprinkler
system I turn on with the twist of my wrist
and squash that don't lie in a green mattress of grass.
One day I will write full pages of work, my train
of thought uninterrupted by the Simpson's latest mischief
or a request for food.
I might keep our rooster, even though he dances and flies
at me with his spurs,
his 20-hen harem long gone
to the slaughterhouse.
What will he do with those nesting boxes? Who
will he show the worm to, no
favorite to coo?
One day we will lie by a pool together
my husband and I, and wish for the noise of teenage boys
even though the price is a wrinkled pool liner
and a bottom gritty from unwashed feet.
The turkeys come toward my daughter, shaking
the feed bucket. They are so loyal and grateful
and wary.
One day it will be silent here, no bumping into dogs
the kids insisted on, no disgruntled cats
only the obsessive hum of neighborhood mowers.
You all will be gone from the messy garden
and vases I put down
will remain on the counter, unbroken
in a house
as still as a snapshot.
On strong, long wings
my children fly.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Brakes
Yesterday I Googled my name. An interesting look in the public mirror - everyone should do it once in a while. What struck me was how differently layered the references were. And then one leaped out at me. A Detective Fiction website that had copies of Motherhunt for sale. This is how they described me:
"An American author who has lived in England most of her adult life. Caused something of a splash with collectors and readers with the publication of her first novel."
My first thought was - "I wish someone would have told me at the time that I'd made a splash." I began to write the novel when I was 29, a time when my emotions were governed by anxiety and confusion. I had a new baby far from home, and no clue as to how to be a Mom and a writer and earn a living at the same time. Two books, two babies, and two miscarriages in the space of four years - that was intense.
There came a time after I'd written Butterfly Eyes when I made a choice. I remember it clearly, sitting on the bottom step of my home in Bedfordshire with my baby daughter in my arms. I so wanted to get upstairs and write. I yearned to write. I yearned to publish, to go on book tours, to attend writing soirees - to lead a full life as a writer. To give myself completely to my craft. But who would raise my babies? A nanny could not give her what I wanted to give her; I had specific values and qualities that I wanted to instill in my children, and only I could do that job.
My frustration at not being able to write was so overpoweringly fierce, I wanted to abandon my job as a mother, to walk away. And that's when I made a key decision.
I'd learned that my books had a shelf-life and a life-cycle. My childrens' life-cycles would be longer than the books'. The books had to come second. That, I knew, would have consequences. I wouldn't be able to write as fully as I needed to write in order to fulfill my potential in my profession. I would have to focus on other, more mundane, things.
Writing time, henceforth, became tucked here and there. It got stuffed in the cracks. I felt confused, my identity as a writer stripped away, piece by piece, until it no longer mattered. What ascended instead was something I didn't value when I viewed myself as purely a writer - the healing work. Ten years of self-healing, then helping others to heal. Like a glass shattered against a marble floor, I picked myself up piece by piece and healed myself back together. Instead of a glass, there is now cut crystal, sparkling with rainbows.
Through it all I've written personally, kept stacks of diaries, this blog on and off, written and published short stories, written another novel, a non-fiction book proposal, had a radio show. And for the last six months, since beginning to teach for Healing in America, I've been on a writing fast, and it's uncomfortable in some ways, and feels exactly right in others. As a person, my largest inner cogs have been turning, re-gearing, to put my personality in a completely different place.
Last week, my son left for a month with his grandparents, and I cried at the airport. University will be coming around so fast. The crack in the cliff-face, that tunnel upwards into a meadow of writing, where I can once again explore the potential I chose against with the baby in my arms - that's within view.
What's really cool? All the healing work I've done for myself and others over the intervening years has put me in a very peaceful, centered, and connected place. Writing now comes from a new well. A very deep, and full aquifer. I see people in a completely different way. I react to stress with peaceful resources. I deal with conflict with strength and clarity. That's the crystal. That's ten years of healing and becoming non-attached to the label of 'writer'.
It's a completely different space.
And the writing that flows from there will be ...
"An American author who has lived in England most of her adult life. Caused something of a splash with collectors and readers with the publication of her first novel."
My first thought was - "I wish someone would have told me at the time that I'd made a splash." I began to write the novel when I was 29, a time when my emotions were governed by anxiety and confusion. I had a new baby far from home, and no clue as to how to be a Mom and a writer and earn a living at the same time. Two books, two babies, and two miscarriages in the space of four years - that was intense.
There came a time after I'd written Butterfly Eyes when I made a choice. I remember it clearly, sitting on the bottom step of my home in Bedfordshire with my baby daughter in my arms. I so wanted to get upstairs and write. I yearned to write. I yearned to publish, to go on book tours, to attend writing soirees - to lead a full life as a writer. To give myself completely to my craft. But who would raise my babies? A nanny could not give her what I wanted to give her; I had specific values and qualities that I wanted to instill in my children, and only I could do that job.
My frustration at not being able to write was so overpoweringly fierce, I wanted to abandon my job as a mother, to walk away. And that's when I made a key decision.
I'd learned that my books had a shelf-life and a life-cycle. My childrens' life-cycles would be longer than the books'. The books had to come second. That, I knew, would have consequences. I wouldn't be able to write as fully as I needed to write in order to fulfill my potential in my profession. I would have to focus on other, more mundane, things.
Writing time, henceforth, became tucked here and there. It got stuffed in the cracks. I felt confused, my identity as a writer stripped away, piece by piece, until it no longer mattered. What ascended instead was something I didn't value when I viewed myself as purely a writer - the healing work. Ten years of self-healing, then helping others to heal. Like a glass shattered against a marble floor, I picked myself up piece by piece and healed myself back together. Instead of a glass, there is now cut crystal, sparkling with rainbows.
Through it all I've written personally, kept stacks of diaries, this blog on and off, written and published short stories, written another novel, a non-fiction book proposal, had a radio show. And for the last six months, since beginning to teach for Healing in America, I've been on a writing fast, and it's uncomfortable in some ways, and feels exactly right in others. As a person, my largest inner cogs have been turning, re-gearing, to put my personality in a completely different place.
Last week, my son left for a month with his grandparents, and I cried at the airport. University will be coming around so fast. The crack in the cliff-face, that tunnel upwards into a meadow of writing, where I can once again explore the potential I chose against with the baby in my arms - that's within view.
What's really cool? All the healing work I've done for myself and others over the intervening years has put me in a very peaceful, centered, and connected place. Writing now comes from a new well. A very deep, and full aquifer. I see people in a completely different way. I react to stress with peaceful resources. I deal with conflict with strength and clarity. That's the crystal. That's ten years of healing and becoming non-attached to the label of 'writer'.
It's a completely different space.
And the writing that flows from there will be ...
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
An Apache saying
I've been following the series "We Shall Remain" on PBS. Last week they featured Geronimo, and one of his grandsons made this statement: "As Apaches, everything we do is sacred."
I bet there were some viewers who thought: "what makes you so special?"
A fascinating book for me at the moment is Lynne McTaggart's The Intention Experiment. The book shows clearly, through the thousands of scientific experiments cited, how intention can have a profound effect on our world.
Through quantum entanglement we are always interacting with other parts of our universe than the one we are aware of at the present time. Not only have studies shown that people have a direct effect on their environment with the thoughts they focus on, they can also alter their brains which become measurably thicker in areas which receive intense focus.
If everything we think has an impact, then everything we do has a definite effect. We are working with the whole, if only in small ways, at every moment of our existence.
In native culture, you make a prayer before you do anything. In today's parlance, you set an intention. An intention is a specific request, which is then released to a higher energy which orders it to the highest possible outcome.
The Apaches and native peoples remember it; others will have to re-discover it. Everything we do is sacred.
I bet there were some viewers who thought: "what makes you so special?"
A fascinating book for me at the moment is Lynne McTaggart's The Intention Experiment. The book shows clearly, through the thousands of scientific experiments cited, how intention can have a profound effect on our world.
Through quantum entanglement we are always interacting with other parts of our universe than the one we are aware of at the present time. Not only have studies shown that people have a direct effect on their environment with the thoughts they focus on, they can also alter their brains which become measurably thicker in areas which receive intense focus.
If everything we think has an impact, then everything we do has a definite effect. We are working with the whole, if only in small ways, at every moment of our existence.
In native culture, you make a prayer before you do anything. In today's parlance, you set an intention. An intention is a specific request, which is then released to a higher energy which orders it to the highest possible outcome.
The Apaches and native peoples remember it; others will have to re-discover it. Everything we do is sacred.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Live richly
Live richly
in the center of life
tumult of growing things
chaos of fractals
unfolding to light
iris
of God's living stream.
Live richly your fears
salting the sauce
give yourself freely
to mistakes
let love flow
from the center of your smile
and your feet
absorb the rain.
in the center of life
tumult of growing things
chaos of fractals
unfolding to light
iris
of God's living stream.
Live richly your fears
salting the sauce
give yourself freely
to mistakes
let love flow
from the center of your smile
and your feet
absorb the rain.
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