Time

Harley and Red. Old friends.

Miss Betty. Still alive and one precious little hen.

My two roosters, Sam and Elvis with Mable and Miss Bob. Two roosters is one too many but they are beautiful.


I slept for eleven and a half hours last night. I am not kidding you. And then woke up from a dream where I was trying like hell to get back to my house from Monticello but I was lost and no one knew where Lloyd was, to give me directions.
And I couldn't get any coffee.
Oh, it was a crazy dream.

Christmas is over and the first thing I did yesterday when all the presents had been opened and the people had dispersed was to go clean out the hen house which was as nasty as I've ever let it get, although the chickens never complain. They just roost higher on the poop, I suppose. Doesn't bother them. But it bothers me and it made me feel a bit high and holy to pitchfork out all the poopy straw and replace it with clean and fresh for their nesting and resting comfort. I put the old straw around the collard plants but not too close. Chicken shit is hot, as we say in the manure biz. It needs to compost a bit, dry a bit, before it's safe to put on plants.

The chickens aren't laying in the cold the way they lay in the more temperate days. I get a few eggs here and there, plenty for us, but not nearly as many as I was getting last fall. Mr. Moon, who got up before me this morning, said that when he let Betty out, several other hens AND Sam rushed the door and went out too. It took him a while to coax Sam back into the coop. And then when he scattered scratch outside, Carol ran up and began to eat, as if she'd done that every day when in reality, she stays way over near the garage, nearer her old flock, but today she made her move to perhaps blend in with our flock. They chased her off.

Chickens are odd, although not to themselves, I feel certain. Although who knows? They may sit around and discuss the frailties and characteristics of each other like old ladies at the quilting frame. They certainly sound as if they are gossiping, my chickens.

When I went out to feed them their grapes and give them fresh water this morning, Harley and his dad showed up. Harley knows the chickens quite well and loves to feed them. He was expounding on the different ways to feed the chickens and one part of his advice included, "And you can put the food right up next to their beak." Yes. It's true. You can.

He looked so darling in his new hat that Santa brought him via Erin over at Blogging Is For Dorks.
And get this- Erin sent a hat for Owen too, and how sweet and kind is that? Thank-you so much, Erin. You are one cute doll who makes the best hats with ears ever.

But anyway, I let Harley give the chickens more scratch and he handed it out carefully. I was freezing and encouraged him to just toss it to them but he had his own way.

I look around at my yard, frost bit and brown and I yearn to get out in it and weed and cut back and make it all tidy. I will do some of that today. Mr. Moon got me new headphones for my Walkman and I'll have a perfect time, listening to Saturday NPR and wandering around the yard. And maybe I'll even take a walk. My foot feels so much better and it's time. It's time to resume that activity and it's time to start eating better again. I want to give all the leftovers of holiday goodness to the chickens, in fact. The pastries and the cookies, the candies and the white breads. It's all been wonderful but to everything there is a season and the season has come to start being sane again. My body doesn't feel right. It feels wired, as if it's not being used for its intended purpose. It's tight with the stress of the holidays and the only answer to that sort of tightness is to take it out and work it. I know this and I know what I need to do.

It's time to take care again, of my yard, of my chickens, of me.
It's time to quit thinking that I don't have time.

Today I do.
No one needs me for anything as far as I know and it's time.

There are lots of ways to feed a chicken. Harley will tell you. There are lots of ways to feed ourselves. I will tell you.
And the sun is shining and the air is clear and I need to make the most of this day.

The chickens are fed, Mr. Moon and I have had our oatmeal. And I am off to try and get these kinks out of my body, make some order out of the chaos of the yard.

The day after Christmas and I have time.

I hope you have some time too, to take care of yourself after this crazy madness of Christmas which fed us in some mighty good ways and in others not so good. Take the time if it is not handed to you. Put it right up there next to your beak and snap it up.

Here I go. Here I go.
Snap, snap, snap.