Talons, and Wings, and Beaks.....Good-bye....

    I have washed my last egg. No more will I see my sweet babiest girl, cheeks pink with the cold, run into the kitchen carrying 3 warm eggs in her bucket. The Girl Scout Silver Award project is complete, and our beautiful chickens are safely ensconced in their new home - giving the residents of a halfway house a new sense of responsibility, and quite possibly the best source of an omelet within the city limits. You might recall that I was slightly discombobulated by their birdlike qualities, when the chickens first came to our house to live...but I made my peace with their beaks and talons (so achieved by never entering the coop enclosure), and grew to love their constant presence. At first, my eyes found the peachy orange of their chicken coop jarring (babiest girl and her partner did a primo job painting the coop), but I soon came to love the cheery contrast it made nestled among the brown bark of the  pines in the backyard - and found it to be downright homey, next to the deep red of our storage barn. If you stood in the back yard and called "chickens" - letting your voice raise by at least a 5th on the second syllable, they would answer with a soothing, heart warming clucking. On pretty days, I would go up and wedge my sizeable backside into one of the swings on the kids old playset and sit there swinging - watching the girls go about their business.....scratching in the dirt, ruffling their feathers, drinking their water, pecking at the fencing...as I swung back and forth, my shoulders relaxed, and my blood pressure lessened.
    The back yard feels empty - no bright orange coop, no scratching or clucking...and perhaps, most saddening of all...no more fresh eggs! The girls were good layers, and we were amazed to discover that each chicken had a signature shell to her eggs. Abigail's were very pale brown, with a pink tinge, and they were the smallest of all. Kesha's eggs bore the cutest freckles, and Falcon's eggs were deep brown - the largest of all. (All of the eggs came with the byproduct of their origin - hence the washing!) When you cracked them, the yolks were the deepest gold, and the whites were thick and clear. Having free, home farmed, fresh eggs to feed my family everyday was an amazing thing - somewhat akin to nursing my babies. I remember feeling this magnificent power - knowing that I had the ability to produce food capable of keeping another human alive....It's the same with baking my bread - every time I bake my loaves, I am reminded that I - by my own two hands - can produce food capable of sustaining those I love.
    We are already working on Mr. Kennedy....reminding him of how much he loves two fresh eggs - sunnyside up....how little work it was, taking care of the chickens....how happy their gentle clucking made all of us...what a great value we received from the few dollars of scratch and feed we purchased. He, thus far, seems unmoved - unswayed by our desire to have a permanent Kennedy flock.....It might be time to throw in a snippet about how we might possibly survive a zombie apocalypse..... with a few eggs and a loaf of sourdough bread.