The kids and I are back on the road again this week. I am thankful to have these adventures with them, this chance to watch them discover the world, even when it gets challenging.
Since we are away from the ranch, here is a missive from a few years back that sums up a lot of my thoughts on parenthood, the challenges in particular.
During the summer months, the egg supply coming from the coop drastically and mysteriously decreases. A hunt for hidden nests ensues, followed by a redoubled effort to get the girls laying in the coop again.
Earlier this spring, just such a nest was discovered in the barn where we lamb. Cleverly nestled behind the door to a stall, one or more of our Araucana hens had scratched out a perfect circle in the hay and proceeded to lay dozens of gorgeous, gray-blue eggs in it.
This was very depressing since there was no way to tell which eggs were old, or how old they might be.
The barn cats weren’t sad though — our loss was their gain.
After finding said mystery nest, we closed the barn up as tight as we could — this time of year it’s used mostly for storage purposes anyway — and we left it at that, assuming there would be no more secret egg-laying in that location.
Shocking discovery
This week, while feeding the aforementioned barn cats, however, I made a shocking discovery. I am not sure what caught my attention in the dark corner of the stall, but there she was, one of my gray hens, squatting motionless.
I thought she was dead at first, she was so silent and still, the heavy murk of the closed-up barn mimicking the dusty shadows of her feathers perfectly.
There was no way to know how long she’d been sitting there, but certainly, she had been there during last week’s heat wave, which would have had temperatures in the barn soaring into the 100s.
With no food or water in the barn, it was hard to imagine she could have survived, but as I approached, one of her scaly, black eyelids flicked shut, just for a moment.
I went out to the hydrant and filled a bucket with water, stopping to scoop a jar of chicken feed on the way back to the barn. I set the food and water beside the hen, but she remained still as a statue.
Her pose and demeanor were unmistakable; she was sitting on a nest, and she was not going to move until I left. So, I did, heading back to the house to return to my own brood.
New chicks
The very next night my husband came in from chores and told me, “I think you better go out to the barn. There is something waiting for you.”
Sure enough, that gray hen was up and walking around (though not going very far) a floating bundle of fuzzy, gray and black chicks stumbling after her.
First one, then another would dart under their mama, and then dart back out to peck at a fleck of dust or a stick of straw. In the dim light, it was impossible to keep track of their comings and goings, so it wasn’t until the next day that we actually got a head count: 15 babies in all. And there were still a few unhatched eggs left in the nest.
One egg a day — that’s over two weeks she sat, just laying her eggs, biding her time. Then there were another 21 days of sitting in that thick, dark air, waiting through the heat for her babies to be born. Waiting with only the thin shafts of daylight that came and went to mark time.
I looked at the hen, who was watching us watch her chicks, and I recognized her unwavering stare. I recognized her vigilance, her patience and her reward — all those babies, healthy and thriving.
Yes, parenthood requires sacrifice, but what else would be expected when what is accomplished is nothing less than a miracle.
