Every Day Above Ground (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mallorys_camera) wrote2025-03-26 08:37 am
mallorys_camera) wrote2025-03-26 08:37 am
Entry tags:
Nature Red of Tooth & Claw
A predator got Brown Chicken.
Didn't see the chicken girls under the porch yesterday morning, so trotted off to the henhouse to investigate. Mess of grey pinfeathers on the ground plus one or two tail feathers. The pinfeathers led in a kind of trail off into the small scattering of woods behind the henhouse.
Uh oh, I thought.
Inside the henhouse was Black Chicken, looking (I imagined) anxious. Of course, chickens are incapable of looking anxious: That was my projection.
I fed Black Chicken her morning corn tortilla & texted Icky: What's up?
Black Chicken was the one I taught to do all those tricks last summer. By the beginning of winter, I could clap my hands, and she would leap high off the ground, as high as my shoulder.
Of course, she's forgotten how to do that now.
Black Chicken was the more responsive of the two, the one upon whom I could project "personality." Brown Chicken was—well. A chicken.
Still. I was surprised when I began living with chickens by how intelligent & interactive they are.
###
Icky tells me he is working on a plan. I hope he doesn't plan to make Black Chicken an only chicken—chickens are very social creatures.
In the interim, I will try to let Black Chicken out of her henhouse a couple of times a day under my watchful eye. She is used to free-strutting around the acreage; I can't imagine she will like being confined to the henhouse.
###
Nature red of tooth & nail...
It is ridiculous to feel too sad over the death of a chicken.
After all, I eat chickens.
Still. I am sad.
It's like I have this Umbrella of Protection, and I want to extend it over all the innocent beings I come into contact with.
But the Umbrella doesn't extend far enough.
It can't keep out the rain.
Didn't see the chicken girls under the porch yesterday morning, so trotted off to the henhouse to investigate. Mess of grey pinfeathers on the ground plus one or two tail feathers. The pinfeathers led in a kind of trail off into the small scattering of woods behind the henhouse.
Uh oh, I thought.
Inside the henhouse was Black Chicken, looking (I imagined) anxious. Of course, chickens are incapable of looking anxious: That was my projection.
I fed Black Chicken her morning corn tortilla & texted Icky: What's up?
Black Chicken was the one I taught to do all those tricks last summer. By the beginning of winter, I could clap my hands, and she would leap high off the ground, as high as my shoulder.
Of course, she's forgotten how to do that now.
Black Chicken was the more responsive of the two, the one upon whom I could project "personality." Brown Chicken was—well. A chicken.
Still. I was surprised when I began living with chickens by how intelligent & interactive they are.
###
Icky tells me he is working on a plan. I hope he doesn't plan to make Black Chicken an only chicken—chickens are very social creatures.
In the interim, I will try to let Black Chicken out of her henhouse a couple of times a day under my watchful eye. She is used to free-strutting around the acreage; I can't imagine she will like being confined to the henhouse.
###
Nature red of tooth & nail...
It is ridiculous to feel too sad over the death of a chicken.
After all, I eat chickens.
Still. I am sad.
It's like I have this Umbrella of Protection, and I want to extend it over all the innocent beings I come into contact with.
But the Umbrella doesn't extend far enough.
It can't keep out the rain.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
I'm sorry you lost Brown Chicken :(
It's very, very hard to be brought face to face with how limited, both in scope and durability, our umbrellas of protection are :(
no subject
I've known lots of people keep chickens and they all say what you said re intelligence and interactivity.
Love to you and your umbrella of protection XXX
no subject