Counting Our Chickens

By Rachel Field, Heartberry Hollow Farm & Forest – June 14, 2023

This spring it seems as if “one thing leads to another” is a way of being for life in the Hollow. With so much in flux we’re living into the idea that we can meet each day as it comes and hold it loosely while it’s here. It would be nice to say that we’re consciously decoupling from patterns of being that are rooted in the production-based extraction of a capitalist economy or that we’re putting down mental patters that prioritize outcomes rather than process and products rather than persons, which have their root in white supremacy culture. But. We’re simply tired. Five years into this homestead farming and a massive amount of family support required during the winter it would be more accurate to say that we’re finally able to put down these impulses out of sheer exhaustion and necessity. Perhaps that’s why we basically stopped collecting eggs from the chicken coop in late April. We decided that we would bring a batch of eggs into the house and put them in an incubator. It was a low stakes way to try something fun with our farming operation…and it worked! For the first time we successfully hatched and have raised our own chicks from our own chickens. After waiting three weeks for the eggs in the coop to attempt to do the same without our assistance, I cleared out the coop. That was the day before Pentecost. While I was at church leading worship, I got a photo message from Jonathan. It was a picture of a very sad looking chick which Jonathan told me he found in the coop. He had picked up the egg to bring it into the house and noticed it was cracked…then he noticed that there was a tiny face poking out of the crack. So he carefully lifted off each piece of shell and brought the little chick into the house. 

For the three days after Pentecost, Arthur (which is the name we gave her) spent most of her days resting on my shoulder and hiding in my hair. We attended all of our zoom meetings together, Arthur was an eager contributor to the conversations, and miraculously I only received one wet and slimy gift on my shoulder during those days. Every time I walked through the living room where Arthur’s cage is set up she would excitedly throw herself against the walls and call out in a sharp and high peep that chicks use specifically to get attention and assistance. So I would lean down and gather her up onto my shoulder where she would immediately start offering content chick mutterings. 

 

 

There is something so vulnerable and beautiful about an animal, whether a chicken, horse, cow, or goat, that is by nature a prey animal, giving itself fearlessly and eagerly to another animal who is by nature a predator. This has always astonished me about horses, and it is a truly remarkable gift to experience. As I was leaning down to pick up Arthur I felt a reflection back about my relationship with the Divine. How, for me, in that moment I could imagine all of the times I have cried out, letting out a Rachel alarm call for attention and assistance, and God has leaned down and wrapped me in Her hands. How God, who really has no business with something as small as a person, takes the time and drops everything to lean into our lives and settle us against Herself until our alarm calls become quiet mutterings of contentment.