My Stories || Barbara Mark II

Chickens don't live forever. In fact, they have incredibly short lives. 

I've just lost Barbara. Or, to give her her full name, Barbara Mark II. She was named five years ago, after an almost identical chicken we lost a short while earlier. She was the only hybrid we bought that day. I'd been to the farm with the intention of buying some Cream Legbars - some green/blue egg layers, but somehow Barbara Mark II found herself in a box and came home with me.  

She seen lots of changes in our field. She's seen other chickens come and seen the older ones die off. She's lived with electric fencing, with a various array of chicken houses. She's hunted for worms and got in the way as we dug a base for the new, static, chicken run. 

She was always the first one, annoyingly, to make her way through the field gate and into the garden. I'd turn around from the kitchen sink and find her, looking at me, from the patio doors. Or, I'd hear a noise, the tinkle of pebbles flying everywhere I later discovered, when I was sitting in the lounge. It would be her, looking for interesting treats in the stones between the brick work of the house and the patio edges. 

I spoiled her. If she was at the patio window and no other chickens were about, I'd pop into the fridge and take out a nice juicy grape for her. She loved them. A couple of gulps and it would be gone. And then she'd be back for another.

I didn't mind spoiling her. Early last year she'd survived a fox attack. After a duck disappeared the day before I put everyone on lock down. But the cunning fox had still managed to squeeze into the door of a run and pull Barbara out with her. I came out the back door, after my lunch, just in time. "Hey," I'd shouted. And DogFace and I gave chase. Barbara was dropped and I cuddled her, waiting for both our heart rates to calm down, willing her not to die of shock, before placing her in the darkness and security of the chicken coop. She came out a few hours later, none the worse for wear bar a few missing feathers.

Last weekend, Easter weekend, she was drenched. The other chickens had been wet, too, but they'd fluffed back up again in the sunshine. She was just shivering in a corner, hunched over, tail down.

I scooped her up, I knew she'd not been quite right for a while, and held her in my arms, watching in wonder as she let out a small sigh and closed her eyes. I covered her in the dog's towel and held her, then when I realised she still wasn't drying off, I blew her gently with my hairdryer. Then placed her on the boiler, which was emitting a gentle heat, to keep warm.

Sadly, after a few ups and downs during the week, Barbara went to sleep for the last time last night. I knew it was going to happen. I picked her up yesterday and gave her a cuddle. She closed her eyes and relaxed, curling her feet around my fingers.

When I checked on her later her breathing had changed. It won't be long, I thought. But I left her where she was. And that's where I found her this morning.

I was expecting it, but, even so, a sudden tear came to my eye. 

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My Stories || Hibernating Hens

I step outside the back door, the wind immediately ruffling my hair, the rain splattering on my face, and I make my way, cautiously, up the slippery steps towards the back gate. 

The grass is dull now, and my footprints are making tracks across the back lawn; a direct line between the slippery steps and the back gate, a path that shows just how many times during the day I'm back and forth.

This is the second time I've been out and it's only just 7.30am. It was too dark when I came out with the dog at 6.45am for the chickens and ducks to be released. 

I make my way, noting how parts of the field are becoming mud, how another mole hill has appeared overnight, how bare the trees are now looking with just a few sycamore leaves clinging on in a sheltered spot.

No trees or branches came down during the windy night. This is both a blessing and a shame. We could always use more branches for firewood.

Opening up the chicken run door, I duck inside and use my stick to release the plastic rat traps I set the night before. Snap, each one goes, making me jump. They're empty this morning. All I've managed to catch so far are mice. But it is a deterrent; there are no active holes coming from under the railway sleepers where the rats were coming in.

I freshen the water and scatter the layers pellets onto the wood chippings. Then I close the door to the run and go to slide open their pop holes. Out they come one by one, still sleepy, flapping their wings gently, stretching. And off they head towards the layers pellets. There might be a few yelps if one of the lower orders starts tucking in before those higher up.

I have been keeping them in their run for the past few days. Normally I prop open the run door and allow the chickens to range about, to scratch in the leaves, to dust bathe in the bonfire patch further down the field. But they've been sticking to their run on their own accord. Only really venturing out when they decide it's time for corn and cheekily they come into the back garden to tap on the back window. In summer this is about 5pm. Time for tea they would announce by their presence. Time for us to get locked up safely from predators. But it's been getting earlier and earlier as the days gets shorter. A few days ago one cheeky little chicken thought it was corn time at 10am. 

Right, I said. Enough is enough. And I locked them in their run. And yes, ok, I gave them some corn.

They all went into their run quite happily. As though they wanted to be locked up safely. Some of them sat on the branches I'd laid out as perches. Some had a dust bathe. Some scratched about, searching the earth for any morsel of edible pleasure. 

And it occurred to me last night, as I locked the back door at 4.30pm and sat myself by the fire. Our actions are mirroring each other. Mine and the chickens'. We don't want to be out in the elements when the weather is gloomy and the days are short. We want to be in our house. In our cosy place. They've got dust baths made from ash from the woodburner. I've got the woodburner glowing orange in the darkness. They've got sleep. I've got my book to read. They've got interesting morsels to eat such as corn and the occasional worm. And I've got biscuits from M&S and a hot chocolate. 

My Stories ||Hens Yielding to Prayer

"Any eggs?" asked one of my regular customers, hope on her face. "No, sorry," was my reply. Every time. She gave up asking after a few weeks. It was frustrating. The chickens had never done this before. One or the other would continue to lay throughout the winter months. But now, with a larger proportion of pure breeds who stopped laying when broody, moulting or when the days had little sunlight, and, in turn (I'm sure) influenced the hybrids, we were lucky to get one a week.

Then, finally, a few weeks ago, we had our first dark brown egg. It was one of the new chickens. Then there was another. Then a white one, a blue/green one. More brown. All of a sudden we had a dozen.

Have you read I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith?

I don't recall reading it as a child, so read it for the first time a few years ago.

"Goodness, Topaz is putting the eggs on to boil! No one told me the hens had yielded to prayer. Oh, excellent hens!

And this is the line I thought of when the eggs finally appeared.

My Stories ||The Darkness and the Moonlight

"It's as black as your hat," says my dad when he comes to stay. He's got a Derbyshire accent though so "your hat" becomes one word: "yerat". Every time I step outside my back door in the darkness, especially at this time of year, I think of his expression. Because it is. Extremely dark. You cannot see your hand in front of you.

At our last home, on the housing estate, we had a street light right next to our house. It would glow outside our bedroom window, leaching an orange haze over our sleeping forms.

But here? There are no streetlights. There's nothing except the distant pinpricks of light from the dual carriageway. Eventually my trees will grow and we won't even be able to see that.

I have to go outside in the darkness every night to shut in the chickens. At first, before we got the dog, I would not go out in the field after dark. I once cast the torch around (to my left, straight ahead, to my right, behind me, argh what's that noise?!) and saw two eyes staring at me from the bottom of the field. The eyes were well above ground level. It freaked me right out.

It's funny, thinking back, that I used to be so bothered by the darkness. Because now I don't give it a second thought. Yes, I still quickly scan my torch all around me, checking the shadows to my left and right, but I'm actively looking for glowing eyes.

Then there's the moonlight.

I knew the songs, of course I did. Dancing in the moonlight. Moonlight shadow.

But actually seeing moonlight? Seeing the shadow of our house cast by the full moon? I didn't really understand that it had existed other than in a Famous Five novel. Living in a town with light pollution we lose that wonder of seeing a giant elm tree reflected on the ground as a moonlight shadow.

But once every few weeks I can go outside, as long as the sky is clear, and not need my torch to see in the dark. The moon is bright and luminous. Shining down, my shadow walking ahead of me.

My Chicken Story Stories is a collection of my thoughts as I pull together the first draft of my memoir.

My Stories || The Field Maple

After the first winter of living in this house I knew a windbreak of trees was absolutely necessary. For months a breath-sucking, bone-tingling north/north-easterly wind had sped over the farmer's field and hit our house, along with the chicken area, at full force. It was soul-sappingly bitter.

Spring broke through for a while. We were joyous. I love winter, but after months of that wind, a cold wind that had started in late autumn, I was ready to feel some spring sunshine on my face. Underneath bright blue skies we introduced some new chickens to our flock. They were about fifteen weeks old. Ready for the outside world. Ready for their forever home.

But then winter decided it hadn't finished with us. That aggressive wind came back. And sadly one of those new chickens was just not hardy enough.

Needs must. I started to research trees. I knew absolutely nothing about them. I could probably point out a horse chestnut but that was my limit. What I did know, however, was that I wanted a tree with leaves that transformed from green to red to yellow throughout the autumn months, before falling gently to the ground.

After some reading about the subject I also knew I wanted a mixture of evergreen and deciduous with the majority of the trees we planted to be native to the UK.

The Field Maple has leaves that turn red. It is also the UK's only native maple.

I bought many trees in my first tree project purchase. And the Field Maple was one of them. It now stands proudly at the bottom of the field, in direct eye line from the house. The leaves are just changing from green to red.

***

My Chicken Story Stories is snippets of my thoughts as I pull together the first draft of my memoir.

My Stories || Working Girl

Let the river run

Let all the dreamers

Wake the nation.

Come, the new Jerusalem.

Carly Simon from the film 'Working Girl'.

I would pull on my socks over my black tights and put on my trainers, before slipping quietly out of the door.

I was living in East London. Leyton. My route to work took me up Dunedin Road to the main street, where I'd turn right towards the underground station. It wasn't here I'd start singing Carly Simon's words in my head. No, I was too busy waking up.

The clang of the shop front shutters jarred my head, making me wince, and the fumes from the cars, the stale takeaway smells, filled my nose.

Approaching the station I'd take out my travelcard, feeling a bit smug, like a proper Londoner. Despite being surrounded by proper Londoners. It was easy to get a seat at Leyton, unless there had been a delay further down the line. We entered the train above ground, the doors would beep and we'd set off, building speed. Soon the darkness would enclose us, my inner ears tightening with the difference in pressure. I'd feel a fission of excitement each time. Obviously I was new to the city. That world weary tube traveller thing hadn't happened to me. Yet.

I'd alight at Liverpool Street Station. A station I'd only known throughout my life as a strategic place to buy on the Monopoly board. I'd walk and walk. I was heading to my temporary job. I made good progress in my trainers and Melanie Griffiths would pop into my head, Carly Simon's vocals on a loop.

Now, almost two decades later, whilst I still love the song, still enjoy watching the film; at the end, when the camera pans away from Melanie in her new office, the office she has fought so long and hard to achieve, well, I shudder.

To me, it looks like a prison.

And I thought that was what I wanted.

My Chicken Story Stories is snippets of my thoughts as I pull together the first draft of my memoir.