The cold mist drifts in the air this day at the Chicken Ranch. Fog has draped around us like a thin grey curtain. Water drips from tree branches on to the backs of tiny birds, and they shake their feathers and shiver against the cold wetness. It is the kind of dampness that settles in a old cowboys bones, and offers an achy reminder that he has used his body for a machine too many times over the years. Knees and shoulders telling me I should've used a tractor to move things, or to carry loads that were too punishing on joints and cartilage. Young, impetuous, and impatient once. Not young any longer that’s for sure, not impetuous either. Impatient? Yeah, afraid I’m still there.
The sounds are few and muffled in the watery air. There is little activity around here this winter morn. Many of the chickens have decided to stay in their houses where it is dry, and wait for the cracked corn to come to the yard.
Hershey, the Chocolate Labrador Canine Security System (his official title), peeks his head out of the dog house as if to say, “Miserable ain‘t it?” “Some sentinel you are” I tell him. He reluctantly leaves his warm, dry bed of straw, and runs along while I carry water. He lets me know that a hen is out, and chases her until she gets to the edge of the fence and flies over. He has never hurt them, but just herded them all these years. It figures I’d have a labrador retriever that hates water, and thinks he’s a Border Collie.
A fox squirrel sits on a tree branch above the chicken yard. He’d give his back teeth for a nibble of the corn being tossed to the hens. But, after calculating the risks, i.e. big rooster, dog, and me, he decides to just move on and forage in the nearby woods.
After I feed the rabbit, our resident free loader that is my grandsons’ pet, I turn to head up to the woodshed. The smell of oak, hickory, and other woods fills my senses as I enter it. Happiness is a large wood pile, that’s one of the many things me and old Davy Thoreau agree on. I never tire of that split wood bouquet. I have appreciated that smell all of my life. My earliest childhood memories are of wood stoves and wood piles on the farms of Armstrong Valley and Shelby County, Kentucky. Two places that are the base of my DNA, down there in Gods country.
I gather up an armload of firewood, and head to the house. Won’t need but a low fire today. Just enough to dry the air a bit, and provide some visual comfort while I sip a cup of strong black coffee. May do a little writing today, or watch an old John Wayne western. May set up the lighted ceramic village for Patty that we put out each winter. May take a good winters nap in my leather recliner that I love.
I’ll probably do all these things as the day progresses. After all, it’s gonna be a wet weekend, and all these happy things can be done inside…where its cozy, warm, and dry.
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