The Weather Says Change

During a long gap between obligations, as the green made its reappearance after the months of grey, on a whim I headed north to a farm in Ontario. I expected nothing, I wasn't even sure why I was going. Only that the weeks that lay ahead of me in the city seemed vacant and anxious, and that I was hungry for Spring, hungry for work, and nothing in me had the desire to spend money or scramble to fill the boredom.

I've been here for two weeks now. It has begun to feel like home. I know the animals and the plants now, and feel differently towards them than I do others. I have planted seeds and seen them grow. I have even planted ideas and seen them manifest. I have gained the affection of the dogs and the lone pet sheep, learned to drive the tractors and have taken over the barn chores. I have caught chickens and carried home day-old chicks, placing them one by one into their new home and seen them double in size in one week.

It is one thing to hear the murmuring clucks of chickens peck around you, startle at the peacock's cry or marvel at the large awkwardness of a llama. But it is so different to actually know an animal, throw down the pigs feed alone in the barn or have that same llama and that same lone sheep break into a galloping run to follow alongside your tractor in their open pasture on a sunny day.

Today, as I fished through a pile of wood scraps, looking to build a door for a newly acquired outhouse, I heard the familiar warble of a laying hen in the barn... the part of the barn that the chickens are not supposed to be. The hen was clearly low down on the pecking order, but even still had probably been in the barn, away from food and water for at least a day or two. I couldn't tell if she was unusually thin, or if the missing feathers on her neck made her look especially scrawny. I tried to herd her towards the door but eventually realized I would have to catch her. Catching chickens has been a personal goal of mine, but I've found that it's an impossible skill to practice because one can only really catch a chicken if one actually needs to catch the chicken. The lack of willpower in a useless catch renders the job impossible.

The hen was on some large bales of hay, her wings level with my face. I placed my hands close by her to show that it was not blood-lust driving my presence. Head on, I reached for her sides and picked her up, feeling her wings struggle in my hands at first, and then relax. I could feel her warm body against me as I brought her in closer, hoping that she would feel the calmness of my good intention. Her head bobbed as I walked her out of the barn, and decided it would be best to drop her on the chicken run so she could find her way to the food. She looked a little startled, but I felt I had made a friend. Significantly smaller and with less feathers, she was easy to pick out amongst the other brown hens. Of course she headed for the ground, away from the food...

I went to do the chores, and low and behold found that she'd made her way to the coop by the time I'd reached it. I watched her peck around, and witnessed the pleasure of seeing her spot the food dispenser, jolt and make a frantic run for it, looking just like any starving animal would upon seeing food and water. I never thought I'd make a friend of such a silly animal, but I couldn't help but feel a fondness for her, for that barn, for the whole farm, in light of the feat that I made alone in that barn, as I fished for wood to make a door.

Soon after, the thunder rolled in in the middle of my chores. I stayed in the barn as the world darkened and the rain poured down, with the pigs, the dogs, the calico barn cat, the lone sheep, the llama, the peacock and swallows. I watched the runner ducks play in the rain, and the two geese brace themselves against the wind, hanging out in the middle of the driveway.