Chickens – Page 2 – Stephanie Sicore

October 13, 2006

Oooh, If the Dust Ever Settles in This House…

A circuitboard made of white foam and leftover yarn that Ford’s friends made during his birthday party; Chas’ wild volcano painting, originally with volatile sound effects; A featherwreath adorned by Betty and Boo; Ford’s rock collection: “magic rock,” amethyst geode, coral from Galveston, birthday geode from CZ…

Our Fall nature table. Little Ivy Elizabeth Walker, Ford’s favorite character last year from The Village, sitting on the resting rock in the middle of a little Hill Country glade; Burr oak and Post oak acorns from around town; Edwards limestone; Ball moss from everywhere around town; chickenfeathers and unknown native grass, what I pretend is a White-Tailed deer…

at Ivy’s feet: “HEXAGONS!” that Chas found on our walk through the neighborhood (courtesy of a sunbleached, long-dead armadillo skeleton)…

Gretel, another storybook favorite, plays cavalier atop Big Billy Goat Gruff; and no nature table in our house is grounded without a chicken.

August 22, 2006

104 F

It’s mid-August and we’re roasting under happy white hot skies with evenly-spaced, cottony clouds. And it’s dry. Natives hark back to the 1950s and dust storms and hectic farming, and they get giddy about gray clouds on the horizon but are too supersticious to predict rain. When the clouds pass overhead, they spit fat droplets that pat the pavement and vanish magically, evaporating before you can call it rain. And then you sigh and shrug your shoulders.

In the morning, I crawl downstairs to start a pot of coffee and let the hens out for the day. Almost immediately they run for respite in woodier shade, and I start watering the deer-picked, rabbit-picked, chicken-picked truncation of a summer garden: wrinkled and dark green, prostrate. Within minutes, the cicadas start humming a low, warm-up drone. Like dry beans shaking in a parched pod, the cicadas rattling trance intensifies as the heat sets in. I slink back inside.

Chas wants to be outside at all hours, so for him it’s all a matter of being buck naked out there. I have no choice but to follow him with a tube of sunscreen in my back pocket and a narrow set of eyes, since the job mostly entails shepherding him out of direct sunlight. Which is difficult, really, because our yard is mostly sun. He glows in the sunshine, his white back reflects the entire spectrum of light as he examines a pillbug in the brown grass, something the hens must have overlooked; they’re busy meanwhile under the boxwood, flinging dusty mulch onto the walking path as they burrow six inches into the landscaping. I re-pave the path with the broom as I return for cover, my feet now dusted with roasted umber dust. Chas runs in my wake, the chickens flurry from the hedge to follow him, but the door closes. From inside, Chas laughs at the unaffected triplet standing on the doorstep, wasting little time before they start scratching again and picking at the potted ferns.

August 3, 2006

Garden of Earthy Delights

The chicks are hardy in the heat. This has been the hottest week this summer and they’ve spent the whole time outdoors in their new tractor. I’ll return home at noon from the gym, walk barefoot to the edge of the deck, and peek down on them. Looking back at me are three chicks that are always an ounce heavier, more feathered and panting with open mouths. Every few hours I give them cooler, fresher water. I love the way they peep quietly as I move about, rinsing and rearranging.

We’ve been terrestrial lately, despite the heat outside, tending droopy plants, cultivating the soil, digging. We have a few good books to inspire more curiosity and garden-play: Diary of a Worm, by Doreen Cronin, and Thumbelina, by Hans Christian Anderson. Ford digs Thumbelina. Yak yak. We haven’t yet made it to Microcosmos yet. Then, of course, we have all the nonfiction we could need at home. The huge sci/nature nonfiction library in our bedroom: that would be my fault.

This afternoon, Ford and Chas helped me pin together a 3x4ish compost bin out of some remaining galvanized builder’s cloth. Once we’d finished, they helped me rake leaves and pile them into the compost bin. Somtimes they’d run through the piles and the lawn would look no different than it had before I’d organized the chaos, and a fuse would blow in my brain, but I’ve been more mindful of my wiring today. I’ll have to write more about that later, about what it’s like lately, ramming horns all day with the four year-old rebel. But right now I’m slipping like mercury through planks of burnout. And I’m falling asleep. But god, he has his Hallmark moments, too: