birds of a feather

the great circle of life. we have all witnessed it's presence in a grand scheme or a small sense at one time or another.

i recently was residing at a beautiful home in lincoln heights los angeles called skyfarm. skyfarm has many animal residences, and i was keeping them while the family who usually tended them were away. amongst the menagerie are a few chickens. one of these chickens, cecil, got the mother bug real bad and became broody, sitting on her eggs though they were not fertilized.

one morning i received a mysterious text message from ilse, mistress of skyfarm-something about an egg stolen from the shakers, to be placed under the chicken. i will admit i was confused. turns out, meeno, ilse and their lovely children spotted a heirloom turkey egg while visiting a shaker farm, and scooped it up. they then fedex'ed it to me so that i could put it under the chicken and we would all cross our fingers and wait.

i got the package and took it to skyfarm, already serious yet giddy about the task at hand. ilse texted me instructions: "fluff the straw into a nice bed away from the door and lay her gently upon the beast. you can take the other eggs in the morning but no turkey omlettes yet. and don't forget the sacred egg sitting mantra. it must be hummed cooingly through the morning glories."

with utter stoicism, i donned gloves and boots, determined to safely deliver the egg as well as avoid the spastic advances of the resident rooster. i stole into the pen, gently removed the other eggs out from under our gal, and placed the egg, which had traveled by plane all the way from massachusetts, under her. no pressure. ok, i could now officially add 'animal husbandry' to my resume.

for the days that followed, i brought the chicken food and water, greens and watermelon, because she wouldn't move. i also had to be the asshole who took away all other eggs and made sure the turkey egg stayed.

i'll be the first to admit it: i did not think this thing would bear life. who knows if it was fertilized in the first place? then the flight over-certainly it couldn't endure such extreme pressure and temperature change. would the mama chicken stick with her duty or abandon all hope? not to mention any of the other variables involved. but we all stuck it out because we have inevitably seen how life can spring from what seems to be nothing at all.

the family returned from massachusetts and i moved on to yet another house sitting gig. the new place also had chickens, as well as two cats, two bunnies, and a puppy. the chickens and bunnies would roam free range style in the backyard while the puppy stayed in the front yard, divided by a couple of fences. the puppy, used to being run around by two kids, got restless enough to figure out he could scale the fences if he really wanted to.

i had to find this out the hard way.

picking up puppy-mangled chicken parts and putting them into a trash bag on a hot summer day is a quick way to find oneself considering vegetarianism. the thing is, the puppy didn't want to eat the chicken or anything; it just wanted to PLAY! with gruesome results.

i have to say i was very sad to lose a bird on my watch. the most i had ever lost on a housesitting gig was a fish, and even that was a bummer. i felt bad for the chicken-bad for the puppy, who i yelled at, bad for the family i'd have to break the news to. i felt responsible. i couldn't just let it go, but the fact is: nature isn't always pretty.

soon after this incident, i received a text from skyfarm: "you are now the proud godmother of a bouncing baby turkey!"

after all that traveling up in the frigid hold of a plane. after the transfer to a new poultry mom. after my amateur farm girl upkeep. after all this: life happened. the fact is: sometimes nature is pretty.

go here to see pictures of the turkey chick, mr. giles corey, and to read meeno's account of the egg situation.