Rescues

Admittedly, I haven’t been writing much.

I had shoulder surgery a of couple weeks ago and typing with one arm and hand in a sling is difficult.

But as I walked around the farm today, soaking in the sunlight and using it as an excuse to stray from my couch nest my husband constantly reminds me I should be in, I caught a glimpse of one of our chickens shaking off a dust bath when the wind caught her. It looked like a messy, more feathery version of those cool dog photos you see where they are running and neon colors chase behind them. Most people don’t get to see that kind of thing. It made me think about how lucky we are to watch these funny little creatures and care for them.

Farming is difficult but it is also easy. For us, at least.

What I mean is, while the work can be downright exhausting, heartbreaking and toughening, at its core, taking care of and growing and maintaining things for yourself is one of the easiest, simplest ways to live.

We rescued some chickens a couple of weeks ago. We didn’t think it was a rescue when we started. Someone posted online that they didn’t want their laying chickens anymore and offered them for a very reasonable price. We have recently lost some of our beloved laying hens and while we did hatch out some beautiful little chickies of our own, only three came out of the shell, making us still short.

My wonderful husband went to get them as sitting in a car for me is still painful with the way our Maine roads are (wish me luck on my journey to see Taylor Swift tomorrow).

When he got them home, he told me how these 8 birds lived completely enclosed, run and coop, that was about the size of just our coop. For those not familiar with our set up, that is far too small. They didn’t free range at all because of predators in the area, which is completely understandable, but they should have had more room in an enclosure. And it should have been clean. And dry. And they shouldn’t have had nails so long one of them has feet that are now forever deformed because lack of care and poor living spaces.

I don’t say this to demean the person we got them from, I am thankful that they realized they couldn’t care for these animals and I am thankful we were able to get them.

We have had to chase these hens out of the coop to run them onto green grass to try and get them to free range some. They initially didn’t know how to react to the grass, which made me terribly sad. But fortunately, they figured it out pretty quickly.

This all made me think, watching our birds that we have raised from day old chicks or eggs who run free, enjoying space and doing funny chicken things like rolling around in dust baths compared to the rescues, the contrast in these groups is not much different from those in people people.

While I know how to care for these birds like my chickens do for themselves, that lady and these newbies don’t.

While I could make do and “doctor” most minor ills or injuries, most people don’t. While I can cook and grow my food and ballroom dance just a little bit, a lot of people can’t or haven’t been afforded the opportunity to learn.

What you may be able to do, I might not.

While some people know how to care for themselves, know what is healthy and what they should do for themselves, others don’t.

We need to remember that about each other.

We need to support one another when we learn that someone else needs help. We need to not only learn and grow and cultivate ourselves and our food but we need to do all these things for each other. We need to teach and encourage and explain and be thankful to have the chances to do so when we do.

And we need to sit back sometimes and look around at all this that we can do, even if we are miserably tied down to a sling feeling rather useless, and be thankful for all we have, all we have built and where we are going.

Maybe that last bit is more for myself than anyone else but y’all get my drift.

Sometimes we can rescue dogs or chickens or other humans, sometimes we need the rescuing ourselves.

Be kind and lend a hand. You probably won’t feel bad for helping someone.

Our rescue boy Ranger and the man that rescues me everyday