This week, Felix mourned his favourite chick, Charlotte. The f*cking Fox. Yes. Again. We found her after half a day searching; floating downstream with puncture marks in her chest. Felix's grief knew no bounds (yet again). He howled. Another black chick (luckily a cock so no great loss) also vanished without trace (yes, heartless me - what did I say about the giving of names?! Ha!)
Felix carried the empty dead Charlotte-less thing to it's quickly dug hole and I had to screech to my dh to be careful not to dig anything rotten up - cats, guinea pigs, other chickens, they are all higgledy piggledy and hastily buried in this deathly spot, I effing know I effing know! he shouted back, not pleased to be burying yet more of our unlucky livestock. Fe tenderly lay her in the final resting place. Then he set to. Found just the right stone in the stream, let it dry and took his chalks and sticks, flowers etc to make her a proper grave. We all stood around at his wishes, like true mourners. She certainly was a nice fluffy white thing and almost at point of lay, how I wished it had been her mother instead who was far past her laying prime. Felix seemed much cheered by his efforts and Esmé heartily pretended to cry (and laughed a bit too). It reminded me of a scene in a novel once read whereby a child at pet's graveside says, 'now come on boys, pretend to cry!' or something similar and I wondered too if Esmé and her forced fake grief/joy were perhaps scary early signs of psychopathic tendencies. Creepy.
Jollier times were had collecting conkers and thwacking chestnut trees with giant sticks in order to collect many hundred more than we shall ever need. We can never have enough it seems and now vast piles of them spill from forgotten baskets in the hallway. It's all about the collecting (and dh being forced to smile whilst carrying The Beauty's pink-basketed conker haul).
Elsewhere in the kitchen rose hips wait to be transformed and little hands helping as always with baking (esp when there may be raisins to steal).
The little sad bit that stole into my heart though was this: the one now chick less mother I saw whilst dolloping out leftover breakfast porridge into the grass the next morning. She did this classic mother hen thing of clucking frantically to her now gone chick to signal 'food!'. Then rushed forwards, picking a bit up and crumbing it for her babe. No chick dashed in with pecking beak. I stood and watched until other hens clucked in, scoffing and screeching. The mother, a little lost, tucked in slowly to her breakfast too.
In the end.
~~~~ R.I.P Charlotte (fat white chick on far right) ~~~~
8 comments:
Nothing much to say, but yet another of your touchingly funny bittersweet moments reaching me here across the distance!
shame. such is life...and LOL at the psychopathic tendancies...for what its worth, I firmly believe all children are psychopaths. You should have seen the glee on Ellis' face as I killed a wasp with my spoon at lunch today. "look mama, you ripped its head off! Wow!" was not the response I was expecting
I'm sorry about the hen. And intrigued to know what you will do with the rosehips. And wanted to share my moments of concern about my psychopathic 3-year-old who laughs raucously when the baby falls down and hurts herself.
So so sorry to hear about your chick, we had a similar thing the other week but it was our dog ted who killed it :-( What you say about the Mum chicken is what got me the most too - it is so sad to see them hurting for so long afterwards :-( Hope that fox keeps away, do you have a dog as if you let them pee around your land it tends to keep foxes at bay.
Condolenses on the loss of dear Charlotte. We watched all of our hens but one get picked off by racoons and one hawk. :(
In other news, we were in Ohio (a state just south of us) at a rest area and found conkers! Our joy knew no bounds! Then we found out that around here they are called Buckeyes and that Ohio is known as the Buckeye State. It was so lovely to see them, though.
Oh and Miss Mousie is an expert fake cryer. I don't think it is psychopathic tendencies but rather compassion. She knew her brother was sad and didn't want him to grieve alone.
roseips :: going to try and make a syrup. Mius sugar. Raw honey instead. Mykids rather like syrup of any sort :)
That's a lovely bittersweet post, made me laugh, but quite poignant too. Poor mummy hen. I had a pet graveyard when I was little. Guinea pigs, chickens, cat-mauled fledglings etc all found their way there and I used to carve out headstones too!! Rosie's guinea pig died last summer and my DH was a bit like yours, trying hard to avoid the previously buried pet and cursing the clay soil which was like concrete!! DH- "Can't you put it in a smaller box?" Me-"Have you seen the size of this guinea-pig?" DH-"Oh, I see. F***ing h**l". There is still humour in the darkest places. xxxx
Post a Comment