I began writing this post a couple of weeks ago. The plan was to talk about ‘counting chickens’. You know, counting them before they hatch and the warning that comes with doing so. I was going to make reference to my baby boy’s sleeping and the temptation to start counting those chooks after one good night (which equates to getting up only once to feed).
But since the conception of that post things have changed a little in the back yard. The balance of gender within the family has shifted. Death has entered and burial ceremonies have been held. Earlier this week Daisy and Crash passed away.
Daisy and Crash were two of the lovely ladies in the chicken house. Daisy was the gregarious silky bantam; the sociable one who was keen to explore our vegie patch and our compost. She would come out to greet us and didn’t shy away too much when we approached her (though the thump of small Cars gumboots towards her made her a little more jumpy). Daisy was the explorer – in fact she went so far as to explore the park over our back fence and the nature strip outside our house a while back. Crash was given her name by nature of the fact that she often tumbled off the ramp half way through her descent from the pen, landing with a crash on the ground below.
Anyway, they were our little ladies and now they are no longer, thanks to a highly contagious chook disease (that I’ve been told will likely take Tree Trunk, the third girl, with it in the near future). This has been our son’s first exposure to dying and death and I have to say, he’s handling it well. There were no tears, though that would’ve been okay, even though he is a boy (KIDDING!!). Rather, father and son set about fetching their digging tools from the shed and digging a hole, or two, to place these not so soft and fluffy chickens in. We said a few words (there isn’t much to say to a bantam who has only been around for a few short months…) and filled in the holes.
My son didn’t say much after that, except to confirm Daisy’s departure later that night – ‘So mum….Daisy’s dead.’ “Yep. Bit sad, hey?’ ‘Yeah…’. There wasn’t a barrage of questions about life and death and what happens next, thank god, cos I don’t really have one of those speeches prepared. I wonder how long Tree Trunk will give me to whip one up…?
** In regard to ‘counting chickens’, the baby boy did not begin his transition into once nightly feeding after that one delicious night. No siree. Wouldn’t want to be too predictable, would he? That would just be boring. Perhaps the death of two bantams was a sign, a warning to me about the danger of counting chickens.
