So, I walked up to the counter at the Co-Op, and left with a boxful of LIVE ANIMALS AND THEY DIDN"T EVEN ASK TO SEE A PERMIT OR ANYTHING!!! It was such a peculiar feeling, just like when I left the hospital with Poppy - feed it, keep it clean, and beyond that just do whatever feels right, huh? I didn't have a clue, and it didn't seem right that I was being entrusted with a helpless human being.
I don't have a clue what to do with chicks either, but I'm beginning to have more faith all the time in the natural propensity of living things to continue living in spite of me. I mean, we've had a dog for six whole days now and she hasn't died. The cat's been hanging around for seven months, and not only lived herself but put out a bud that lived. Even my trees pulled through (though I'm having some niggling doubts about that Evans cherry...). Geez, my kids are 11 and 12! So I guess there's a pretty good chance that majority of the chicks will survive my attentions long enough to make it to dinner.
You know what? (I didn't know this before we got interested in ordering chickens, so I'm sharing my wonderment.) Baby chicks can easily go 24 hours without food or water, and they mail them all over the place. Mail them! Mail order chicks. Makes me think of mail-order brides. Though brides don't come in boxes, of course.
It's also extremely strange and new to me to care for animals that I intend to eat. Wow. Strange isn't the word. It feels... very spiritual, in a fear-and-trembling sort of way. I'm going to care for them as best I can, and when the time comes, they'll contribute to my well-being. And I'll look them in the eye everyday knowing that's how it will be, and when it comes time to butcher, it'll be my hand. I don't know why this strikes me into the soul, but it does. The spirituality of Real.
I'm so much tougher than I used to me, and so much more tender. Sometimes I feel like I'm going to spill over with compassion for this world and its foibles. Even my own, occasionally. And at the same time as I'm feeling that, I know there's little room for folly or illusion, or ya lose yer chickens.
Thus sayeth the High Priestess of the Brooderie.
4 comments:
The spirituality of Real - Amen.
I'm thinking I'd like to learn to be a midwife.
Beautiful.
I'm thinking it is spiritual because that's what food is supposed to be, meant to be, is for all but those of us who think it comes from the shelf.
I think I have to go write something now. love.
Laura - A baby midwife or a midwife of the spirit? I've never heard you mention it before -sounds like an intriguing new direction.
Annette - Thanks! We've had three die as of this morning, which isn't so very beautiful, but the rest seem to be eating like there's no tomorrow, so there's hope.
CG - I've never had this relationship with animals before and it's a very different undertaking. At the same time, we have pets now, and I haven't been able to be around animals since I was a kid. My perspective about my place as a human in the animal world is being wrenched.
I saw what you read, and I'm still ruminating.
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