Moving-In Day for the chickens
Zadie and Dad work on the coop's green roof
The chickens moved in yesterday! They've completely outgrown their box in Josh's living room, to the point where they could see out the box if they were standing on the food or water dishes. One of the Barred Plymouth Rocks would hop up on the water jar and look out the window all day. I imagine it was disconcerting for Josh, sitting in the living room, reading a book, then suddenly the cardboard box starts moving, and six scruffy heads slowly rise up to stare at him. It was time to move on.
We spent the morning securing the coop, leveling the ground so it stands flush, stapling chicken wire to the bottom to make sure that digging varmints are foiled if they try to get the girls. There was only a slight emergency when one of the Ameraucanas got spooked and spent about an hour eluding us in the hostas and then in my garden. Eventually, Willa the Dog came outside and flushed her out—and then nearly ate her. I kind of forgot that even though Willa's tiny, she's still a hunting dog. The Ameraucana appears unscathed.
And this morning, my own little chicks moved out for the day. Sam and Zadie went back to school. Now, I've struggled with finding balance in my family—how much work is too much, how much together time will drive us berserk. For the first time this summer, I really got my balance right. The book is complete. I don't spend every waking moment in the office surrounded by sheafs of paper and notecards and piles of Kleenex and little Croatian good-luck relics and thick clouds of the incense that make me think of my Grandma Kate. The office didn't get a whole lot of attention, really. The kids were in camp for a week here and there, but mostly we all just hung out. Went to the pool. Had some adventures. Took walks. Argued about how much screen time will melt your brain. It's been really nice.
Part of it, I'm sure, is that the kids are little people now. They're not needy babies who can't tell me what's wrong when they cry. They're not bumbling toddlers who require constant vigilance lest they fall off a staircase or climb a countertop and break their skinny little necks. They're people. We talk. We enjoy each others' company.
There is a passage in RUNNING AWAY TO HOME where I begin to notice what it really means to be a parent. How, from the very beginning, it's about preparing those kids to leave the nest as healthy and independent people who will make a positive contribution to the world. With every brave step they take forward—into first grade and fourth grade already!—they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. Preparing for the day they move on.
But that doesn't make this day any less melancholy. How bittersweet that it's my job to prepare these two people I love so much to leave our home! To fly the coop.
It's a real relief that during all those years they were needy babies and bumbling toddlers, I kept writing. I knew with some weird blind faith that I'd need something to sustain me when the house became quiet like this. Whatever it is for you, if you are a parent, I suppose we just pull it back to us on the first day of school, or college, or post-wedding, or whatever it is. Those things that sustain us as independent people who can do just fine on our own.
For me, it's a clean, fresh stack of paper, with a whole frontier of book possibilities ahead of me. And the sound of little peeping chickens-in-training outside my window.
