Mystery Rules Here
I got very overwhelmed last night. We currently have thirty laying hens growing bigger and bigger, living in a feeding trough on the room off of our kitchen. They are big enough now to fly out of the trough when we take the cover off and we spend a good portion of our morning corralling the bravest chicken back into the trough. (I have named this bold and brave chicken Yee-Haw). Luckily, Heathar’s dad built a cover for the chicken trough otherwise, they would be all over the room by now and chicken feces would be everywhere.
In seven days, we have fifty meat chicken coming which will need to go into the very feeding trough where these thirty birds reside now. This would be a calm and peaceful trade out except that our outdoor chicken coop is not yet finished. Currently, I am looking at a beautiful chicken coop (some say too extravagant) with no windows, no electricity and no fencing for our outdoor chicken run. My text this morning to the man in charge of building our chicken coop (and now our good friend, Anthony) read like this, “Dear Anthony, we just (not totally true) discovered that we will have fifty meat chickens arriving on April 18th. Will you be able to have the outdoor chicken coop up and running by then for the laying chickens?” His reply, “Will try.”
What else can you ask for? Anthony will do his best. Yes, I know he will. In the meantime, I will rest in the uncertainty of housing thirty ambitiously growing birds who are getting more and more feral by the day. They were so cute when they came in that tiny box from the post office. And now, the beast has taken over. They are more animal now than cute. Nature has won, the wild has fought back. As my father-in-law said when he was here, “Jen, you only know the Disney version of wildlife. Wolves are not cute and bears will kill you.” I am now finding this to be true for my chickens. They are fierce little beasts with sharp and tiny beaks that will grow into stronger and more mighty beaks that want worms — lots and lots of worms.
Luckily, the bee arrival was postponed until the beginning of May which gave me some relief. I still went online this morning and ordered my bee suit and gloves made out of goat udders — or something like that. This gives me more time to learn about the Varroa Mites that could kill our beehive and other potentially catastrophic events that bees do not like. I know they do not like chemicals and they do not like plastic — of this, I am sure.
Last night, as Heathar and I were watching the show 1883 (if you haven’t watched the epic series, you might want to get into it) we listened to the main narrator of the show say in her fragile, southern accent, “I wondered why God would create such beautiful things and in the next moment, create such horrible and harsh things alongside of them. And then it occurred to me, this world is not for me.” It seems that trying to start a farm from the ground up is equal parts horrifying and idyllic. As many benefits as there are to honey and bees, there are also as many things that want to take that life and nectar for themselves. Where there is life, there is challenge. Where there is life, there is death. If this world is not for me, then who is it for? Certainly the animals can’t be thinking this world is for them either I mean, salmon have to swim upstream. What kind of a world is that?
Perhaps this world is solely for the Mystery. It seems to be the only thing that makes sense to me. The Mystery prevails over and over again. The Mystery wins. This world is surely not made for certainty. This world is certainly not made for plans, the likes of which humans are very fond. I think the Mystery rules here. What else can we think when wildfires threaten our forrests at any moment? What else are we to think when the community says, “Fire is going to come to our valley one way or another.” I have to shake my head and throw up my hands. Mystery it is then. This world is made for the unexpected, the unknown and the mysterious. These friends have found themselves in the perfect environment where everything suits them just right.
Two weekends ago, Heathar and I were on top of the hill behind our house and we saw black billowing smoke — it can’t be a wildfire yet, we thought. My stomach dropped at the sign of smoke — years of trauma stored up in my body from living in the flammable American Southwest. But the smoke was contained and coming from a very direct area. We discovered that a home across the valley from us caught on fire and burned to the ground. It happened so quickly that two cats and a litter of puppies did not have time to escape the flames. Three small children and their parents stood outside of their home and watched it burn, having no idea as to what caused the inescapable fire. Mystery. Unsolvable questions. The Unknowable. These are the royal guard of our world. They are forces — more powerful than humans and animals and all creatures living and breathing.
