Our new little girls arrived three weeks ago. I’ve been horribly remiss in posting pictures, but believe me when I say I haven’t been remiss in taking them. I have joked for years that I have hundreds more photos of my cow babies and chickies than I do of my only child, but it has never been more true.

My place of bliss is spending time with the five new chicks. Every day I try to sit with them, talk with them and touch them to get them used to human contact and to make them as friendly as their natural inclinations will allow. And every day I am simply amazed by the care our Creator took in these babies. When Trudy comes sniffing around the brooder or lets out a bark, the girls all run for cover and stand perfectly still. They scratch and peck at the ground without ever having seen a mother hen show them how or why. They send signals to each other with their chirps and cheeps to signal food or danger. They clean and primp their feathers as they go from downy soft to their “big girl wings”. These instincts serve them well. Better than well. The girls wouldn’t survive without them.

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Yesterday, my principal shared with me two upcoming openings within our district. He was quite certain I would be excited about at least one of them, and on paper, one does look like a great fit for me. He knows I’m looking to make a move out of the classroom but still within the school setting and I was so appreciative of him giving me a heads up. I haven’t seen the official posting yet, and I will keep my mind open until I give it fair consideration, but in truth, my own instincts kept me from feeling much excitement about either posting. Despite my experience, my background and what my principal sees in me, these positions are not for me.

As anxious as I am to make a move out of the classroom, I do not want to jump to something that isn’t a positive, joyful move for me. I do not want to make a move that makes me think, “wow, that sounds like a lot of work” and not “wow, that sounds like a lot of fun!” My instincts are telling me no. Even though I know deeply that staying in the classroom for another year isn’t where my heart is either.

If I have learned anything from my little girls, however, it’s to listen to my instincts. To not move when I am faced with uncertainty. To wait until I have a really good morsel before chirping with excitement. To keep honing my skills and growing professionally until the right opportunity comes along. Then, with unabashed enthusiasm, I will show the world just how I can fly.

It was a charming house, full of rounded doorways and small little rooms. It needed work, for sure, but it was just right for Jacob and me at the time. When we moved in, we were excited to have a dining room in addition to the kitchen space, but we only had one table. My dad the craftsman, came to the rescue, building us a custom-fit kitchen table that was perfect for two. Carefully built out of maple, it was absolutely ideal for our needs. We put it to good use for a number of years until the move to the farm. Then, with only space for one table and knowing that Dad’s table was too small to ever host guests, the maple table was tucked away in the basement until we found the perfect new use for it.

Last year, I found the perfect new use for it. As I was searching for fun new seating options for my classroom and creating new work spaces for the students, I remembered Dad’s table and was excited about putting it to use once again. I dusted off the table, hauled it to school and surrounded it with four blue stools. The students loved sitting there to work! Whether they were reading, writing, drawing, solving math problems, working alone or with a group, they enjoyed the table and I was thrilled to have the addition to my classroom.

This year, with all the COVID protocols and precautions, the students have to stay at their assigned desk all day. Completely the opposite of my classroom the last few years where we encouraged kids to move about, get more comfortable and to choose different spaces for different kinds of learning. To make more room (six feet!) between each desk, I had to take out all my fun seating options. The little love seat and chair came home. The pillows all came home. The bed rests and beanbags all came home. “All extras” were tucked away, put into school storage or returned home for an unknown length of time. But I just wasn’t ready to put the table back in the storage closet in the basement.

As I arranged my classroom last August, trying to preserve as much of the fun learning environment as I possibly could while creating safe distances between student desks, I kept shifting the table from here to there, trying to find a home for it. It didn’t take long before I realized that despite all my years of not having a teacher’s desk (my preference), the new computer/projector set-up required something at the front of the room for the computer. Dad’s table came to the rescue. Much smaller than the school-issued teacher desks, the table provided ample space for the computer and enough work room for my needs all while minimizing the footprint in the overall room. I was even able to tuck an extra student desk underneath!

Now, every day when I am at school, every day when I face the stresses and joys of teaching, every day when I sit and answer emails from parents criticizing an instructional choice I made or more demands from administration on my time, or when I grade student work, I sit at a desk crafted by the hands of my dad.

It is never for a moment lost on me that my dad used to sit at a desk grading papers, handling criticisms from parents and demands from administrators. It is never far from my thoughts that he surely felt stressed and frustrated and anxious and sometimes maybe even as defeated as I do. But I never remember Dad complaining. I never remember our dinner conversations revolving around his stress at work. I never remember him venting about students or any of the abundant pressures on teachers. I am sure he did, in appropriate ways, but never to us kids. I do remember people, from my youth to now, always telling me what an inspirational teacher and administrator my dad was. I remember feeling pride, never once embarrassment, that my dad was my high school principal, a relationship and position that could have been extremely challenging had he been unfair, temperamental, authoritative or unsympathetic to students and staff. But he wasn’t. He was exactly the kind of administrator I wish I could work for today. Supportive, encouraging, empowering and fair.

As I sat this past week at the table Dad built for me, preparing grades, data and information for parent teacher conferences, I felt overwhelmed. This year has been like no other and the challenges have certainly taken their toll. As I found myself getting upset over a parent criticism, I sat back for a moment and noticed the table I was seated at. The sanded, polished wood. The beautiful added details to the legs. Even the little dots from a Sharpie marked that soaked through a paper at some point. I realized that I was not only sitting at a table my dad crafted, but that I am a human being that my dad crafted. Made, not just from the love between him and my mom, but raised with the same fairness, encouragement, support and empowerment that he gave to his students and staff during his career. In fact, I am sure I got heaps more of all those things being one of his daughters.

Crafted by Dad.

Today, and every day, I am blessed by my career. Even on the most difficult of days during the most difficult year, I am blessed to be a teacher. And I am blessed to have been raised by my dad (and mom), who both crafted me into the person that I am today. This table is my daily reminder that to be loved like this is no small thing. That while any table (or teacher) might do, the craftsmanship of my dad can make all the difference. This little blessing made of maple made all the difference today.

I stopped on my way out the drive the other morning to snap a picture of the pond. I shared it with a friend who remarked on the beauty of it all. I agreed, of course, and yet a part of me felt like correcting her. The pond, afterall, isn’t really that beautiful. Right now it’s at the lowest we’ve ever seen it. The trees, shrubs and grass haven’t leafed out yet so there’s really no real color in the area. On this particular morning the Canadian geese hadn’t even arrived yet and the turtles weren’t basking on logs. It really was just a plain, early spring, colorless pond.

But add in one gorgeous sunrise and presto! You have an enchanting moment.

I thought about that throughout the day. How something so routine, drab and even lifeless can change dramatically if we just alter the lens we view it through.

My mother-in-law has been staying with us and she had a friend over the other day while I was at work. She toured the friend around our property, showing off the garden, chicken coop, cows and woods like the proud mother she is. Later, as she recounted the visit, she told us how much her friend just loved our home and all our animals. How she took pictures and was amazed at some of the things we had created here.

It was a good reminder to us, that even when all we see are flower beds that need mulching, or a garden that needs weeding and planting, or even a pasture that is full of stale hay and manure, others see it very differently. We were reminded of the beauty that we can take for granted. Of all the little details that make our property our home. We were reminded to see our little part of the word with a rose colored lens. For we are, indeed, blessed by these ten little acres and all the beauty they hold for us.

I let the girls out in the yard again. For as much as James and I love to be outside, the chickens come bursting through the run door with a similar enthusiasm for spring sunshine.

We usually let them out when we are done with our projects for the day. When we are ready to just sit back in a lawn chair and talk about the day, the progress or even start planning for what’s next. The girls run all through the flower beds, kicking mulch into the yard and digging holes in all the wrong places, but it’s hard to say no when I enjoy digging in the beds and getting dirt under my nails as well.

I noticed Iris was acting a little out of sorts, however. She kept running back over to the run door and clucking away. She’d go inside for a moment and then come running back out to eat more grass, search for insects and hope for something green.

It wasn’t hard to figure out the issue. Iris needed to lay her egg for the day. But, like James and I both, she didn’t want to be inside for even a single moment on such a nice day. James laughed as I reassured Iris the sun will in fact come out again tomorrow and it was okay if she just went inside for now and laid her egg. Certainly, she would feel better after, in any case.

I opened the coop door and James took the winter locks off the windows so I could open those as well. Iris finally went inside and hopped up into the nesting box to lay.

When I peeked in on her, she reminded me of a quote from a book I am currently reading (as well as Scripture, of course), “Be still and know.”

Sometimes, we need to just be still and know that the joy that surrounds us isn’t fleeting. It’s within us all the time if only we recognize its residence. Sometimes we need to just be still and know that our daily accomplishments are no minor things, but are the very things that give us purpose and meaning and joy. Chickens might never understand how important laying their daily egg is to the world, but the world sure understands how important that single routine task is.

I am thankful today, that Iris took the time to be still and I know her egg will be enjoyed thoroughly for her patience.

I am not a fan of winter. An odd thing to say, perhaps, for a woman living in Southwest Michigan, but it’s quite true. Other than the occasional deep fluffy snowfall that makes me believe for a moment that I’m living in a snowglobe, I find no pleasure in the cold, the ice, the slick, the cold, the slush, the crunch, the scraping – did I mention the cold? But without a doubt, I am grateful for winter. I don’t usually admit that, certainly not during the polar vortex also known as January, but I am. Very grateful.

If we didn’t have winter, if we didn’t have four or five months of it, I’m not sure I would ever appreciate with appropriate depth the signs of spring. I first heard the peepers last Wednesday. I actually stopped my car and sat by the side of the road with windows down and just listened, soaking up the sound. Nothing quite says “spring!” like a chorus of frogs.

The sprouts that I started downstairs are all starting to grow. That is a delight unto itself for sure. It never ceases to amaze me how such tiny seeds can provide such growth, such subsistence, such joy just in the process of creating fruits, vegetables and flowers. I even have marigolds coming along nicely this year. A simple flower that I’ve never been able to sprout well from seed before.

James and I cherish our days spent together in the garden, or in the yard, or in the woods, or around the property. Even when we are working at opposite ends of the garden beds, we still feel a connectedness as we prepare and plant and sow and reap together. We also appreciate our different passions, as he gets giddy about running the water lines and setting up the trellises, while I am happiest scooching down the rows on my rear, talking to the seeds as I plant each one.

A year ago, our world shut down. We had no idea then what we had in store for us, nor could we have predicted perhaps how long we would stay away from our families, away from our friends. And while this winter’s weather left us with little to complain about, the compounding isolation from the pandemic during winter makes this spring feel especially freeing. Even if we still aren’t seeing our families regularly. Even if we aren’t able to do all the “normal” activities, time spent in the sun, with the earth in our hands, listening to the creatures of the world, we feel healed. And lucky. And blessed. By all these little things.

For those of you who haven’t ever had reason to try, getting chickens to move down the roosting bar to make room for one more takes a little more than just a “skooch”, even if followed up with “please”. Sigh.

Dear Ruby. She’s been in isolation for a week now. Her feathers are coming in and her wounds seem to be healing but it’s a slow process. While we wait for her to fully heal (read that: for no signs of injury that the other chickens will make worse), we have kept her in her own fenced area of the run. She’s not at all happy about it, even if it means she isn’t getting pecked to death. Literally. Chickens can be such assholes.

Tonight, with a winter weather advisory that includes high winds, cold temps and some sort of nasty precipitation, we decided to try to put Ruby back in the coop with the flock just to roost for the night.

When I first took her in, the other six were all snuggled up together, with April on the only open end. I know enough about the pecking order of my flock than to put poor Ruby next to April, so I picked up Iris and made her swap places with April. Iris is pretty easy going for a chicken, and the moment I set Ruby next to her, Ruby recognized a friend and nestled her whole head under Iris’ wing. Unfortunately, Iris didn’t recognize a friend in return and took to pecking at Ruby’s eyes and face. Again and again. When that didn’t seem to be ceasing, I decided to relocate Ruby. Trouble was, the next best place for her was next to Della and she was much further down the line. I had to “skooch” Iris, then April, then Beatrix (who wasn’t happy about it at all and sat her fluffy butt right back down). Millie was so perturbed by the notion that she fluttered up to the other roosting bar out of the way (which helped!) I eventually got Ruby situated in between Della and Hazel, and left her turned the opposite direction from them so even if they felt compelled, it was a much more difficult stretch to peck at Ruby’s face (and nearly as difficult to get at her injured wings). Hazel pecked at her once, but then everyone seemed to settle in, Millie even returned to the flock and I said a quiet prayer and went back to the house.

About an hour later, I went back out, my conscience eating at me. I know chickens can be ruthless to put it mildly and I didn’t want them to undo a week of healing in one cold night. When I went back in, I went right up to Ruby with my flashlight so I could see if either of her wounds were bleeding or seemed to be any worse. I was trying to do so as inconspicuously as possible, as I didn’t want to disturb the girls if they were settled in well together. As I checked on her wing, I thought for a moment Hazel was going to start pecking at her again and I quietly scolded her. As I did, Della took her wing and laid it right over Ruby, covering her up and hiding any injuries from Hazel’s view. It was the sweetest thing I’ve seen any of the girls ever do.

I can’t promise or even hope that Ruby won’t be worse for the wear by morning. And I can’t even truly suggest that Della’s move was intentional. But for now, I’m going to let my heart believe that it was. That even when we are surrounded by those who want to kick a girl when she’s down, by those who would rather see us continue to be hurt and troubled, when it’s in the “best interest” of the group to keep one of us from getting the respite we need, out of the blue a true friend might emerge and save us. If only for a moment. If only for tonight.

Maybe I’m too softhearted to be a chicken mama. Maybe I’m not the best farm wife or animal owner when my heart aches so much for my creatures. Maybe I’m going to have some real heartaches down the road (maybe as soon as tomorrow morning) but for just a moment tonight, I was blessed by the kindness of a chick. Of a protective wing and a hen who can cuddle up and stay warm tonight. I know it’s where Ruby wants to be. Thanks, Della, for the tender moment. Ruby was surely blessed by it as well.

I work in a female dominated profession. I once told a new, male, administrator that what we needed most in our building was a rooster in the henhouse. I did not realize at the time that the man was gay, and I am sure I could have phrased it far more professionally at the time, but I was trying to express how badly we needed someone to put a stop to the nightmarish things women do to each other. All the ways we pick each other apart; all the ways we act cooperative when we are extremely competitive. All the ways we try to justify backstabbing.

My chickens never let me forget this truth. The chooks are cute and funny and silly but also cruel and mean and hurtful. We discovered this weekend that one of my favorite girls was not just molting but was having some “help” removing feathers. Two scabby wings and a complete lack of feathers in spots made my blood boil. While I can read about and understand the realities of a pecking order, it breaks my heart to see it applied in full, literal sense with my beloved flock.

Lately, I feel like I’ve been the one doing the pecking and backstabbing. Not to a friend or colleague, but to myself. I feel like I have been sabotaging myself, convincing myself that I am less than I am, or not capable of what I dream, or that I cannot have the things I deeply crave. I feel like I have been telling myself lies for perhaps longer than I can even put a finger on and that those lies have kept me from being true or being real or being honest with myself.

Tonight, I tried to clean the wounds on my favorite feathered girl and at the advice of a neighbor who knows about such matters, I applied honey and wrapped gauze around her, all the while trying not to think it looked like I was preparing her for Sunday dinner. I’m too soft-hearted to deal with the hard side of pets and I found myself sitting on the ground, in the improvised quarantined-but-still-visible area of the run, holding my little Ruby on my lap trying to keep her calm. I heard myself telling her in my quietest “mom” voice, “Breathe, sweet Ruby, just breathe.” And after about the fifth or sixth or twentieth time of me saying that, I realized I wasn’t saying it to Ruby, I was saying it to myself. Breathe, Amy. Just breathe. Just sit on the ground with a chicken in your arms. Feel the sun. Hear her soft coo’s and just exhale for one damn second.

I wish there was a salve we could apply to the wounds we suffer, including those we self-inflict. I wish there was a way to wrap ourselves up tight, add some protein to our diet and after a few days find ourselves healed and ready to face the flock again. I wish there was someone to come in when we need it most, especially when we are least likely to ask for it, and just hold us while we remember to breathe. I don’t just mean the friends or family who will call or text to see how we are doing. I mean, the arms that hold you tightly but just loosely enough; the embrace that says, I’m here, for as long as you need, but you are free to go, too. In all truth, in every molecule of my being, I wish I could talk to my mom. Breathe, Amy. Just breathe.

I will keep checking on my injured chicken. Even in the middle of the night, I will go make sure she is okay, out in her isolated area, all alone. I will give her any comfort I can for as long as she needs to heal. I will sit on the ground and hold my dear little Ruby and tell her that she will be okay; that she can return to the flock good as new in a just few days and that I will not let anyone peck her wounds while she tries to heal. And I will do everything I can to offer the same reassurances to my own self.

Today, I am blessed by my injured feathered girl, who give me reason to pause and reason to breathe. Who put me into my own little isolation and stopped all the doubts, worry, accusations, and peck-peck-pecking in my head for long enough that I heard the migrating cranes, that I felt the heartbeat of an animal, that I smelled the damp spring earth. Thank you, Ruby. Your wings held me today just when I needed it most.

Two days ago we drove to a neighboring city to get my second COVID vaccination shot.  We wanted to take advantage of being in a city we aren’t often in to have my ring soldered so James took it to the jeweler while I was getting my vaccination.  When he picked me up, he shared with me the slightly more complicated steps we need to go through to get the work done, but my ring had been cleaned by the jeweler and took on a whole new shine and sparkle.  I’ll admit, I’m not great about cleaning my ring.  I’m great at wearing it, in fact, I wear it all the time; in the garden, making bread dough; putting on lotion – I love my ring dearly but I’m really bad at keeping it looking its best.  Since being professionally cleaned, however, it has caught my eye a hundred times during the day.  The glitter and shine catch my attention while I teach, write or email.  It’s hard to believe that something as simple and mundane as polish could make such a huge difference, but it really has.

This last year has been a rough one for us.  For all of us, collectively, but certainly for James and me as well.  We have been more hurtful to each other at times than we have ever been, but we have also never worked harder to love each other.  Last night, in a moment of sweet tenderness and gratitude, James surprised me with a trip to the lake.  We sat in the truck eating a picnic dinner he had made and packed himself, full of many of my favorites and several small details to make it just perfect.  

As we stood on the frozen mounds of sand and ice, we talked about the times we’ve been at the lake before.  We thought about Jacob, just across the water in Chicago.  James made me laugh, as he always does. And as the colors of the sky turned to a beautiful pink and orange, I commented that the sun sets every single day and yet here we were, far from the only ones on the frozen beach, standing in awe of this as though it were unique, a rare marvel to behold.  Like my ring.  Something I wear every day that I tend to take for granted, but a little polish makes me see it as new.

Every single day we have the chance to make something special.  To treasure something mundane.  To look at something so banal and find inspiration, to find hope.  Every day we have the opportunity to make the ordinary extraordinary. And it doesn’t have to take much to put a little sparkle back into our lives.  A little polish, a little picnic dinner, a little thing like a sunset to fall in love again.  I am blessed by these little things.

Today, we set the new nesting boxes in the coop to let The Girls get used to them before we took down the old ones (can I even call them old?) and put these up on the wall. At first, Large Dark Wooden New Thing was to be avoided and feared, but eventually the hens all came over to have a peek and investigate.

While I am giddy with the new boxes, and The Girls seem to be happy with them as well (so far), even James was thrilled to cross something off his eventual “to do” list. I spent some time out in the coop listening to the chooks. Seems like there was much to be said about the new set-up. I wish I knew the history of this piece, or that I could have known the previous owner, but regardless, all the residents of The Sky is Falling Inn will be blessed by extra boxes. And happy chickens are always a blessed little thing.