They say that if you make it, they will come. Several years ago we brought the Egg Basket Kit into the shop. Testing it out, meant making a basket. I found out it was much easier to make than I thought. It really was a lot of fun to make something so useful and beautiful.
Soaking the spilt wood, weaving it over the hoops that came already formed, got me thinking about chickens. A year later, I incubated a few eggs and ended up with three roosters, who are dear friends, Wynken, Blyken and Nod. They think I am their mother hen, and wait for me at the back door each day, to come out and play with them. The Roosters, come when called, go back into their house when asked, even if it is before nightfall. I love how they run, waddling while flapping their wings all at the same time.
Another year passed as I tried to locate a few Buckeye Hens to join the Roosters. I did not have much luck finding just a few, and gave in to ordering 25 chicks. It all started with the weaving of a basket and now that basket is holding their first eggs. When you dream it does catch up with you, you just do not know the how and the when. For me it is now, with the most lovely small first brown eggs, waiting for a meal to be prepared with them.
Next Spring I am going to pair up a hen with one of the Roosters and hope she will brood and hatch her eggs, and then I can retire as the Mother Hen.
To dreaming and the not knowing the how and the when.
~ Deb
*Last time in Barn Stories: First Eggs
