The banty in the shed vs the blog post…

If you happen to have a little farmstead with chickens, ducks, dogs, gardens and bee hives you can find some fairly odd sounding to-do notes lying about in the kitchen. This one was from our place back in Arkansas. We had one banty hen who flew out of the chicken yard regularly… and strolled the grounds as she wished. We didn’t pay too much attention to her as she put herself to bed every evening by flying back in to roost with the rest of the flock.

Then one day Mendy caught sight of her during the day in a garden tool shed where she had made herself a nest in a back corner.  She had filled it with about a dozen eggs and was spread out and crouched over them with that far-away look that broody hens get. She could barely cover them all with her tiny body. She had already proven to be a temperamental and dramatic chicken. If another flock member even got near her she raised a huge noisy ruckus. It seemed to work for her as she was accepted and unharmed in a flock of full-sized chickens.

We had no desire to populate the chicken yard with high-strung half-banties…half of which were likely to be roosters. Not to mention she was black snake bait and helpless sitting on the ground in an open shed at night. Mendy left us this note in the kitchen to remind us to remove her nest and try to get her thinking about something else. Of course she was outraged and sulked and hollered a lot over the next few days but at least was sleeping safely in the coop again. Then she was back to the normal daily rounds of a free-range bantam chicken.

The to-do list of the farmstead has been a bit hectic this summer. The bees are outgrowing their hives and filling box after box with honey. This has made me happy but also kept me hopping trying to keep up. The blog, as is often and sadly the case, is the first things to be jettisoned during busy times. It had been so long since I posted here I forgot my password to log in! Argh. But I still want to post and share the little moments that happen around here with you just for fun —  as well as to jot them down for my own recollection. It’s a small thing, of uncertain worth, yet I feel happy when I have done it. Today’s ‘banty in the shed’ can wait a bit while I jot this down for you and for me.  There. I did it.

love, Leigh

 

“She was someone who could not be rushed. That seems like a small thing. But it is actually a very amazing quality, a very ancient one…She went about her business as if she could live forever, and forever was very very long.” —Alice Walker