Archives for: July 2009

True to her name, young Prima was the first of my spring chicks to lay an egg. This pretty little Black Copper Marans hen is one of the sweetest little ladies, and I thought it might be fun to revisit her brief life “from egg to egg.”

It seems like just yesterday that little Prima Georgiana Darcy was just a tapping sound coming from the inside of her dark brown egg. (Oh you laugh, but giving hens silly, prissy names is one of the great joys of keeping chickens.)

She emerged from her shell first on that cold February 26 and sprawled on the floor of the warm incubator, exhausted from the ultimate challenge of pecking her way out of the hard shell.

When she was finally rested, she set about helping her two brothers out of their shells. She pecked and pulled bits of shell to help them breathe, she peeped to encourage them, and when they finally broke from their shells she spread her fluffy little body out beside them while they rested from their effort. I have never before or since seen a chick appear to help other chicks hatch!

Two days later Prima appeared in a photo for this blog, perched quietly in RT’s enormous hands. While many black-colored chicks have white down, the light fluff is shed as they grow and they emerge as black adults.

Prima had distinctive markings around her eyes, but she also carried herself differently from the others and was much more placid by nature. The boys were sweet, but just a little more naughty and rambunctious.

Below we have Prima in our Easter Sunday photo session, then at 17 days of age. Female chicks will generally have smaller combs, even at a young age, and they will remain yellowish in color until they are nearly mature. The ladies will also have tiny or nonexistent wattles, the red flaps of skin that grow beneath the chin. Boys will have more prominent, reddish combs, and the wattles will begin to grow earlier. This little face is all girl:

My Black Copper Marans were the sweetest and most interactive of the chicks. They grew into an extremely awkward but very dear bobble-headed vulture phase that was precious! Below, Prima displays another “tell” of her gender: she tends to crouch instead of standing very proud and upright, especially in new situations.

And at last by around ten weeks my little vultures had grown into their first set of feathers. Here is young Prima (below, left) with her brother, enjoying a nice May afternoon outside with the other teenage chicks. Brother has already grown some of his copper coloring, and by this time the comb and wattle differences are very prominent. Prima would grow several more weeks until her head coppering would become noticeable.

And finally, just a week shy of five months old, Prima laid her first nice brown egg. It was a bit more speckled than the one from which she came, and it was about the size of a bantam egg. In the coming weeks the eggs will become larger and the color will even out.

And while the lovely poetic story of a hen from egg to egg is nice to share, I also have some comparative egg photos for those more scientific by nature. Here is Prima’s first egg compared to Dame Edna’s grown-up egg:

And another of Edna (top) and Prima (middle) eggs with a bantam egg (bottom) from Penny Pretty the bantam cochin:

Watching a tiny chick emerge from an egg - - or watching any creature being born - - is an awe-inspiring miracle to witness. Enjoying the privilege of caring for my little charges as they grow and mature has been a challenging, joyful, and humanizing adventure that is adding something to my life I had not anticipated. These little feathered friends provide me with great joy even as they provide food for our table on a daily basis. I would be hard-pressed to find a better or more useful pet for my suburban home.

Little Prima has grown from a tiny handful of fluff into a beautiful, copper-touched beauty with almond-shaped eyes right in front of us. I do not think I could ever lay my hands on another store carton of eggs, because now the story behind the egg is more important to me than ever before.

Palanquin Bearers

Lightly, O lightly we bear her along,
She sways like a flower in the wind of our song;
She skims like a bird on the foam of a stream,
She floats like a laugh from the lips of a dream.
Gaily, O gaily we glide and we sing,
We bear her along like a pearl on a string.

Softly, O softly we bear her along,
She hangs like a star in the dew of our song;
She springs like a beam on the brow of the tide,
She falls like a tear from the eyes of a bride.
Lightly, O lightly we glide and we sing,
We bear her along like a pearl on a string.

- Sarojini Naidu

Happy, happy birthday to the windblown California princess . . .

Misty dreamscape of the Monterey, California coastline

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O beautiful, for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.

O beautiful, for pilgrim feet
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America! God mend thine ev’ry flaw;
Confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law!

O beautiful, for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America! May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness, and ev’ry gain divine!

O beautiful, for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years,
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea!

- Katharine Lee Bates, 1893

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Well over 100 years ago the young English teacher Katharine Lee Bates was inspired enough by her cross-country train trip to write those words about what she saw and hoped for in America. In my own beautiful wandering years I made several driving trips across the country, and I know first hand the awe she felt when leaving the sheltered east and heading out west across the sprawling miles. What an incredible land this is! The sheer scale of it is surprising if you have never passed across it before. The wide variety of climates, ecosystems, animals, and people is something that must be experienced to be truly believed.

Approaching Flagstaff, Arizona: arid desert suddenly gives way to pine-covered mountains

When I think back to those trips, a collage of images tumbles into the front of my mind:

The swampy plains of Memphis and Arkansas; the patchwork highways, the cotton fields steeped in hot morning mist.
Fields of bluebells, brilliant indigo waving in the north Texas breeze.
Endless Kansas wheat fields, golden to the blue horizon as far as the eye could see.
Wind blowing over the stones of the Puerco Ruins in Arizona.

13th-century Puerco Ruins in Arizona

The dusky purple shadows of sunset in the Grand Canyon, a sight which completely silenced even the noisiest group of tourists.

South Edge of the Grand Canyon

A sudden snowstorm in July up near Raton Pass on the southern Colorado border.
Sunset while driving across the glowing white expanse of the Great Salt Lake in Utah.
Waking up to watch the sun rise over the mountains near Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Santa Fe railroad cars chug along the mountains outside Albuquerque, New Mexico

Endless lonely stretches of golden hills in south central California, and tiny towns with names like “Lost Hills,” “Bitter Water” and “Devil’s Den.”
Sitting under the tall pines of Jack’s Peak over Monterey, California, and watching sailboats on the bay below - - tiny white butterflies floating across a deep blue pond.
The thunder of waves at rocky Asilomar Beach - - feeling the delicate flutter of air from passing gulls overhead.

Reaching the Pacific: sunset on Asilomar Beach, California

And of course, a brilliant evening of fireworks over the Washington Monument in Washington, DC that I will never forget.

In those days when cell phones were not so common, I traveled (usually by myself) with no outside communication. Eventually I carried a CB radio. It was only in my later trips across the U.S. that I kept a cell phone for emergencies. I recall times driving, especially across the desert southwest, when there would not be another set of headlights from horizon to horizon. Oddly enough, no matter how desolate the place, I never felt alone - - whether from “immortal youth” or some more metaphysical reason I could not now say.

Mysterious cliff drawings near Puerco Ruins in Arizona

Traveling enough times, however, eventually brought the odds of mishap my way. At those times, I had the privilege of seeing first-hand just how incredible people can be when helping a traveler in need. I have a whole collection of memories of kind folks across the country lending me a hand, perhaps culminating in one particular week out in Tucumcari, New Mexico, where I had to stop for repairs to a badly cracked windshield. This is not an auto part normally kept on hand out in this tiny town in the desert, and it would require a day or two to get it in from the city. The only repair shop in town was run by a Native American gentleman and his daughter - - who kindly lent their brand new pickup truck to me, a stranger, until my van was repaired.

They even fixed the broken hinge on my passenger door when they noticed it.

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I could watch the news until I am queasy from the violence and calamity, and it would only take a few minutes of being open to the messages on the screen to begin feeling my faith in humanity ebbing away. Others can say what they say. I know what I have experienced, and it only takes a walk through the neighborhood to remind me of what I knew during all my travels: people can be pretty amazing when their highest selves are called upon.

As it lengthens by the years, the history of America seems rather like the life of an individual: it becomes a forest of beautiful, straight trees all mixed in with dead, broken branches and overgrown, decaying matter until it sometimes becomes difficult to tell what the forest was. It can be hard to find the original pattern, the driving intent.

It is good to return to the root, the source, to remember why we’re here. While I have some very personal ways to do this for my own life, on this day more than any other I remember with great reverence the call to higher thought that prompted the birth of this country. I used to have the documents hanging on my wall, but the Internet has made it very easy to find if I ever forget the words:

http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/index.htm

and of course:

http://www.ushistory.org/documents/constitution.htm

The Jenotopia household sends its warmest blessings to all our fellow Americans across the globe, and to our friends of all other nations who have offered assistance to strangers without a second thought.