It was a restless night. I woke at 12:34, 4:10, and then off and on checking the clock each time until we both decided to rise at 6. The wind was whipping around outside, you could hear the metal roofing rattle with the gusts. We opened the curtains from bed and I was surprised to see a bit of light in the sky. "Let's get him while it's still dark," Richard said, reading my mind. We were talking about Mishkin, the young gander, who we were planning to nab quickly, along with his aunt, Ginger, and put into a crate we'd fashioned in the garage the night before. We were hoping to do this before Mishkin could get his bearings and fly over the fence away from us and before his father Shmuel could put up a protective barrage of bites and wing swing punches. Richard and I kept sharing "I love yous" to bolster one another for the task at hand. We had gathered chickens to be processed before, but this time it seemed different, more momentous, a tougher, harder decision, probably because of the geese. We quickly did our inside chores - I made coffee and fed the cats while Richard stoked a nice warm fire - then we bundled up and stepped outside. The geese were striding back and forth in their pen, wings flapping, eager for their customary early morning release to the pond.
'I love you.'
"I love you."
It was chilly, a dusting of snow on the ground, a few flakes in the air. 'Just do it, just do it,' I mantra-ed to myself while sprinkling thanks to the birds for gracing us with their presence. We unlatched the chicken wire surrounding the new goose coop and stepped into their pen. Did they know something was up? They avoided us, scattered. "Corral him into the coop," Richard called out and it seemed to happen of its own accord. But quick as white lightning, he ducked out under the partially fastened fence and flapped away to the backside of the fenced area. The flock struck up a high chorus of protest and he called back as he rounded the coop with Richard in pursuit. Mishkin tried to get back to the rest, pressing himself against the fence, wings flapping, which enabled Richard to pick him up. After a bit of a struggle, Mishkin instantly relaxed, resigned, scared. We pet him and whispered and cooed him to the waiting crate, thanking him. He hunkered down into the crate and sat still.
'Let's get Ginger now,' I suggested and this time I seemed to have read Richard's thoughts as he had mine in the bedroom. Oh Ginger. One of our first pair, hatched by Richard in his man made cooler incubator. Before Shmuel's appearance on the scene, she and her sister, Mary Ann, used to follow us everywhere - uphill, over to the pond, curious about anything we were doing, unless we turned and tried to pick them up, and then they were all avoidance, shivering in place if we did corner them, but relaxing again when we'd place them on our laps to pet them. She was a fearless guard of the brood, crabbing at cars if they got too close to the others. The Annie Oakley of the flock. (Okay, I've got to stop, I'm tearing myself up.) Ginger wasn't that difficult to catch. I grabbed her up in my arms from her crouching shiver against the fence. It felt so good to hold her, I realized it had been a long time. I soothed her, carrying her down the hill to the crate and Mishkin, rubbing her neck and her chest down, cooing my appreciation. When we got to the garage, I perched her on my lap and let her nibble on my fleece shirt and wedding ring before putting her in with her nephew. There was a loud crowing from the chicken coop across the driveway and I looked up to see Richard step out the door with Whitey, his Wheaton rooster, by the legs. He had disturbed him from his perch in between his 2 girlfriends. We knew one rooster had to go. We were keeping Red Barber, our prize rooster who looks as if he stepped off a Kellogg's Corn Flakes box, but it was a coin flip between Whitey and the docile Grey and Orange other Wheaton. Whitey, though, was humping every hen in sight roughly and more often than not was causing a big ruckus, so off he went. I deposited Ginger in the crate with Mishkin as Richard put Whitey in a waiting pet carrier.
Time for coffee. A short break while we talked turkey.
"I'm thinking of keeping Snowflake," Richard said to me about his favorite. I've spoken of the way she would cuddle down into our arms when we'd pick her up, instantly relaxed. But in a moment Richard had reversed himself and was back to his original plan to take Snowflake and Sassie, the limping survivor of an earlier raccoon attack, while keeping Rasputin, a well-formed, proud turkey, ideal for breeding later. Warmed by the caffiene in a cup, Richard went out to gather the turkeys from the coop and within seconds was back outside with Sassie squawking in his arms.
"You'll never believe this," Richard said, a bit stunned. "Snowflake's gone." And it was true, she was nowhere to be found. We thought she had been in the pen last night when we had closed up, but it had been a dark foggy night, we were rushing to fix dinner for friends, we were probably distracted by the impending processing and we hadn't checked closely enough. I quickly checked over in Royce's fields, near his house. No sign of her anywhere. She'd flown the coop. Or is hiding, waiting to return. Or a hunter got her.
'Well, your choice has been made,' I chimed in. Richard agreed and we opted to take Rasputin instead, knowing we had 5 healthy turkey chicks growing bigger everyday to take their place. Done, in, crated.
From this point on, I have to admit, my behavior wasn't of stellar quality. It may have been the combination of what was being done, of schedules to be met, of my controlling manner kicking in to deal with what I was feeling, of Mishkin and Ginger's eyes looking out at me from the crates, but -- there are no buts. It was what it was. "You're driving me crazy!" Richard snapped at me. And I probably was. He took off in a bit of a huff. A quick apology message left on his voice mail to be gotten at some time in the future.
Just before he left, though, he asked me to let the geese up in the coop loose so "I can see some of the geese running free." I unlatched the gate and stepped back for Shmuel, Mary Ann, Daphne, and Felicity to run out. They usually call and caw and flap their wings in excitement. But this time they just walked out, silent.
'Look at them,' I called to Richard.
"They know something's different. They're wondering where the others are."
There were no calls, no wing flapping, nothing. I was dreading hearing them call and Ginger and Mishkin calling to them from inside the crate in the car. But it didn't happen. We had speculated whether it makes any difference, whether they'll miss them. I don't know. I don't know.
I'm sitting in the front of the Village Store writing this. I brought in Richard's car to get snow tires put on and prepare for our upcoming Thanksgiving trip while he's taken our Outback north to the processing site. He must be there by now. No idea how big a crowd of locals will show up, no idea how long it will take. He told me he was hoping it would be quick, that he could go off and busy himself, distract himself, be out of hearing of goose calls.
"They're supposed to be very good," he assured himself and me. And indeed, the processors have been highly recommended by dear friends of ours who have used their services in the past. But still, but still. I was just thinking that Richard has been the one who's unintentionally experienced so much death when it's come to our animals. Beginning with our first cat Chocolate who he took to the vets for a check-up, to see why he had been so lethargic only to be told that he was riddled with Kittie AIDS and needed to be put down. He phoned me from the vets sobbing. And then there was the time he had to put an injured Canada gosling down; another time returning home to find 7 of his chickens slaughtered by a neighbor's dog; and now, this bundle of birds. Me? I've tended to luck into the births of things. There was a time there when Richard would make all the preparations leading up to the hatching of chicks and then be out of town for the hatching itself. It got to be very frustrating. Life and death.
Thursday morning, 5-ish Thanksgiving
I'm sitting beside Richard on the couch of a friend's in Providence. We got up an hour or so ago, unable to sleep. Yesterday when he got home, Richard filled me in on what had happened. A flood of images of the small trailer behind the house surrounded by pools of water and blood, of muscovey ducks sipping from the bloody water. Of the kind woman, Cindy, stepping out from the trailer in her rubber aprons, welcoming Richard, assuring him. Of her husband, assured and business-like in his work, sharing with a customer that the first time he saw a chicken killed he fainted. Of the woman ahead of Richard telling that her husband couldn't do this, that he'd put them in their crates last night and pet them all saying "It'll be alright" and she retorted "No, it won't." Of Richard - my dear, sweet, courageous husband - being scared and emotional and then it all lifting when he had the realization that we all will die and this happens to be their day to die. Of taking Ginger in his arms and covering her eyes so she wouldn't see (that's so dear). Of that gesture calming her. Of handing her off to Cindy and turning his back quickly, knowing though that it was done quickly, painlessly. Of having to wait with Mishkin, covering his eyes too. Of coming back later and Cindy holding Mishkin's head, admiring it, and Richard taking it in, not in horror, in acceptance. Of noticing parts of birds around, a bucket of heads, and Mishkin's white, beautiful head standing out from the other darker ones.
"I hate that I'm so emotional about this," Richard said, recounting all this. "I wish I wasn't so emotional."
And I held him and told him his emotion is what I love about him and that the emotion did not keep him from doing this deed, he took action, he went, he came back to tell me about it.
And then he needed to take a walk, to be outside, to feed the fish in our pond, to search once more for Snowflake, to see our geese swimming in our pond, to see life, living things. And we mused about this whole day not being a big thing to most people around these parts.
"This is like me cleaning fish growing up, no big deal."
And I who have not cleaned fish or cleaned wild game like my cousins and my Aunt Sis, who hasn't yet taken a trip to the processor's, walked along thinking 'I don't care, this was a big day, this was a BIG day. And we've grown through it."
So there.
So there.
So I give thanks to all our birds today, alive and dead. To Ginger and Mishkin, Whitey and Snowflake and Sassie and Rasputin. To Red and Pearl and Lacitia and Dottie and Shmuel and Mary Ann and Daphne and Felicity. To Jasmine and Goldie and Grace. Thanks for the eggs, for the meat, for feeding us in so many ways. For nourishing us with the sheer sight of you, swimming on our pond, flapping your wings, crowing, calling, keening, clucking. You lift our world, elevate it just a little bit off the ground and we are grateful for that.
Happy Thanksgiving.
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