It would be an understatement to say Wednesday morning was a tough one for many of us who awoke to the news that Donald Trump, narcissist and ignoramus extraordinaire, is the president-elect of the United States. I never was a fan of Hillary Clinton, but I saw her as far and away the lesser of the two evils from whom we had to choose.
When I headed out to the coop at dawn Wednesday, I was preoccupied with this frightening turn of events. But my thoughts were quickly diverted from the debacle of Trump’s win to the needs of our three hens: Snow, Nellie and Hope.
“The girls” had no knowledge of, or interest in, who will lead the country in the years ahead. Instead, their preoccupations were the same Wednesday as they had been on Election Day and the day before that: getting out of the coop as quickly as possible, digging into their breakfast, strutting around a bit in the pen, flapping their wings to greet the new day, and maybe taking a sip or two from the water bowl.
No matter what happens in the world at large, for better or for ill, our hens provide a daily reminder that the animal world is a universe unto itself, oblivious to the obsessions of mere humans. Its rhythms and cycles are predictable and unchanging, even when the headlines are terrifying and madness prevails on social media, cable television and the front pages of our newspapers. The country, and the world, may be in turmoil, but there's a welcome stability to be found in the henhouse.
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