Hen Chronicles: Saying goodbye

It’s been quite an adventure, full of joy and mishap, wonder and heartache, contentment and aggravation.

And now it’s over.

After we joined the ranks of backyard chicken keepers back in April 2012, our tiny flock shrunk and grew and shrunk again, eventually leaving us with Nellie and Hope, our Rhode Island Reds.

Hope, who had been ill for some time, died overnight Friday or Saturday. I found her in the coop at dawn Saturday, when I went out to feed "the girls." Nellie, who always talked up a storm when she saw or heard me approach with breakfast, sat silently beside Hope’s body. For reasons which I don't need to go into, we eventually decided in the difficult hours following Hope’s death that we could not keep or save Nellie, who was euthanized later that day.

The coop is empty.

My wife Liz and I learned a lot about chickens during this chapter in our lives, but we always strove to learn more about this underappreciated species. It was an educational journey that continued until the end. We loved our hens and cherished their company, even when one or another of them slashed her comb in a freak accident that splattered blood all over the place, or became egg bound, or suffered a prolapsed oviduct (don't ask!), or grew a rooster-like leg spur that had to be filed down weekly, or needed to have a beak trimmed or a toenail clipped or a fanny washed.

We enjoyed their antics. We took pleasure in their chatter. We marveled at their beauty and intelligence, the uniqueness of their personalities, the complexity of their relationships, the mysteries of their physiology, and their ability to do something as simply magical as laying an egg.

And over the years, we grieved their loss.

Snow and Nala and Stella, our original threesome, have been gone for some time. And now Nellie and Hope, who joined us as pullets in May 2013 when they arrived together in a cardboard box via USPS, are gone as well. As Thanksgiving draws near, we are very grateful to have shared all of their lives.