I haven’t posted anything on this blog in close to four years, since November 2019. That’s when we lost the last members of our small flock of hens.
We haven’t acquired any chickens since then, and although I’d never say never, it’s unlikely that we will. There was joy and pleasure aplenty back then, but too much heartache and anxiety as well. In fact, our coop and pen are long gone now; the ground remains bare where they once stood.
Yet all these years later, I still miss “the girls” very much, and have many heartwarming memories of them. That’s why I so enjoyed a quote from a book by Sean Flynn called “Why Peacocks?” I haven’t read Flynn’s book about his experience owning peacocks and I have no personal experience with those glorious creatures. But the following passage captures my attitude toward hens, based on our time with them during more than seven years of chicken keeping, from April 2012 through most of 2019.
“There is always the potential when dabbling with birds — and this no one tells you beforehand — of becoming enchanted,” Flynn writes, “and it is impossible to understand this until it happens.” Peacocks “have personalities and intelligence and foibles and charms and souls,” he writes, ‘and it all sounds ridiculous but it’s true.”
Flynn may be doing himself a disservice by describing his observations as ridiculous-sounding. If you apply his comments to chickens, for example, he’s certainly correct about the truth of them. In that case, at least, I speak from experience.
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