windthread

i never count this as a large cloth…i guess it really is….it's pieces of denim stitched together that was the futon couch cover in that other life in new mexico.    Here,  it's the cover for the couch bed that never gets folded up as a couch because it's been Emrie's napping place since i've been here.   It could be folded up now…she no longer takes a nap,  but,  but when she comes she likes to climb up and lay there,  pulling Lace Lady's crocheted web over her.   it's her Comfort place.  AND,  who would ever sit…Way OverThere…we all squash up here at the Table.   Anyway…some of the seams are ify and some of the old denim is a little thread bare.   There was a significant split and i reinforced the seam but it would not last too long,  so in these odd days,  i finally made a patch.   There will be kantha all across.  now,  just begun,  but Holding.

Saturday,  when Jenny was here,  before we went on The Walk,  we were sitting in the Kidding House Corridor and above us in the highest Pine was a hawk.   It called repetitively  and we talked about all we'd researched,  how they won't claim as prey things over a percentage of their own  weight and that the bucklings are now about 10 lbs….too big,  so no worry,  but that hawk remained overhead,  watching.   And as the day drifted into going,   we made jokes about Talkie,  who had quit laying eggs some time ago and has become pretty snotty…aggressive,  how she was maybe deciding to become a Rooster,  we can get pretty crude.  That eve,  Talkie didn't come for her meal worms that had been the highlight of her day.   Then Sunday,  and i didn't see her all day at all.  In the evening,  at Meal Worm time,  i walked all over calling her.   Not a single sound.  Nothing.   Dusk came and no Talkie climbing up into her perch in the Morning Tree.   No Talkie.   This morning.  No Talkie and i felt her HUGE ABSENCE here.  How much a Presence she has/had.   There was such a Vacant Feeling…………….i gave into the sense that that Hawk had taken her.   Thought how i'd heard nothing shrill of her voice,  so it would have been fast and immediate,  the taking.   I felt a vast emptiness for this strange and unusual single chicken.   

When i was taking feed to Sunny Ray and Jack,   very SUDDenLY and FAST,   Talkie appeared… running through Nogal's fence out to where i was,  i exclaimed and went immediately to fill her feeder with fresh food,  the one that's down there in the Chicken Palace….she attended all that  but then immediately disappeared again.  I looked all over and she was nowhere.

an hour or so later i decided to go search Nogal's forest again.   I'd done that twice,  some days ago,  looking for a nest,  for eggs.  This time i crawled in to Nogal's calf hutch,  his Rain House.  and Lo and Behold.  Way in the back.  15 eggs.

Agency.

Right before this,  way past the usual Meal Worm time,   i waked down there.  Carrying the bag,  which she knows by sight,  shaking it,  calling her name.   She was there.  In the calf hutch.  Sitting.  Not Budging.   Silent.

a chicken.   a chicken who makes decisions.   who,  in this moment,  has divorced her Self completely.   From this House,  from the Herd she has always been part of.    ?????????

so much to understand.