Buying Happiness.

Money can't buy you happiness ~ but it can buy chickens & that's almost the same thing.

Last August we bought chickens again.  We did it differently because last time we didn't have any money so turned an old trampoline into a pen & invested in rescue ISA Browns.  I'm not a mad fan of ISA Browns.  I like pretty things ~ & chickens are no exception.  ISA Browns are not, to my eyes, pretty.  

So I bought a prefab coop & 5 birds: 2 black Australorps & 3 Barred Rocks.  In the way of these things the coop is made for bantams, not the nice plump girls I have, though they have been happy enough with it because they have spent most of their time decimating my yard.  However the plan was always to have more birds so we have been building a new coop.

I chose my first girls for being calm, docile girls, friendly enough & good layers because what I always knew I wanted was much flightier ~ Campines, Araucanas, Frizzles, Wyandottes ~ & I didn't want them all over my yard & absconding to the neighbours.  I have my fingers crossed that my calm older girls will lead without bullying & my flock will remain as calm & peaceful as it has been to date. 

My youngest, Kate, adores chickens & one of the BAs is hers, though Kate no longer lives here & is in no position to keep chickens.  Just the same she tells everyone she has chickens.  So I asked if she'd like to navigate me over to Mt Samson again to pick up 8 new birds.  It is going to cost me a bird because Kate promptly asked if one of the new birds could be hers.  I don't mind.  It's only in name.  

We are due to go & pick them up in 10 days but we have still to finish the coop & now the rain is raining all around.  

I like chooks.  It takes very little to make them happy.  They chatter softly as they go about their business & are so happy to do what they were made to do: lay eggs.  If only people were so amenable.

As a child I thought everyone saw the world the way I do: ephemeral, ethereal, intangible, hardly there at all really unless you gripped on tightly with both hands. There was only a light gauzy veil between the worlds & it was possible, sometimes, to catch enticing glimpses of what lies beyond.

  I have never liked cities because they shut out the thin places, weighing them down with concrete & steel, till the veil is heavy & the other hidden from view.

I choose to live in a thin place, not only because it is beautiful & one can hear oneself think, but because the other is so very close in the ordinary, every day things ~ & we are very ordinary. We keep chooks & cats.  We grow vegetables & air plants, elks & staghorns.  Our house is unfinished & our garden a jungle. Wallabies roam the beach & songbirds chatter about the bird baths.  And we have children.  The ones we own are big now but they have their own children & we begin again the cycle of the days of small things: lifting small bodies to feel for warm eggs under feathered bodies; nipping baby beans of sturdy plants to eat raw & green & sharp with taste; scattering seed ~ for the chickens, for the little wild birds, for the half tame wildlings that know here there is safety & water & shelter from the storm; cats by the fire & sturdy chairs to stand on to learn the art of kneading dough for bread or making enough cookies for everyone.

More & more I care less & less for the world beyond these small things.  Too much of angst.  Too much anger.  Enough hatred to sink the ship. But within, all is serene. The Prince of Peace reigns eternal & the good things His hands made are here to be loved & enjoyed by all who may.