Today I Dug A Grave

Yes, it is true, today I dug a grave. It was only a small grave, just big enough for one sad chicken. This is a notable event, not because I dug a grave, so much as it is because I don't really like chooks... or any birds for that matter. I like some pictures of chooks, I like eating them when they are cooked well, I like the eggs they produce, and I like films about them (Chicken Run) but actually being near them is not something I enjoy. I live in a flat behind my parents house, there is lots of space in that yard, you see on the opposite side of the yard is a very comfortable size chicken house, I don't refer to it as a coop, because there is nothing cooped up about it. In between the chooks abode and my own is a nice bit of basketball court, so the proximity has never been a bothersome thing for me.

The chooks arrived during my two year absence, and I have adjusted to their presence in the last three years. They are friendly chooks, the brown ones more so than the black ones, but any of them will take a berry from your hand if it is offered. Some times if I accidentally leave my flat door open while they are having free-range time they will walk right into the flat and just hang out there. I chase them out and they cluck at the indignity of being shooed out of a nice establishment. I'm sure they cluck amongst themseles at the disparity in living circumstances, what with me having a flat with a kitchen and bathroom, and just me living in it, whilst five of them (now, unhappily, four) must share the chook house with no civil amenities at all! I ignore this idea, of course, but I'm sure they protest it none-the-less.

Two of the original black chickens have died since my return home. There were three black chooks originally when I moved into the flat, two of them died: Patsy (too much champagne) and Saffy. I don't remember what happened to Patsy, I really only remember her name because I collaborated with my mum (via phone from the UK) in naming the original chooks. Saffy's demise I remember well. It was probably about one in the morning; I was woken be an enormous ruckus coming from the chook house, I hustled to find a torch and got to the scene just in time to see the insidious perpetrator disappearing over the fence. I ran to the main house to rouse my parents (the chooks do belong to them after all) and my poor, yawning father came out to survey the scene. There were black feathers scattered around a seemingly tiny hole beneath the fence. Fox. Dad shook his head and wandered over to a pile of coffee rocks, he started hefting them over to the little hole, he made a stone border all about the compromised area, sighed "Ah well." and headed back to bed. So did I.

It was the dog that found her the next morning, somehow in the fray, I had manage to startle the fox enough to make it drop poor Saffy's corpse before disappearing over the fence. Mo found her in the tall grass behind the apricot tree, she is a clever dog so she barked until Dad came. Mo was visibly distressed, she's a chook dog you see: a beautiful chocolate coloured standard poodle, and she just adores the chooks. She doesn't want to eat them, Mo just wants to guard her chooks and keep them safe. I think she knew that she had somehow failed that day. Now just one of the original trio remained, so off we went to the poultry auctions to bring home four new friends for her: Whoopi and Oprah (they are both stylish black ladies) and French and Saunders (they are the friendly brown ones).

Today French died. I know chickens aren't meant to live very long lives, and honestly they have a pretty cushy set up going on with us. They have space, free food and accomodation, they get dusted with the appropriate powder to protect them from ticks, and they have fresh straw to nest on. I'm not overly keen on chooks, but I like to know they're happy. However, something changed a couple of weeks ago... French got sick. We don't know what happened, perhaps she just got old and wasn't up to it anymore. She couldn't manage to hop up into the chook house, so she would stay outside of the chicken enclosure and hide herself in the Rosemary bush. We didn't know this was going on, until one night I came home late, around midnight, and I couldn't find Mo, I checked the whole of my parents house before looking out to the backyard. And there she was, sitting in the middle of the yard. I walked over as she hopped up and trotted over to the Rosemary bush and stuck her nose into it; I followed her and when I got to where she was she sat down and I looked in. There in a chicken-sized hollow was French. I picked her up and popped her sleeping chicken form into the chook house. As I was walking back to the house I realised the back fence was open so I walked over to shut it,and as I did I peered out into the space beyond. For the briefest moment I saw the glint of matching silver moons peering back at me. Fox! Mo had been guarding French against the fox!The next morning I asked my parents if Mo had been inside at all that night. She hadn't. She'd been out there all night, and probably a number of nights before keeping her chook safe.

As it happens, a sick chook rarely recovers and French's decline was rapid indeed. Mum and I went to check on her every morning, and each morning she was alive. In the evening we would pick her up from the Rosemary bush and put her to bed. That first night was the first time I had held a chook; on the following nights when I picked her up she was still awake and she would grip my finger with her foot. That was a weird sensation for me particularly because the reason I didn't like chooks in the first place was because I thought their feet were creepy. But caring for French helped me get over that, I had chosen her and named her, I didn't want her to die, she was mine... a bit. After a while the other chooks started to bully her when she tried to eat,  so she would huddle in a corner by herself, I would go in the morning and take the other chooks out of the enclosure so she would have peace, we'd feed her seperately as well to prevent the cruel jests of the others. I don't know how it happened, but I ended uo loving that chook, and I only really knew it when I started waiting for her to die.

This morning was the same as the others, but we had all decided last night that on Saturday (2 days hence) poor French would be inhumed, we were concerned she was suffering more than she should. I returned home from university, not two hours ago, I began to prepare food, I took a tasty looking steak from the fridge and had it on the sizzling pan before I looked out to the yard. I could see French was lying alone, I went out to check her closely. She lay on her side her head stretched out before her and her eyes closed, she moved a little and shook her head, she was alive but only just. I went to Dad's studio (he teaches contemporary music) and interrupted some poor teenager's guitar lesson to request his assistance. He took one look at French and asked me to bring the axe. Neither of us are good at killing animals, we're both sensible people, we're not squeamish, we just don't like having to do the deed. I got the axe, and an old towel, we went out the back gate, I turned away, there was a thump. It was done. I turned back, "Dig a hole right by it, make sure it's deep so the fox can't dig her up." he went back to his lesson. I got the spade and I dug a grave. It was only a small grave, just big enough for one brave little brown chicken.