The Chicken Story …by Sandra Butel
Ain’t nobody here but us chickens… Yorkshire, UK by Sandra Butel
I am Sandra Butel and this is my beautywalk.
beautywalk is my practice of putting words to the beliefs, habits, and insights that have come to me as I shift my perspective from fear to love, and from doing to being. I have come to fully embrace the gift of who I truly am. I am developing my ability to push beyond worry and judgment into a place of open hearted service to myself and others. I am moving through the world with a true sense of adventure and awe at the beauty of both what the world has to offer me and of what I have to offer it.
I had quite the laugh a few weeks ago when I was tasked with putting the chickens in for the night. In my naivety I thought that I could put this task into a convenient packaging of time and put them away with enough light and time to take the dog for a walk after. It gets dark out super early here (I am currently in Northamptonshire, UK) and yesterday the sunset was at 3:58 pm. This has been shocking to me and has resulted in a lot of dark hours spent indoors with the fire burning.
Back to my chicken story.
My intention, as I have said, was to get the chickens in on my timeline. I set an alarm for 330 pm (I had a long nap right before as I was feeling a little under the weather) and headed out to bring those chickens in under the charm of my sense of ease and flow.
Well, they certainly had other ideas.
I used the meal worms as a way to draw them into their enclosed spaces and made the decision to sprinkle some on the ground around, which only served to keep them occupied with eating them and not following me to their coops as I had imagined.
Herding chickens, it turns out, is kind of like herding cats.
They do what they want when they want. I was totally unaware that they would be unnerved with me around as they didn’t know me. Honestly, I had never thought about chickens being aware of the people around or knowing the difference of who was with them at any given time. I wonder now if my purple jacket, purple scarf and red hat were noticeable to them or not. Are chickens colour blind or was I revving them up with my outrageous mix of colours as I attempted to herd them into their homes for the night?
This went on for a while - let’s say 45 minutes I would guess, and I finally managed to get 3 of them closed in for the night in the larger coop as I put the food container in there and they were drawn in to have their fill. So only 6 more to go now and Honey puppy was whining outside the enclosed area, waiting for her walk and for her play and her supper too. This was all going very well, if I do say so myself. (Sarcasm comes out in me at the most inopportune times).
I kept brushing my head against the top of the enclosure and leaning over to try to usher the chickens into their coop. I even set up a ladder for them to go inside as I found it on the other side of the coop and wondered if maybe that was going to help them get inside. No dice and it began to dawn on me that I was out of my league.
Time to call in the big guns. I was aware that there was some kind of animal eating the eggs and that if the chickens weren’t put away for the night they could very well get eaten as well. Not the greatest look for a pet sitter to lose 3/4 of the pets they were engaged to take care of! I texted the house owner to ask for more instructions and she assured me that when they were good and ready, and when it was dark, they would all be cozy in their houses. She told me that I didn’t need to DO anything, just wait for the right time and be there to close the door once they all went inside.
Jedi mind training lesson #2: let things happen when they are meant to happen and don’t push things to be the way you want them to be. So I put some mealworms in their coop and went to play with Honey puppy in the yard. I watched as the last of the light died down and the sky fell into darkness as one by one the chickens, rooster in tow, went inside their coop and settled down for the night. There was one straggler, teaching me to have more patience and enjoy the moments that I was gifted to play with a lovely puppy in the early evening air. When all was still and quiet inside the coop and when my eyes had adjusted to the relative darkness of the evening, I walked slowly away from the puppy, opened the first gate, pulled the wired door towards me to open it up and walked softly towards the door of the 2nd coop, where I closed the plywood door and slid the lock closed.
Voilà, the chickens were in for the night and I now had a happy puppy and a happy heart. I had let the experience teach me something and bring me to a place of wisdom and away from the rational brain that has had way too much to say in my life already.
My chicken story was designed to remind me of a few essential truths:
I cannot control how and when things happen.
The best course of action is to accept what is, find the joy in the moment, and play with the puppy (figuratively and literally) whenever I can.
Embracing the humility of my humanness and asking for help when I need it is a sign of strength, not weakness.
Are there times in your life where you find yourself moving too fast?
Times when your agenda blinds you to the beauty and fun that life has to offer you?
What small shift can you make today that will help you let go of fear and embrace joy?
I am Sandra Butel and this is my beautywalk. What’s yours?
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