CHICKEN NEWS from the BUTTERFLY TREE #6

© 2005 by Karla Andersdatter and In Between Books

I have decided to use 14 point type so I don’t have to strain to see my computer, but honestly it still looks too small to me. I go to ZOOM, but unfortunately in Apple Works there is no zoom that I can find. . . that’s what happens when you get a new computer. . . can’t find anything on the hard drive, emails don’t open, nothing works right. . . has to be the stupid computer, I project, knowing deep down it isn’t the computeer at all. . . it’s me!

However this month’s topic is really about Karma not computers, for guess what I saw driving down the hill just above Erica Drive on Highway One? Yup! The Bobcat. It was flat on its side and DEAD. Hit by a car. Somehow I was sad to see it, as it was beautiful and spotted with tufts in its ears and looked as if it was asleep. I was suddenly glad I hadn’t allowed my friend to shoot it in the yard . . . that it was allowed to live out its destiny, even though it had murdered my beautiful hand raised ducks and five of my chickens.

I am certain the chickens are psychically aware of the bobcat’s demise for they seemed relieved. When I told them about it, they once again started to lay eggs. . . beautiful eggs! Blue and creme, white and taupe, round and oval, small and large. Even the new pullet Fancy lay her first tiny round egg in the new chicken house. Butterfly, one of the survivors of the Shock and Horror Campaign of the now DEAD bobcat, is regularly laying her blue Arucana eggs for the first time in six months! Desdemona the Second and Graciella are happy to be part of the new community, and the best news is that Lulubelle, whom we thought dead, escaped the bobcat and was found a week later in a neighbor’s yard. I caught her in the mycopis tree with the help of Walter Postle and Stuart, the stained glass artist and fencing master, who sometimes lives at the Butterfly Tree.

Lulubelle is now one of 3 Rhode Island Reds that live in Chicken Land at the Butterfly Tree. Next month will come three new baby ducks in celebration of impending Spring. Even Princess, a most beautiful pullet (who doesn’t lay yet) has calmed down and doesn’t attack the other hens. But the one who seemed to survive best is Magic II, my small black rooster, who leaps out as soon as I open the chickens’ sleeping quarters, and struts hither and thither jumping on every and all the hens he can mount, hilariously happy; so happy, that yesterday he actually fell off the door down to the bucket of chicken feed, where he squawked and rose again. This is a happy rooster! No need for him to be a predator.

The only other news of great import is that OF LOVE AND PROMISES, A Forgotten Tale, the Story of Tristan and Iseult, Retold in the Words of Iseult, is expected from the printer momentarily, and will be ready to be signed and sold at the OPEN HOUSE at the Butterfly Tree on SUNDAY, APRIL 10TH. So join us then. And think about Karma. . . and what might be in store for the next predator who invades my chicken coop.

Karla