Alice Walker - The Chicken Chronicles

Table of Contents

To my Mendocino familia: Laura, Efrain, Kervin,
Jonathan, and Toby Balandran-Garcia; and G. Kaleo
Larson, Surprise, and Miles. I am grateful for your
ever-present tenderness, thoughtfulness, and love.
And especially to my girls who, simply by being,
have greatly soothed and expanded my heart.

Buddha

I wish to thank Marc Favreau of The New Press for wishing to publish The Chicken Chronicles while they were still being written on my blog, and to thank my agent Wendy Weil for asking if they could be extracted from the blog long before I had considered this.

It has been a delight working with both of you on this project, knowing that we are, however humanly fallible, seeking a more compassionate world for those who have been, especially in the last fifty years, primarily objects of ridicule and previously unimagined cruelty. We can only offer what we have, and we have this. However imperfect, may it be of use in easing a sufferingendured by other beings whose lives often sustain oursthat is so common it has become almost impossible for humans to grasp.

May our call be from this day onward, to all the creatures and beings of the planet who have no voice: I have come to you, for you, to be a witness to your life and to extend whatever understanding and happiness I can.

ONE AFTERNOON, I noticed, as if for the first time, a chicken and her brood crossing the path in front of me. She was industrious and quick, focused and determined. Her chicks were obviously well provided for and protected under her care. I was stopped in my tracks, as if I had never seen a chicken before. And in a way, I hadnt. Though I grew up in the South where we raised chickens every year, for meat and for eggs, and where, from the time I was eight or nine, my job was to chase down the Sunday dinner chicken and wring its neck. But had those chickens been like this one? Why hadnt I noticed? Had I noticed?

Years went by. As they do.

Once I stopped moving about quite so much my interest in chickens, and memory about that particular chicken, asserted itself. I realized I was concerned about chickens, as a Nation, and that I missed them. (Some of you will want to read no further.) I also realized I ate so many eggs, I should get to know the chickens laying them. Whenever I visited someone with chickens that they tended with respect, I felt reassured. I wanted chickens of my own.

One night at dinner with the Balandran-Garcias, a young couple and their sons who are my neighbors, I broached the subject of my longing. The youngest boys eyes glowed at the mention of chickens, which I thought a good sign. He is five. The older boy, nine, seemed interested as well. Their parents and I, and my partner, theorized about how to handle the logistics of raising chickens for their eggs, and of course, sharing the eggs. At first we thought wed have a cage on wheels that we could drive back and forth from my house to theirs, letting the chickens fertilize our respective gardens on a rotational basis. We soon dropped this idea because it seemed cumbersome and messy. Plus we both have raised beds. What we decided might work would be for them to get the chickens started, when they were chicks, and then transfer them to my place when a chicken house I was dreaming of building had been completed.

This actually happened.

The boys loved the chickens and enjoyed caring for them. By midsummer when the beautiful chicken condo was ready for occupants, more chicks had been ordered to raise at their house, and their parents had bought them a dog. The day of transfer was joyful. Everyone loved the chicken house and yard, right next to my garden, so the chickens would have plenty of fresh produce, and admired the spacious interior of the chicken house, its roosts and its laying nests, which I had lovingly and with hopefulness filled with straw.

Sitting on the ground inside the chicken yard, I was astounded when a chicken strolled over and hopped up into my lap. The boys had interacted with the chickens so tenderly that they had no fear of humans. Instead this one sat very still, as I instinctively cradled it and began to coo and stroke its reddishcolored feathers. I instantly named her Gertrude, and later would call her by her full name: Gertrude Stein. She looked nothing like Gertrude Stein, of course, but I found whenever I called her Gertrude (I soon abandoned Gerty) the Stein naturally followed. Over the next few weeks there would be Babe, Babe II, Hortensia, Splendor, Glorious, Rufus, and Agnes of God, to name a few.

WHO KNEW WHAT would happen next? Who could guess? That I would fall headlong into a mystery. That I would find myself pulled into the parallel universe that all the other animals exist in, simultaneous with us. In other words, before a couple of days had passed, watering and feeding the chickens, I had fallen in love with them. They were so undeniably gorgeous, their feathers of gold and orange and black, the designs on them. I couldnt believe I had gone years without seeing such extravagance of wearable art. And of course I did not know who they were. I asked E.G., who calls me Mom. I call him Hijo. Son. Hijo, how did you manage to find such beautiful chickens? He shrugged: Well, Mom, I just said five of these and six of those and three of the other guys. And it was true, they were different. The Barred Rocks were black and white and Id seen their kind before. There were three of them, already aggressive and jumpy; we thought theyd turn into roosters. The others though, who seemed dressed to dazzle?

I looked on the Internet (another dazzling creation: the thing most like the wonder and spontaneity of Nature, it seems to me, that humans have conjured): there are so many kinds of chickens! Who knew? Growing up, my mother had mostly ordered, from the Sears and Roebuck catalog, Rhode Island Reds.

At first, going by their feathers, I thought they might be Araucanas, a South American breed. But it turned out those chickens are rumpless. Imagine. And that the people who raise them like this because ... without a rump it is harder for creatures, in the jungle and out, to catch them. This is too basic. Anyway, looking further, I saw the tufted ear feathers, the glowing, perfectly variegated back and tail feathers that my new chickens were sporting. They were Ameraucanas, and apparently, among other wonders, they lay blue and green eggs. Aquarians love these colors. But for eggs, I have to say, Ive always preferred brown. Its content of character though, as we know.