This is Marzipan

This is Marzipan. She came to give old lady Arugula companionship when she was the last chicken standing and the two have been bosom buddies for the past 1.5 years. She’s a spunky speedy girl who zips around to scoop up treats, never hindered by her crooked little beak, and sometimes lays two eggs in less than 24-hours! She took the top chicken status over Rue and became a great, if sometimes bossy, protector for her in her advanced years. If I took either one of them out of the run, the other complained until she was back. Tomorrow she becomes a Granby chicken where she’ll gain a new family of humans and flock and where she’ll have multiplicatively more love and companionship. My heart is hurting but I know it’s the very best thing for her.

Since Arugula and Dad went on ahead two weeks ago, Marz and I have spent long stretches of the morning sitting in the yard together. She hops off and on my lap, preens her richly colored, fancy feathers while perched on my chest (?!) and generally stays close by. Her mood has been quieter except when she makes an almost rooster-like call in the mornings…mourning or beckoning or both? She lets me carry her all around and coos when I rub her chest. I think we may have been comforting each other in this raw time of loss.

We’ll sit in the yard together one last time tomorrow morning. When I take her to meet her new beings, it will mark the end of 9+ years of daily chicken rituals that buoyed my weepy soul beginning at another time of great loss. Marz and I have bonded these last two weeks in a way that wouldn’t have been possible without quiet sadness. In that near solitude there has also been new delight. I’ll miss laying in bed and hearing their collective morning talk down in the chicken run, the morning feedings and evening check-ins, making them little salads along with my lunch in the mornings, witnessing their pure joy when cooing and dusting in the sun-warmed dirt, their urgently expressed excitement when discovering some tasty morsels in the yard, and marveling at the complexities of their family system and communication. Oh, and the comical sound of Marzipan’s feet smacking on the hard dirt with a pitter patter as she darts back and forth in the run to be the first to snatch up tossed bits of string cheese—the only dairy I buy anymore. How lucky I have been to come to so intimately know the intelligence, unique personalities, and friendship of these beautiful winged and crested beings.✨💖🐓