We are a month into our third flock of chickens. Actually, we have two flocks and a rescue. On Mother's Day we were heartbroken to come outside and find the second batch gone. The chicken wire had been pulled up, and somehow a masked bandit had yanked every defenseless bird through the four inch hole. My twins and I shudder to think of their fear, watching the kidnapping.
I could not bear to call the lady who had given us two boxes of peeping chicks and ask for a third. We were not worthy. I had failed to keep them safe. But another friend arrived with eight tiny chicks and a promise to fortify the coop. We kept them inside our house until they were bigger and their permanent home was stronger.
Then a week later the Chicken Lady called to offer me another batch. Today. I still could not form the word "gone". But she was on her way to bring them. Surely she would notice that the chicks in our care were too young to be the ones she had given us a few weeks ago. I fessed up. She was not horrified, but sympathetic. I was forgiven.
The two families introduced themselves with little peeps and pokes, and we settled them into paired bins in the dining room. Then the girl across the street brought us an abandoned turkey, not more than a few days old. She asked us to keep it with our chicks.
The fateful evening came when we tucked eighteen small birds in our coop, dubbed Redwall Abby. A nesting box was five feet off the ground, sealed up with scrap wood. The exterior walls had been shored up with more planks, rocks, steel wool and red pepper.
The first few nights there were signs of fowl play, but only enough to prove that the raccoons had been beaten. Steel wool was pulled out of several spots where they tried again and again to break in, but had given up in a sneezing fit. Ha!!
If you had asked me whether I was committed to protecting that first batch of chicks, my emphatic answer would have been yes. But back then I had only a dim idea of what I was up against. Through the process of losing them, and the flock after them, my commitment grew.
Once a woman who had been divorced told me something that was seared into my memory.
"I sometimes wonder if I love marriage more for having lost it."
While the stats for second marriages are not cheerful, there are many couples who have worked hard to learn from past mistakes. They have kept their promises secure.
