Spring Chickens
"C'mon down, we'll let you in. The little peepers need to eat and drink, right?"
Mail-Order Chickens
Who could be calling at 7:25 on a Sunday morning? A serious voice, a working man's voice says: "Your mail-order chickens are in. Come to the gate and we'll buzz you through." It's the main post office down in Colorado Springs. They could have waited until Monday. The day-old chicks would survive on absorbed yolk until then.
Ahh, the gruff old mailmen. You know, the ones that lock the post office door at 4:59 PM and 59 seconds? The ones that don't want to hear about the snake bite antidote that you simply must get off to your dear, tottering granny today. At the precise tick of 5 PM, they'll lock the door in your face: "Tomorrow. Eight AM. See you then." Those guys, right? Their stony masks and tough guy disguises fall to the floor every spring at chicken time. It's Sunday, but they say: "C'mon down , we'll let you in. The little peepers need to eat and drink, right?"
Yep, 364 days of the year we're "bulk rate" to postal workers. Today Ilene, my bride of 20 years and I are "first class" with our small, peeping box of day-old chicks. All through the main post office warehouse, grizzled postmen smile. I think smiling is against company policy but I see no supervisors. We show a warehouseman the peepers. Charmed, he talks of his younger days. Soon we're back in our automobile and buzzed through the gate feeling like royalty riding our coronation coach, instead of country folk in a battered old car with a cardboard box full of anxious little chickens.
Immediately Ilene and I head for home, 30 miles east on the undulating prairie. A late winter cold front buffets us on highway 24, east of the 'Springs. I have the heater on "High" to keep the chicks warm. The little car hunts in the gusting wind and I herd it along, keeping it between the lines. My thoughts slip back through the years to when our onetime little girl, now a teenager, wouldn't have missed this day for the world. As a child, she eagerly held the ventilated chick shipping box in her lap. Reaching into the box with wide, shining eyes, she'd squeak with delight at the feeling of downy softness and the pecks of tiny beaks on her hand. Every chick was special. "Feather Foot," "Betty Bomber," "Brave Heart" - she named them all and loved them with all her heart, as only a little girl can.
As our girl got older she showed her chickens in 4-H at the county fair. She did well, too. Precisely documenting their growth and the feed consumed. Her chicken book was a labor of love that any animal researcher would envy. How she adored and doted on those hens! The chickens stick around our ranch house and hunt on their own, but she would herd them with a stick to the spots where grasshoppers were thickest. Sometimes a favored hen even got a ride in her lap on the swing set. I know, I pushed them...
Ilene is enthralled. She tells me to slip my hand into the box and I do. Little chirps, downy softness. Tentative little pecks from tiny beaks. I can't help but smile. She asks me to notice their rear ends, still in the shape of an egg! "Honey, I'm driving!" - But I smile at the thought. The strong wind helps our car make a right turn into the ranch supply parking lot where we pick up a new brooder light and some chick mash.
I can't help but miss my little girl and think on how she's grown and changed. Gone is her young carefree smile, wide and warm as sunshine. Broody, moody - these days she spends lots of time in her bedroom with the door closed, and won't look me in the eye. "Chickens are disgusting," she says now. "They're so stupid and messy. When I grow up I'll always buy my eggs from the store. Yuck!"
This from the girl who spent entire summer days at our cattle pond. She used to raise tadpoles and slugs in her bedroom. Now a self-aware young woman, her pond nets and collection buckets gather only dust. These days our new spring chickens go unnamed and seem none the worse for it - but I am...
Ilene makes little voices to the chicks as I again shoulder our little old car into that icy north wind on the remaining drive home. I think of how the circle is complete. Just Ilene and me alone once again. Two graying heads marking yearly rituals together without the wonder, awe and myriad questions of little children for company anymore.
Our teenager now seems so unsure of everything and yet eager to be grown up. I wonder, will I ever have my little girl, my little buddy ever again? When or if, she gets over this teenage girl phase, will she be my little friend once more? I remember when she changed. It came with my demotion from "Daddy" to "Dad."
I miss my little friend so very much. I know that life isn't about me and my wants. Life is about change. In the blink of an eye, little peepers grow into hens, no matter what. I hope for the best and realize that my innocent little girl is no longer so little. Our girl is learning about the world away from Mom and Dad. She's not a spring chicken anymore.
Tom Preble