I went out this morning and found Camilla dead. She was killed by a raccoon. Feathers everywhere. I thought the coop was secure, but it wasn't.
Camilla deserves every bit as nice a eulogy as Hennessy got, but I don't have it in me to write another one so soon.
The irony is that she came near death a couple weeks ago because of an egg-laying problem and I fought hard and paid the vet a lot of money to keep her alive. I had the new little ones, Winona and Ximena, but it seemed too sad to lose all the originals so young and so suddenly. I had hoped for some flock continuity. Mais, c'est la vie. Or maybe the Yiddish is better: Man plan un Got lacht. Man plans and God laughs.
We buried her by the compost pile. She always loved pecking around in there. I care about my chickens, but they aren't straightforwardly pets and I haven't figured out where to draw certain lines. Having her oviduct surgically removed (a prospect we faced because of her reproductive illness) was an expense and an idea that made me uncomfortable. But throwing soil over her, keeping her in the backyard ecosystem, with the worms she would have enjoyed eating, felt right. I said kaddish.
I'm an avid reader of the plog Farmgirl Fare, and I'm reminded of the words of Farmgirl Susan when her sheep were being preyed on by coyotes: Sometimes farm life sucks.
You'll be missed, Camilla. Sorry I couldn't do better.
4 comments :
This one is hard to bear. So sad. We can know, though, that the original flock at least must have passed on their political philosophy and backyard wisdom to the newcomers. And you did them the best you could. RIP Camilla.
Thanks so much, Lo.
I thought of Camilla as "my" chicken, only in the arbitrary sense that whenever we have two of some kind of pet, one is mine and the other yours. Of course you took care of her. Still, I did feel a special fondness for her. I'll miss her robotic pecking that earned her the nickname Peckasaurus. (Chickens are related to Dinosaurs, after all.) I'll miss her determined egg-laying that continued even after she developed reproductive issues. And I'll miss her flopped-over comb. This feels like the end of a mini-era at chez polwick, a mini-era we wanted to keep going for a while longer. Alas, the future came sooner than we expected. R.I.P., little chicken.
Okay, I admit it. I'll miss her too.
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