Sept. 29, ‘09-YooHoo chicken greets me as I step off the porch. The door on Poultry Palace stayed open last night! I hope the 3 new Barred Rock Pullets survived. They’ve been laying the rich brown toned eggs that Hawken loves to gather. YooHoo is eyeing me up and follows me to the geese pen. I let the ducks out of their pen and YooHoo immediately charges in to clean up the scraps the ducks missed eating overnight.  She’s a fast chicken that’s lean and colored with orange and black.   Her name has a story that extends back to last Summer. My Ma was so kind to come and care for Hawken, while we were on vet route.  Tom and I swung through home to get re-stocked for more surgeries and heat up some left-overs to eat on the road.  I was walking through the yard and I thought I heard my Ma saying “YooHoo!” That kind of heart sinking sound that is a plead for help. Where was Ma? I knew Hawken was napping, so she’d be possibly in the orchard. Oh no! I heard it over and over. I’m running around the yard saying, “Ma, where are you, are you OK?” She just kept saying “ YooHoo!!”  Then the screen door on the porch flew open and Ma was there! She said, “Oh my word, are you OK?”  Yeah, we’re both OK, but who was still beckoning us for help!?? There under the splendor of the crab apple tree was a chicken, so boldly stuck between being a hen and a rooster. A YooHoo chicken that is a hen we think with other issues.  Several times a year we are YooHoo’ed and tricked into believing someone needs help immediately. Just the other day Tom came with the story of being YooHoo’ed @ John and Kay Weimer’s Farm. It appears YooHoo genetics are domineering and girls can crow too.  YooHoo and  more eager chickens hustle when they see me dumping out the  coveted scrap dish in the kennel.  I don’t use the term “covet”  lightly here. The scrap dish is a maroon plastic big container that resides under our kitchen sink. It is filled @ least once daily and we feed the penned up geese or chickens the contents. It is brimming with fresh vegetable leaves, fruit cores, pits, peelings, rinds and leftovers gone bad. I try to carry the scrap dish outside under the cover of darkness. Early mornings are best for us, so Tom can’t see what’s all in the dish. He gets to digging around in the scraps and will take my bait of a watermelon rind with a fork stuck in it for him to just splurge and eat it right out of the dish.  I plop and haphazardly divide the beets, 1/2 eaten hotdog and lettuce leaves up for the obnoxious cries of Sassy and Geezer are hurrying my mission. I open their kennel door and Geezer stands to show me he’s all that. He and I have an understanding that is rather basic.  When he first came to live on Welcome Home Farm, I tried to tidy his pen. He clutched my coverall pants leg and twisted with his strong bill.  He left a raised goose egg on my left shin through all the layers of clothes. Since then, I’ve mastered the smarts to first tell him what I’m doing, take a nice weapon for defense , like a rake and I never turn my back on him while in his pen.  He’s also developed a knowing that if he gets in my space-I quickly will grab him by the neck, look him in the eye and shove him backwards. He and Sassy are honking their gratitude this morning for the fancy feast fit for fowl.   Walking through the yard, I trip on Grandma Verna’s peony bushes. My scooter boots carry me for miles in a day- but they don’t compensate for the amount of time I’m looking up.  Billie is bleeting  beautifuly , beckoning  Billie goat banter for me. I stroke his beard and thank him for being my Billie goat.  Yoohoo and now the duck parade are hot on my trail. They want some of Billie’s grain that is strategically placed on his rock. He’s not much for sharing and nibbles the grain up in a hurry. The ducks stop and hang with Billie for the morning. They puddle in their drizzle bucket outside his door. He acts nonchalantly as they fuss over their morning routine and quack their approval of duck life. It’s so calm out and a surrendering fog has been cast like a sweet serenade across the beautiful land.  It’s being the observer of a great wonderment that un-folds in our every breath. It’s assessing the quiet, un-polluted spot deep within. It’s being able to be alone and not feel alone. It’s treasuring what I have, expecting miracles and  aligning with ceaseless abundance.  Sammy Cat is curled up in the Shack on a floaty-boaty-tushy-cushion. She springs to being fully awake and meows as she crunches on her kitty vittles.  I finish chores and meander meaningfully down the grassy lane.  I greet the grazing deer and they stand and watch as I duck my head and snag my hair and pants as usual on the barbwire fence. Then it hits me!  I fantasize about a “Woman Pass”. Down in IA trout fishing-there are all the “Man Passes.”  State  land to fish with carefully constructed wooden type ladders to easily cross up and over the barb wire to get to the trout stream.  I un-hook my pants and let strands of hair that’ll be gone with the winds. I hear muskrats chewing busily preparing for the cold season. A munchy, crunchy sound fills my ears. The cattle were resting off in Schultzie’s pasture.  In my peripheral vision I noticed extra movement. I wondered where the Red Angus Bull was then and assumed a wild animal had caused them to be on alert. There running across the pasture right through the herd was a buck. He aggravated a sleepy squirrel too. It’s such an exciting time of the season to be out amidst the great outdoors.  I’ve taken a daily walk for 20 years and I’m always so thrilled to see the surroundings and meet the day.  When I was growing Hawken, I  took him to Big Bend all but 3 days of him being in my swollen belly. Tom never mentioned that 20 below zero was too cold to walk across the frozen snow. I’m too determined to be stopped by those man made notions anyway.  I’d sing the baby a bornin’ song and  toss the nausea in the clicking ice that ripped against the banks of Big Bend.  I strategically placed chairs in the backwaters so I could rest in between the steps and crunch on animal crackers.  What a blessing to have all we have and realizing everything is as it should be.   Tom drops me off from vet route and I pick Hawken  up from Chelsea Golden’s. She is a gem and really we treasure her and her whole family.  She’s such a talented photographer, is great with Hawken  and a dear friend. Hawken enjoys visits over to Grandma Mardelle Arnoldy’s Farm  and gardens with her, when he’s @ Chelsea’s for special times. Hawken and I head out to start chores and I pack  a picnic for him. He selects the new lunchbox he won from the Arcadia Public Library Reading Program over summer. I stuff it with water, raisins, a  cherry flavored dum dum sucker, 1 homemade organic choclate chip cookie and a wet worn out red and white dish cloth for sticky sucker fingers.  He runs in the yard after his plastic lawnmower. It’s one that our friends Ty and Hana Schlesser had for FREE @ their garage sale. Hawken abandons lawnmower duties and tells me I should do it.  He’s starving and is reaching for just the right apple. It’s the one that’s the reddest and highest.  He takes 2 bites and hands it to me. “Here ya go-you eat it.”  I pick a fresh apple for myself and lob throw his to  the flock  of 5 sheep. We  decided to put whatever birthday money he received towards sheep. It’s a challenge emotionally to sell the fat sheep for us and this way we can keep these 5 female ewes and even name them!  We have a sheep buck to put in with them later in the year. When it’s time to sell the lambs then he’ll get the money from the lamb that he now owns and we supply the grain to fatten it out. A ewe is worth around $125 and he has one now to call his own. He named her Baa Baa  Black Sheep.   We bounce on the Trap Shack couch and he tells me stories about the old stove and how to build a fire. Outside of the Showroom is our basketball hoop. Hawken and I spend lots of time hooping it up. He digs in the dirt pile thats piled there for coon trapping demonstrations from Open Houses.  I see movement in the long grass and un-cover a mouse with big ears. He’s so cute!  I prompted Hawken to let Sammy Cat in the Shack. I turned and the mouse disappeared.  Then I bent over and reached for the poorly inflated basketball all caked in mud.  The deer mouse sat and I looked him in the eye and urged Hawken to hurry it up. The lad eagerly reached to touch the mouse. I caught his arm and said, “This is my mouse to pet.” Mousey sat all starry eyed staring up @ us while I sang sweet songs of his beauty.  I stroked his  head and down his back, admired his tail and told him what big ears he had to hear with.  We thanked him for the experience and bid him a fine day. Two days before,  Hawken looked in a small, square hole by the basketball hoop, in the worn, red barn boards. He’d tell me, “Mama there’s a mouse in der.” Imagine it and it will be.

Feel the Spirit,

Sue Roskos