chicken dreams

The chickens exploring their new tunnel and paddock last spring.

Earlier this week I saw two little boys on their way to school, stopped in their tracks, looking at my house. They were agitated, talking with each other, eyes wide, their round faces alarmed. I peeked out to see what what was going on—escaped chicken, wandering in the garden.

Yesterday they paused again, so I poked my head out the door. "Are those naughty chickens loose again?"

No, they weren't. Not this time. Then the boys seemed to feel obligated to review every chicken sighting ever. But today, they wondered, where were they? I explained the chicken tunnel and paddock arrangement, assured them the chickens were safe, and they reluctantly went on their way to school. Clearly they wanted to see the birds.

Today there was only one fella, and I met him on my way out for a run. We chatted, and then he asked, pointing, "Is that gate supposed to be open?" He had been concerned about that gate the day before, I remembered. I explained that chickens don't have access to that side of the yard, but he did not seem convinced, so I said, "I'll go ahead and close it."

"I've been noticing it was open," he told me again. "I saw the chickens over there once."

He reluctantly started moving along, but watched me, wary, to be sure I really did close it.

As I started out on my run, I said, "Have a good day at school!"

"Okay," he said flatly. "I'll try." Then he looked back again, "I've been noticing that gate open."

I didn't think more about it for the next forty minutes, slogging through the rain, but as I rounded a corner on my final approach toward home, it occurred to me that at that age my younger son Seth had never been to school.

Not only had he never been to school, but he also spent a good many hours every single day peering out the window at the birds, both the wild birds and the very tame duck we had at the time, Mary. He had a Peterson Field Guide, and it's still filled with his sticky notes reminders. He recognized dozens of bird species, and gave names to individual birds in the flocks that visited daily. I specifically remember Water Love, Big Chub, and Bravery, a tailless junko. His obsession with birds soon transferred to all flying things. It should not have been a surprise to me that he learned to fly a plane before he could drive.

It could have gone badly wrong, all that lounging-in-jammies time in front of the window. I always say that my children were educated in spite of my best efforts rather than because of them. Fortunately, this guy has enough native intelligence that all that unstructured time didn't ruin him for rigorous academic study. He is in college now, and is what we demurely call a very high academic achiever.

Now, I don't know what my visitor's life is like, and I'm not one of those home education advocates who thinks of brick-and-mortar schools as a prison. (Although, the new high school down the road bears a remarkable similarity to a prison complex—but we'll discuss that another day.) Whatever his story, it was clear that my young visitor was deeply interested in those absurd chickens.

His earnest concern and his questions reminded me of a passage in a book I read years ago, Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Lives of Boys. The author described a young man who was a stellar student, and, if I recall, was mathematically gifted. The young man was explaining that getting A's in math was all fine, but he wanted to do something practical, like build a porch. Or maybe he said paint a porch. I only remember that there was a porch involved. And I remember thinking, "Well, of course you do!" We all need to have opportunities to do good, practical work, and to be useful.

And we all need to be taken seriously. My neighbor boys were not simply interested in or amused by the escaped chickens. They were concerned. And concern is a mark of engagement.

In retrospect, I'm glad I closed that gate. My first impulse was to assure him it wasn't necessary. But for him it obviously was. Now that my own children are grown, it's easy to slip into a kind of nostalgia about children, easy to make them into mere characters in the amusing tableaux that the chicken yard enables and creates.

I'm relieved, too, that there are children who are allowed to walk to school, because, aside from chickens, think of everything to be seen in those few blocks—robins, chickadees, Eurasian rock doves, crows and more crows, cats prowling, ridiculous yard art, daffodils already blooming (!), and countless other little wonders. Our downtime shapes us, gives context and meaning to our structured time. That alone is reason to celebrate the walk to school, the vigilant chicken observations.

And you know what? We have Gore-Tex now, people. There's no excuse not to get out there. Do it. Go outside.