eggs

Egg Basket

~ Stacy ~ 2 Comments

After a month of a nearly-empty egg basket, the fall moult is complete and the girls are laying again. That speckled egg is the first we’ve seen from our new Welsummer hens. Isn’t it gorgeous?


Keeping livestock adds rhythm to our days. The feeding and watering, the egg collection, the midday check to make sure everyone’s a-okay. Our lives take on the shape of seasonal activities, filling out during busy times like high summer or the season of Advent, and giving way to a bit more elbow room during the dark winter. But animal chores are steady, keeping time for us throughout the months, the years. Counting the chickens with my youngest son as they emerge from the coop each morning. Scratching kitty chins at lunch break. Dropping a fistful of hay in front of each rabbit at dusk. Continue reading →

The Cusp

~ Stacy ~ 10 Comments

The bald eagle circles the river basin and returns to her nest at the top of the pine. The hungry eaglets chatter to her. Their squawks and squeals echo across the water.

Daylight is growing longer. My dog trots along beside me, sniffing the deer trails, lunging at the disappearing flash of rabbit tail. He’s just a year old, springy and deft – and today he is more attuned than usual, picking up on the new action and songs of the wild.

Back at home, the first green shoots of tulips are showing themselves along the path between my house and garage. They’ll be dusted in snow another time or two before stubborn winter gives way and spring bursts into full glory — but that’s not stopping us from dragging dusty lawn chairs from storage and setting them up in that patch of sun in the driveway where we’ll page through seed catalogs and dream about kneeling in a jungly July garden. Continue reading →