We are so appreciative of our encouraging and supportive fans. You make the difficult job of writing worthwhile, and we would find it difficult to continue on without you!
This week, Nate has followed Lefty’s advice and built a larger home for all six chickens and will wait for Amelia to let him know what the next step would be. Then he will need go back to see Lefty and find out what to do next. But what will Amelia say when she had never spoken to Nate since being adopted?
For weeks, I planned and built a new home for six chickens based on what Lefty had told me. It would have plenty of wing-flapping room for them and lots of walking-around room for me. At every chance, I would tell them, “You have no idea how wonderful your new home will be!”
It was not easy building during the coldest part of that winter. At first, I had to wait for the occasional warmer days when the ground was not as frozen to make a deep foundation to keep everyone safe from digging predators.
It was also not easy building a large structure single-handedly, but slowly it came together. I remembered my uncle’s advice: What a man can’t do for himself, he has to pay someone else to do for him.
More than once, I turned to look around, hoping to see Lefty. If he had somehow been there like in the old days, I could have asked him what he thought about any part of the project or what to do next. He would have gladly given me all his answers without any need to pay him because he was family.
I did use quite a few braces that I called Lefty Braces because they made me feel he was working right along with me like in the old days. Lefty Braces helped hold large framing pieces in their proper place while being secured together permanently.
Everyone appeared to enjoy my evening progress reports. Amelia would listen, but she never expressed any interest or excitement like the others. Instead, she paced almost constantly. It seemed obvious that she was miserable in her confined space. She missed her big backyard in the country where she could fly freely with her hatch-mates.
Emily had adapted much better than Amelia. She enjoyed looking out at the garden. She asked dozens of questions about everything and always very politely too. She was fascinated by the flowers that would begin to blossom and the order in which they would appear. She was most curious about daffodils and how some had no fragrance and others were highly fragrant.
Even when Emily encouraged her, Amelia would not speak to me. It seemed as if she would never accept me or her new home. Whatever A Most Wondrous Place was for chickens, I was certain Amelia would never find it with me.
When it was time to move into their new backyard home, Emily was first since she was the smallest. She seemed to panic a little because she was separated from Amelia for the first time. Soon her curiosity took over, and she began exploring. She hopped up onto a fresh hay bale to get a better look at everything.
In the new home, she could see more of the garden. She told me about everything she saw as if I couldn’t see it for myself, but perhaps in a way, I couldn’t. At least, I had never seen the world through her eyes or in the way she described it.
Perhaps we sometimes need someone else to help us truly see what has been in front of us all along.
Amelia moved in next. When I picked her up, she felt much lighter than I had expected. She was only a little bigger than Emily. All along, she had been fluffing out her feathers for extra warmth, but it also made her look braver than she really might be.
As I carried her over to her new home, I thought back to what my friend had said about how Amelia needed me. She seemed so fiercely independent and in need of no one. She certainly did not need me.
When I gently placed her down, she didn’t look around to examine her new home like Emily had done. She didn’t even go over to where Emily was. Instead, she looked into my eyes and hopped straight up no more than six inches off the ground. That was all her little body would allow without any wing-flapping for lift.
She simply wanted to be picked up and hugged. When I raised her up to my chest, there was no hesitation in her body or in her heart. I held her close and kissed the top of her head.
Then Amelia spoke to me at last.
“That is all I ever wanted,” she said. “There are more important things than flying. This is A Most Wondrous Place.”
As I held her more closely, I understood with my heart what BruK-Ä-BwawK means to chickens. Gracie had been right when she suggested Amelia and I would learn together.
“I love you, Amelia. This is your home for as long as you want it to be. I will never give you away. But I will also never keep you from leaving. This truly is A Most Wondrous Place because we are here together.”
She said no more to me that day, but Amelia is what you might call “a chicken of few words” where her heart is concerned. Emily continued chattering away as I brought over Pearl and Blanche. Bessie and Gracie were last.
Soon everyone had found their favorite spot for sitting in the mid-February sun. Amelia’s place was by the door at the front where she had the best view of the speckless sky that stretched high above my own house’s roof and chimney. It was calling to her, but for the time being, she was fine with waiting there by the door to be the first to greet me.
She began spending more time with me, especially while the others played during their free-range play time. She would speak to me in a very low, almost hushed voice and tell me her secret thoughts.
I would tell her softly, “Amelia, I have good news. You and I are more alike than you realize.”
Then she would always turned her back on me and hurry off to another place until she was ready to return and share more of her secrets.
Each time, I would tell her softly, “Amelia, you and I are more alike than you realize,” before she would hurry off again, but she would not wait nearly as long to come back and tell more of her secrets.
We repeated this routine with each of her times away from me getting shorter and shorter, and then finally she would stay and share more of her secrets.
“Amelia, you and I are more alike than you realize,” she heard me say again and again. Her heart took its own time in accepting this as true. Then I would tell her some of my secrets, and she would not doubt me any longer.
We would do this for days in a row, almost as if it was a game she had made up. Sometimes it felt as if we are starting all over again at a place of doubt. But it didn’t matter. Eventually I knew she would come and stay with me without hurrying off to another place. This was simply her process for understanding love, belonging in a home, and trusting someone else.
Having been adopted by me six months into her life had something to do with this. She just needed extra assurance that she could trust me and that our garden was her forever home for as long as she wanted it to be.
“I would not give you up for anything,” I would often tell her.
“Not even for six bags of sunflower kernels?” she would ask.
Amelia can only count to six. That is all the toes that she can see. For her, six is the highest number. There is no higher number.
“Not even for six and then six more,” I would always tell her as if it is one of my own secrets.
She would close her eyes with a quizzical expression whenever I told her this. She tried to imagine that many, but she couldn’t. Then she would always smile because she knew however many it was, it was undoubtedly a great amount.
“You are mine and I am yours for as long as you want it to be that way,” I would always tell her.
She would always say to me, “Yes, we are more alike than I realize.”
Then one day, she added something else. “But having a choice is what I miss.”
So I needed to see Lefty again and let him know.
Until next time…
Just to clarify, the illustrations that you see at the beginning of each Substack Newsletter here is not necessarily what would be in this next project when published. If they are used, they will be in black and white. Color illustrations would make the printing cost prohibitive for a book of over 300 pages. But I know that some of you, like me, love color illustrations. So just realize that these are likely only for here to spark imagination of readers as to what Nate’s notebooks and sketchbooks might contain as he works on The Dictionary of Curious Words.
Thank you for reading along with us. If you have any thoughts you’d like to share, please use the comment section or email them directly to John.Spiers@yahoo.com. We are always appreciative of your thoughts and feelings, ideas and suggestions.
We are close to finishing the last few chapters of Volume Two: Over the Chimney and we are so appreciative of our encouraging and supportive fans. You make the difficult job of writing worthwhile, and we would find it difficult to continue on without you!
Thank you for reading!
John, Gracie, Bessie, Blanche, Pearl, Emily, and Amelia
Thank you all for this wonderful and delightful read. I love your illustrations too. Looking forward to stories from the new chicken house.
Such tender trust building. My only comment is that It felt like a jump from building the coop to completing it ."Even when Emily encouraged her, Amelia would not speak to me. (Something as simple as:. Even when the last nail was in and all was clean and ready for her and her friends.) "It seemed as if she would never accept me or her new home . Whatever A Most Wondrous Place was for chickens, I was certain Amelia would never find it with me. " Very poignant.