Chickens

 The eternal question of which came first will not be answered here. When my brothers and I were deported to our maternal grandparents’ farm in Woodstock for the summer, we spent our first days running around the farm exploring, marveling at the machinery in the barn, chasing the cats that kept the rodents at bay and wondering at the vegetables (who knew they grew out of the ground) and flowers that were my grandmother’s domain.  The peonies and hollyhocks were her pride and joy; such resplendent colors; much better than any Crayola color set. 

And I remember a very large chicken coop that housed a couple of dozen chickens and a couple of roosters. Those were some lucky roosters. I would stare at the menagerie through the chicken wire for hours, fascinated. Real live chickens, with feathers and beaks. The only chickens I had ever seen in the big city were dead, plucked and hanging or bagged. These hens were plump, round, live and mean. 

Every once in a while the two roosters, Foghorn and Panchito, would eye each other warily but kept to their own territory, more or less; a certain detente prevailed between them. Nonetheless, I often wondered about their conversations: “Did you see that new young redhead?” “You mean the Rhode Island Red? Crow. She’s no spring chicken.”

Each morning my grandfather rose with the dawn to tend to his various chores, ending with feeding the chickens. He had a sack of feed in the barn from which he’d collect a metal panful, venture into the coop and spray the seeds on the ground. The chickens scurried around him, pecking the ground hungrily for their daily meal then would spend the rest of the day scratching for any leftovers. Meanwhile, as they ate, my grandfather nimbly and unobtrusively raided their roost for eggs. Once the eggs were collected he “flew the coop”. 

Like my grandfather, I woke with the roosters’ calls. I’d scramble downstairs and follow my grandfather outside, asking too many questions at too early an hour. Oftentimes I asked to feed the chickens with him but he always answered that I was too little. I took umbrage regarding my stature. I was almost four feet tall. I repeatedly claimed to be big enough. I was sure that I was big enough, I said again and again. Finally, one early dawn, to shut me up, he relented. He allowed me to enter the coop behind him even though he was sure that it was a bad idea. I grabbed a handful of seeds from his pan and looked at what I held in the palm of my tiny hand. Wanting the moment to last, I proceeded to dole the kernels out two or three at a time. The chickens weren’t having any part of my miserly handouts so they pecked at my legs, clucking and demanding more feed. I wasn’t having any of their sass so I screamed and kicked at the chickens who were taking chunks of my body for dessert. No part of this scenario sat well with my grandfather who, horrified, immediately lifted me up above the line of chicken beaks. My screeching and the chickens’ cackling brought my mother and grandmother racing out of the house to see what was the matter. Me sobbing wildly, legs bleeding, while my grandfather held me by the armpits was not a picture that made any sense to them; a resounding round of recriminations ensued. My poor grandfather was no match against three generations of extremely perturbed women. Red faced and dejected, he had no alibi or defense as he carried me to safety, apologizing profusely for what I had done. After all, he couldn’t very well blame me. I was only seven years old. 

To this day, whenever I have the chance to eat chicken, I take my revenge.

Snow

One late summer day my parents took me to visit my paternal grandparents in Timmins, a small town located above the tundra line. After a week of calling on old friends and neighbors, my parents hopped in the car and unceremoniously waved goodbye to me. Wait. . . what? I was five years old.

And so I went to Kindergarten in Timmins. October brought the first snow and the snow seemingly never stopped. I was less than four feet tall so in short time the snow was piled higher than me. It was ordinary to walk to school through snow gulleys so deep that I could not see over them. I counted on my very lanky grandfather to navigate us through the snow canyons. For fun, I would walk right into a snow drift, then wait inside my little igloo until my grandfather found me.

High school winters brought tobogganing parties. Winston Churchill Park provided a two tier tobogganing ride that could launch an errant rider into the stratosphere if the toboggan was not carefully navigated. Fortunately, the deep snow provided a cushion for a somewhat safe, albeit ungainly, landing. City snow was unlike country snow. It was just as pretty while falling but did not provide the same quiet peace of a country road. Nonetheless, I still had to crunch through it (five miles, uphill, both ways) to get to school.

All grown up and living in Los Angeles, I learned to ski on the aptly named Mammoth Mountain; 11 thousand feet high and 3.5 thousand acres of ski runs, although, ironically, the only people who appeared to know about it were the denizens of Los Angeles. While waiting in a lift line, the common question strangers would ask each other was “what part of LA are you from?” 

Annually, we would spend a week long vacation at other ski resorts in the Rockies. During one trip, after occupying the day skiing the various slopes of Aspen, we ended, as pretty much did everyone, at the Little Nell outdoor pub for some well earned hot munchies and cold adult beverages. After a few toddies, the couple with whom we were sharing our vacation suggested a visit to a local shop to look at an outrageously expensive ski outfit. Still dressed in our heavy ski gear, we ambled awkwardly to the shop, the inside temperature of which was the equivalent of a sauna. In a very short while, the combination of roasting indoor temperature, the smell of ski resin, the sweaty ski outfit and full bodied toddies left me much hotter than was at all comfortable so I wended my way outside to enjoy the cold air. It happened to be the blue hour of the day. Aspen village was covered in the silver grey blanket of dusk. Twinkle lights surrounding shopfront windows punctuated the landscape and cast a soft glow on the snow covered grounds. To a less than sober individual, the tableaux was magical. I was taken with the glittery glamor of the moment and delightedly wandered through it. The shops were beautiful and ‘exclusive’. One jewelry shop had an exquisite lapis lazuli watch displayed in the window. Cold sober I would have kept walking, but I was not, so I did not. I entered and asked to purchase the watch, handing my credit card to the keep. The watch was quickly polished and activated on my behalf, then placed on my wrist. While I admired it, the folded receipt and card were quietly slipped to me, after which I was quickly shown the door. As I walked out, still admiring my new purchase, my husband and friends called to me, having been searching for me with some concern. I eagerly showed them my new watch. My girlfriend greatly admired it while my husband asked about the price. The price? Uh, I wasn’t sure. Both men looked through my pockets for the receipt while my girlfriend continued to express admiration and, of course, wanted one too. As she and I looked back at the shop, the keep was pulling down the shades, turning off the lights and turning on the sign that said “Closed" while beneath it, in smaller type read "No returns - no refunds”. 

I do believe the term for this moment is “snow blind”.