Not long after the sheep arrived and the final nail had been hammered into the sheep barn, I turned to Paul and mentioned how much I'd love to add chickens to the mix. He asked me to repeat myself, not because he couldn't hear me, but because he was incredulous. He wasn't really able to say too much- a bit of mumbling, stammering and staggering. Because I love him and didn't want to kill him, I let it go.

Once the snow was off the ground I felt it was safe to try to get “Project Hen House” off the ground again. This time Paul’s incredulous had been downgraded to a cross between grudging acceptance and a bit of interest. Josh, Paul and one of my students and friend, Jeff, began working on building the coop and I began researching hens.

I knew that I didn't want a rooster- too many whispered horror stories from conversations at my neighbors hen house. I wanted enough chickens to withstand some attrition (although, let it be known I really don't want any attrition) but not so many that it was overwhelming. Our project philosophy is always to begin well within your comfort zone. I decided on ten.

Breeds- who knew? Once again, each night I was buried in a farm book, this time I was reading about chickens. So many breeds: feathers on feet?, blue eggs? Large, small, medium? Once again I defaulted to the comfort zone; I chose breeds that were described as “good for the backyard chicken farmer”- aka- easy. I ordered: 4 Barred Rocks, 2 Brahmas (yes, it was the fuzzy feet), 2 Rhode Island Reds and 2 Buff Orpingtons.

I have a good friend, Renee, who owns a nearby diary farm but sidelines in chickens. She orders approximately 40 chicks each season and said she would be happy to include mine with hers: the more the merrier. I would buy chick food, have visitation rights and pick them up once they were Adolescents.

Like all expectant parents we took what we termed “our last vacation” in July. We got a sheep sitter to come each day to the farm while we spent a week at the lake. When we returned I grabbed my muck boots and headed for Renee's farm, crate in the back of the car.

Remember the scene in Rocky I when his grizzled trainer had him chase chickens to increase his speed? He growled and said “if you can catch a chicken- you've got speed!” Turns out that wasn't just movie talk. Fortunately, my brood had been separated from the original group so at least we didn't have to chase and sift. Finally we got the last of them into the crate: screeching like any self respecting teen.

Once home they spent three days quarantining in the coop. This is necessary to teach them where their new “home” is so that, come sunset, they will return to roost. Finally, day four, we opened the side door, complete with a little chicken, or chicken little, ramp to their yard. They came careening out of the house, shavings flying all around. Once in the yard they raced back and forth a bit, squawking and flapping. Some mock fights to establish the pecking order then they settled down to scavenge for bugs.

Chickens are really curious little dinosaurs. Each morning I walk to down to let them out and they are always crowded at the windows of their front door looking for me. Their funny little heads titling back and forth in anticipation, continuous guttural chicken chatter going on.

We haven't been quite brave enough to let them free range. Living in the woods, we often see fox, coyote and members of the weasel family sneaking around. The day after the chickens moved in we heard a Broad-Winged hawk screaming his welcome from a nearby branch. While the ladies have a large area for being outside of their coop, Paul made an adjoining gate to the sheep barnyard for additional space for them. They come running when I head over to open the extra gate in the morning once I have taken the sheep down to their summer fields. They then spend their day playing king of the manure pile, pecking flies and sheep poop and bedding down deeply into the straw inside the barn. One evening I brought the sheep up a little early and the door was open from the barnyard to the chicken yard. I had thought about what that meant for chickens paying neighborly visits, but had not fully processed that the passage goes in both directions; I wandered out and noticed a large, white-fleeced rump sticking out of the chicken door going into the coop. I opened the front door and a startled Daisy looked up at me. She didn't have any particular agenda, although if she could have reached the hanging food, she would have partaken of a hen-snack. She just seemed quite content to check things out. Some of the hens were sitting above her on their roost watching her watching them.

Adding chickens has added work to my life. There are new morning chores each day that need to be done, rain or shine. Each evening I button up the sheep then head over to the hen house for a visit. They are roosting quietly but for the occasional clucks. I make sure that the gate is latched with Paul's twenty-step locking safety system and shut the front door softly.

Often I find myself standing outside the buildings enjoying the stars. One of the sheep might be standing, front feet up on a stump, looking out at me, but all is quiet. We have found the deep satisfaction and purposefulness that we began all this for. These are things that keep us outside of ourselves and yet are inherently a part of us.

Did someone hear oinking?

Melissa Perley

The robin has returned to the empty nest outside the window of my studio. I stand and watch her sit, wiggle and flick her tail a bit: get up, sit again and repeat the whole process as if searching for the best fit.

While hiking this past weekend, among the tangled dead wood and dry leaves, were leek shoots of the brightest green.

Spring has sprung.

We have added a new celebration to our repertoire, alongside Christmas, Halloween and the end of black fly season..sheep shearing day! The ewes were about as puffed up with wool as they could get. They now needed a running start to push between the others for a place at the feeder. It was definitely time to lighten their load.

In determining a time for the shearer to come, we needed to find balance between nights that were still dropping below freezing and days beginning to climb into the warm zone. Warm being a relative term here: when you are wearing a twelve pound wool coat, warm is pretty much anything above freezing.

Once we decided on the date, we began to prepare. We needed to clean the straw bedding out from the barn so that the shearer would have a solid, flat surface to work on. She needed electricity and a hook above her head for her shears to hang in wait. Paul and Josh hauled extra gates up into the winter paddock so that we had an entrance and an exit. The goal in all of this, to include shearing – smooth.

Friday night I felt that odd combination of excitement and fear. The feeling that wakes you up in the night running details through your brain in a circular pattern that I believe one calls a stress dream.

It is recommended that you don't feed your sheep before shearing. The position they are put in is pretty much folded. This particular sheep yoga doesn't sit well on a belly full of hay. When I went out, for the fifth time, to make sure things were in place for shearing and to be sure the gals had water, they bellowed at me the moment they heard my boots crunching across the driveway. I avoided their pointed gaze as I hauled water buckets through their paddock. They knew, in the way animals do, that something was up.

I learned, from working in the holding pen at sheep dog trials, that it is important to keep sheep calm when in tight quarters. Sheep that are nervous have no sense of safety or, it appears, boundaries (I have watched a frightened ewe careen straight into a fence) I decided that I would be in the pen with the queue of sheep waiting for shearing. They trust me and I hoped that I could keep them calm with my presence and pocketful of grain.

Our lead ewe took the lead. What I assumed would be a difficult start went quite smoothly as I led her into the barn. Our shearer took her from me with a quiet confidence. The buzz of the shears creates almost white noise in the space. She moved purposefully, deliberately and without extraneous motion. It was a ballet of sorts and quite beautiful to watch. Once the ewes are sitting on their rumps, back resting against the shearer's legs they sit quietly. A couple of the ladies did some air-bicycle pumping but, for the most part they waited like my sons getting haircuts: with patient disgust.

Watching her, I couldn't help notice that it was as if they were stepping out of a wool sleeping bag. She “unzipped” them in one piece and what stepped out of the wool was a teeny lamb! Someone said that the term “sheepish” was derived from the look sheep give you right after shearing as they skulk out of the barn and turn back to give you one final look.

As the number of the shorn increased, the more obvious it was that it wasn't only us who didn't recognize them- they did not recognize each other for a bit. Suddenly - like school kids wearing uniforms, everyone was equal. Without her gorgeous silver wool round her, Beulah seemed to lose her I’m-way-more-fashionable-than-you look. Where as before she sashayed, now she skittered on skinny legs. Anne, the smallest, no longer seemed so small and decided she would vie for an improved position in the flock with some good head-butting. Maybe that was payback. I'm not sure.

Charlotte, the Black Mountain Welsh, went from having chocolate brown fleece to returning to the coal-black of her infancy. The most feisty of the group, when she stepped out of the barn's exit door- she broke into a stilted-sheep gallop, so happy to be released from wool that almost dragged on the ground. When I gave her a good rump scratching, she leaned into me with a contented sigh at being able to actually feel the scratching for once.

Our border collies watched from outside the fence, at the ready. When we needed the sheep to be put into the pen to begin, I opened the gate and asked Sam to help out. With a few commands and a couple minutes work, he had them all secure and ready to shear. A few neighbors were standing along the fence and they made suitable impressed sounds which always delights Sam. As I asked him to leave the paddock there was a bit of stuff in his strut: rightfully so.

Once finished we had a paddock full of sheep who were calm but a little confused at the feeling of the spring breeze on their backs.

Paul, Josh and I began the task of putting layers of new straw into the barn so that, should we get some cold spring nights, the sheep could take refuge. As we were undoing gates and sweeping up, I couldn't help remember standing and looking at these same gates almost a year ago and having no idea what we were doing. That odd feeling of excitement and fear.

As things seem to stand silent now for an undetermined amount of time- there is something especially poignant and comforting about the Robin's return, the crocus's brave rise and our sheep being sheared.

For Steve.

Melissa Perley