When I decided to homestead, my idea of a homestead was informed by a book I had as a child, whose title I can not remember.  I do remember though it had images of a goat named Billy who was naughty and had sharp horns and basically ate everything.  There was a cow named Molly who gave milk that made the Farmer happy.  There were two innocuous sheep that were the resident lawnmowers, a plump ginger cat and a dog who slept most of the day.  The chickens were well mannered and plump and laid eggs that had the most amazing shades of brown and blue and the Farmers wife always seemed to be collecting eggs and baking delicious looking goodies! There were fruit trees that produced fruit all year round and flowers that bloomed with vibrant colors, full of sweet nectar for the bees and birds.  The Farmers children would skip through the garden, picking fruits from the trees that seemed to always be ripe and juicy. That was what I expected when I started homesteading.  What no one told me was that you need to create this heavenly picture as it does not come ready made. 

A couple of Sundays ago, I was reminded of this in the most vivid way.  I was home as usual, ruminating on the sounds of the birds and other bugs and generally listening to the silence.  At some point, I decided to go and join one of my groundskeepers in the garden so we could transplant some chili and uproot weeds.  I find the uprooting of weeds one of the most cathartic activities you can ever undertake.  The sound the weed makes as it separates from the soil, the smell of fresh earth and the almost instant wilting of the weeds as I feed them to the chickens is balm to a troubled soul! My dear Mooshoo went with me – where I go, she goes, but she is always up to mischief, and in general, activities that do not seem geared for an eternity in heaven!

We finished transplanting the chili plants and proceeded to uproot the weeds. I then noticed one of the young chicks had “broken” into the garden and was making short work of my spinach and kale.  I asked the groundskeeper to catch the chick and toss it over the fence into the chicken pen.  Unfortunately for the chick, Moshoo had also spotted it.  Now, Mooshoo is a Jack Russel, and I do not believe there is any amount of breeding that can take away their instinct to hunt!  They are easily triggered by noises that sound like distress calls, which is exactly how the chick sounded as my groundskeeper was trying to catch it.

By the time the groundskeeper made the three leaps to the chick, Mooshoo already had the chick in her jaws and was gleefully working to end the poor chick’s short life.  Luckily, my groundskeeper is young and swift, and Mooshoo has a hesitant respect for him, so when he told her to let go of the chick, she reluctantly did.  There was damage though.  Mooshoo had managed to tear through the chick’s flesh and had almost gutted it.  My groundskeeper and I assessed the damage, and he came up with an idea.  We would perform emergency field surgery on the chick and give it a fighting chance at survival.  The idea seemed sound to me, so I agreed to it. 

My groundskeeper left me holding the chick, while Mooshoo yapped at my heels trying to get to the chick.  He soon came back with a needle and thread.  And I mean the kind you use to mend clothes!  At the back of my mind was a niggling suspicion that we were totally out of our depth, but this seemed like a solid plan.  As I held onto the bleeding chick, my groundskeeper proceeded to sew its torn flesh and skin back in place.  I remember thinking we should have chosen thread that matched the chick’s skin color since black thread would stand out! In hindsight, who worries about their look when they are staring death in the face? 

Once we were done with our emergency field surgery, we poured a generous amount of antibiotic powder on the wound, and isolated the chick.  I fully expected it not to make it through the evening, let alone the cold of the night.  I was so sure the chick would die, that I did not ask about it until some three or four days later.  The groundskeeper chuckled and told me not only had it made a full recovery, it was out and about foraging for bugs and you could not even tell there had been a wound as it was fully healed.  I wonder where the black thread went.  Was it absorbed into the skin?  Will this chick one day lay an egg laced with black thread?

I have realized that the price you pay for that heavenly picture of a homestead is this;  The willingness to get one’s hands dirty and perform emergency field surgery on a chick, even when you are ill equipped to do so.  This is the stuff dreamy heavenly homesteads are made of!