Cassandra Gardiner returns with this week’s offering. Guest opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
Last summer my daughter wanted a small job to get some extra pocket money. A friend kindly suggested she could look after their hens whilst they were on holiday and she would be paid. Great I thought, a little job that suits her perfectly, and for two weeks we enjoyed freshly-laid eggs.
Less than a month later we were at Wolverton Manor Fayre and there in the Poultry Tent were a pair of beautiful lavender bantam chicks for sale. With a make-shift cardboard box chicken carrier, a sack of corn feed and two bantams we returned home. My daughter delighted, whilst I off-set the responsibility of yet more pets with the thought of freshly-laid eggs.
Settling in
The next day, as our news spread amongst my daughter’s friends, I got a thoughtful text asking would I like an old Ark to house the chickens in. By tea-time the Ark was in our back garden and the two chicks homed.
Our three cats and the dog fascinated by the new additions, sat starring at the perky fluffballs hopping around their run and feasting on the corn.
New pastime
As the summer days passed I began to wonder where my daughter was. Instead of her drifting in and out of my space, an hour or more would pass and there was no sound nor sight of her.
What I came to see was her sitting on the garden bench, a hen settled on her lap and her face filled with contentment.
Childhood memories
Partially hidden by two trees, away from the house at the end of my grandparents garden next to a greenhouse, was an small aviary. My grandfather would disappear for hours, no sight nor sound, to his world at the bottom of the garden. It was a treat to be taken through the greenhouse and into the aviary to see his birds.
The air was filled with flashes of yellow, canaries would flit from one branch to another joyfully singing to each other. As a child it was magical. The immediacy of the world was gone as I entered a wonderland of little flying creatures belonging only to them.
The prize
When my daughter arrived home from school, I asked would she like eggs for tea whilst pushing a ceramic beige bowl across the worktop towards her. Inside sat on top of three chicken eggs was a little, shining, pale buff colour, bantam egg. Her jaw dropped, her eyes widened as she staggered back and gasped.
For almost a minute she seemed to be falling backwards, as she realised after six months of nursing, stroking and petting her little feathered family this was our first egg.
To read more of Cassandra Gardiner‘s work, visit her blog.
