A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara
When I open the back door each morning the chickens run to the fence and begin squawking “Feed me, feed me, I’m starving.”
This continues as I fill the feed bucket and wade carefully through the sea of birds to the food pans. More than once I have stepped on a chicken toe causing even louder squawking. As soon as I put the feed in the pans, all is quiet while they eat.
It reminds me of feeding our children when they were babies. They would scream as if they were dying until they found the food be it bottle or breast. Then there was blissful quiet.
Our church is filled with young families with babies. Wednesday evening I had the chance to hold one of our newest babies as he slept. I thought of our gown son who is struggling with anxiety over a new job right now.
How I wished I could hold and rock him and make it all better. But alas, he’s grown and would squish me.
Perhaps I will put some food out for him. It works with chickens.
My grown son laughs at me. He says the first thing I say to him when he walks into the door is, “Did you eat?” Some things never change.
But the question is actually rhetoric on my part. Both he and my daughter-in-law, and yes, my fifteen year old granddaughter are all better cooks than I.
I can’t control myself, I still say “Did you eat?” Feeding our families is primal and universal. I have friends from all over the world and every religion who say, “Did you eat?”
However, *Cough, cough… I don’t know about their chickens.