A Sad Day Before a Happy Day

Far Paddock this morning.

 

 

It's a sad day before a happy day today.   

 

Tomorrow I go on holiday for a week to Bognor Regis, no it doesn't sound at all glamorous does it, but the hotel is lovely and the company will be even lovelier .... my Mum and some of hers and Dad's dancing friends.  A whole week of me being the 'baby' of the party, should be fun ...... she says with a naughty grin spreading across her face!!

 

But today is sad, I have just been over to let out the chickens into the misty morning and one of my lovely old Hylines has died during the night. 

 

She was one of just two of the last batch of girls we rescued that we have left.   We brought home a total of 20 birds and they lived their retirement well, enjoying the lesser pressure of being part of a smaller flock than the 4,000 birds they had lived with for their previous 14 months.  They gave us eggs and their lovely chickeny lives to watch and amaze over, and in return we gave them food, shelter and a cuddle whenever they felt the need, and they did from time to time.  It was a happy bartering of needs and wants.

 

She was going downhill for the last week, not in a painful or awful way, just in the way that you could see the age on her face, feel the lightness of her body and sense that she was losing the will that chickens need to stay alive and that they seem to be able to let slip at will.. 

 

 The sunshine this week in it's weak sporadic fashion gave her the will to live for another couple of days, for when I thought she was right on the edge the other day and I lifted her out of the henhouse and placed her in the warmth of it autumnal rays she rallied round and looked for food.  I placed a little mound of corn at her feet and she tucked in, after a drink she lay down in the sunshine and by that night there was life back in those old, tired eyes.

 

Last night I said my goodbyes as I stroked her tired head and knew she would not be there to see me in the morning, I was right.  This townie that stated a new life in the country, now knows the time for her little charges and usually gets it right, so glad I got to say my final goodbye to such a sweet little girl.

 

 

Rest well little no-name Hyline, you may have had no name, but you had a little piece of my heart.

 

 

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Sue xx