The Morning we didn’t want to have

I've been sitting with this post for a few hours, trying to figure out how to say it. We'd already lost Cacciatore the day before. We weren't ready for what came next. There's no good way. So here it is: we lost most of our flock this morning.

My beautiful Parmesan. Marsala. Blanche. And Blanche Two — because when one Blanche clearly wasn't enough, we named the second one with all the creative energy we had left and zero regret about it.

Gone. All of them.

We suspect owls. We can't prove it, and honestly I'm not sure it matters right now. Something found them before we did this morning, and by the time we understood what had happened, we'd already lost four more of our girls.

If you've never named your chickens, I'll tell you what happens: you stop seeing a flock and start seeing individuals.

Parmesan had her own opinions about where she was and wasn't supposed to be, and the answer was always wherever she wanted.

Cacciatore was bold in a way that was either brave or completely unaware of risk — I could never tell which.

Marsala was the kind of chicken who came running to greet me in the morning.

Blanche held herself like she was the original. Blanche Two held herself like she had something to prove about it.

They had names because they were characters. And now we're down to three.

Picata is still here. Florentine is still here. Kickin Wing — who has always had exactly that energy — is still here. And the three of them are doing what chickens do, which is walk around like the world is manageable if you just keep moving, and maybe they're right.

Mark and I are doing what we do after a hard farm morning, which is take care of the ones still with us and try not to say too much. Some days on this farm are everything we hoped they'd be. Some days are just hard. We've learned not to pretend otherwise.

This is the thing nobody tells you about farm life: it isn't always the sunrise. Sometimes it's standing in the yard at 8am trying to understand what happened, and the pecan tree is still there, and the sky is still the same sky, and you just have to keep going anyway.

We'll lock the remaining girls up in their inner coop for total protection. We'll do what needs doing. And someday, when the time is right, there will probably be new chickens — and they will absolutely, inevitably, get ridiculous names.

But not today.

Today is for the five we lost.

Rest easy, girls. Especially you, Parmesan. I miss you already.