Lice anyone? Bumblefoot? Dirty bums? We had that perfect storm here at Darwin’s View. The result? Two plus full days devoted to cleaning out and cleaning up Cluckingham Palace. And chicken spas.

Nature has been fabulous lately . . . depending on where you live, but I live at Darwin’s View and here the weather has provided a little bit for everyone. I will note that nature is fabulous until ants invade the house and Carl finds a toe-biting beetle swimming in the pool. Then nature takes on a darker, less appealing tone. This day has been one of those days.

Sadly, we lost our Isa Brown, Lucy, this past week. She was the friendliest of our current lot, reminiscent of Ping in her forthrightness and willingness to be picked up and hugged. Her most recent molt had changed her from a scruffy tan and white ragamuffin into a nearly elegant elder. Last Wednesday night, I noted that she wasn’t on the roost but on the floor of the coop. Maybe she was having an egg?

As we returned home from voting, Carl and I enjoyed a different view of Mt. Monadnock: from downtown. Carl noted the many angles of the mountain one can see from the different points of this region, and what a different impression they give. I ran with that thought to perspectives, and how many people there are in the world, each with their own views and opinions. And that returned me, like a boomerang, to a topic that I’ve attempted to write about a few times.

I’m remembering January 2018. I had broken my arm that Thanksgiving. My mother, still alive if with Parkinson's, was visiting. It was a New Year and I got up to write, to draw in the dark of that day’s dawning. I built up the fire in the wood stove because the temperature outside was in the negative numbers. And the chickens at the time were inside the house. Then the fire alarms went off.

Here we are at Darwin’s View! How fabulous and bracing when the electricity in half of the house turns off, usually during a Zoom business meeting or cocktail hour. Our salt water batteries aren’t as robust as they used to be. Only five years old, this winter has exposed their weakness: an inability to deal with power surges.

I lost confidence in the Dodge three years ago, when the brakes became mere suggestions. But Carl—ever faithful, ever hopeful—stuck by the truck, defending it. “It works!” As if it were a dependable phenom, a version of Hercules holding up the world, not a miracle of jerry-rigged wires and duct tape. But Carl exhibited hints of disloyalty when he would furtively put down his name on the waiting list for a Tesla Cybertruck, a Canoo, a F-150 Ford Lightning, a Rivian, an Alpha Truck. He was on the hunt for a 4-wheel drive electric truck. The question being, would any of them be released before the truck breathed its last?

December, month of the shortest day of the year. I love its darkness. It speaks to my need to go inward. Summers are stressful; I get pulled in too many directions by too many shoulds. I should be outside in the garden. I should be in the study. I should be weeding and seeding. I should be reading and mulling. I should visit the chickens.

This past July, I made an audiobook of my memoir At Crossroads with Chickens, A “What If It Works” Adventure in Off-Grid Living and Quest for Home. I enjoyed the process of reading it aloud, revisiting what brought Carl and me to this point. And, to my surprise, At Crossroads with Chickens is not as humorous a book as I remembered it. In fact, I found it rather sad. Maybe because I am on this side of that crossroads and know what has happened since.