Do you believe in miracles?
A backyard resurrection | field notes from a mountain running race
Dear friends,
I hope this letter finds you well. I loved reading your comments and thoughts about ‘life in the kitchen’, thank you for your generosity. Last week we celebrated my son’s ninth birthday, cared for a very sick pet, and I ran up and down a mountain. Many highs and a few low points, but we made it through. Here’s a story from the week and a few moments from the big trail run. I hope you enjoy.
Thank you, as always, for reading Wild and Wonderful and for making a little time in your day for my words, I am honoured to be sharing this journey with you. And a very special thank you to my gorgeous paid subscribers, your support and kindness mean so much to me.
With love,
Kate x
P.S. Scroll to the bottom for a little sprinkling of wild.
Last week, a miracle.
Under a warm March sky, in a cardboard box by our backdoor, a young rooster woke up from a coma and began to eat. For three whole days he had lain paralysed, eyes closed, legs stretched straight. And we had wept, for no chicken could survive this, no death could be undone.
*
He was my eldest daughter’s love. Rico was his name. The most beautiful chicken in the pen, so she said — feathers the colour of ochre with flecks of luscious green and luminous black. She had watched him hatch in an incubator before Christmas and raised him, along with ten other chicks, in a chicken tractor1 on the lawn in our garden. Is there is nothing more wondrous than watching new life emerge from an egg?
Summer was a flurry of feathers and crushed wheat and head counts —
Rico, Bill, Jimmy, Cinnamon, Ginger, Pop, Corn, Squid, Inky, Splash, and Mini.
11 tiny beating hearts, my daughter’s everything.
And now this.
His head in my palms, bright red comb flopping over my thumb, life fluttering under grey eyelids, as I hold a spoon of chicken re-hydration solution2 against a black beak. Drink, please drink, I whisper. Tears running down my cheek, as I say sorry for all the things I have said that cannot be undone —
The chickens are no longer bringing me joy.
The chickens are eating the seedlings and pooing all over the deck.
We have too many chickens!
Oh, how silly I was to wish them away. And I wonder if I am to blame for any of this. Perhaps I dropped a piece of last night’s avocado salad in the scrap bucket?3 Or perhaps it was foul play, a neighbour taking revenge on the poor boy for his morning chorus. We will never know. But now I am softening, and I think I like Rico, and perhaps he has something to teach me about patience and love and survival. If only it wasn’t too late.
I watch his feathered torso rise and fall. The older chickens stand at the wire of their pen, watching us. Our pet cockatoo, making peeping sounds, pacing along a branch in her aviary. It’s just me and the animals, all my children at school. I listen to the garden, the rattling of seeds in the ripening granny smiths on the apple tree, the bees at work in the purple borage flowers, and the frogs gurgling in the bromeliad in our greenhouse. But it is the absence of crowing that I notice most, like a clock striking without a chime. How relived the neighbours must be.
But now the flies are arriving and it is the poo stuck to his feathers and the crawling maggots that I notice. How horrible it is. My husband and I pull on gloves and cut away the muck, apply insect dust, and do the best we can to make him comfortable, to soften his death and this loss for our daughter. How hard it is for her to understand the brevity of life.
That evening I lie awake thinking about our responsibility as parents and the things we must teach our children. No matter what lies ahead, we must give them the gift of compassion and empathy, respect and kindness.
We must give our children a beautiful heart.
And caring for another living thing — a chicken, a cat, a fish, a bonsai tree — is a gentle way to learn about life and death, and loss and grief — how it is the natural ending for us all.
*
When my daughter found Rico lying on his side in the pen she had wanted to hold him, but she could not — her left arm in a cast after an accident a few weeks ago. Her heart ached but she held it together. Better than I have. For I can hardly bear it. How it is for the chicken and how it is for us. His sudden illness and slide towards death, our searching on the internet for a diagnosis and the reality of no cure, and the late-night talk about what we may need to do.
By the end of day three I want his suffering to end. It is enough. But when to do it. After my son’s birthday dinner? Before school? So we wait. My daughter’s hope loosening and darkness and sleep the only release.
*
But in the pink glow of the morning, Rico is awake and pecking at the red bricks of the patio. We can hardly believe it. He’s alive, we shout, our hands rising to greet the sun. We move his box down to the pear trees where he can hear his favourite girls clucking. Nestle food and water bowls next to his head, change his newspaper, and watch him slide his way out of the box and onto the grass. He is still too weak to stand and when he opens his beak no sound comes out. But he is returned, our backyard miracle.
*
When Grandma arrives after school, we tell her the news. I thought he was dead, she laughs, Days ago!
And my daughter grabs her hand and leads her down into the garden. Look, there he is, she says. And they kneel under the raspberry canes to watch Rico nibbling at an apple in the autumn leaves.
Field notes from a mountain running race
On Saturday I joined hundreds of wild trail runners and ran up and down4 our local mountain kunanyi, as part of the kunanyi mountain running festival. A huge high five to all my W & W readers who ran, especially those who tackled the alpine marathon and epic ultra (66km, 3780m elevation). You are incredible!
The trails were steep and rocky, my heart was beating so fast I thought it would leap out of my chest. Grey clouds blew in and wrapped tightly around the top of the mountain, showering us in rain and hiding the views of nipaluna / Hobart below. We were like pilgrims, climbing through a hole in the sky, a steady line, hands on knees, pushing our tired bodies upwards, our eyes lifting to the summit, the mountain our cathedral. We cheered the runners already on their way back down — Awesome effort! They offered encouragement — Almost there. Until someone said, actually you have ages to go.
*
But despite all of the hardship, the pain, the exhaustion, I loved the experience and I made it across the line with a beaming smile. Perhaps it was the deep fried eggplant from dinner the evening before (thanks for a great night out girls), the jellybeans and sandwiches at the summit, and all the cheering from my family (go Mum, go Mum). Or just the determination to achieve something that I thought was impossible not so long ago.
Every trail runner has a story, a reason to lace up their shoes and move their body in nature. And there were some incredible stories on the weekend — a mother running on the anniversary of her young son’s death from cancer, another mother running to remember an unborn baby, the girl wanting to beat anxiety, the father who is desperate to change his life and be healthy. And all of us held together by the beauty and wildness of the mountain, kunanyi.
*
My legs are a bit stiff, and my triceps are sore, but I’m mostly on a high, trying to hold onto all the things that come from challenging yourself physically and mentally, and surviving. I am already changed.
Two gorgeous poems
Other things
I’m loving Human/ Nature by Tasmanian author
. An exploration of how and why we think about nature. Can you love the wild and your cat?Laughed so hard my cheeks stretched reading this — a witty, whimsical, hilarious field guide for the almost forty. Wear the red lipstick and believe in the power of baking soda!
Enjoyed this short story about a remarkable tree by
. Three years before it died, the drought had come.And this article about the runner’s high, for those of you who want to lace up your shoes and run up a mountain. If you are interested in trail running tips and tricks check out Find Your Feet’s blog and podcast.
I’m focusing my attention on a nature writing collaboration. Throwing my pen at a short piece of fiction — for the first time (yikes) — and thinking deeply about our relationship with nature.
What are you up to? Let me know in the comments.
Views of the Du Cane range from the Labyrinth, Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.
Wild and wonderful is taking a short break in April. I’m looking forward to spending some time with my family during the school holidays, a mini wild adventure or two, and eating chocolate at Easter. I hope you have a lovely and restful Easter break too. I’ll be back with the next edition at the end of the month.
Until then,
wishing you all a little wonder and joy,
Kate x
A chicken tractor is a moveable enclosure to house chickens while allowing them access to the ground to forage.
A homemade mixture of sugar, salt, baking soda, and water.
Avocados contain a toxin called persin which can be harmful or even fatal to chickens and some other animals, including dogs.
I ran the 25km course with 1560m elevation.
What a mystery. Risen from the dead, and in time for Easter too! That's a great story about Rico.
And congratulations on the run. That elevation sounds tough.
Yay for Rico! One very handsome chook!
And I didn't know that about avocado.... so good to know now!
Congratulations on the big run, and thanks for another entertaining and also very thoughtful post.
Best Wishes - Dave :)