You may recognize my friend in the picture above if you are one who regularly reads my blog. That's Henrietta sitting with me in the adirondack chair. Last weekend she died at the ripe old age of 5 (that's elderly for a chicken, by the way). This is the photograph that the Wellness Center at Whole Foods Market in Princeton used to use for advertising my upcoming talks there.
She used to hang out on the front porch with our dog and cat and often greeted people when they arrived. She was part of the original flock of six we came to the farm with almost 5 years ago now--two others died off of natural causes a couple of years ago and three were dragged away by coyotes within the first year.
I'm not sure that Henrietta knew that she was a chicken or cared much about labeling one's identity anyway. Some people thought that she would have been a prize-winning entry at the 4-H Fair at Howell Living History Farm. They're probably right, but not being a member of the 4-H and plus not wanting to expose her to the pitfalls of sudden fame, it never happened.
She didn't particularly approve of the newer chicks when they arrived on the scene two seasons ago. Maybe it had to do with some kind of prejudice against the ideas of the younger generation of fowl these days. As a result, I created a kind of geriatric apartment for her in the garage. She seemed fine with that as long as she had her food and water and was still able to wander the yard at her leisure.
I will say this, though, never underestimate the intelligence or life force of any creature on this planet--even chickens (although it might not be a bad thing to question the intelligence of humans once in awhile). When people ask us if we ever eat our chickens when they are done laying, we tell them that we couldn't emotionally do that.
However, one of my childhood memories is watching my dad chop the head off a chicken when we were low on money and we needed a Sunday dinner. We would go down to my aunt and uncles, and Dad would go into the chicken yard and select a hen he thought was worthy of being roasted. The sight of a chicken running around headless is etched deeply in my brain--thus the old saying of "running around like a chicken with its head cut off" was based on a very real life scenario.
Well, the era of Henrietta is over, but she will always remain a symbol of an important transition in my life--the movement from a full-time career to the era of semi-retirement. That being said, I tip my hat to her and wish her well in that great chicken yard in the sky, hoping that she is reunited with her fowl-feathered siblings, sipping tea in the afternoons in a chair labeled "Henrietta: She could have been a contender."
Thanks for listening~
Jack
"Tha-tha-tha-that's all there is" for this post.
