Hens and Chickens (18 page)

Lila groaned inwardly. She gulped down the last of her eggs, and took a swig of coffee. “I’m gonna go do my chores,” she said, rising from the table. “I can’t wait to see how many eggs we get today!”

“We kin have numbers,” Wendell said. “I don’t see any reason why not.”

Lila exited the kitchen without another word. In the shed, she sat down on the wooden gray stool and pulled on her Muck™ boots. “What’s more important?” she asked herself, shaking her head in wonderment. “How many eggs we get to SELL? Or … should we have NUMBERS on the doors of our Mouse Motel!”

She grinned and stood up. “Don’t answer that, Lila!” she said aloud, and headed for the hen pen. Upstairs in the hen house, she padded her pockets with scratch feed and then tossed several bucketsful of grain down the chute. Then she put her hand on the metal frame of the spiral staircase, and carefully wound her way down the worn, wooden wedge-shaped steps to see her hens.

“Hello, girls!” she called, entering the coop. Already, the chickens had learned to recognize the hand that fed them, and they came running, leaping and squawking up to greet her, a veritable sea of red flapping wings that sent up a thin cloud of sawdust. “Here you go!” She tossed some of the scratch corn onto the floor of the coop and then opened the pint-sized door to the south-side outdoor run, tossing most of the remaining scratch corn onto the grass outside. She laughed joyfully as approximately two-thirds of the chickens dashed eagerly out the tiny door into the sunshine of the spring morning. Lila filled the feeders, and then rinsed and refilled the two waterers.

A soulful-looking hen lingered underfoot as Lila performed her chores. “What do you want, Sweetie?” she asked, schootching down to fondly stroke the chestnut-colored feathers on the chicken’s back.  “Attention, huh? Want me to tell you you’re the cutest little thing going?”

The chicken responded with a happy clucking.

“That’s what I thought,” said Lila dryly, reaching into her pocket. “You just want extra corn!”

Her favorite part of the chores came next – the egg gathering! Lila lifted Grammie Addie’s watermelon-shaped wicker basket from its nail next to the door of the coop, and then – one by one – she searched the nest boxes for the precious brown “gifts” left behind by the laying hens. She carefully ran her hand over the sweet-smelling sawdust, seeking out the warm spots where the hens had been setting. Within 10 minutes Lila’s basket began to get heavy and she calculated she had collected 47 jumbo-size brown eggs! Nearly half the hens were laying again already!

“This is totally awesome!” she exclaimed aloud.

Lila carried the basket of eggs into the cleaning and sorting room, and set it on the work counter that Mike Hobart had built especially for her height. She lightly removed any lingering manure from the brown eggs with sandpaper, and then dipped the eggs one at a time into an organic cleaner and sealer. Lila then sorted the eggs by grade, placing them – pointed side down – into the appropriate molded-fiber egg carton. Grammie Addie had stored her eggs in a wooden egg box the size of a small trunk, however, Lila had found the box impracticable and elected instead to use the more traditional egg containers, purchasing both 12-egg and 18-egg boxes, and 30-cell egg trays made from recycled materials.

Lila found herself humming a cheery little tune as she graded and sorted the eggs. She recognized the ditty, having heard it several times on the days that Wendell had worked re-wiring the hen pen. Now, Lila herself burst into song:

‘When all the world is dark and gray, keep on hoping!

When bad things sometimes come your way, no sense moping!’

When she was done, Lila removed the packed eggs to the cold storage room, which still contained the built-in wooden shelving from Grammie Addie’s day. She stacked the boxes up and double-checked the thermometer to be sure the temperature was cool enough. Then Lila stood back with a satisfied grin and surveyed her hen’s efforts of the past two days – altogether she had six gray cartons of fresh eggs ready for sale!

“It’s a start!” she said. “I wonder how this place will look a year from now?”

Lila exited the hen pen through the ground-level door on the east side, crossed around the front and leaned back against the south side of the weathered gray hen pen. She closed her eyes and let the morning sun warm her face and eyelids, enjoying the sound of her chickens
clucking
and
squawking
contentedly. A light breeze carried the scent of pine from the nearby woods, as well as the faint
rumble
of an approaching vehicle. Instantly, Lila identified Mike Hobart’s truck from the sound of its diesel engine. Her heart jiggered excitedly at the thought of seeing him again. “Omigod,” she thought, pushing herself away from the building; “I haven’t even showered yet!”

Lila grimaced, and glanced down at her dirty sweatshirt and jeans. She could smell a faint odor of ammonia from the chicken droppings on her boots. She sighed, however, and waved cheerily as Hobart pulled into the drive, alerting him to her presence at the hen yard.

Hobart hopped out of his truck and strode up to greet her with outstretched hands. “Well?” he asked, grasping Lila and pulling her close to his broad chest. His blue eyes shone down at her. “How many eggs did you get?”

“At last!” cried Lila. “A rational human being! I … I could KISS you!”

“So what’s stopping you?” he said, with a twinkle in his eye.

Lila lifted her head and placed a shy, affectionate peck on his freshly-shaven cheek. Her head instinctively sought the security of his warm shoulder, and she closed her eyes.
Peace at last!

Hobart squeezed her into a strong embrace. “My first kiss from
The Egg Lady
of Sovereign, Maine,” he whispered. “I’ll never forget it.” He dropped a return kiss on the top of her head, and released her. “I’ve got to run,” he continued. “I just got the call from the Shoreys in Troy—they want me to start on that new barn right away! But I wanted to see how the hens were laying, first.”

He was leaving already!

Lila quickly covered up her disappointment. “I collected 47 eggs today,” she reported. “And yesterday, I got 32. We’re in business!”

There was so much she wanted to share with him – so much she wanted to tell him! But Lila could see by the look in Mike Hobart’s eyes that he was eager to begin his new carpentry project. So she smiled at him and simply said: “I’m so happy for you, Mike. I want to hear all about the barn you’re building.”

“I was hoping you would. How does Sunday morning sound? I’ll tell you all about it, then.”

And then he was gone. And she wouldn’t see him again for two whole days!

Chapter 17

Fiddleheadin’

While Lila lamented the fact that she wouldn’t see Mike Hobart for two whole days, she was so busy scraping paint and preparing the hen pen for a fresh white coat, that when Sunday dawned she couldn’t believe that 48 hours had passed so quickly. Lila awoke at 5:00 a.m. when the evening’s sonorous chorus of peepers was replaced by raucous birdsong. She tossed back the blankets and leaped out of bed. It was a lovely spring day, and Lila raced through her morning chores humming happily. By 9:00 a.m. she was showered, dressed in a pretty floral print dress and ready for her visitor. Rebecca noted Lila’s change in wardrobe with widened eyes and a raised eyebrow, but said nothing.

Lila didn’t have long to wait, as Mike Hobart pulled into the yard shortly before 9:30 a.m. He hopped out of the truck and strode toward the kitchen ell where Lila greeted him at the shed door.

Hobart whistled when he saw Lila framed by the doorway in her silky print dress. “Wow!” he said. “Am I glad I didn’t tell you in advance we were going fiddleheadin’ or I never would have seen
this
!”

“Fiddleheading?” repeated Lila, stepping back to allow him to enter the shed. “Is that some kind of a funky folk dance?”

Hobart laughed, and slid his arm around her waist. Lila only half-heartedly tried to escape. “Nope,” he replied. “Fiddleheadin’ is an opportunity to get cold, wet and possibly eaten-alive by black flies in order to track down a wild fern that grows alongside streams and rivers, and tastes like an old dandelion.”

“Sounds, uh, lovely!” said Lila. She glanced down at her outfit and sighed. “This is the first time I’ve put on a real DRESS in years—you should have seen the look on Rebecca’s face!”

“The effort isn’t wasted, let me tell you!” Hobart said, attempting to get his other arm around her waist.

But Lila slipped from his grasp, smiling with satisfaction. “I think I better go put my jeans on,” she said, “or we’ll never get anywhere today!” She took him by the hands and pulled him into the kitchen. “Here, talk to Rebecca while I go get changed.”

“You’ll need a sweatshirt,” he called, as she disappeared into the bedroom. “And your boots!”

Rebecca greeted Hobart warmly, and offered him a seat at the table where she was embroidering a chicken onto a new red gingham cloth. “Can I fix you some sandwiches to take with you, Mike?” she asked, hopefully, setting her work down. “It’ll only take me a minute or two.”

“No thanks,” he said, toying with a spool of thread. When Hobart saw Rebecca’s crestfallen look, he added; “I happened to mention to Ralph at the store yesterday what I was planning for today, and Maude insisted on packing us a picnic lunch.”

“Oh, but you
will
come to dinner next Sunday?” she said, anxiously, settling herself back to her stitching. “Two o’clock. It’s our first dinner party and we’re inviting Miss Hastings and Wendell, as well as the Gilpins.”

“I’ll put it in my social calendar,” Hobart said, “which seems to be getting pretty filled up this spring!”

Most folks from Away think that summer is the best time of year to visit Maine, but they’d be wrong. Mainers know that the
best
season in the Pine Tree State occurs between Mud Season and Memorial Day—the few weeks of the year during which the state becomes a veritable Garden of Eden; when the flowers, trees, hills, uplands and woodlands awaken and burst into infinite shades of green and when the explosion of yellow forsythia is so bright that it hurts the eye to look at it, but before the serpent opens the door to the Garden and allows in the black flies, mosquitoes and the tourists.

During this peculiar time, while the showy lilacs and fruit trees hold tight to their buds for later May blooms, the untrained eye examining the landscape might conclude that it lacks the postcard perfection summer folks have come to expect from Maine. But those who live here year-round know that when the soft scent of April fills the air it signals not only that one has survived another winter but also that paradise is born anew. The locals know then that the suckers are running upstream in the chilly brooks, and that pockets of crystalized snow rest like fairy beds deep in the woods, and that the precious fiddlehead fern delicately swaddled in its brown paper wrapping is poking its head up from the black moss-bottomed streambeds only waiting to be picked!

Hobart parked in a certain spot alongside Black Brook (which spot shall remain vague as I have not been authorized to disclose my young friend’s secret fiddleheading location). He shrugged on his L.L. Bean® backpack containing his water bottle and Maude’s lunch, and lifted two food-grade, 10-gallon pails from out of the bed of the baby blue truck.

Lila’s eyes enlarged when she saw the size of the white plastic pails. “You’re joking, right?”

Hobart grinned, and shook his head. “Didja think this was a day off, darling?”

The two tramped up the brook’s riparian zone through the scrub brush – prolific alders, gray birch, fuzzy pussy willows, flowering shadbush – following the stream up and away from the road. Hobart went first, winding his way around thickets of bushes and trees, tracking the animal trail that skirted the brook and is distinctive of wildlife corridors. He graciously held aside branches of the larger trees to allow Lila to pass so that the slingshot-like stems didn’t snap back and slap her in the face. He smiled encouragingly at her each time, allowing her an opportunity to gauge by his glowing eyes the unbounded enthusiasm he felt for the natural world and the pleasure of the task before them.

They hiked for 10 minutes in companionable silence, weaving around skunk cabbage and blow downs, tree stumps and dead wood. Lila gradually discovered that her hearing became more acute as they moved further into the woods, away from the road noise and other sounds of civilization. She began to hear the rush of the black water over the stones in the brook, and the
plash
of the white, lacy spray, which reminded her eyes of Miss Hastings’ frilly white blouses. She distinguished the gurgling of sink holes, the trickling of rivulets and the drip-drip-dripping of morning dewdrops. In spots, the water-logged ground
squished
beneath her feet, and a jabbering jay kept them company, flying from tree to tree ahead of them, warning the woodland life with strident calls that they were coming.

They stopped at a widened tableau of land where the stream split up like a search party ferreting out the easiest route down to the bog. Here, curly-headed ferns popped up amongst the puckerbrush and looked more like the antennae of visiting extraterrestrials than something springing naturally from the earthy Maine quagmire.

“Is that them?” cried Lila, pointing to several fronds of fuzzy ferns near the main channel of the brook.

Hobart set down his pails and dropped his pack on a rotted tree stump. “Nope, that’s a
red
fern. The fiddlehead is the
ostrich
fern,” he said. He scootched down onto his haunches and pushed aside a cold, wet blanket of musty-smelling leaves, revealing a clump of darker, daintier ferns hiding beneath. “
This
is what we’re looking for!”

Lila dropped down beside him. “But they look EXACTLY the same! How can you tell them apart?”

Hobart plucked the fiddlehead, its stem breaking easily with a little
snap
. He held the fiddle-shaped frond in the palm of his hand so that Lila could examine it. “See the celery-like stem? That’s an identifying feature. And fiddlehead stems are deep green, not red,” he said. “But most obviously, young fiddleheads have this brown papery covering.”