I am a chicken midwife

I'm practically a nana. Or maybe I'm more of a chicken midwife. I have no idea how chickens have been doing it for all these years, but I have single-handedly hatched some eggs - with the help of two hens and my husband who bought the fertile eggs off Trademe. But it feels like I did all the work. I'm the one who went out there and poked the hens every day and I'm the one who picked them up each day so that I could hold all the eggs in my eager hands. See? How did they ever do it before I was around to help?

 It started when our two frizzles, Pepsi and Cola, got broody and Beloved got soft. Believe it or not, it was actually his idea to find them some fertile eggs (on account of not having a rooster). I learned something very funny about Beloved then. It turns out that he had no idea how the mummy chicken and the daddy chicken reproduce! Seriously, he'd assumed that after the hen laid her egg, the rooster just strutted on over and dropped some magic chicken dust on it to make it turn into a baby chick. I asked him if he'd ever seen the sparrows on the powerlines giving each other...errm..."piggy backs". Apparrantly, that was news to him.

So, while we were getting around to buying some eggs on Trademe, I decided to slip some free range supermarket eggs under the hens; we'd been given earlier in the week. We got some new araucana eggs the next day so I replaced all but two of the old eggs and put them back in the fridge for omelettes. Long story (about 21 days long) short, those two eggs I left under Pepsi and Cola were the first to hatch - that was a surprise! I couldn't face cooking up their unhatched siblings so I threw them in the compost. The next day, under very close scrutiny by yours truly, three more babies hatched. I was beside myself with joy and excitement. One of my lovely friends even gave me a card congratulating me on my new "grandchickees".

Peekaboo! (or should that be "Peck-aboo?)

I'd heard about God being like a mother hen sheltering her chicks under her wing and had always assumed that she just kinda stretched it out like an umbrella. But I've been watching this modern family closely ("modern" because there are two mums and no dad) and have noticed that those chickees climb right up inside all that plumage. I even thought I'd lost them a few times until I picked up Pepsi, the more maternal of the two birds, and all these babies just fell out of her feathers with a disgruntled peep. I just hope that they're not all little itty bitty roosters because we're not allowed to keep roosters in suburbia and we'd have to find an alternative home for them if they are - and we all know what that means! About 180 degrees celsius in a roasting dish should do it...*ulp!*

This one hatched out of one of the eating eggs. I shall name it "Omelette"
(come to think of it, "Omelette and his/her sibling have extra toes so I might call them Tennessee and Marilyn)

Aunty Poppy

 My dog, Poppy, has taken quite an interest too. I'm not sure if it's the good kind or not but Pepsi's having none of it. She makes quite a fuss and will lunge at Poppy, placing herself at risk to protect her babies.

So that's what it means to shelter under God's wings. It's not just sitting around waiting for a supernatural brollie to pop up over our heads, it's about nestling in close - hiding ourselves in Him. I like it!

Where can I get a pattern for this chicken jersey?

Now, about those eagle wings that we're supposed to soar on. I really think I'll have to look into that a little more because I'm very scared of heights. I wonder if it's legal to have pet eagles in suburban South Auckland...

Feel like some good news today?

Zeeb is always up with the latest news and it’s usually bad. It was Zeeb who told me that Gary Coleman had died. She also told me about Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger and it was even Zeeb who was first with the news when Princess Diana had been killed.  When she burst into my room over the weekend asking if I’d heard about our friends I was a little apprehensive. Thankfully her beaming face implied that something amazing had happened. Our friends, who had been childless for so many years, had adopted a 2 week old baby. We were over the moon for them. Even though this little one has Downs Syndrome, to his new mum and dad he’s just perfect. With all that love being poured out on him, this little guy has so much potential. He’s been a much longed for baby and Zeeb and I RAN to the car to get to the shops. We felt like the wise men shopping for baby Jesus.

Do you suppose there was as much excitement in Heaven when I was born? I would guess to the angels I seem disadvantaged: “Oooh, poor wee thing. She has no wings. She’ll never fly!” But I like to think that God took one look at me and declared that I was just what He wanted.

“I’ve been making this kid for 9 months and I planned her long before her parents even thought about being...”frolicsome”.  As I grew up He might even have been thinking, “Gee I love how her hair frizzes at the ends and the way she’s so goofy. I love this kid of mine!”

Actually, I was a sickly youngster and one of the terrible side effects of my health was a bladder with a will of its own. At six years old I was belted by a harridan of a teacher and in front of 20 or so kids, I wet my pants in terror. Any self-confidence I may have been born with was dripping down my leg along with the wee and lying in a puddle at my feet. I wish someone could have told me that day what I now know: I am “fearfully and wonderfully made”.

I believe it’s the same for each of us. It’s Party Central in Heaven whenever someone turns to Jesus because each of us is special.  Some babies aren’t planned. Some babies aren’t perfect in the eyes of others. But I’ll tell you something and you’d better listen up: God loves you just as you are. He loves you if you’re short, tall, ugly, pretty, gay, straight, dishonest, kind, black, white, pink or blue, or even if you’re standing in a puddle with pee running down your leg.  Love is awesome but when I think about it with my human noggin, I don’t always like the people I love. “Like” means that I enjoy them, I want to be around them.

 

So right where you are today, God loves you, He thinks you’re lovely and he LIKES you

If I don't know who you are I'll make it up

I don't know what's gotten into my Beloved tonight. He's come over all spontaneous and after dinner, suggested we hop in the car and run away from the kids for an hour (leaving the older one to babysit). This took me by surprise - and I don't like surprises. "Coronation Street" was due to start in a little over an hour and I just didn't know if we could make it back in time. Besides, where was he taking me? He knows I can't go shopping with him. I always end up not talking to him for the rest of the day because I hate the way he lures me into the Building Depot with grand talk of a spa pool before he wanders off on his own, leaving me all confused in the "Unfamiliar Thingameebob" aisle. Thankfully it turned out that tonight he was planning a hot date at Dennys for dessert.
 

This was a nice surprise because I like Dennys, not so much for the food, but for the inhouse entertainment - otherwise known as people-watching. Guaranteed, if I ever see you enjoying a quiet meal at Dennys and I don't recognise who you are, I WILL be watching you and I WILL be fabricating an entirely new far-fetched identity for you. Being the creature of habit that I am, I ordered the banana split without wafers while my Beloved, never conscious of his boyish figure, settled on the hot fudge cake sundae. I didn't share his enthusiasm when he pointed out that he is now old enough to qualify for the Senior Citizens' menu. Instead I began to soak up the atmosphere of individuals making up the vignette of a greater performance that makes the world tick over.

The table behind us consisted of a middle-aged couple and a sulky, teenage girl. Nothing too interesting going on there. I think it was the mum's birthday and they were going to have a nice meal whether they wanted to or not. Across the aisle, things were a little more interesting: a woman in her late fifties with two little girls, possibly twins. Now this could be a juicy story. I decided right away that this impeccably groomed lady was single had enjoyed a successful career beyond her biological clock and the little girls were her mid-life crisis IVF twins. I had that all settled...until her partner joined her (she had no wedding ring). Never mind, my story could still work. Only, one of the girls called him Grandad while the other called her Grandma. Ah well, school holiday grandparents. Next table please.

Looks like we hit pay dirt with this one. There was a bit of an age difference with this couple.  Body language told me that they weren't familiar enough to be married. Obviously an internet-inspired date. He was no looker so let's hope his wallet would be fat enough to accommodate her tastes.  Mind you, she didn't look that shallow and he didn't look all that interested.  Then she started talking. I wasn't close enough to hear what she was saying but her accent gave it all away: Russian Bride! Obviously! Just as I was imagining what was on her profile, my banana split arrived and the look on my Beloved's face told me that I should start paying attention to my own table.

I have no idea who any of those people were and I was probably wrong about the assumptions I'd made about the lot of them. Call it prying if you must, but I prefer to think of myself as "inquisitive" or "interested".  I know I'm just a nobody trying to imagine what's going on in others' existence, but imagine how much more interested our Creator is in what's really going down in our lives. He doesn't just take a guess at it and make things up to fill in the gaps, He truly knows.  He knows all about me, all about you and all about the IVF granny. He knows how we think, when we're going to sit, when we're going to stand, when we need Him. His concern for us is way beyond snooping. He cares about every hair growing out of our heads (or not growing in some cases). The hands that flung stars into space are the same hands that reach out to save me.

And if anyone is watching my Beloved and me at Dennys, I'm hoping they're assuming that we're father and daughter because I'm way too young to order from the Senior Citizens' menu.