I’m so honored to welcome Marie to the blog! She’s an amazing woman and has been the dearest encouragement to me over the years. I admire her writing and her swoony farm life. I so want to take a trip to Oklahoma to meet her. I know you’ll love her too!
Happy springtime! I am so excited to be saying howdy from Edie’s gorgeous corner of the internet. Like everyone else, I can barely express how much deep and varied inspiration I glean here. Xoxo I hope you like my story!
Well, it’s officially springtime in Oklahoma and we have all kinds of fun stuff happening at the Lazy W. New babies, new gardens, new attitudes, and so many worthwhile projects. We’re just really grateful for the additional hours of daylight and the warmer temperatures right now. Just a month ago I was repeating this mantra to myself, “The almanac says that winter’s almost over. The almanac says that winter’s almost over. The almanac says that winter’s almost over…” And it worked to lift my mood most of the time. But now? Now a fresh ribbon of hope and energy winds effortlessly through everything. We are loving and working a verdant path through every single day, and it feels like paradise.
One of the special things happening here is the arrival of baby chicks. It’s about as constant a feature of springtime as anything, right? Everybody loves baby chicks! People love them. Hens love them. Llamas love them, as this photo shows. But do you know who loves them the most? Our parrot. Bobby Pacino, our eight year old blue and gold macaw, has turned out to be a natural baby chick lover. He is borderline obsessed with the smallest, fluffiest creatures at the farm, and it makes me so happy.
Since we keep the chicks indoors with a heat lamp for the first several weeks of life, Pacino often shares a room with them. He sits on his perch or in his cage and just sort of… presides. Lovingly. With the chicks twittering and peeping quietly nearby, he now rarely issues those ear-drum-busting Amazonian screams. Instead, Pacino just coos and whispers to his babies all day. He asks delicately, “Are you ok?” And he says, “Hi baby” in this sweet little maternal voice, always uncannily human sounding. All it took was the gentlest leading that first day to show him how to treat the fragile creatures, and a South American chicken mama was born. I kissed the babies, so he licked their seed-sized eye balls. I stroked their downy bodies against my cheek, so he raked his enormous curved beak against their short fringed wings. I tickled their diminutive drumstick feet, so he… Well, this is where it got dicey. Pacino has crazy strong talons of his own, so even with an effort to be soft and easy, he poked and scratched the babies a bit too much with his “toes.” I had to play buffer here.
Every day that the chicks have stayed with Pacino, he has grown noticeably fonder of them. They have grown pretty fond of him, too. I pick them up, peeping loudly and objecting to being grabbed out of thin air by my human hands, but when I bring them close to his black and white striped face they grow suddenly quiet. Every single time they are face to face with him, they just stop peeping and stare, allowing him to investigate their tiny faces and lick their speck eyeballs or stroke them with his beak. I am pretty sure the chicks think this parrot is their mama. And he agrees.
Well, as you may know, chicks don’t take long to grow up. In a matter of a few weeks they go from small enough to fit inside a quarter cup measuring dish to as tall as a bottle of creamer and quite strong in their skinny little legs. And so bouncy! It turns out that this growth spurt is as heart breaking to Pacino as it has been for me to see my own (human) chickens grow up. The other day I offered a tall, bouncy teenager chick to him for his early morning cuddles, and that baby pecked him right in the face. It scared him but, good chicken mama that he is, he withstood the unprecedented attack (which might have been a kiss) and silently raised one enormous talon as a peace offering. He was promptly rewarded with another sharp, swift peck, so he retreated and hung his blue head. Broke my heart.
After a few more tenuous close encounters like that, I decided it was time for the chicks to meet a real chicken. The afternoon of their relocation from heat-lamp nursery to outdoor nesting box was emotional for Pacino and me. I let him say goodbye to each of the now leggy, hyperactive teenagers, and he dutifully licked all seven of them once more. He was pecked seven more times, then he actually said, “Bye bye.” I am not even kidding you. Pacino knew exactly what was happening, or understood my words or a combination of the two, and he said his goodbyes.
I wish I had a good photo to share with you of our parrot who became surrogate mama to our chicks, but the llama photo will have to do. And don’t be too sad for his empty nest. The first seven may be grown up and gone now, but he has another shipment due any minute now. Seven more quarter-cup size chicks with speck eyeballs that need a good licking. He will be in paradise for about three weeks.
The moral of the story? Get some baby chicks! They are sweet and adorable and add so much gentleness to your home. More importantly, I think everyone needs someone to love, someone to care for. Every creature has a deep well of love to offer and needs the chance to see it well received. Help that happen.
Happy springtime! May all your kisses be returned and may all your eggs be fresh.
Much love from the Lazy W!
XOXOXOXO
I love Marie! She is so kind and I too love her down to earth farm life!
Hi Ashley!! Edie attracts kindred spirits, I think. I have fallen in love with your blog and your book through her introduction, thank you so much!
Parrots and chicks? Apparently a match made in heaven. Or heavenly match. I love odd pairings and the tenderness it elicits in weirdo humans!
haha Shel, agreed! Odd pairings between animals and realyl ANY animal drama played out brings out good stuff in us weirdo humans, how funny! Thanks for reading! : )
I’m a social media junkie, my Hubs is not; but I love to share stories about my virtual friends with him, so I give them all nicknames. Before he met Marie in real life, I referred to her as Mother Nature and as soon as he stepped foot onto the fertile soil of the Lazy W, he totally understood. I love you Marie and you embody everything that is good and right about Oklahoma women. 🙂
Rose I have so enjoyed getting to know you and meeting your Hubs, proof positive that online friendships can definitely blossom in 3-D. xoxo As for Oklahoma, I love our homeland so much your words made me tear up. And I love you too. Thank you!
Ditto! DDDIIIIITTTTOOOO!
oh RDK you were literally the first writer to reach out to me and introduce me to so many great people, and you make me so proud to be an Oklahoman, thank you for your constant encouragement and friendship!! xoxo
This could be the beginning of a best-selling children’s book!!! Love it!
oooh la la Dana, what a cool idea!! I must go learn about this process… What a great idea! Thank you for reading! : )
Such a precious story. How cute is that pic of Bobby Pacino with that chick??? Omgosh, I’m dying from the cuteness! And living in OK myself, I love finding OK bloggers.
Hi Deb! Thank you, and yes the story behind Bobby Pacino’s name is fun, as is his whole crazy life, LOL! So happy to find another Okie girl, can’t wait to get acquainted. Thank you for reading!
So happy to meet this lovely lady and her wonderful animals. I keep wanting chickens and now I want them even more…
hello Mindy : )) I really hope you get to dive into the chicken-raising life, It is SO worth it in a million unexpected ways. Thank you so much for reading! Come visit again for more animal stories this spring. xo
That is so sweet!! So glad Pacino has new troops arriving soon.
Julie, thank you! As I sit here typing, a batch of seven new babies is under his close, loving watch. LOL
This is so precious. Animals can teach us so much! Thanks for sharing such sweet and amazing experiences Marie!
They really do, don’t they? Probably way more than we ever notice. It’s always worth taking the time to see. Thank you for reading Cora! xoxo
Thank you so much for visiting, Marie- What a great story! Amazing! Bobby Pacino- Sounds like a story there, for sure- I was raised with baby chicks. Brings back a lot of memories 🙂 There was a big chicken truck that overturned close to our place (after we had moved to where my Mom was raised) She gathered up a lot of the eggs and hatched them with lights- I was impressed. I two pet chickens out of that group we raised. Henrietta & Henry. They would fly across the yard to me and land on my shoulders. Those were good days. Thank you for reminding me of them 🙂 And one of our patients just brought us some fresh greens & eggs 🙂 YAY!
oh my GOSH Julia, what a crazy event, and how cool that she salvaged eggs, wow! I love chickens who love people, they are special. I bet Henrietta and Henry captured your heart. Thanks for sharing that!! And yes, fresh eggs just make commercial eggs seem watery, right? Yay for friends who share. Thanks for reading! : )
Marie is just a beautiful and loving in person and as blog reveals. Her farm is a wonderful oasis to retreat to as often as possible.
Edie, this fine lady is Melissa, one of my dearest friends as well as a member of our world-famous Oklahoma book club! She & I have both loved visiting here at lifeingrace for a long time…
Thank you Melissa for your kind words, you don’t know how much it means to me. xoxo (we have a farm retreat scheduled next week, wahoo!)
Warm, fuzzy thank you to everyone for reading and commenting! I look forward to getting acquainted with you all more. (my blog comments were broken earlier of COURSE but are fixed now, LOL)
Thank for the chance to meet your beautiful readers, Edie. xoxo
I just got my first chicks! So excited! Marie, you also know my blogging sister–Vesuvius–and we follow each other on Instagram too now. Fun to see you on Edie’s blog! I got to meet Edie last year on a trip to Texas. You’re both so inspirational! I’m happy to be joining your chicken club 😉
Cheers,
Heather @ Lark & Lola
P.S. I name my chicks, do you I posted photos of them on my personal blog: http://lastdayago.blogspot.com/2014/03/peep-show.html
Studente di origini indiane era stato denunciato dai giudici,Celine Outlet OnlineMilano,Celine Outlet Online, 1 ott. (TMNews) – Un po’ Arsene Lupin, un po’ genio dell’inuormatica. Ma un baby sacker comunque uortunato. Uno studente vicentino,Celine Outlet Online, di origini indiane, denunciato alla magistratura per avere violato i siti dei registri scolastici della sua scuola, è stato opzionato da un’azienda di ingegneria web cse lo vuole inserire nei suoi quadri.I responsabili della Ceremit
We just visited my dearest friend who lives in Laverene Ok. She of course had some darling chicks, ducklings & five puppies! Edie if you come for a visit I would love to meet you and Marie!!!
That. Is. The. MOST PRECIOUS story ever! Love it! I want some chicks… but alas… I have an HOA. 🙁