Farewell to Chloe

(Disclaimer: You may want to skip this sad, meandering, depressing post...I'm in a 'valley' moment.)

Our last remaining Salmon Faverolle, Chloe, passed away this weekend. We believe it was due to heat stroke, perhaps, though it's hard to be certain. She was in the nesting box, which does get very hot, and it happened midday, when the thermometer in there read over 104 degrees. I truly have worried about the heat and whether we should get an AC for the coop, but we let them out during the day to wander the yard, with access to water and shade. She seemed fine that morning.

You know, American settlers have had chickens always...and I've never known anyone, including both sets of my grandparents, to provide AC for their chickens. Faverolles are very heavily feathered, though...

We started with five baby chicks, three Faverolles and two Australorps. We still have only the Australorps, and I don't think it's random chance. The Australorps are sweet, smart, and hearty, it seems, and I hope they continue to survive. Bach is still crazy broody and wants to stay and stay in that horribly hot nesting box, and we're wondering if she'd get over it if we ordered some baby chicks for her to mother...though I feel a bit like we'd be experimenting dangerously to leave vulnerable chicks in her untrained/untested care.

Our poor rabbit Lizzie passed away last year when trapped in the heat (she'd escaped our yard and was caught in a cage in a neighbor's yard for the day, not discovered until early evening). The summer heat is horrendous... You know, we did put a heater out in the coop for the winter, and Michael installed a light-duty fan that runs continually to help ventilate the coop. I don't know...maybe we just need to be more careful not to order chickens who are touted as good 'over-wintering' birds. Maybe that automatically means they won't be good 'over-summering' birds.

I wonder...personally, I feel like withdrawing from the whole pet thing. It's so sad to lose them, and I feel so responsible. I freak out enough about my own children, though they're thankfully past the most worrisome ages (hmm, those teen years are approaching soon...).

Michael brought home a new rabbit (Zoe) after Lizzie passed away, despite my discouragement, and now we're already talking about baby chicks. Is it a question of embracing the cycle of life? And it's not like we're going to stop eating eggs any time soon...but, then again, it seems a bit like signing up for even more inevitable grief...though any relationship at all has that risk, doesn't it? Life is just too sad, sometimes...but perhaps that's just part of the cycle.

Maybe it's back to life being a balancing act...I don't think we can completely avoid grief and sadness. It's selfish to do so, even, at times. However, walling ourselves off from sad realities may help us not to deal with them, which may at times seem the best option. Likewise, throwing ourselves into the thick of them can be too much...I have no real desire to experience the life of Mother Theresa, as much as I admired her.

A certain degree of callousness does provide strength. People who don't question, who accept their limited version of life, can often get along quite well for themselves. Tunnel-vision is how atrocities are allowed to happen, however, and to keep happening... but a certain amount of it keeps some of us sane, though.

We have an ongoing 'joke' between the kids and myself. When Alex was small, he would often get overwhelmed and would literally throw himself face-first onto the floor, crying "I can't do it!" (Ironically, until he was school age, it came out, "I can do it!") Anyhow, the joke is that whenever we're going over something that they find overwhelming and they start up with "I can't do it!", I tease that they need to go ahead and throw themselves face-down on the floor and kick and scream while shouting that. They always laugh, and it's a good reminder to them that they've always mastered whatever it is that they kicked and screamed about before.

So, maybe, even though I often feel that "I can't do it!" when I face the grief and sadness inherent in experiencing life...perhaps "I can do it." I always have before, and the cycle keeps spinning. I can kick and scream, but perhaps that's just wasted energy, like the kids have realized from our joke...

Chin up, then, right? Pretending to feel confident, happy, and vibrant not only makes others happier, it can actually induce that state to a certain degree, all on its own. This is important for this habitual wallower to remember! And things always do get better eventually!