Felix D'Eon

Diary ~ Tennessee in Spring, # 6 - Yoga and Chicks

April, 2006

 

April 4, 2006

My days are passing into something of a routine – Clover is a bit of a late sleeper, but I don’t mind – I get up and have breakfast and do a little reading in the morning, and when Clover wakes up we head out to do chores. His bedroom is down the hall from mine – I have to pass it every morning on the way to the stairs. Its been hot the past few days – he tends to leave his door open, and he sleeps in the nude; it’s a charming site, and I often linger in his doorway, admiring how calm and lovely he appears. Sometimes I just want to sit on the edge of his bed and stare, and perhaps pull the hair from his eyes. But I wouldn’t want to wake him. I suspect that if he did wake up to find me sitting there, he would not be alarmed. Nothing seems to faze him, and his capacity for affection is endless.

Our chicks have been hatching lately; the first born is my favorite. I baptized him Ganja, and he was followed shortly by Jesus, Rosie, and Kiefer. I stopped naming them after the first four. I was told that chicks couldn’t really do anything on the first day of their life, but Ganja was pecking at things right away, so I took him out to find some termites, and he loved them. He has already taken to following me all over the farm – everywhere I walk, he comes running after, and he is the only one to do that. We are treating them like human children, and not like chicks at all. We are obviously never going to eat them, which is why I suspect chickens are thrown out into the chicken coop from the moment of birth – so as not to form attachments. Stack, our cat, was a little alarmed at first, but she has grown used to, and bored of, the new guests, and suffers them to snuggle against her. They crawl all over her and snuggle in between her paws or in the curve of her tail, falling fast asleep in minutes.

Yesterday a friend of ours came over, Jordan, who lives in North Carolina, but is visiting The Haven for a little while. He spent the night and did yoga on the stand in the morning with the chicks. I asked if he wouldn't mind if I took photos, and he promptly pulled on his shorts; he was feeling a little shy, I suppose.

Other than when guests come up to visit (and we have a long warning, since the driveway is long and down below the house, so we can see any approaching guests from far off), Clover and I have taken to never bothering to wear any clothes at all. In fact, we don’t usually bother even when we have guests. Its very hot most of the time, and it allows us to jump in the river for a quick cool-off any time throughout the day. The photos below were shot by Clover at random moments over the past couple of days. Yesterday, I had a big photo shoot with Clover, which will be the subject of the next couple diary entries.

Below, I am standing on the balcony, looking out at one of the old barns. I had heard a noise and was wondering if a car was coming up the driveway.

And here, I had been working on a drawing of a captive Greek slave - Clover was out hiking, so I took a picture of myself so I could see what my hands would be doing.