The Infinity Scarf

Last week my husband brought home a plastic bag full of yarn, which was unusual for him, and he was quite mysterious about it. 

When I looked inside, it turned out to be a scarf knitted by our friend Nancy.  The card called it an infinity scarf and said that I should wrap it twice around my neck for warmth and comfort on the St. James Trail.  The scarf is blue and burgundy; it's made of a soft wool and it's very fancy with little fuzzy flowers.  It is a knitted ring, with no ends.  You slip it over your head, twist it, and then slip it over again. 

I don't know what to say.  I am overcome.  When preparing for a trip like the one to Santiago, it's rare to hear people say simply that they support you or even to ask you questions, other that that initial, seemingly innocent question whose purpose is to set up the dialogue.  "So," someone might say, "how far do you think you'll walk in a day?"  "Oh," I reply, "maybe 15 miles or so." And here it comes: "Well, if I were going, this is..."  how I would take care of my feet (good socks and lots of moleskin), what I would eat (nuts and dried fruit), how I would stay hydrated (2 full waterbottles at all times), the way I would spend my time (with a group of fellow travelers), when I would go (it's winter, you know)....   Someone asked me today, "Do you have a back-up emergency number?"  "What if you can't reach Fred?  What will you do then?  What if he can't reach you?"  All good to think about, but, as it turned out, the discussion was really about her brand new global phone.  Last time I saw this person, it was the ride to the airport. She wasn't offering me one; she just wanted to make sure I had thought about it. 

And then there are the people who should be going, too.  "I envy you," they declare, and then they begin to pack.  They point out what you should be taking (a cell phone, maps, a compass, a good pair of hiking boots) and what you should not be taking ("You're not going to take a cell phone, are you?" "No, not a book! All you need is YOUR book to record your experiences at night when you're not around the campfire."  "A pancho?!  No, not a pancho!  You have to have a jacket!"  How do people think of these things?   They come so well prepared.  They don't just mention things; they arrive with a point in mind.  They have thought it through and worked out all the details.  Any one of them could win the state debate trophy.

Sometimes they pause to see if I'm getting it all.  "So," they ask, "are you going to do it that way?" and if I say no, I think I'll be doing it this way, sometimes they just stand there and stare.  Sometimes they grimace a little or lift an eyebrow, but rarely, do they ask a question and almost nobody ever says, as Nancy did, I'll be thinking about you on your pilgrimage and I wish you well. 

So, this is a treat and I am savoring it gratefully.  Nancy, I will wear your beautiful scarf with affection, I will draw warmth and comfort from it, and I will carry your good wishes, or they will carry me, I hope, all the way to Santiago. 

Thank you.

Location, Location, Location

In a chicken coop, location is everything.  Our coop has three roosts that define the neighborhoods like railroad tracks. The front roost, where Roy sleeps, is high-priced real estate indeed.  Admission is by invitation only, which admit just three lucky hens a night.  The other six birds sleep on the back roost, perhaps a little close to the wall and consequently streaked white with chicken poop.  The chickens don't seem to mind.  It's comfortable there and safe, though unexceptional -- a sort of avian suburb, you might say, with hens warehoused shoulder to shoulder in a row along the branch.  Between those two perches and with one end right against the glass door, hangs the dreaded lower roost.  The low roost is where a young hen was pulled from the house and killed last spring, while I was installing my automatic chicken door.  An animal bent back the temporary wire barrier I had tacked up and pulled the little chicken partially through the hole, just far enough to bite off her head and leave the rest stuck there for the petsitter to find.   Even now that the chicken door is up and working, birds who sleep on the low roost must occasionally come eye to eye with a raccoon peering inside.  It's the kind of place a young girl dreams of leaving.

And leave they do, because in our coop the birds rotate.  Roy sees to that.  He moves the girls from neighborhood to neighborhood by issuing exclusive invitations to the high roost. 

I should tell you that although Roy shares his roost with three hens each night, there are only two invitations because Roy has had a special girlfriend since he was a little yellow chick, we call her the Number One hen, and in addition to other perqs of high status, she always sleeps on his left.  Roy sleeps in the center of his roost, and Number One sleeps on his left.  Dorothy, our eldest, sleeps two places down on his other side, and a guest bird sleeps between.  It's the guest who rotates.  I don't know the rules, but I do know that Roy enforces them.  I have seen him peck and crowd an interloper until she falls off the roost or moves to the back, so that someone else, the right bird, the invited guest, can fill the slot.  Four birds, no more, no less, sleep on Roy's roost.

Roy sleeps in the middle of the front roost and Number One sleeps beside him.

For a long while this winter, the guest bird was Arabella, with Ginger and Beulah taking turns from time to time, too, all mature hens.  Young girls start out on the lower roost, and eventually graduate to the back one.  All of ours have moved up -- nobody has used the lower roost since the incident -- but they still don't come uptown.  Their day will come, but for now they mature in suburban safety.

The odd thing is that Roy doesn't seem to like Arabella much, or Ginger either, for that matter, but he lets them sleep next to him.  Maybe the reason has something to do with fence mending or deference to age.  Or maybe the hens draw straws or have another way of awarding time.  For having lived with chickens for so many millennia, humans know little about their social systems.  Except, of course, that they exist.