340 animal, vegetable, miracle
neon purple ones, and I observe the unplugging of their light when I toss
them in the basket. My turkey hens have names now. I do know better,
but couldn’t help myself.
/At the end of March, one of my turkey mothers found her calling. She
sat down on the platform nest and didn’t get up again for a week. Then
two, then three. This was Lolita, the would- be husband- stealer—the hen
who had been fi rst to show mating behaviors, and then to lay eggs. Now
she was the first to begin sitting with dedication. We expunged “Lolita”
from her record and dubbed her “Number One Mother.”
Underneath the platform where she now sat earning that title, we fi xed
up two more nests to contain the overflow. Together the hens had now
produced more than fifty eggs. While Number One Mother incubated
about two dozen of them, Numbers Two, Three, and Four were showing
vague interest in the other piles. Number Two had started to spend the
nights sitting on eggs, but still had better things to do in the daytime.
Three and Four were using the remaining nest the way families use a
time-share condo in Florida.
But something inside the downy breast of Number One had switched
on. Once she settled in, I never saw her get up again, not even for a quick
drink of water. With her head flattened against her body and a faraway
look in her eyes, she gave herself over to maternity. I began bringing her
handfuls of grain and cups of water that she slurped with desperation. I
apologized for everything I’d said to her earlier.
I was the free bird now, out in the sunshine as much as possible, walk-
ing into the open- armed embrace of springtime. A balmy precipitation of
cherry petals swirled around us as we did our garden chores. The ruddy
fiddleheads of peony leaves rolled up out of the ground. The birthday gar-
den made up of gift plants I’d received last year now surprised me like a
series of unexpected phone calls: the irises bloomed; the blue fountain
grass poured over the rocks; I found the yellow lady’s slipper blossoms
when I was weeding under the maple. One friend had given me fi fty tulip
bulbs, one for each of my years, which we planted in a long trail down the
driveway. Now they were popping up with flaming red heads on slender