Hello, Chickens.

Imagine a person's panic after arriving at an acreage under the terms of a house swap, possibly having signed it in a drunken flail in South Africa last summer, to find a menagerie of chickens, birds, and rabbits who are not only plentiful and time-consuming but also very picky in their grand cuisine. They, of course, would argue, that 'picky' is a judgment call, that they prefer the word 'discriminating' when it comes to foodstuffs. House-sitting isn't easy when I've got 35 companions, but the more acute realization of the past week is that birds are more irritable and impatient than any dinner guest I've served in my other serving job. The two jobs blur when I find myself weighing chopped boiled carrot on a tiny scale into 7 individual dishes, carrying them out on a cookie pan to the bird highnesses like some disenfranchised Maitre D'. 'I hope you like my cooking' I yell at the birds. As I distribute din-din, I whistle my way through the two dozen cages, not merrily, but to appease the birds that still think I'm the creature from the lost lagoon. Their chirps sound almost like human screams as they batter one another to escape to the outdoor flight as I enter the shed. My first day I was wearing a skirt and high heels, something, I now know, they do not particularly enjoy. There's enough racket as it is, I guess.

A couple of birds are nesting, and in one nest you can see the grey chicks and their ridiculous beaks moving constantly, as though longing to suckle something. But birds don't suckle, they regurgitate, and so Mama bird takes the lovingly-chopped apple and banana bits to them in her own way. And I never see this happen. If I try to look at the nest by standing on the stool, Mama jumps across the entire 5-foot cage to glare at me 6 inches from my face, and caw at me in her peculiar way while spreading her wings to reveal red inner feathers. It's a beautiful display, and I love when she does this, and so her ploy backfires.

On Tuesday, I found a touraco dead in its cage. The owners of this quasi-farm told me not to worry if a bird died. It happens, they said. This bird had been sick for a while, anyway, I knew. Still, I was not pleased to find this bird collapsed like a feather-duster. Its mate was nowhere to be seen; I guess it had said its goodbyes. Cawing Mama bird raced back and forth as I pried the dead bird out of the opposite cage with a plastic bag and a sieve. The bird was surprisingly light, like a handful of banana peels. Finding the basement fridge, I placed it between the frozen pie crusts and ice cream. Good bye, little bird, I said, slamming the fridge-freezer. It felt a little irreverent not to have said any final words. I could have at least crossed myself, even though I'm not Catholic. But I had never done a freezing funeral before. Does a person throw snow on the sarcophagus?

And so I remain for another 2.5 weeks at my cottage in the country, with my harem of birds, chickens, and rabbits. As soon as I find my camera, I'll post some photos.