Wings of Love

Love takes many forms. Today it is a chicken.

My grandma was known for many things. For her buttery homemade dinner rolls. For calling you “kid” if she liked you. And for collecting chickens. Not the real ones…she had too many farm cats for that. No, I’m talking figurines. And wall hangings. And stuffed animals. Potholders, placemats, calendars, tablecloths…the small farm house she shared with Grandpa for over 50 years was overrun with poultry.

Grandpa was a farmer. He had a day job at a sugar factory but until the day he died, he oversaw a farm of beans and corn and contracts with Green Giant. Despite a rather sizable family, it appeared only his grandson-in-law Rob had a sincere curiosity in farming. Rob and Grandpa had lots of conversations about irrigation and soil and farm equipment and fertilizer and weather and harvests. When we moved to Woodhaven, it came with a raised garden about the same square footage as our first apartment. It was exciting and daunting. The phone chats with Grandpa became more frequent and advice-seeking.

When Grandma and Grandpa finally conceded that rural living far from medical services was no longer wise, they packed up their most critical and cherished possessions and moved into an assisted living facility in town. One of the few mementos they brought from the chicken collection was a lawn ornament of sorts: a black and white wooden chicken with spinning wings. The “whirly-gig” had lived on their porch and spun around with the Idaho wind for years. Trading in acres for square inches, the wooden chicken found a home on their tiny patio at Bridgeview. It was a comforting piece of home and an easy way for them to gauge the breeze that they rarely ventured outside to feel anymore.

When they died several years ago…Grandpa nearly a year to the day after Grandma…the family divided up treasured memories. I selected Grandma’s watch…not because of any monetary value but because I couldn’t remember ever not seeing it clinging tightly to her sturdy Colorado-born wrist. I also selected the wooden chicken, mostly because we get some wind at Woodhaven and I thought it might like to fly here.

Several months later, it was planting season. Rob fashioned a way for the wooden chicken to hover over our garden, in a spot that I could see from our breakfast nook. Rob and I both immediately viewed the chicken as an extension of both Grandma and Grandpa, a guardian angel over our hobby crops, a reminder of roots and blessed family traditions. Every year since, the chicken has spent spring and summer overseeing our cucumbers and corn and tomatoes and lettuce. She winters in a special place in our garage.

The winds at Woodhaven evidently are a bit more rugged than those of southern Idaho. For the past couple of years, Rob has very carefully made repairs to the chicken, gluing, rebalancing wings, replacing screws. But at the end of last year’s gardening season, Rob broke the news to me that he didn’t think the chicken could survive another year outside. He had done all he could without jeopardizing the integrity of the chicken. He could either do some major repairs and replacements, or we could just enjoy the chicken surveying our garage year ‘round. Or…perhaps…with some studying and new tools and a sense of adventure…perhaps…Rob could make me a new chicken.

He has been busy in the garage for about a month now. There is sawdust all over the floor and work bench. Sawhorses with vice clamps are taking up valuable parking space. There have been many trips to Lowes, the purchase of a jigsaw (I was confused why he needed a puzzle?), and a tour of all the craft stores in the county for just the right googly eyes which were eventually acquired online. I’ve been getting status updates regularly. The last one was, “She now has a yellow beak.”

So in a couple of months, when we are tempted to bring out the patio furniture but know better, our new chicken will be installed in our garden while the original remains safely on her perch in the garage. And when I look out of the breakfast nook window, I will still see Grandma and Grandpa keeping watch over our garden. But now I will also see the true and deep love of the man I am so blessed to share my life with. A man who tenderly and lovingly made me chicken because he truly understands the things that touch my heart.