A Mary Jane Update on the Anniversary of Tom Petty’s Death

I have had three celebrity crushes in my adult life–a scientist (Neil deGrasse Tyson) and two musicians–YoYo Ma and Tom Petty. When I learned that Tom Petty died seven years ago today, I was devastated. His music had been so central in my life, and I adored his back story. He grew up abused and misunderstood and used his creativity and drive to change his life and the lives of so many others. His life and music just spoke to me.

I was already really down that day in 2017 because it was also the day of that terrible mass shooting in Las Vegas, and to top things off, it was meat bird processing day on our homestead. It was just a tough day, so when I asked Ron to please pardon one of the meat bird hens for me to keep and add to our flock, he agreed. He agreed that we needed something good on such a no-good, terrible day. I understood that, as a meat bird, the hen would likely just live a couple of years, but we needed a layer or two, and Freedom Ranger hens are pretty good layers. I would be happy just to have her for a couple of years.

The bird who was pardoned was named Mary Jane, in honor of Tom Petty’s famous song, “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.” Ron said she was the one who outsmarted him all day, so he knew she was a smart bird. We had no idea just how smart she was going to be or how long her dance would be.

I feel certain she must be at some kind of record for a Freedom Ranger meat bird, but Mary Jane turned seven this summer, and she’s still going strong. She is also one of the smartest, if not the smartest, hens I have ever met. Over the years, she and I have formed a powerful bond. She talks to me. She asks me for help when she needs it, and she lets me know when she is just fine by herself. She used to be about the size of a small turkey thanks to those meat bird genes, but in her older age, she is smaller. She’s still larger than our other hens, and she actually talks in a gobble.

Every morning, she waits in the coop for food while the other chickens run out the door for the outside food bowl. Mary Jane is patient and smart and waits for her food bowl. When she sees me coming, she almost always gobbles this cute little gobble talk. I realized this morning, as I was thinking about the anniversary of Tom Petty’s death and Mary Jane’s pardon, that I have to get a recording of her voice. I had another hen who was very vocal and talkative, and I regret that I never got a recording of her talking. I have to record Mary Jane.

The cutest thing is that Mary Jane has a daughter, Petty. Petty is also a fantastic hen and is so smart. She raised a clutch of babies last fall, and she was not just a magnificent mama but probably the most magnificent mama hen I have seen. She did so well. She was chill but loving and so good to her babies. She let me get involved too, so I was thankful to her. When Petty went broody in the late summer this year, I was sad we had decided to downsize our flock and couldn’t let her raise babies.

Interestingly, Petty has a voice similar to Mary Jane’s. Just the other morning, I heard a little gobble run across the yard, but it surprised me because I thought Mary Jane was still in the coop waiting for me. It turns out it was Petty. She doesn’t talk a lot like Mary Jane does, but she has a voice like her mama. How fantastic is that?

So far, both Mary Jane and Petty are doing great. Mary Jane’s health has its ups and downs, but right now, she seems to be in really good health. She quit laying somewhere around age four or five, so she’s retired but helps keep order in the flock. She’s so old for a meat bird that I have thought on more than one occasion that she was surely near her end, but that hen always pulls through. I know she has a heart condition, but it seems her will to live is stronger than her heart condition. I guess a better way to put it is that her heart is stronger than her heart condition.

She has not yet molted for the fall, so I definitely worry about that for her. The molt is hard on birds. Rooster is molting right now, and he’s so tired that I am having to help him off the top roost some mornings. He is also a very old bird.

But the winter before last, I thought surely he and Mary Jane would not make it through another winter. They showed me. I have learned to never underestimate Mary Jane, and though I always open the coop in the mornings with a little bit of worry that today might be the day that Mary Jane passes, so far, she’s always there, greeting me. Usually, she gives me her little gobble.

Every year on this day, October 2, I spend a little time thinking about how much Tom Petty meant to me, and then I turn my thoughts to Mary Jane and think about how much she continues to mean to me.