Well, friends, I did it. I successfully hatched a batch of baby chicks, and they are now all in the brand new brood box Ron made for them. That brood box is a masterpiece, and I must write about it one day. However, for my story today, you just need to know that it has a large window in the front, so it literally looks like a giant chicken tv.

And, as such, my husband, son, and I have found ourselves watching the baby chickens on “television” several times a day. Last night, we all happened to be out there together watching through the window at how the baby chicks interacted with their world.

“It’s so interesting to think about how their whole world is in that box right now,” my teenager said. “They don’t even know to look out the window.” Oh, that kid has a beautiful mind!

We all talked about how they have everything a baby chick could need or want (besides a mama) right there in that little box–it’s warm, it’s spacious, there’s fresh food and water. And there are many friends to be had. I think I hatched 29 chicks.

“Every now and then the hand of ‘God’ reaches in and adds fresh food and water, and then they are go on their little ways” my son said.

And this led us to a discussion of humans.

We talked about how much there is that humans can’t see or understand, which relates to how we define “God,” though my son pointed out that there are plenty of scientists who have been trying to “look out the window” and see what all is out there. Still, most of us probably don’t even have time to stop and look up at the stars.

I just spent the last four months working non-stop to try to save money and pay off debt before things get really tough economically. Thankfully, we did not have much debt. We are lucky. But we do not own our property outright, so that’s a worry. So, pretty much, for the last several months, if my eyes were open, I was working. I was exhausted mentally and physically and could not move my right arm very well from the repetitive motions. I noticed I was getting more and more grumpy, and I don’t like myself that way.

And then, last week, my jobs were cut back, as I knew they eventually would be. I didn’t “lose” the jobs, but there is just less work–fewer students in college means fewer classes. So, last week, for first time in a long time, I felt like I could breathe a little. As scary as it all is, I was just so thankful to not have to work so much.

The other night, when I went outside to put the ducks to bed, instead of rushing them into the duck house, so I could get back to work, I just stood outside and looked up at the stars. When I did, I realized I had not looked up at the stars in months. What a tragedy that is, right? The stars make me think of our Great Pyrenees Gus, who loved to sit outside and just look up at the stars at night, or the clouds during the day, or a cool bird on the fence. But, right before he died, we sat out under the stars for a long time and just took them in together.

The stars are lovely and remind me of how small I am and how small my problems are and how small even the cruel people in charge really are. They don’t know they’re small–well, maybe on some level they do and it scares them and that’s why they behave as they do. But I guess that’s a whole other issue. Still, doesn’t the vastness of the galaxy just give you some perspective?

Looking up at the stars made me think about how I am just a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things. I am a human animal, a mother doing my best to protect my children, keep them safe, ensure the survival of my species because that’s what I am programmed to do, I suppose–and, because I seem to have been born with an urge, make some human art along the way.

But I also have to remember there are so many things I don’t quite understand, how it all fits together, why things fall apart, why cruelty seems to be such a part of it all, but maybe, if I take time to look out the window, I will find some answers. Of course, the older I get, the more I realize that the answer might be that there are no answers.

In the meantime, I am watching the baby chicks. It’s been a few days, and they haven’t looked out the window yet, but give them time, they will soon. And, then, their curious minds will want to know what is outside of that brood box, and the day their feathers come in and they no longer need heat and they get go outside to touch the earth and eat bugs and play in the grass will be the best day.

photo credit: Hannah Tims, Unsplash