My chickens are hilarious! Nothing deters them from announcing to their backyard world their achievements, contentment, needs, and wants!
As soon as I walk out the back door for any reason, on cue, they fuss and flutter at me demading a snack, be it lettuce leaves, a handful of fresh herbs, or a toss or two of chicken scratch. Another specific chicken voice is their cluck of contentment. I hear this after I refresh their water and talk to them. They murmur, cluck, and fling sand on themselves and each other happily scratching and pecking contentedly.
At first dawn, when the sun is winking through their hutch windows, they prance single file down their ladder, lined up from the head hen down to the least of them, greeting the day with cheery good mornings. But, my favorite hen voices are the birth announcements, heralding the laying of an egg. Each hen struts down from the laying boxes, down the ladder, puffing out her chest, making sure that all the backyard critters know exactly what she just achieved!
I laugh with my chickens, but they also remind me that I wish we “baby boomer hens” had not been conditioned our whole lives to tone it down, shush our voices, and never ever presume assertiveness.
Instead, I encourage young women to be hens! Don’t silence yourself! Don’t allow others to silence you! Speak your truth! Applaud your accomplishments! If others insinuate or flat out tell you you’re too much, too boisterous, too emotional, too sensitive, too strong, too smart, too idealistic, too stoic, or too anything, walk away. Obviously THEY aren’t enough for you!
Insist on your place in the “coop” of life!
You are God’s creation, so why do you give power to others to decide who you are? Do we believe God’s word or man’s?
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wondefully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.