The Minnesota Farm Woman

When we bought our little farm nine years ago, the large yard was filled with many weedy perennial beds, and I must admit, it still is.  Flower gardening is not my forte, and from the looks of the weeds in my other garden, neither is vegetable gardening. My colorful array of chickens are like flowers to me, and although I haven’t trained them to pull weeds, they love to scratch up the perennial beds looking for worms and bugs. Despite their digging and my lack of both skill and time, I have a riot of colorful flowers every spring and summer that outshine the weeds by far.  Old Mum, the oldest and my most favorite chicken died today. You knew her too, from the stories that I write, which are true, or at least 90% true. Sometimes the names must be changed to protect the innocent.   I would often find Old Mum peeping out from among the tall hollyhocks, their large leaves and flowers offering a bit of shade from the hot sun.  This summer, slowing down a bit, she stayed pretty close to the coop, watching for me out the window,  and if I didn’t feed her quickly enough, the feisty little banty would fly up on my shoulder and tell me to hurry it up. Due to a malformation in her beak, her food had to be in a dish or in a pile so she could pick it up, so I fed her separately from the others.  Old Mum preferred cracked corn and cottage cheese to layer mash, and the other chickens left her food alone most of the time, seeming to understand her age and disability. Either that, or they were afraid of her, as she tended to get a little feisty with them, too. The purple irises and Asiatic lilies are in full bloom in several beds in the front yard, but can’t compete with the hollyhocks in the back, which at their peak were as tall as the roof. Although slightly past their prime, they are still putting forth huge blooms of white, pink, and red against the back wall of the house and attract dozens of bees. I am so thankful that an old farmer and his wife planted these lovely flowers many years ago,  probably never dreaming that they would still be enjoyed years after they were gone.   The simple task of breaking open the seed pods each fall and spreading them along the south-facing wall ensures a spectacular show each summer, if Mother Nature cooperates. I buried Old Mum under my bedroom window, near the hollyhock garden, and covered her grave with the biggest and pinkest blooms I could find.
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