Well-Being - From "Nest Egg" to Egg

Chickens! 

I closed out one of my small investment funds recently and invested in, yes, chickens. And the return they'll bring.

By this act, "nest egg" morphs into the promise of "eggs." And with it comes a shift in daily living - one more intentional and engaged with the wider mystery and gift of life at the center of which moves Christ.

Cold hard cash becomes living, breathing birds in a web of life; investment shifts from dollars banked (Economic Capital) to cultivating appropriate relationships with the fullness of the earth (Natural Capital). 

And it's in the relationship that the "return" will be found. The birds will be a part of a greater whole, as will I - a gardening system of multiple design elements into which we'll both fit, each playing our own unique life-giving and life-receiving roles.

The chicken condo arrives...

The multiple design elements?  A movable chicken cage/tractor system for housing the birds safely; the birds themselves (ideally an heirloom breed for hardiness and good egg productivity); insect breeder boxes (40 gallon porous barrels buried in the soil, and filled with moist mulch in which multiple insects and worms can thrive to be harvested as a protein supplement); a forest system of fruit trees (upper storey), alfalfa and herbs (ground storey) for fruit, forage and pest control; and swales on contour to harvest rainwater off a neighbors roof in order to optimize groundwater recharge to promote tree health and productivity. And, of course, me. I'll be one of the design elements too, playing a stewardship role of connecting the table (i.e. food scraps) with the chicken run, with the food forest, with the insect breeder box and ultimately back to the table (i.e. as eggs) in the endlessly regenerating cycle of life.

A cheque arrived in the mail last week as I closed out an investment account and reinvested it today in chickens. It wasn't a huge sum, but this return promises the added value of connection. I look forward to the arrival of the chicks, and investing myself in a reciprocal relationship of caring. Perhaps I'll finally learn my place, a small part in the endless circle-dance of life, death and resurrection.

Perhaps the world needs more backyard chickens to help us "get back to normal." And maybe, just maybe, they'll help usher in a new normal, not a return to the normalization of greed that has plundered the earth in which we've all been complicit.

It all begins, again, in the garden?