When I announced that we were getting chickens this year, a lot of people asked me if I thought I’d be able to do the butchering myself.

Apparently I can.

But I don’t like it.

This poor bird was so sick, laying there with its head in the dirt… Yesterday at least it looked around every now and then. Today it was nearly comatose, and was having so much trouble breathing. It’s been a very cold, and recently wet, spring. I think it was pneumonia.

So I got the axe. And after apologizing profusely, I dispatched it.

I don’t want to talk about that part anymore.

You know, there I was apologizing to this animal, and I think it bothered me more that I’d called it into being on my farm and its life went for nothing, than the killing itself. It died because I’m inept at raising chickens, not because it was ready for the next stage, sustaining my life.

But I felt worse just watching it die slowly. When I killed it, I suffered a bit, but it didn’t. And I think that’s the important thing. I think. It’s all got me a bit flustered.

And fresh starts are always nice….

I wish. Sigh. Wherever I go, there I am.

So I sent the other house-folks away on a vacation this weekend, and stayed home to cater to the Lordly Chickens, slipping on their shit in the midst of the wind and the rain. And in between my chickenerie, I pulled a shift as ticket-mistress at the rodeo across the way, painted some doors, basted a couple quilts, and DID NOT cook anyone any meals. Including myself. It was cold-chicken-caesar-salad and yoghurt and lemonade for three days – hallelujah!

The rodeo. Mmph. I’m no buckle-bunny. I can’t abide the stupidity of strapping yourself onto an enraged animal to see how long before it manages to detach you – at great personal, physical cost.

Someone suggested that I should set up a booth there and offer therapy services to the broken heroes. I think not.

Anyway, I sold tickets for a few hours in the name of community service, since this is the grand cultural event out here, and I have these notions about participating in community as a road to personal and communal growth. And I did meet a few people, and put a few more names to faces, and I suppose that’s a good start. But jeepers, I wish it could have been something more… worthwhile. In my mind, I mean. Obviously its very worthwhile in other minds.

That, and the demolition-derby that wraps up the day.

I’m whinging, I know. But honestly, I’m finding this area a wasteland for friendship. Several times I’ve invited folks for a meal, only to be told that they’re too busy. Too busy, repeatedly. I heard about a local CSA, looked up their website, noticed that they’d blogged about “intentional community”, and e-mailed them. No answer.

One really awful day, probably PMS or something, when I was feeling particularly isolated, I went to the library. There was a woman there, and she and her husband knew my husband from quite a while back. In our last house, I had them over for supper, because I knew they lived in this town and I wanted to open the possibility of relationship for when we finally made our move out here.  But there was never any reciprocity of any sort, so I stopped trying.

There we met at the library, and she asked me how I was, and I said I was extremely lonely, finding the community really hard to connect into. “Oh”, she said, “Me too. Someday we’re going to move away.” And after telling me (for half an hour) all the ways in which she didn’t feel welcome, she walked away.

And I went home and cried.

Some days I don’t care so much, other days it hurts a lot. I often wonder if moving here was a big mistake.