I’ve coached a young dog up and down his first slippery cliff scramble, and in and out of a joyful storm-swollen river. I’ve held a black hen so tight to my chest that our heartbeats blended, and I clipped her winter-overgrown toenails until drops of red blood ran down my fingers. I’ve packed cold clay against quick and detonated a bomb of blackgreen flapping as I released her to her sister, safe.

Even after showering, my hands smell like animal, earth and wild water.

It was a good Saturday.

Last week’s rest cure in the garden worked: Iris was no longer broody when I returned her to the coop last Friday. And today she laid an egg! Which is entirely unexpected given the length of her broodiness. According to the eminently wise Gail Damerow and her “Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens,” a hen that’s not broken up until her fourth day of broodiness “may not start laying for about 18 days.”

Iris started going broody the day I left on vacation, and brooded for a week and two days before I came home and moved her to the garden. Which made me expect to wait almost a month for her to return to laying.

But I guess she got right back up on the horse, though her output is paltry compared with her sister Lilac’s characteristically purple offering:

Funny how sisters from the same clutch lay such different eggs!

What is up with this winter?

The morning of Feb. 20 I awoke to a brilliant blue sky and a perfect snow. In this strangely warm winter that’s seen the daffodils already bloom and noted scientists and plantspeople rue the fate of spring, I thought it might be my only chance for snow photos. So before work I headed out for a very quick circuit around the property.

The silver maple is already budded out in red.

Entering the woods

A black wolf cleared the trail.

Emerging from the woods

Sleeping garden, working worms all warm under the white duvet

And back to the house! How lovely to do a five-minute nature walk—in my bathrobe and chore boots!

Last week Iris, one of my hens, decided she wanted to be a mother and went broody. Which means she quit laying eggs and wouldn’t leave her nest box, as if she were incubating a clutch of fertile eggs. Which, because I don’t have a rooster, is impossible. Unless, she was knocked up by a guinea, in which case she would have had the world’s ugliest babies. If you don’t believe me, check it.

Of course this would happen the week I am out of the country on vacation…

My house sitter did a good job of lifting Iris out of her nest and trying to change her mind about making freak show babies. But when I returned Iris was still set in her ways, and on her nest. Stronger interventions were needed.

Apparently broody hens experience elevated body temperature, and cooling them off can sometimes snap them out of their maternal inclinations. Some people advocate dunking the hens in cold water, but it being winter and all I feared that my hen would catch a cold. But Sunday evening, when we got a nice little snowstorm that quickly obliterated my recent memories of lying in an oceanside hammock in my bikini drinking pina coladas, I brought Iris outside to chill out.

When I set her down in the snow, Iris acted as though I’d dropped her on the moon. It took her a long time to take a few steps, and when she did they were in my direction. A first for this chicken that I’ve chased in circles around my garage with a Wal-mart fish net trying to get her into the coop at night. I feared her feet would freeze, so I set her up on one of my row cover hoops and walked away.

But it was snowing pretty hard, and I didn’t have the heart to leave Iris out in the cold for much more than ten minutes. So I returned her to her flock and waited.

The next day Iris was still in her nest box, as cozy as if her Arctic adventure had been but a thumbnail-sized brain’s dream. Time for Plan B.

Iris has been spending the daylight hours in the setup above, a wire animal crate suspended over a garden bed. Might as well harvest that manure, right? And she’s inside the garden which protects her from marauding animals. At night I put her back in the coop after I’ve removed the nest box, which I reinstall during the days for Lilac to use to lay her egg.

Iris seems to be okay, and I hope these little day trips from the cozy coop will help snap her brain back to her purpose in life, which is providing eggs for my dog’s breakfast. Heck, she got to enjoy a beautiful 70-degree day outside in the sun, which is more than I can say for myself. I ask, who has a better quality of life, broodiness and all?

This time on the not-yet-flowering crab apple.

With Buck Mountain in the background.

A few weeks ago the hens, Lilac and Iris, started laying eggs again. I’d expected them to take a much longer winter break, but they had other plans. I am surprised by how short they rested, but I am pleased—not only because of their eggs but also because it means the light is returning and spring is on its way.

And Lilac is back in a big way—laying huge dark brown eggs that span all four fingers when I hold them in my palm. Though her eggs aren’t supersized, Iris is no slouch with her contribution, which are definitely graded large.

Just out of curiosity I compared my hens’ eggs, on the right, to eggs from the famous Polyface chickens (the two light eggs on the left), which I bought to tide me through the dark days when Lilac and Iris were resting. Though they don’t live in fancy chicken tractors or have a famous farmer for their owner, I think my girls stack up pretty well.

Tuck at seven weeks old, right before he came to live with me.