Lightfoot was one of the Wonder Hollow original six, fetched from the bin of Black Sex Links from the Radford Rural King three years ago in April. Along with Bitumen, her sister from another motherhen, she was one of two Black Sex Links in the flock. I observed her to be the most cold hardy of the bunch. January-February mornings with snow on the ground, Lightfoot was unfazed, first at the run door with free-ranging gusto. Life is for cold living. I admired her for being dynamic, spirited relative to others, like Tiny Honey, who carries along with a more monolithic-seeming disposition: Lightfoot was sometimes shy and deferential, sometimes independently confident (flock-be-damned), and always fast, the fastest, especially when there was a threat or when there was a treat to be had. For the late afternoon round-up call “here, chickens,” and shaker cup of meal worms, she did not dally. First every time. And for a short time after that day Henry’s dog got loose and ambled through the holler, we called her Lightning because she fled the scene as though on a photon beam, up the steep slope in three wingflaps, a record. I remember saying to A. after Lightfoot flashed off to the highlands that she would surely live the longest.
Her namesake, songwriter and musician Gordon Lightfoot, died May 1, 2023, around the time the six chicky-pullets formed feathers and graduated from the front shed incubator boxes to the mobile coop. Lightfoot was keen witness to our grave learning curve with predation and backyard chickening, witness to Big Sweetie’s fatal encounter with a hawk some months later and to Fluffy, Cinnabon, and Bitumen’s violent ends at the hands of a raccoon some months after that. Lightfoot adapted to the four new pullets and to our welcoming Mo, the Brahma rooster, to the flock. Gradually she seemed to be laying fewer eggs or to be laying broken or shellless eggs. We observe what we can with the flock and never known exactly how shifts happen among their respective orders and centralities. Lightfoot began to appear on the outs, and, on some days, contentedly so, as she would free-range independent of the others.
Earlier this spring, we’d noticed that she was sleeping in the nesting box with Mo standing in the doorway to the coop where the other three hens slept. With this evident sequestration, we guessed that Lightfoot’s illness was knowable to the others in the flock—though not necessarily communicable or transmissible. We sought advice, read widely, took her to a country vet, had an x-ray done, tried a couple of rounds of medicines. In March and April, these efforts alleviated symptoms for a few days at a time. But then the observable bouts of the slows would resume, she appeared to be self-isolating, not her usual self. She would allow us to approach her and pick her up, which had not always been possible. We decided to bring her inside where we could monitor her more closely, and for a time, this, too, perked her up. From within a clear/translucent bin with pine flake wood chips for bedding, she rested, often alert and engaged, holding onto good-seeming days with applesauce and scrambled eggs, occasional mashes of pelletized food, a new round of antibiotics. Avian veterinary care is not easy to come by. When she developed ascites (water belly), we studied up, then did the procedure ourselves. About a month ago. Again she perked up, acted like she felt better. In between packing boxes, we sat with her. A. mentioned noticing Lightfoot’s black feathers as blue iridescent and purple iridescent.
Along with Tiny Honey, Betty, and Perla, she made the move with us from SW Virginia to Ann Arbor, and she enjoyed rounds of outdoor time with the other three hens a few times, too. On Wednesday this past week she was outside and only wanted to lay in the grass inside the run, before moving to a spot below the deck, near its corner, where she could see well and dig in the dirt, though she was weak, not able to scratch all that much nor keep balance while attempting to scratch. We noticed how thin she’d become when we picked up the other hens. Lightfoot was becoming air. Guess we should think of this a kind of deep seated, primal tenacity in her, a spirit whose mantra I would translate from Gallus into English as “fuck flightlessness.” It’s a quality I don’t quite know how to perceive other than by dwelling with a dying bird over several weeks. There isn’t a whole lot in it that indexes to conventional interspecies knowledges; rather, it sits at the far outer edges of existential gradients where one faintly perceptible trichromatic hue meets and blends with another’s faintly perceptible tetrachromatic hue. Not really jumping to auras here, nor to formless energies. I only mean that when I would step to the kitchen first thing in the morning, Lightfoot would make a sound sort of like “here we are,” or “good morning, friendly giant,” or “don’t be heavy; another great day for preparing to fly,” or “soon I’ll be the sky.”
Lightfoot died on Friday. A. noticed she’d lost all of her strength and balance, that she was lying in her nesting box having leaned forward, too weak to do anything about it. We swaddled her in a towel, carried her to the screened front porch, held her for a little while each, expressed gratitudes, admirations, and flight permissions. Go on, take off. She blinked a few times. On a felt breeze she lifted her head, eyes closed, beak angled up, dearly loved, and then Lightfoot took off, lofting onto countless flightpaths. There, dreams and dogwood fluff. There, pollen and the eternal sisterhood. There, dandelion pappus. There, memories we were so fortunate to share.
