A New Brood

Sometimes, life tells you to take the night off. That’s exactly what I’m doing tonight.

When I discovered that our little hen, Esther, had a clutch of eggs deep inside of the bamboo along our back fence last week, I wondered if she’d been sitting on them since she laid the first egg or if she’d waited until she’d laid all of the eggs. The difference determines how they hatch. If all goes well, it takes an egg 21 days after the mom hunkers down to turn into a chicken. I didn’t know whether to expect chicks all at once or one a day, which has happened to us in the past.

Today, we got the answer. Bob texted me this afternoon while I was at the Law School in Tuscaloosa to tell me two chicks had hatched. By the time I got home it was five, and now we seem to be up to six or seven—Mama gets fussy if I’m too pushy with her nest. There were 11 eggs total.

This is going to be the Scotland brood of chicks—the last time we had chicks unexpectedly was several summers ago when Bob and I were in Portugal and the boys conveniently forgot to bring the eggs in. Esther only got away undetected because Bob and I were hiking in Scotland. So I think we’ll need some good Scottish names for these chicks. Please leave any ideas you have in the comments!

On that note, I’m taking the evening off to enjoy the sweetness of baby peeps.

If you’re looking for a good read tonight, Michael Waldman, the President of the Brennan Center, has a new piece about the future of the Supreme Court here, following recent revelations in the New York Times about the Chief Justice. The new term of Court starts on October 7, and the Court’s integrity is going to be front and center—not in a good way—as we head into the election. We’ll focus more on this issue as we get closer to the first Monday in October.

We’re in this together,

Joyce