The crunch of tires on the gravel driveway was a sound I’d been dreaming of for a week. The city, with its relentless hum and sterile canyons of concrete, had worn me down to a nub. All I wanted was the familiar scent of hay and damp earth, the sight of the sun setting behind the old oak, and a proper welcome home. After dropping my bags by the door, I made a beeline for the backyard, my heart set on seeing her.
There she was, Mabel, the undisputed matriarch of the flock. A magnificent Rhode Island Red with feathers the color of burnished mahogany, she stood near the waterer, presiding over her domain with an air of unshakable authority. The other hens clucked and scattered around her, a bustling court of feathered subjects. My return, I imagined, would be a noteworthy event in the coop’s daily chronicle.
“Mabel!” I called out, my voice full of the affection I’d been storing up. “I’m home, you old grump!”
She paused, one scaly foot held mid-scratch, and fixed me with a gaze that held all the warmth of a tax auditor. Her head tilted, a quick, reptilian motion. For a fleeting second, I saw a flicker of recognition—or perhaps she was just calculating the trajectory of a nearby grasshopper. I took a few steps closer, rustling a bag of her favorite mealworms as a peace offering. This was the universal chicken language for “I love you,” and it had never failed me.
Until now.
Mabel gave me a long, unblinking stare. She saw the familiar human, she saw the crinkling bag of treats, and she made a decision. With a deliberate, almost theatrical slowness, she turned her back to me. Then, with the focus of a master jeweler, she plunged her beak into the dirt to excavate a tiny, uninteresting root. A younger hen, a flighty Barred Rock named Dottie, scurried over to investigate the mealworms, but Mabel didn’t even grant me a second glance. She could not have projected a more powerful aura of complete and utter indifference if she’d been carved from stone.
I stood there, bag of worms in hand, utterly dismissed. I had driven four hours, fantasizing about this reunion, and I had been snubbed for a piece of dirt. A slow smile spread across my face. This was it. This was the honest, unfiltered reality of #farmlife. There is no performance, no pretense. Your dog will greet you like a returning war hero. Your cat might offer a perfunctory leg-rub. But a #chicken, especially a queen like Mabel, will remind you of your true place in the universe. You can own the land, you can fill the feeders, but you are merely staff. And in that moment, watching her majestic, uncaring back, I felt more at home than ever.
