Peace, Love, and Chickens

Week 2- The Awkward Middle

Week two is an in-between place.

They are no longer the sleepy little puffballs we brought home, but they are not yet tiny chickens either.

They are somewhere in the middle.

Part fluff. Part feathers. Part confusion.

Honestly, week two looks like adolescence in miniature.

The First Signs of Change

This was the week I noticed their wings first.

Longer feathers began pushing through the baby fuzz, and every day they looked a little different.

One morning they were soft round babies.

By evening they looked like they had opinions.

Their tails began to hint at themselves. Their bodies stretched taller. Their feet looked too big for the rest of them.

Nature was building chickens in stages.

The Awkward Beauty of Growth

If week one is adorable perfection, week two is awkward honesty.

Nothing matches yet.

• fluffy heads

• patchy wings

• oversized feet

• tiny bodies trying to catch up

• random bursts of speed

• dramatic flapping practice

They looked like unfinished sketches.

And I loved them just as much.

Practice Mode

This was also the week they became busier.

Less sleeping.

More movement.

More pecking at everything.

More little wing flaps as if testing equipment before takeoff.

They were discovering they could do things now.

That is always a dangerous stage for any creature.

Personalities Begin to Peek Through

Up until now, they felt like a group.

This week, they started feeling like individuals.

One would inspect first.

One would hesitate.

One would run for no reason.

One would somehow end up standing on top of another.

The girls were introducing themselves.

Me, Watching Too Closely

I became the type of person who could stand over a tote and think:

“Is that feather longer than yesterday?”

This is what happens when you get attached to tiny lives.

You start measuring time in wing growth.

Week Two Truth

Not every beautiful stage looks polished.

Some stages look uneven, awkward, unfinished, and strange.

But growth is still happening.

Sometimes especially then.

What I’m Learning

There is tenderness in the middle stages.

When something is becoming what it was meant to be, it rarely looks graceful at first.

Sometimes it looks like fluff, crooked feathers, and oversized feet.

Sometimes that’s how transformation begins.

—Niki