This story has its roots in my degenerate relationship with my neighbors who let their chickens wander throughout the neighborhood, into my gardens, and never really seem to feel much remorse or need to change the situation. “Degenerate” because one year I swooped up one of the chickens committing mayhem in the yard and stashed her with my own flock til my neighbor discovered the crime.
Check out this tale of righteous chicken-loving indignation on my partner’s blog. It’s funny.
Here’s the embarrassing tale from Urban Homesteading:
[In the midst of writing this book]… I had a run-in with my neighbor’s chickens. I noticed that something had been digging and pecking in my front garden. I couldn’t tell what it was from the markings, but it was making a serious mess. A few days later, my partner told me he’d seen the neighbor’s chickens strutting down the driveway. I went to ask them to pen the chickens in and offered to help if they needed. They promised they’d do it, but a few days later, a chicken was back in the yard, pulling up the tender vegetable shoots. Did I go to my neighbor and ask her to get the chicken? I did not. I cornered the chicken in an alleyway alongside the house and flung her in an empty cage on the back patio. She sat squawking for many hours before I removed her and placed her with my own flock around the corner. Did I go tell my neighbor I had stolen her chicken? I did not. Here I was, Little Miss Community Homesteader, stealing chickens from my perfectly nice neighbors who were just too busy to pen in their birds.
I knew I’d done something wrong when I wouldn’t tell my daughter about the chicken, and I left the marauder with my flock for almost a full week before my chicken coop partner called and told me my neighbor had come to collect the chicken. How did she know where it was? What would she say now? I had to suck it up and apologize. I told myself I had been intending to return the chicken anyway, but I wasn’t sure if that was really true. Did I want to apologize to her? I did not. Was it the right thing to do? You bet. Did she give me hell? She sure did. Has it affected our relations? It certainly has. Are they repairable? Maybe, over time, but I truly wish I had taken a breath before I acted, rather than stealing that chicken.
I tell you this embarrassing tale to underscore the simple fact that it’s easier to get mad than it is to be good. It’s simpler to seek vengeance than justice. Protecting ourselves when we feel threatened is an automatic response, but this kind of reaction is the enemy of change. I can laugh about it now, but looking at this minor skirmish as just one small bit of the conflict between humans gives insight into how wars start and never end. Magnified one thousand times over hundreds of years, the weight of human conflict is almost too heavy to bear. We have to do better than this. Community change ultimately begins inside, with each one of us. Every day is an opportunity to confront our prejudices, our desire to control, and our fear of the other. A big challenge in front of us is the inside work we need to do, so that we can start looking at other people as assets, rather than liabilities.
Change begins at home, within each one of us. Learning to rig up a greywater system is important, but not if you’re running on the fumes of fear. Resolving conflict is as important as growing your food, and making relationships with the people and creatures around you is the ultimate practice of truly living in place.
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