I don’t generally think of myself as an “animal lover.” I mean, if God didn’t want us to eat animals, then why’d he make them out of meat? When our chickens turned out to be roosters, I had no qualms about them going into the stew pot. But this ongoing drama with my pet chicken has me down in the dumps. I have to admit, I’ve gotten closer than a farmer should to Speckles. She is very tranquil and will let you pet her. But a while ago, she fell ill and I figured she was a goner. I originally suspected Newcastle virus, but she hasn’t died yet. She just loiters around listlessly, doing nothing.

Speckles wants to spend all day indoors, but I put her out of the coop every day to make sure she gets some fresh air. She then staggers around the yard or just stands there looking unhappy. When she didn’t come home two nights ago, I figured she finally laid down in the cornfield somewhere and died. When she didn’t return last night, I was certain.

This morning, however, I was in our stream messing around with the hose I use to irrigate the greenhouse. I looked up, and WHAT?! There she was, standing in the river, mostly hidden by the overhanging bank. She looked miserable and wet and cold (it’s in the 50s and raining here lately), so I gently picked her up. Her feet were all weird and pruney from two days in the water, and she didn’t put up a fight at all.

“Look at her!” i told Emily as I held her up. “We need to make her a nice warm box by the fireside.” My wife looked dubious; she is of the opinion we should just eat the darn chicken and be done with it. She is more practical than I am in these matters, and that’s why she will run the animal part of the business if we start farming. But in the end, she gave in and let me make a little chicken bed.

When we mentioned to Chalio that we’d found our lost chicken, he just said, “Duh, she’s been standing in the river for two days.” Nice. It’s very Chalio to notice everything that goes on, and very Guatemalan to not mention something relevant unless directly asked. I don’t know what happens next; I guess we just wait and see. I hope none of the neighbors find out, since we’re always telling them that it’s unhygienic to have farm animals running around in your house. Sigh.

One good piece of news, though, is that we’ve finally been able to set up a lecture and vaccination campaign for chickens. An expert from the Ministry of Agriculture is going to come to our village on Dec 9 and give a big workshop, so now we have to get the word out. It’s too late for Speckles, but it might help save a lot of other cheekins.

I’ve been saving up other animal news for the last few months, to post it all at once. We have lots of different kinds of bugs and caterpillars around here, some fuzzy and some not. Every time I pick up one to play with it, someone warns me, “Careful! Those bite!” I have not yet been bitten by a caterpillar, but I suppose stranger things could happen. Nikol, the closest volunteer to us, was accidentally bitten the other day by an otherwise friendly dog, while he was feeding it tortillas. He is in Xela right now, working on his rabies shot sequence. 😛

Perhaps the bugs should be more worried about US biting THEM. Here we have Uella, hunting turwex (giant dragonflies) to fry up and eat. The season for them just ended, so it appears that this year I’ve avoided the obligation to eat 14-dragonfly soup.

Here we have a cool, camouflaged moth. We saw it on the side of the house in a nearby village where we give weekly health lectures. Check out those cool, copper-colored eggs it’s laying. Wow.

And just for fun, I’ll finish with our neighbor, Gela. She is very serious and reserved, so it cracked me up to see her climbing in the apple tree outside our house, just like the neighborhood kids. I am still not quite sure what she was up to… perhaps getting apples? Regardless, she seemed embarrassed to be caught on camera.