Chickens cause quite a stir

Last week, when I went to the hen house to collect the day’s eggs, I found one of the brown hens had died. This was no great shock — chickens live, on average, only some five or six years. But their deaths are always a little sad for me. Despite living 10 years on a farm, deep in the Spanish countryside, I’m still an unregenerate city person. The saga of life and death that is the common currency of rural life is often too bitter for my taste.