Stand down, Tofu - your services are no longer required

 Tibbs has left the building.

My life as a chicken-substitute is over. No more chooking in the woodshed on cold days with Tibbs the Literary Chicken, who liked anything by Ernest Henningway, but was particularly fond of The Crows of Kilimanjaro and A Farewell to Farms.

I’m heartbroken.

As a tribute to my little feathered friend, who was helped from this world by the vet today, let me show you the last garden project that we worked on together.

Before the new fence was built last year, there was a dead space along one side of the house, bounded by a gate and the woodshed and populated by a couple of straggly dead trees. some rocks and hundreds of fleabane weeds. My spare room looked out upon a brand new 6-foot fence and a bleak and cheerless wasteland, so Tibbs and I decided to revamp it a bit.

So.... first of all we dug out the rocks (and ate worms).

Step Two: we pulled out the remaining weeds and patchy grass (and ate more worms)

Tibbs posing: “All my own work”. What? No it wasn’t! (although she DID eat all the worms.)

She temporarily lost interest when I put down weedmat, but was happy when I got the gravel down. 

She was even happier to see the birdbath and rocks appear, some potted plants, and the new coat of paint that transformed the woodshed. 

In the photo below she is inspecting the new space - admittedly, still a work in progress, but vastly improved - and giving it her seal of approval.

On Sunday she started making strange noises now and then, a bit like a sneeze. This morning she had her beak open to breathe, was wheezing, and wouldn’t come out of the nest box.

Coincidentally, the wonderful vet from Orbost was making a house call to vaccinate the cats today, so I asked him to take a look at Tibbs while he was here. I told him about her recent oviduct infection, and my home vetting treatment – and he said I’d absolutely done the right thing. What was ailing her today was a respiratory infection of some sort – and with the recent outbreak of Avian Flu near Bairnsdale, he thought it prudent to euthanase her, notify the Ag dept and take her remains for testing. I cried buckets, sniffling inside my mask and thanking her for her company and her great help in the garden. I stroked her feathers as her eyes slowly closed and her consciousness ebbed away. 

Poor Tiblet the Giblet doesn’t even get to rest in the chook cemetery, here at home with her old buddies. Sigh. She always was the Outsider of the flock. I think it's appropriate, then, to rename her final project the Tibbs Memorial Garden.

Bye, my Tibby, and thank you for everything you taught me about digging in the dirt, enjoying simple things like a little sit in the woodshed - and the joy of hanging out in the yard with a feathery friend.