Manure is My Destiny

As we finish up the last few days of Lent, along with the tiresome Lenten music, I can’t keep my irreverence from surfacing. For 4 weeks we had the same closing song, a fine marchlike anthem with a slight hint of sea shanty. Jerusalem, My Destiny written by Rory Cooney, never fails to rouse the masses as they leave the church, especially at the quick clip we take it at.

But I could not help but insert my own words as I mucked out the chicken house two weeks ago, filling over 40 2 gallon buckets (which were salvaged from the dumpster of a national known grocery chain, well known for their commitment to organic food and local growers…but that is a blog for another day) with the remains of Dayna’s leaves and 6 months of chicken droppings. While I marveled at 1. the amount of leaves one suburban yard can generate and 2. how perfectly the carbon of the leaves combined with the nitrogen of the chicken poop creates a beautiful,nutrient packed odorless soil, that Sunday’s closing song kept running through my head. Except I sang Manure is My Destiny to the tune of Jerusalem etc. Irreverent? Sure. The first time? Of course not.

Whenever we have a baptism, we usually sing a beautiful Irish blessing called, Lord Bless This Child. Our congregation loves it and and can sing it without the words. However, the song comes in a part of the liturgy right after the child has been dunked into the font and is laid on a towel to be dressed in a white garment. Since some babies are squirmier than others and some are more corporative than others, occasionally this event takes longer than the time required to sing the song. More than once, I’ve been tempted to sing, Lord, Dress This Child in an attempt to get the parents and godparents to hurry up. I mean, how hard can it be-dry the baby off and slip a simple garment over it’s head. worry about the hat and booties later.All 3 of our kids wore antique family garments that my husband and his siblings were baptized in. Out oldest was arguably the hardest child  to dress in ANYTHING the first 3 years of his life. He just didn’t want his clothes changed. Ever. Fortunately he was baptized en masse at a large church in San Diego where we were able to stuff him into his father’s baby shorts and shirt before we left the house.

Baptizm. Lent. Manure.  Hmmm….There’s some kind of birth/life/death cycle here.

On a less cerebral and spiritual side, the new broilers arrived this week, Easter cute, yellow and fluffy. The bees come on Thursday, the farm stand opens on Saturday and and my days become busier and busier. That trip to Disney next week is beginning to look like a vacation . Scary thought.