09/08/2026
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This is the second morning without Soot, and I am struggling with this one more than I ever expected.
I keep looking at her empty place on the porch.
Breakfast sat there untouched this morning. I called and called, and nobody came. The whole farm just feels different without her, and I know that probably sounds ridiculous to someone who has never loved a chicken.
But Soot was never “just a chicken.”
She has been part of our family for years, and apparently somewhere along the way I started believing this tiny black bird was indestructible.
About three years ago, the day before Mother’s Day, Soot was tucked safely in the barn with a little clutch of chicks she had hatched. The next morning I found her standing outside the barn looking completely lost. The front of the metal-elevated pen had been ripped apart, the hay pulled out, and every one of her babies was gone.
…it was a bear.
Soot had somehow survived.
She and I searched and searched for those babies, and watching her look for them is something I have never forgotten. That same day I drove to Tractor Supply, bought four little chicks and brought them home to her.
She took them.
And she raised them.
Then there was the day we found the body of a black chicken and couldn’t find Soot anywhere. There was nothing left to identify except black feathers, so we were certain it was her. Sean buried her in the middle of one of my wildflower beds so flowers would grow around her. All of my kids were devastated. Everybody cried.
And that evening, just before dark, Soot casually strolled up onto the porch.
Alive.
Like absolutely none of us had spent the entire day grieving her.
I cannot describe the feeling of seeing her walk up that day.
And maybe that is part of why I keep looking toward the porch now.
Because Soot always came back.
During a recent tornado warning, when the storm was literally passing over our house and all of us were gathered in the storm room, I turned around and realized Josh was gone. He had run back outside to the chickens’ roost, grabbed Soot, and brought her inside with us.
Of course he grabbed Soot.
She sat safely in the house with the family while the storm raged outside.
And for about a week one winter, Soot decided that laying eggs outside was simply beneath her. She would yell at me outside the glass door until I opened it —march into the basement every day, climb onto one of my winter coats on the couch, lay her egg, get up and leave.
That was Soot.
She had opinions.
She had routines.
She had people.
And she had a place on the porch.
I keep telling myself that I would not have changed the life she lived just to keep her safer. She wandered this farm. She scratched in the dirt and raised babies and sat in the sunshine and came onto the porch whenever she pleased. She lived like a chicken ought to live.
I would choose that life for her again.
But Lord, it hurts when that freedom finally comes with a price.
My kids have all been messaging me because they know. They loved her too, but they also know how attached I was to that ridiculous little bird.
And right now there is still a part of me waiting for dusk.
Waiting to look up and see a little black chicken casually strolling onto the porch as if we have all been unnecessarily dramatic again.
I would give just about anything for her to fool us one more time.
I did find a clutch of eggs, and I believe some of them may be hers.
So today I’m going to get an incubator.
Because until there is absolutely no hope left, I’m going to hold onto a little.
Maybe Soot left something behind.
And maybe, somewhere in one of those eggs, there is still a tiny piece of the toughest little chicken I have ever known. 🖤
