My fifteen hens are a constant source of enlightenment.
For instance, my two Buff Cochins are pastry experts. They might fuss over butter versus vegetable shortening, but they can talk you through making the perfect lemon meringue pie.
Genu, my Black Australorp, has the widest breadth of knowledge. She is versed in everything from literature to philosophy. She says that chickens are so smart because they are directly descended from dinosaurs. All those millions of years of experience are just stored up in their bones.
Just look at what she has taught me about her name, “Genu.”
The word genu means knee. My Genu says that to really understand the universe you have to get down on your knees and look at it very closely.
Despite her exceptional intelligence, Genu actually tempers her knowledge with a good bit of gentle nature, friendliness and compassion. She says it is because she is a Sagittarius.
So when I have a chicken house problem, I go straight to Genu for help. Like the time I had a rooster who was a terror in the chicken house. Every time I walked in the door, he ran at me and kicked up his spurs.
“Genu,” I said, “Stripey is a total chicken house nuisance.”
“Get rid of him,” She replied.
“I can’t get rid of him,” I countered. “I wouldn’t have any eggs.”
“Humpf,” She sniffed, shaking her comb, “You don’t need him for eggs.”
“Will hens lay eggs without a rooster?” I asked.
“Of course,” She replied with a shrug. “We will lay one egg every two or three days in the winter when the days are short and one or two eggs a day in the summer when daylight hours are long. When there is no rooster in the hen house, the only difference is that the eggs aren’t fertilized. If you’re not interested in hatching chicks, then unfertilized eggs are probably a plus.”
Stripey was history.
Recently, I walked into the chicken house with a bucket of scratch feed and found Genu waiting for me.
“Come look at this,” She said, steering me over to a corner of the chicken house. “What do you see?” She asked.
I looked around pretty closely, “Feathers and dirt,” I said.
“No, no,” She said, “Get down on your knees and look more closely.”
I knelt down and looked in Genu’s direction. “I see a hole,” I said.
“What kind of hole?” She asked.
I put my head closer to the ground, “A dark hole?” I asked.
She smiled. “How about a black hole?” She asked.
“Sure,” I replied, “Maybe it’s a black hole.”
“A black hole is a very special thing,” She explained. “A black hole is a place in the universe where there is a huge amount of mass crushed into a small space. It is created when a massive star collapses inward. This enormous density of matter creates extreme gravitational force.”
“Why is it called a black hole?” I asked, leaning my head down to peer into it.
“It is called a black hole,” Genu explained patiently, “because the gravitational forces are so strong that light particles or photons that get caught in the gravitational field cannot escape from it, so from the outside it simply appears as a black hole. By the way, don’t get too close to this black hole or you might cross the event horizon.”
Taking the warning seriously, I pulled my head back a bit. “What is the event horizon?”
“The event horizon is the edge of the black hole. You can approach it and still be able to back up and leave. At the edge or horizon of the black hole the gravitational pull toward the center is extreme.
“Once you cross the horizon or the limiting radius of the gravitational field you cannot go back outside unless you can go faster than the speed of light. Of course, we all know from Einstein’s theory of relativity that it is impossible to go faster than the speed of light.”
“So, if you can’t go faster then the speed of light, once you cross the black hole event horizon then what happens?” I asked.
“You are obliged to race toward the center of the dense matter, the collapsed star,” Genu casually replied.
“So, the black hole isn’t empty! The collapsed star is inside.”
“Sure,” Genu shrugged, “It is the very small dense matter that creates the immense gravitational pull. Inside the event horizon, you are obliged to move toward the center of the black hole to a smaller and smaller radius. In mathematics a point of infinity is called a singularity. The very center of the black hole is thought to be a spacetime singularity. It is a place where time ceases to exist, people cease to exist.”
“How do you know all of this?” I asked.
“Friend of Einstein’s,” Genu replied matter-of-factly. “You’ve heard of E=mc2….Einstein meets 2 chickens.”
I leaned back on my heels to ponder this just as Genu put her head dangerously close to the event horizon of the black hole. “No, No!” I screamed, grabbing for her wing “You’ll get sucked in!”
Genu began to cackle. “Gotcha!” She exclaimed.
“What?” I asked, bewildered.
“You silly, there’s not a black hole in the chicken house. That’s just a tunnel some varmint has dug. He comes in every night and eats layin‘ mash right out of the feed bin.” Genu said as she wandered off to peck at the scratch in the chicken yard.
Sagittarius….gentle, friendly, compassionate, good sense of humor!
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