LE FARM
Written and photographed by Aaron Ortiz
I often caught my mind wandering during my solo bike tour of France in 2011, especially because I didn’t speak any French at the time of the tour. The following story is my idea of what French farm animals might think about bike tourists spinning past their homes. It’s also the result of having entirely too much down time at a campsite in the middle of France.
T
he town of Fiems had just settled down from rush hour – consisting of all ten people who actually worked until 4:30 p.m. and were now walking home – when Chicken first started to stir from her nest. The leaves on the trees, which hung low over the ground from the day’s rains, gently released beads of water back to the earth. The drops of water slid down the firm blades of grass and settled into the dirt. Chicken, adjusting her eyes to the dim light of the cloudy afternoon, moved slowly from the shelter of the barn. She stumbled, half awake, to the center of the barn yard, enjoying the feeling of the soft earth under her feet. She watched curiously, her head moving from left to right, as a car sped by. The road, which was lined with chestnut trees, stretched south past the grey barn and yawned for over four hundred miles until it came to an abrupt end at the Mediterranean Sea. She spotted some feed on the ground in front of her and mindlessly pecked at it. Her long neck snaked down toward the wet ground and then slowly rose toward the sky as she carefully placed the feed in the center of her beak and swallowed. Feeling satisfied, she looked north down the slippery road. Chicken spotted what she believed to be a man on a bicycle near the bottom of the rainsoaked pavement, pedaling hard up the hill towards the farm. The grey light of an overcast sky at dusk can often play tricks on sleepy chickens, so she blinked her eyes three times and confirmed that it was indeed a man on a bicycle.
He was moving slowly and his blue bike was laden with four mismatched, heavy-looking bags. Chicken, who was overjoyed at the prospect of company, headed up the sleepy road. She spotted Rooster, who was busy pecking at some overgrown weeds near the splintered fence post. “Rooster!” Chicken exclaimed as she lowered her head and ran to his place near the split-rail fence. “Rooster, look there at the bottom of the hill, it’s a man!” Rooster looked left down the road to see a man struggling under the weight of his bicycle. The bulging white bags on the rear of the bicycle gave Rooster the impression that they would burst at the seams at any moment. “Rooster, what will you say to the man as he passes?” Chicken asked excitedly. Rooster took less than a second to respond, “I shall not dignify him with one crow. Man has no place in the wilds, unprotected as he is against the elements. Look at his green jacket that beads off the rain, he has no feathers to protect himself like I do.” Rooster walked into the leaky henhouse without so much as a goodbye to his friend. Chicken, stunned, but sure she was not alone in her excitement, then saw Cow grazing on the grass near the gate. She walked toward her, flapping her wings to relieve the mist from where it had settled. “Cow! Do you see the bike tourist? What shall we say to him?” Cow raised her head from the damp grass and slowly peered down the road. The cyclist, working up the steep hill, was now standing on the pedals to propel the bike forward. A worried look crossed Cow’s face when she noticed the bicycle’s Brooks leather saddle. Cow looked back to her friend Chicken, held her gaze there for some time, and was long in responding, as cows often are when they’re dealing with chickens.
“Go away, Chicken. I’m still sore from this morning’s milking. I shall look long at the man and see only his greed; he could not survive one minute if not for us.” Chicken, not eager to press her luck, turned and walked away. A strong north wind blew about the dirt in what was once a great field for grazing, now worn thin from years of Cow’s constant attention. Chicken, hell-bent on forming a welcoming committee, approached Horse cautiously, but still optimistic that she wouldn’t be the only one to greet the tourist. “Horse, do you see the bicyclist who is soon to be upon us? What will you say to him as he passes?” Horse shifted his head slightly from a gaze that had been fixed on the half-full water trough to see the man who was inching ever closer. “He comes here on a convenience; he has no use for chickens or horses. Do you not see the contraption he sits upon? He is always moving from one convenience to the next, forgetting that he and I used to share great adventures together. The steel he sits on has no heartbeat, and, I fear, neither does the man. I’m sorry Chicken, but I will say nothing to him.” Horse then resumed gazing at the water trough and waited silently. Chicken, convinced the weather had put all his friends in a foul mood, still remained in high spirits as he approached Dog. The grey whiskers under Dog’s chin betrayed his age. Dog, who at one time in his life could not sit still, now lay on a dusty rug just inside the barn, avoiding the water that was trickling down from the gutter and forming a small puddle in the door frame. Dogs will often stand on ceremony, and this conversation with Chicken was going to be no exception. He sat up on his front legs, keeping his backside firmly planted Bunyan Velo 107