Here we are at Darwin’s View! How fabulous and bracing when the electricity in half of the house turns off, usually during a Zoom business meeting or cocktail hour. Our salt water batteries aren’t as robust as they used to be. Only five years old, this winter has exposed their weakness: an inability to deal with power surges.

I lost confidence in the Dodge three years ago, when the brakes became mere suggestions. But Carl—ever faithful, ever hopeful—stuck by the truck, defending it. “It works!” As if it were a dependable phenom, a version of Hercules holding up the world, not a miracle of jerry-rigged wires and duct tape. But Carl exhibited hints of disloyalty when he would furtively put down his name on the waiting list for a Tesla Cybertruck, a Canoo, a F-150 Ford Lightning, a Rivian, an Alpha Truck. He was on the hunt for a 4-wheel drive electric truck. The question being, would any of them be released before the truck breathed its last?

As the dawn dawns, I take a photo of six deer grazing. They have on their heavy winter coats. The next time I look up from my writing desk, I note the skies have lightened the clouds to steel blue grays… and a bobcat is trotting away.

December, month of the shortest day of the year. I love its darkness. It speaks to my need to go inward. Summers are stressful; I get pulled in too many directions by too many shoulds. I should be outside in the garden. I should be in the study. I should be weeding and seeding. I should be reading and mulling. I should visit the chickens.

Meet the chickens of Darwin’s View, including Apricot, the Pullets, Bernadette-Go-Bernie, Snowball, Fogbank, and more. The older hens are disheveled and pale, having all gone through a heavy molt this fall. But the Pullets—defined as under-one-year-old girls—have matured to the point they will consider laying their first eggs. After a month of no eggs, we are now getting 3-4 a day. From nineteen hens…

This is “Darwin’s View”! From north of Mount Monadnock to Mount Monadnock herself and onward south to Massachusetts mountain range and then east to WaPack and NorthPac. Quite glorious in any season and on any given day—but fall, with its brilliant colors that tickle the eyes, is my favorite.

This past July, I made an audiobook of my memoir At Crossroads with Chickens, A “What If It Works” Adventure in Off-Grid Living and Quest for Home. I enjoyed the process of reading it aloud, revisiting what brought Carl and me to this point. And, to my surprise, At Crossroads with Chickens is not as humorous a book as I remembered it. In fact, I found it rather sad. Maybe because I am on this side of that crossroads and know what has happened since.