Imbolc, Rest, and Dry Ground: Thomas the Tank and the Chicken Spa

Imbolc arrived quietly this year.

Not with a big ritual or grand intention-setting, but with cardboard, chickens, and a surprising amount of chicken poo.

This winter, I’ve been in a kind of cocoon. Pulling inwards. Learning, sometimes clumsily, to listen to my body and nervous system rather than overriding them. Resting more. Doing less. Letting things be messier, slower, truer.

It hasn’t been an easy winter. Not catastrophic, not dramatic, just tender. The kind that asks for honesty rather than fixing. For warmth rather than solutions.

So when Imbolc came, it didn’t ask for fireworks. It asked for small, practical acts of care.

A few months back, during home education, my 4 year old son and I built and painted blue an enormous "Thomas the Tank Engine" train out of cardboard for him and his brother to play in. One of those joyful, sprawling projects that takes over the room and then… waits. Too good to throw away. Too big to ignore.

On Imbolc, it found its second life.

We carried it down to the polytunnel and turned it into a chicken playhouse. Or, as it quickly became known, the chicken spa. Five-star. Recycled cardboard architecture, an old pallet, sheltered warmth, and *crucially* dry ground.

We took up the mulch sheets inside the polytunnel, and the chickens lost their minds with joy. Pecking, scratching, dust bathing like they’d booked a luxury retreat. Dryness. Space. Ground that didn’t slide away under their feet.

Watching them, it struck me how fundamental this was. Not enrichment. Not extras. Just the basics done well.

Dry ground matters.

For bodies. For nervous systems. For beings who’ve been wading through mud for too long.

For all but one chicken, who refused to move.

She stayed behind in the coop and run, which at this point was essentially mud soup with added poo. We tried coaxing. We tried waiting. I tried explaining the obvious benefits of the spa experience.

In the end, we cornered her and carried her.

She was deeply unimpressed during the transfer.But once she arrived? Straight into the pecking. Straight into the dust baths. Instant convert.

I recognised something familiar in that.

Sometimes we resist the very thing that will help: not because it isn’t good for us, but because we’re tired, scared, overwhelmed, or used to coping where we are. Sometimes care arrives not as a gentle invitation, but as being picked up and moved to drier ground.

This hasn’t been my first chicken-related mishap recently. A couple of weeks ago, I put a bag of chicken feed down while fixing the feeder. When I picked it up to pour it in, I discovered - too late - that where I had put it on the table was a considerable amount of wet chicken poo.

I was covered. It was all over my coat, my trousers, my hands. There was even some in my hair. Time for a bath, methinks.

Then yesterday, back in the muddy run, I nearly slipped over entirely. I caught myself just in time, by putting my hand directly into a large pile of chicken poo.

Again.

I walked back to the house, and passin Adam in the field where I was meant to meet him and said to Adam,“I'll be right back, I need to wash my hands.”

He laughed and replied,“Are you covered in chicken poo again???”

Adam has borne witness to an impressive number of my awkward moments this winter, and at this point I suspect shared chicken-related and other adversity may be the foundation of future business partnerships.

But underneath the humour, there’s something real here.

Care is rarely tidy.

Healing is not aesthetic.

Rest often happens alongside mess, not instead of it.

Imbolc, for me, wasn’t about blooming yet. It was about making conditions kinder: for the chickens, yes, but also for myself. Removing what keeps us soggy. Creating shelter. Letting bodies do what they know how to do when they feel safe enough.

Cardboard became a spa.

Mud became possibility.

And even the most reluctant chicken found her way to dry ground.

So did I, a little. 💛