Country Living – The crazy chook lady

Down the end of a dusty rural road, about as far from Auckland as you can get when you’re told you still live in Auckland, I am confronted by a sign on a gate that states: “This property is protected by a big black cock, enter at own risk.” OK, you have my attention, please tell me more. Rochelle, along with three rescue dogs, greets me out the front of her tin shed that doubles as her castle. As we sit down for the interview, I am offered a homemade cup of kvass – a fermented drink made of beetroot, garlic and bay leaves.

Hooley dooley, with my eyes watering, I assure you that took some effort to get down the throat at 10am! Nevertheless, I was grateful for the offering. Rochelle calls herself the “crazy chook lady”, and she lives on her off-the-grid 1.5 hectares of swampy heaven with her partner Steven, a fulltime mechanic, in Wellsford. Rochelle works in Auckland during the week as a night-shift carer to severely handicapped children in a respite home – she’s the stuff angels are made of.

Rochelle is effervescent as she explains to me her working class roots and her desire to do away with the shackles of luxury that seem to pin most of us down in life. Her property is filled to the brim with the stuff this little bower bird collects. This type of chaos gives the likes of me a panic attack. However, Rochelle assures me there is method in all this madness and one day everything will take on a new and unique purpose. It’s probably fair to say Rochelle has a form of thrift-shop addiction, but she emphasises the fact that this addiction does not extend to secondhand undies or sheets – I’m hearing you, girlfriend! It turns out the crazy chook lady is actually crazy about all things feathered. Her property is filled with birds I never even knew existed, but her biggest buzz comes from breeding rare heritage chooks, which she tells me are at dangerously low levels in New Zealand.

With only two days off a week, Rochelle doesn’t have a great deal of time for idle chit-chat and informs me we have an urgent hen feminine hygiene matter to attend to. Gulp! Oh my lord, what was she telling me? “It’s simple,” she explains. Apparently, having bulk feathers covering a hen’s private parts inhibits their fertility, so Rochelle often has to perform what she claims is her version of a hen-style Brazilian wax. Ever up for a new life challenge, I trot off to avail myself for the trimming of overly-feathered hens’ intimate areas. Next stop is feeding time at the zoo. This is actually a very big job. Rochelle mixes and ferments all sorts of grains for the different types of birds. As we are preparing food, the ducks that have been missing for a couple of days come wandering back. I’m told the new drake is rather rogue and is leading his girls astray. She locks them in their yard for being naughty.

Rochelle shows me some dead hens. I’m told the hawks have taken a terrible toll on her breeding stock. They dive bomb from high up and pierce her overhead netting to get to her girls and it’s quite sad to see. With feeding over, we wander around Rochelle’s organic veggie and fruit garden, and it’s plain to see the love and passion that she has for her earth and the animals that reside within it. Rochelle’s passion for her feathered friends consumes most of what she earns caring for our less fortunate, but I find her to be one of the richest people I have ever had the pleasure to meet.

As I drive away from her big hearty wave at the gate, I am forced to take a deep and scathing look at my own consumerism. Although I resign myself to the fact that I will never have enough courage to live so kindly both in earth and of heart, it’s comforting to know that beautiful people like this are woven into the heart of our communities. The world is a better place with Rochelle in it.

Julie Cotton
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