Letters to My Daughter: The Cage with a Welcome Mat

Dear Daughter,

We lived in a neighborhood where everything had its place.

The houses wore shades of sand—beige, taupe, bone, dust. Lawns were trimmed to regulation height. Trash bins hidden. Fences tall and cinderblock. It was the kind of place where we waved to neighbors but didn’t really know them. Where the wild had been paved over, landscaped, and politely asked not to return.

Behind our back fence, there used to be a wash. Untamed. Alive. It held witches broom and desert wildflowers, bees and bugs hopping from bloom to bloom. Birds nested in the brush. Toads crept through the drain holes and visited our tiny garden at night. I’d peek over the wall each morning, coffee in hand, and fawn at the life unfolding just beyond reach. It felt like a secret—one the HOA hadn’t found yet.

And then one day, they did.

They mowed it. Bulldozed it. Flattened the dirt and called it maintenance. The flowers disappeared. The bees stopped coming. The birds moved on. The toads never returned. I stopped peeking over the fence. My heart lay broken.

That’s when the ache began. The slow grief of a landscape silenced. Our morning coffee became a ritual of mourning. I practiced druidism—a spiritual language that praises nature—but there was no nature left to praise.

And then came the wild urges.

They always start the same way: a quiet thought during coffee. A tug. A whisper. A wild idea that doesn’t belong in cul-de-sac living.

The first one came after the wash was destroyed. I was desperate to create life where it had been taken. Your father, ever loving, built us a small wooden box. I had never gardened before. We planted sunflower seeds.

Each morning I’d check the soil, whisper encouragement, brush away debris. And then one day, it sprouted—a lovely little shade of green pushing through the soft earth. It grew and grew until it towered over the backyard, massive and golden. A lone soldier in the world of concrete and asphalt.

The day we saw a bee land on it, I knew we had done what we set out to do.

That sunflower fed finches, who climbed over it to eat the bugs off the underside of its leaves. It created life. And we sat on the patio each morning, watching the action it had summoned.

From there, the wild urges multiplied.

A few years later, we had several garden boxes overflowing with food for our family. Thirteen fruit trees. Wildflower patches. Hollyhocks. A grand palo verde tree that bloomed gold and fed honeybees, carpenter bees, and greckles who danced under its falling petals.

And then came the chickens.

That was our first real act of defiance against the HOA. I read the rules line by line. They mentioned pets, saying only that they “could not be a nuisance.” So long as our neighbors didn’t mind, I was going to go for it. If the HOA came for us, I’d fight to the end.

Your father wasn’t so sure. He gently said no at first. I turned into a used car salesman, pitching the joy of three fluffy hens who would lay eggs and walk across our lawn with grace. I told him how wonderful it would be for you—only three at the time—to see where food comes from.

One evening, while sipping mojitos made with mint from our garden, he sighed, looked at me, and asked, “If you were to get a chicken coop… where would you put it?”

I had thought it through a hundred times. I joyfully ran him out to the corner of the yard near the neighbor’s fenceline.

We cleared the spot. It was covered in decorative rocks and flanked by two fruit trees that looked like they’d seen better days. It felt like kicking the HOA right out of there.

We built a beautiful wooden fence with a gate, laid down compost and mulch, and planted five new fruit trees. Our chickens would live in this tiny orchard and provide nutrients to the trees. A perfect closed-loop system.

It worked beautifully.

The chickens were lovely creatures. Some would sit in our laps for pets. In the mornings, I’d let them out to walk the lawn and search for bugs. Their happy coos graced us as we said sweet words to them.

You giggled at the touch of their feathers and spent hours with one particular golden hen who never let us near her—but followed you everywhere, allowing herself to be picked up and pet.

They brought color and dimension to our stale, manicured life.

Collecting their eggs was a revelation. Blue, green, cream—each one a small miracle. Compared to the uniform, tasteless eggs from the grocery store, these were wild and grand.

We had built a pocket of wild in a place that tried to tame everything.

But it still wasn’t enough.

The bees were coming. And they would be the ones to show us where the real door was.

Lesson for you, my daughter: When the world tries to tame you, plant something. 
Even a single sunflower can defy concrete. Even a chicken can rewrite the rules. You don’t need permission to create life. You only need intention. Let your wild urges guide you. They are not rebellion—they are remembrance.

Love, 

Your Mother 

The Desert Druid