The chickens were squaking in the hen house.

“Should we check on them?” my boyfriend asked. He said one had been lethargic and laying in the nesting box for a few days.

“What do you do with a dead chicken?”

“No.” I said. “I think she’s broody.”

Proud of myself for using a literal chicken farming term, I sat back in the bed where we were chatting. I love lingo. I loved that I knew something my partner did not and had used it correctly in context.

“What does that mean?” he said.

I realized I had no idea.

“I think it’s like… when a chicken wants to have babies and sits on the eggs to incubate them….but like…. she’ll eventually snap out of it because we don’t have a rooster.”

“Are you sure we don’ have a rooster?” My partner said.

And then. “What about the big gray chicken?”

The big gray chicken was really gray and really big.

In June, the day before my literary salon, I took the writers who were staying with me at The Disco Barn (my home) and we went skipping off to the local farm to pick up some teenage chicks that the farm manager had texted me to see if I wanted.

I can tell you one thing. It is always a good day when someone texts you to pick up new chickens. My guests each choose a bird and home we went with six babies to live with my previous three back hens.

After dinner my boyfriend, my daughter and I went on a chicken expedition. We checked out the broody hen. Boy was she broody. The other hens all looked like hens to me. I guess for a chicken farmer, I am relatively new to this, and so sure, maybe I have an untrained eye. The big gray chicken continued to look at us as rather big, and rather gray, and boy were his feet bigger than the other chickens, and he was a bit tall, the red on his head a tad floppy and were his tail feather a little more long and pointed?

I took his mugshot. And I uploaded it into Ai. ROOSTER. Ok. But who likes Ai.

I took his mugshot and I uploaded it to google lens. BARRED ROCK ROOSTER. Ok, but like let me text some people at the farm. They did not get back to me. Ok let’s upload his pic to the trusty facebook group CHICKEN FARMERS OF AMERICA.

I posted his pic and we went to bed.

But not before my boyfriend side texted a big group chain to all the people we had given disco barn farm egg cartons of that weekend, “in an abundance of caution incase they contain baby chickens.”

“THIS” I said, “is how you get cancelled.”

In the morning Facebook had over 24 comments clarifying what I already new in my cute little city girl gut, we had a boy in the hen house.

I have only lived in the country (suburbs depending on how you spin it) for four years now. But I still l value things like, eyelash extensions, and FUSHUN as much as love a fire pit, long walks with the dog through the trails in the woods and well, amature chicken farming.

I dare say this was sending me, slightly in over my head.

One of the facebook comments said yes, that is a rooster but what does this have to do with a broody hen? While I had thought this was obvious, what did I know. Broody was a new term to me.

Should I even be owning chickens? I started to spiral.

Babe, maybe I should get rid of the chickens, I imagine saying to my partner. I had said it before when he had suggested I don’t really even like them because I don’t eat eggs.

“They’re my pets,” I had said.

“And they’re also strongly part of your brand.” He had said.

The rooster, the big gray rooster, we estimated was still rather young. Not crowing, still developing his tendencies, and so so we had a little time to re home him.

We went to bed and heard a little squacking.

“A lot going on in the hen house,” my parter said.

Leave a comment

-The windows in between two eclipses, fated weird energy for new beginnings and endings

-Why you cannot let other people tell you what to do

-How to snap out of a depression

-Using anger as a sacred feminine energy

-Writing as a spiritual practice

Share 1 800 Marianna

Leave a comment

I have ALOT to share.

Last week I had “the Substack girls” in town for my 5th Boston Writer’s Salon and third in a row SOLD OUT event at The Sea Hag in Harvard Square. I like to call The Substack girls, The Literati.

SINCE The Literati were in town and staying with me at The Disco Barn (we named my house) So since I had Allison Ziggy, Luuren Walsh, Lauren Syed and Ava Ghiotti staying with me (shoutout to Kat Kilarksa and Rachel Young previous girls who have been through) I decided it was only natural to throw a mermaid themed party with live action mermaids.

So I reached out to a local circus guild. You think I’d get them on better help!?

We got two full mermaids for my backyard pool in head to toe mermaid regalia and one circus hooper. There was also, curiously, a man here whose entire job was to carry the mermaids into the pool. He had blue toemails.

As this was happening, Lauren Walsh arrived at the Disco Barn. She w…

Read more

When I was young, and in Maine for a week in the summer, I recall sitting in a row boat, and being whisked away from the island back to mainland, away from the cabin we had spent a week with friends, and something about the water, the early morning air, the sea birds, the seasons hinting at turning, school starting, saying goodbye to my friends, maybe it was the sight of luggage, gave me a little pang of loneliness, for no apparent reason other than this I thought to myself, I wonder where my husband is right now, the man I will someday marry, I wonder where he is and what he is doing. But, being a mere tween, and many years away from all three of my future failed engagements, I let the thought slip by with the sea birds into the trees, and the skyline, and the mist, and the light.

This summer my father turns eighty. Eighty! How can Roland be EIGHTY. We say. No one can figure it out. No one knows. How am I thirty eight? Another quandary. But then when you add it all up, I do have a si…

Read more

I love couples “names.” Like Bradgelina, Kimye or Bennifer.

My name is Marianna and my partner is Ross. So while we could be a combined, “Rarianna” we (I) have settled on:

“Moss.”

“I’m so glad that we closed the garage doors last night after the heavy rain.” Ross says.

“I did not do that.” I say, in my bathrobe pouring oat milk into my coffee. “You did that.”

“We are partners.” Ross says, “the combination of the two of us did it.”

I take a long hard look at him.. before I go into the screened porch to drink my coffee with my laptop.

“Moss.” I say.

It has been a combined 6 days since my intestinal issues have started. I know you didn’t sign up to be kept abreast of my intestinal issues, and yet here we are.

Catch up here: I removed the paywall because…well shit…;)

1-800 Marianna

Everything I Know About Sailor Fashion So Far...(AKA 3 Things)

Three days ago I notice a weird twang in my stomach. I’m at Ross, my boyfriend’s swanky pad in the city. I mention my twang to him. He is caring. We continue on with our weekend plans and go sailing twice and play pool once. This is because I have a few days without my six year old while she is at her father’s house…

Read more

a month ago · 5 likes · 2 comments · Marianna Pease

My primary care doctor is absolutely certain it’s constipation. I, on the other hand, keep find…

Read more

Three days ago I notice a weird twang in my stomach. I’m at Ross, my boyfriend’s swanky pad in the city. I mention my twang to him. He is caring. We continue on with our weekend plans and go sailing twice and play pool once. This is because I have a few days without my six year old while she is at her father’s house. Yay divorce. Except for not yay divorce at all because the baby daddy is at times really difficult.

Anyway. Back to my weekend. Ross is almost as bad at me at Pool which delights me because otherwise he is really good at everything. It is SO annoying. He beat me twice at Pool anyway that night, but that is beside the point.

Read more

HI BABY CATS, this is more or less a complete copy of e.m. Gallagher’s dispatch series on substack which we “lit girls” over at Pink Ink Press agree we LOOOOooooove. So here goes. Erin tell me how I did. (once you arrive in your new home in Ireland ofcourse, not one second before.)

^In:

—> Dating a man with a boat. Deciding he is your life partner. (He is.)

—> Being a Substack writer & authorpreneur but when people ask you in a low voice what you actually do telling them “I’m a stay at home mom.” (No one will ask any more questions!!)

—> Naming your house the first thing that comes to mind (“The Disco Barn”)

—> Wearing amazing high heels to social events in which you are now taller than your boyfriend

—> Ordering a hot tub for the yard and naming it after the sales girl (mine is Vicky)

—> Nail art designs

—> Only wh…

Read more

It’s been a busy summer. In liu of a full recap, I can tell you this. Yesterday I spent 17 hours on a sailboat. We watched the tall ships come into the Boston Harbor. There were like 63 boats. We woke up at 4am to get our space. I took three naps. Ross, my boyfriend, told me if you see the sunset and the sunrise in the same day you don’t age. I heard a wife crying to her husband about the amount of boat time she was docking.

“ITS SUMMER!” her man screamed, “IN THE SUMMER WE BOAT!”

“It’s 10am and I’ve already been on a boat for FIVE HOURS!” She cried. “TOMORROW I WANT TO DO SOMETHING ELSE.”

Lucky for Ross, I’m a boat girlie now. Even though the sailboat toilets are a little weird. Even though I can’t really finish a dark and stormy and still hang.

All the ladies had bikinis on. I hadn’t brought one. So I shopped around. A woman lent me her rash guard (swim shirt) and Ross lent me his boxer briefs. I asked a friend to take a video of us holding hands jumping off the boat into the ocean. …

Read more

So, yesterday I was waiting for my new realtor to swing by to tour my house for a little professional meeting when I got stuck on the phone with the small farm animal vet.

He arrived early. I heard the dog bark. My doorbell is broken so he was banging on the door.

“Oh hiiiiii!” I said with my ear to my cellular device.

“Whats that? Yes, a sick chicken.”

I found her with one eye after the fox attack. Or, maybe with one eye swollen shut. Either way her neck wasn’t looking good and she was clearly sick.

“Ma’am did you wear gloves?”

“Actually, noooo.”

“Some foxes carry rabies.”

“OHhh.”

So I get off the phone informed that the bill for the chicken will be over $600 dollars and a 45 minutes drive and the realtor is standing there smiling at me like I am an idiot because I am playing one on tv.

“SO SORRY about THAT.” I say and turn on the charm (or try to ) for the house hour. But as I show him my four bedroom I can’t stop wondering, do I have rabies ?

I decide not to drive the chick…

Read more

I am dozing in the morning. It is early. The sun streams in my window and my daughter has not yet come to wake me up. All of a sudden I hear the flutter of bird feathers and squawking. I jump to my feet. A predator!

I race to the window in time to see a red fox race across the yard from where my five chickens are free ranging and hop the fence into the woods. I bang on the window. And run to porch in my teal silk nightie and wrap kimono. Oh no. I had let them free range. Oh noooo.

From the porch I can see now only one bird. The fox is waiting just beyond the fence watching me and, the last chicken.

Go away! I scream. It does not move. I bang pots and pans. It’s staying put. Why is it not afraid of me? I scream loudly. It blinks. All I know know is I have to save my last bird. They are my pets.

I turn on the garden hose. I run barefoot in my silk nightie into the yard and scoop my chicken into the coop, safe. One more chicken pops out of nowhere and I s…

Read more

Hi! I’m Marianna. I’m a writer.

I have written two books. Pandemic Mom and My Year(s) In The Woods.

This Substack is about worth, good girl deprogramming, love, loss, and the courage to choose yourself, find your voice and use it.

This Substack is me using “it” (my voice.)

Five Fun Facts About Me:

<3 I’m a single mom by way of traumatic divorce. <3 I live in a black barbie dream house with a disco ball. We call it The Disco Barn. <3 I have 9 chickens and a rescue whippet. <3 I’m partnered with the love of my lif e who is a sailor. <3 I ran a vintage clothing brick and mortar for years (Oona’s Collection) before I had my daughter and still am vintage and fashion obsessed. <3 I am a recovery people pleaser and have my PHD in narcisstic abuse (self taught, UGHHH) <3 My five year old daughter and I live in the country <3 I love tarot cards, astrology, all things mystical, and def would have been a witch.

Here I am being a person offline:

My Substack is comprised of “Confessional Style Essays”.

Yes, she is basically my diary. Some posts are too juicy to just have it all out there and so those are PAID.

Here’s one about Dirty Martinis Here’s One About bringing my Balenciaga To The Vet Here’s One About IUDs & Being A Single Mom, Here’s One About Being A Bitch

Why Subscribe?

Because everything goes behind a paywall after one week. If you subscribe you can read for free in your inbox. If you are Paid you can get everything else :)

WE ROCK OUT HERE. IT will be funny and it will be real talk. Hop aboard!

Let’s be instagram friends! I share alot of my daily shenanigans on stories.

About My Books:

My First Book, “Pandemic Mom,” is a journey through new motherhood during covid and during divorce. It is a sort of healing balm for any woman experiencing traumatic divorce. One part short writings, one part “what I learned”. Pandemic Mom is available on Amazon.

My Second Book, “My Year(s) In The Woods: Notes on Healing, Worth & Finding Home Again”: is a collection of essays about a single mom (me) living in the woods raising my daughter, rescue pups and backyard chickens and learning to stand n my own two feet. Published by Pink Ink Press, My Year(s) In The Woods is Available on Amazon.

Praise for My Year(s) in the Woods

“Marianna Pease’s My Year In The Woods is captivating and sharp. At times funny, always raw. A gorgeous collection of essays about starting over in the very place you once lost yourself. And what it looks like to take your power back, one chicken at a time.”
—Cara Alwill

“My Year In The Woods is the stunningly raw manifesto for a generation of women who long to come home to themselves. Marianna’s stripped-down prose draws sophisticated parallels to the new life she’s created for herself: one that has nothing to prove, is free of the bullshit we think we need (but are better off without) and is beautiful in its authenticity and simplicity. A memoir of insightful and empowering essays that manage to feel as intimate as a personal diary, Marianna shows all of us that it is indeed possible to build a life that belongs to us, even if we don’t know where to begin.”
—Zara Barrie

Share Marianna Pease's Substack