It's easy to love this place. It's easy to fall IN love with it - to fall so hopelessly in love that you want to kiss it square on the mouth and write your name next to its name on the door of the third stall in the girl's bathroom.

There are greens here - electric, nascent greens - that do not exist too far south.

As the perfumed lilacs give way to riots of phlox climbing the hillsides, I begin to wonder if there is a limit to the beauty my eyes and brain can safely manage. In the same way that prolonged exposure to loud music can lead to hearing loss, is it possible that this much beauty could actually endanger my senses?

If I do not possess the bandwidth to receive it, could I break something vital by - oh, let's just say - gazing offhandedly across Otsego Lake at the precise hour of evening when eagles search for their suppers along the lush coves and silver ripples? It doesn't matter. I will laugh at the danger and look anyway.

I am in love, and I cannot help myself.

It was most likely in that lovedrunk state that we drove to Agway and left with six baby chicks in a cardboard box lined with wood shavings. Yes, we have gone a little bit country. You should know that I've never liked birds, with their lizard feet and cold, one-eye-at-a-time gaze. As long as I can remember, I've sensed that they're just waiting for the opportunity to flutter underfoot, topple me and peck off my face while I'm on the ground.

And, where chickens are concerned, who could blame them? You'd peck off someone face, too, if he stole your eggs every morning and roasted your sister with a few sprigs of rosemary.

So where I've always mistrusted birds in general, I've been downright suspicious of chickens in particular. But a major part of this life in New York is a good psychic spring cleaning.

When the question of chickens came up, I decided not to fall back on what might just be a vestigial fear. Instead, I really examined whether chickens still scare me.

I've been through a lot of scary stuff: Cancer, chemotherapy, the tantrums my daughter invariably throws when I won't let her eat a fistful of baker's chocolate for breakfast.

Maybe I could handle chickens, I thought. Thus I extended a bare arm deep under the sofa of my inner terrors, and I did not pull out any chickens. Load up the mommyvan, we're going to Agway. We came home with six pullets - two are Rhode Island Reds and four are Araucanas, which are supposed to lay pastel blue and green eggs.

Mine is named Sarah Connor, in honor of the tough mother played by Linda Hamilton in the "Terminator" films.

I'm not a huge fan of the movies, but when I told my husband that I wanted an Araucana hen, he said, "What?! Sarah Connor? What the heck's a Sarah Connor hen?"

We got them home, and set up their cardboard box on a table in the garage. I rigged the brooding lamp on a couple of hooks so we could raise and lower it as needed.

I watched the fuzzy chicks warming themselves under the 250-watt lamp. They pecked into the little feeder and cocked their tiny heads to look at me. They were sizing me up, all right. But I was not the one who was scared.

Chicks are delicate - almost ridiculously so. They're a lot like lilacs and fields of phlox in that respect. They're a lot like us in that respect. They may not all make it, so we didn't attach a name to any of them immediately.

I stroked their downy little heads with my index finger, wondering which of these vulnerable girls will be lucky enough, strong enough, scrappy enough to survive.

"Is it you? What about you? Are YOU Sarah Connor? Are you?"

Elizabeth Trever Buchinger is a freelance writer who learned everything she knows about birds from Alfred Hitchcock and Looney Toons. She can be reached at villagewordsmith@hughes.net.