Show Girl Chickens, Miniature Donkeys, and Suicidal Peaches. (You know you want to read it. Who can resist Suicidal Peaches?)

I culled today, a nasty, tedious job filled with death and carnage.

Let me explain.

   Not all chickens are what I call “show girl” chickens, with glossy feathers and sparkling, healthy eyes. Some are runty and pecked at. Some have crossed beaks and bedraggled feathers. Some are sick and fuzzed up, their eyes listless and dull. Some have “break down” which is they seem perfectly fine until about 4-5 weeks of age, then suddenly their hip or knee joints give out and they are unable to get to food and water. Some are blind and will slowly starve to death.

  These chickens have to be taken out. And sadly, I’m the Poultry Princess to do it. I can’t let them go into the food chain, these sick, diseased, runty, ugly chickens…some need to be removed for purely cosmetic reasons, I must admit. I would be aghast if someone held up one of my cross beaked, skinny, runny eyed chickens and said “is this YOURS???”. So, I kill them as humanely as possible. They are all going to die, I tell myself. No chicken gets out alive, they give their lives to feed us, so I try to make their 8 weeks on this earth as pleasant as possible.

  So, I got up early and headed out there this morning in the cool air. Much work to be done and might as well do it before it gets hot. Some of the calves were near the liquid feeder, their breath visible in the early morning air.

   I started in house 1. It seems to be my problem child this batch. I easily could carry out 100 culls a day, but I can only carry so many at once, so I do 50-75 a day. Often, my hands will be full of dead chickens and I’ll come upon a cull. But…a bird in the hand is worth two on the floor and I walk past, vowing to get it tomorrow.

  The horses came and stood near the well house when I got done with house 1. I walked over and petted Onkey, the miniature Donkey. He is by far the most vicious, fearsome animal on our farm. All fear the Great and Powerful Onk!! I thought as I rubbed his tiny muzzle. I’ve seen him herd the 3 full size mares and the 1 miniature mare into a tight clutch, walking around them in his tiny steps, braying at top volume, threatening them with his teeth. He also will occasionally look into the woods whilst mixing in with the cows and begin to bray and run into the woods with much crashing and thrashing and then run back and circle the herd and check everything out. I need not fear stray dog or bobcat or coyote with Onkey  nearby. He is a classic example of “it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog” saying. He is brave and tough and smart. No one has told him he isn’t 1000 pounds of spring steel and raw hide. He is strong because he doesn’t know what he can’t do.

  Aren’t you like that, dear reader? Don’t you, after you’ve gone thru something, realize it should have broken you down? Scared you beyond reason? and yet YOU, instead of running away and hiding, YOU ran BRAYING into the woods, thrashing, crashing, splashing thru the trees and morning dew and when you chased AWAY the bad thing…YOU came back and circled your herd, checking things out, braying once again as a warning?

 Tiny you.

 Cute, cuddly you.

 Soft, sweet YOU.

  Oh, it wasn’t the big, black 1500 pound Brangus Bull named Doc that protected the herd.

 It was YOU.  

  I got thru the chickens and drove home, stopping by the creek to look for snakes. I killed another one yesterday with my bb gun and drug it up on the bank with a large stick to take pictures. It was a water moccasin about 3 feet long.

  There were 2 snakes. The smaller one was doing a kind of a dance, swaying back and forth and rolling in the water. The larger snake was watching this with interest, as was I.

  I aimed my bb gun and missed, hitting slightly above the smaller snake. It froze and looked at me standing up on the road, aiming my bb gun down at them. It began it’s dance again and after I missed a couple more times, I quit shooting and just watched.

  The snakes swayed and bobbed and danced for a little while until my dog Maggie ran toward the bank and they swam away. There isn’t anything in this world more graceful than a snake swimming, except maybe 2 snakes swimming and they went into the culvert to hide.

  They’ll be there tomorrow, though and after I am done with chickens and petting horses, I will aim my child’s toy toward them again, these beautiful, poisonous, deadly, dancing  snakes. 

  Sometimes I think of all the snakes I’ve killed in that little hole of water. 20? 30? I’ve lost count. I kill 3 -5 every summer and I’ve had chicken houses for 10 years. Then, I think of ALL the holes of water, all the drying creeks running thru this countryside, with deep spots that keep water in them for a month or two at a time, filling with minnows and frogs and crawdads… and snakes.

  I think of that dance I saw the snakes doing, it made me think of that old Tom T. Hall song “Sneaky Snake” where he goes dancin’, a wigglin’ and a hissin’. I suspect it a mating dance and think of baby snakes. Once, Clint shot a large cotton mouth snake behind our house in the creek. It sunk and then…bubbling to the surface…16 baby cotton mouths that hadn’t been born yet. So my husband has killed 17 snakes with one shot, we like to say.

  I went outside to check my tomato plants and grieve over the peaches that insist on falling off the limbs before they are ripe. Stupid, suicidal peaches, I’ll mutter. I hear, in the distance…Onkey. He is braying loudly, insistently. I know coyotes will come to the composter to dig up dead chickens. They have to run across the pasture to get to it and I suspect Onkey sees them and warns them of his omnipotence. I don’t go check, I know the Great and Powerful Onk has things well in hand. Hoof. Whichever. His bray echoes and another peach comes off with the slightest brush of my hand, soft and slightly rotten. Stupid peaches, I think.

  But…higher up…a healthy, beautiful peach. I touch it, it is firm and clings tightly to the branch. It ignores the rotten other peaches and hangs on, storing up summer and sunshine. Oh, nothing holds the sun like a peach. Eating a fresh peach will warm you from the inside out. Edible sunshine, a peach. 

  Sometimes….dear reader, it’s just hanging on that makes the difference. It’s not being the biggest or most beautiful. It’s being Onkey, strong because he THINKS he is strong. It’s a peach, just staying there, hanging on for dear life, soaking up God’s sunshine.

   I think of times past, in my childhood…I planted my feet, braying loudly against something or someone, some bad thing…I made noise and I STAYED and I BRAYED and circled my herd. Oh, does everyone in my life like me or love me or respect me for this? No, dear reader, they do NOT. Even though… sometimes it was for THEM, for their safety. It is alright. I would do it for them anyway. I would do it again, for them, my herd.

   But… peaches  fall early  from trees and herds move on and snakes dance.

Today…I think…I shall be a peach that hangs on, soaking up God’s sunshine.

 A sweet, soft, ripe peach.

I’ll also be a donkey, braying and chasing. I’ve been called worse. J

If i had an indian name...it'd be Dances with Cows

I like to walk to the chicken houses in the cool of the evening. Sometimes, Clint goes with me, but more often than not… I go alone. Well, sometimes Maggie or Tika trots along beside me, but they get distracted by squirrels and run away.

  So, I’m by myself. Which is fine with me, I just put my ear buds in and listen to music on my iPod or podcasts about different things. I love to listen to podcasts. I dislike the ones with foul language, but that’s about my only caveat to listening to someone’s opinion. I listened to one recently about bullfighting and after hearing what actually happens to the bull before, during, and after the, ahem, “fight”, found myself decidedly Team Bull. Then, I listened to a conspiracy theory one about some guy calling a radio host and telling the host he was from the year 2063. The speaker on the podcast opined that he did NOT believe the time traveler was real because “he just didn’t seem that excited or into it”. Not the fact that time travel isn’t true, mind you, but that the MOOD of the time traveler was “off”. Just like the host, I suspect.  

  Last night, Clint was gone and I put in my earbuds and headed out to walk. I felt like listening to upbeat music, so I found Family Force 5’s “Love Addict” which is a song about the love of God. I urge you to listen to it if you can. Try NOT to dance.

  I put it on repeat and checked the chickens. It was just getting dusky and I was headed back home, the song echoing in my head, me singing along, bobbing my head ever so slightly.

   

                                         (hold up, wait a minute, put a little love in it)

I sang along, my feet hitting the gravel chicken house road in rhythm

                                         (can’t kick the habit, I’ve got to have it, I’m what they call a

                                                                     LOVE ADDICT, LOVE ADDICT)

I think about Trevor, introducing me to this song when he was a teenager, jumping up and dancing to it at church camp one year when I went as a lunch lady. How the crowd screamed and yelled and jumped up with him, dancing and bopping along, Trevor doing the “worm” up the aisle at church camp...everyone singing and clapping.

   So that’s what was running thru my head in a loop as I walked.

 (doctor, oh doctor, I’ve got an e-mer-gen-cy…it seems I’m head over heels with this

                                                    L-O-V-E)

I was halfway home, walking and singing on this road running thru the middle of my pasture. I saw movement to my right.

       I stop walking, turn my head and stare straight into the eyes of 45, the white cow that tried to kill me a couple of years ago. I made the mistake of being too close to her calf. She threw me up into a tree and wallered me and stomped my arm, leaving the most marvelous hoof print shaped bruise.

  To my HORROR…I see her new calf off to my left, on the other side of the road. 45 tosses her head at me angrily and takes a few steps toward me.

  I cannot outrun her. I cannot outrun a SNAIL, an ant, a beetle. I cannot RUN. My daughter says watching me run causes her pain to see it, awkward and loping and slow. I’m in good shape. I can walk for days and lift things and work.

                 I CANNOT run.

  There is also nothing to hide behind, in this open field on a gravel road. 45 snorts at me.

I walk a few steps, thinking I will remove myself from being between mother and  child. The calf moves WITH me. I warn the calf he is the next T-Bone and I WILL get my revenge MWA HA. I’ll swallow YOU, along with my FEAR, I warn the calf.

  I try this again. Step, step, step.

Calf moves with me.

45 is getting progressively more upset and paws the ground a little.

I have no other choice. I kneel down, never taking my eyes off of 45. I feel around, picking up 3 large pieces of gravel.

                                 (hold up, wait a minute, put a little love in it)

still plays loudly in my ears.

  The first piece of gravel whistles past her hind end. She doesn’t even notice, and takes another threatening step toward me.

     (can’t kick the habit, I’ve got to have it, I’m what they call a LOVE ADDICT, LOVE ADDICT)

  I take better aim this time and throw the rock hard toward her head, she’s coming toward me now.

                               WHACK!!!!

it hits her DEAD CENTER, right between the eyes with a hollow THWACK.

I take off trotting, this allowing me a few seconds to get out from between mother and child.

45 shakes her head, wobbles a bit. She lets out a confused MAAAA  and her calf runs to her. They sniff and check each other out and head out into the pasture.

  I stop trotting and walk the rest of the way home.

         ( I must confess, my heart is pounding in my chest, for this love’s the best)

I round the corner, headed home, people on the highway have their lights on now. It’s more dark than light.

               (HOLD UP, WAIT A MINUTE)

I give in to the music and bob my head, singing along, caring not what the people driving by may think.

(I’m glowing inside, with this light I can’t hide)

I think about Trevor and church camp and dancing with the kids. We often stopped whatever we were doing and danced. Once, the kids got me a birthday card that played music. It was “Can’t Touch This” and the rule was, if that card was opened, dancing commenced. So, I’d walk in from the chicken houses, dirty and nasty and Tara or Trevor would run and open the card.

               Now we dance! we’d shout and we WOULD and we’d boogie til the song was over.

  Their friends would come over and the shout would come NOW WE DANCE!! and we WOULD, me and my kid’s friends, laughing and dancing.

  So, when I got home I put “Love Addict” on speaker. Now we DANCE! I thought.

                                                               and I did.

chicken poop, snakes, and hurt feelings.

I wonder sometimes when it’s going to happen. 

  Getting bitten by a snake, of course, is the thing I wonder about.

   I have such a tendency to wear flip flops right up to the edges of creeks and ponds, poking at interesting things with sticks. I jump from the Kubota to peer closer at a turtle or large bull frog and before I SEE the snake, I HEAR the snake…that heavy, long lengthy slithery slide, the grass parting just slightly and PLOOP they are in the water. I get a glimpse of them and then they are gone.

  I killed a cottonmouth snake with a BB gun Friday morning. It had been a terrible day already and my spirit was low. Lower than a snake’s belly! I read in a children’s book once. I had dealt with pain and anger, anger and pain for days. I could scarcely bear it, the things said to me… to others, angry, mean words. Threats. Mocking words.  

  I saw the cottonmouth in the second creek on my way to the chicken houses. I was getting a late start, so it was almost 10 am. Usually I am out there earlier, but today was a bad day, so my schedule was off. The wind blew across my face, drying  the tears I had cried all morning.  It was hot already, the sun hitting my shoulders and arms.

  I keep a BB gun on the Kubota to spook dogs and wayward cattle and horses. I also shoot AT snakes but rarely actually HIT snakes.

  The snake was lying in the shallow part of the creek, sunning his body on a large rock, his head in the water.

 I stopped the Kubota. I aimed my BB gun and PING! Hit the snake right in the head. Instead of sliding away, gliding away under the water and hiding under a rock…he was still. I shot again, seeing that again I hit him right in the center of the head. He went under, rolling slowly under the water…that roll that snakes do when they are dying, their nerves still alive and twitching. . I grabbed a large stick and lifted the snake out of the water. He was dead, dead, dead.

  I was STUNNED. I lay him on the road and took a picture with my phone. I texted it to Clint with the caption “I killed a snake with my BB gun!!”. He called almost immediately and said “woman! you’re gonna get BIT one of these days, poking around creeks with a silly BB gun!”

 But he was proud of me and told me so. I hung up and headed to the chicken houses, feeling strangely lighter and better.

 I walked chickens, the air swirling with feathers and dirt. I picked up a cull and almost immediately it pooped on my leg, the goo running down into my boot. I never broke my stride. See, that stuff washes off. It’s gross and unpleasant and smells… but it won’t actually kill you.

 So on I walked. I picked up a cull that had been attacked by another chicken. I felt blood trickle down my other leg. That stuff washes off, too.

On I walked.

 I thought about my morning…about the words said to me. I thought about that dead snake.

  Oh, a tiny BB gun. Barely able to break the skin.

But…I killed a snake with it.

I killed a snake because I kept at it. I wasn’t afraid. My aim was true. I didn’t give up. Just kept shooting.

I pondered chicken poop and venomous snakes and angry words.

   I drove home after dumping the dead chickens onto the pile at the composter, the buzzards waiting. They’re always waiting. Waiting for the dead, the unliving, the unmoving, the battered and the bloody. They eyed me, tilting their heads to look at me. If we don’t cover the dead with leftover chicken litter, tomorrow I’ll drive out there and there will be bones and feathers, bits and pieces. Frankenchicken.

  I took a shower, washing off the poo and dirt and the morning. I got out of the shower, dried with a fluffy white towel. I braided my hair, plopped on my sun hat and put on my overall shorts.

  I sat down, my feet and legs feeling tired and shaky. I thought about the things said to me, from people that I loved, that once had  loved me. I prayed for them. I prayed for me. I pictured myself, a harmless child’s toy. A BB gun.

  I pictured hatred, like a poisonous snake, venomous and waiting, sunning in the water.

I looked again at the picture on my phone. I thought of Clint’s words. “Woman! You’re gonna get BIT!”.

  I thought of the people who lashed out at me. The people that…when they call and I see their number…I hesitate to answer. I never know who they are going to be. Do they?

  I thought of those people. I thought of getting snake bit. I wondered when…at what point…am I only going to be armed with a  BB gun or not armed at all and not see the snake? Will it bite me? Will it hurt?

  Clint and I were searching for a calf the other day. I had on my boots and at one point, Clint slowed the Kubota and I jumped off, going to walk toward the creek, where there were trees and shade. The perfect place to bed a calf down. I had taken a couple of steps when the snake slithered past me, 3 inches from my foot. A cottonmouth I had very nearly stepped on. I knew my boots wouldn’t have stopped an angry snake’s fangs. I turned to Clint. He had seen it and he got off the Kubota and looked, but the snake was gone.

   I don’t believe that bite would have come any more out of the blue or any more painful than what I had felt in the last few days.

  But…during church today, I realized my heart felt like I had washed it clean  and dried it with a fluffy, white towel. I washed off the gunk and goo of the last few days with tears and prayer. See, angry words are unpleasant and painful…but the won’t actually KILL you.

  And…I feel God is telling me there are creeks I must stay away from. No matter the memories or former tugs at my heart. Stay away, says God to me.

 To keep from getting bitten, of course.

And so I shall.