Dark Water and Clear Thoughts

    Sometimes things break down in the chicken houses and sometimes I can fix them. Sometimes, I can even fix them to where they STAY fixed and that is a grand feeling. My chickens are around  4 weeks old. I’m halfway thru this batch. We are already having to haul water. We’ve never had to haul water this early into a batch of chickens. I watch the news every morning and today, I heard the chipper weather man tell us the reason for the incredible drought was the intense temperatures and lack of rain. I am thinking that if this Poultry Princess thing doesn’t work out, I shall become a weather person and state obvious things such as “We are having floods due to the immense amount of rain” and “ it’s bright out there cause  the sun came up”. Alas, there are no floods.  We are in a drought and the only thing to do is just deal with it.  So, deal with it, we do… and  Clint hauls water in an old tanker truck that used to belong to the fire department. He puts gas powered pumps into one pond, pumps it into the tanker truck and hauls it to the pond that feeds our cool cells. We are strictly well water, no city water at all. They’ve promised us city water for 10 years and, to be honest at this point, I’ll believe them when they turn the valve on and I SEE the water burbling forth  and not a moment sooner. They could be digging and laying the pipe right in front but I’ll still  just have a “wait and see” attitude.  This attitude comes from years of living in rural areas where promises of city water come and go with the election year.

  Today, I was walking thru the chickens and noticed one feed line in house two had no feed in it. I knew there was something wrong when the birds were bunched up on one side of the house and the other side was barren. I walked down to the feeder and first off, I unplugged it. (Always unplug the feeder. Always unplug the feeder. This runs in a loop in my head.  Should I say it again? We must NEVER leave power on to the equipment we are working on.) I kicked it. I like to refer to this as “percussive maintenance”. Sometimes, it just needs something jarred loose. I plugged the feeder back in. Nothing. I unplugged the feeder (chant it again. Always unplug the feeder) and went to taking the cover off. The cover was rusty and the clips were stiff, but I managed to whack them a few times with my screwdriver. (Again with the percussive maintenance)  I pulled off the cover and there was feed stuffed up inside and around the auger. Using my long screwdriver, I poked around and dug in the feed. I never, ever stick my fingers into the feeder. Even with the power off, the auger can be in a bind and if you knock loose what is holding it from turning it can spin so quickly and with so much force it can take your finger off. I once stuck a screwdriver into a feeder and pried loose a bolt that had made it’s way down the auger and when it broke loose, the auger spun and SNAP!! broke the metal screwdriver in half, sending the metal piece flying toward my face.

  Never, ever stick your fingers in the auger. This runs in a loop in my head too, and I continue to poke around.

  I finally fish out a wad of wire, thin, rusty wire. It’s wadded up with something furry…old, dried fur. It looks like a knot of old leather, too and  I can make out a small claw. It’s probably a rat from the feed mill…scurrying back to it’s nest with a ball of wire and he loses his footing and falls down into the feed and dies and mummifies  and rides in a feed truck to my farm and makes it thru that auger and in to my feed hopper and down my feed line and stops my feeder up  and his family is like “why don’t he write?”

  At least, that’s what I surmise happened.

I get my needle nose pliers and pull a few more pieces and strands of wire and rat leather. I put the cover back on and plug the feeder back in. It starts and runs smoothly, filling the pans with feed.

  I think about augers as I walk back toward the Kubota and farm equipment in general. It can be dangerous if you aren’t paying attention and sometimes, even if you ARE paying attention. Something can shift…buckle…bind up…flip…and you’re hurt.

  The tunnel curtains are held up by thick cables that run thru pulleys. Sometimes, the cable will make it’s way off the track of the pulley and bind up in the doohickey that holds the pulley together.

 I had sent the kids to school that morning and set about my work. I don’t have cell phone reception inside the chicken houses, so I don’t even take it in. I noted the cable caught and the curtain was unable to drop. So, with my gloved hands, I grabbed the lower part of the cable and pulled down hard and tried to force the cable back into the track of the pulley. I had it almost there when something broke and the cable snaked quickly into the wall, the curtain falling with a force.

  The cable caught my right glove and yanked me into the cranking system. It was spinning, letting the cable fall. It has teeth to hold the cable in, and a braking system. The braking system malfunctioned and before I could jerk my right hand free, it was dragged toward the hand crank, winding in with the fast moving cable. I jerked hard backward with all my weight. I watched as my glove came off my hand and  fed into the crank system and was ripped to shreds. I fell backward and looked up at my caught, torn glove. I sat there in the litter, stunned.

  It occurred to me that if I hadn’t yanked my hand out of the way quick enough, I would have been tangled up with the cable. No phone. No one at home. No way to get help. Clint would get worried after 4 or 5 hours of not hearing from me, but there’d I’d be, my right hand tangled up inside the chicken houses.

  So, a Poultry Princess must be careful. I called Clint after I was done this morning and told him about the feeder being stopped up with wire and he asked two questions. 1) did I unplug the feeder and 2) were you careful to never stick your fingers in the auger.

  Of course, I assured him I’m always careful. He told me he was glad I could fix things and that he appreciated it but he didn’t want me getting  hurt and he reminds me about the tunnel curtain cable near miss  and the times I’ve fallen and I don’t want you messing with the pumps and stay away from the tanker truck and leave the tractor alone and for heaven’s sake, when you check the water level watch for snakes and put some SHOES on once in a while and quit wearing those STUPID flip flops that won’t protect your feet from anything and gotta go, I love you.

  Last night, I was helping Clint drag his water scamp to the pond that feeds the cool cells. I got to the pond before he did. I poked around the edge of the pond and saw movement. I expected to see turtles or frogs but instead, saw snakes. 15-20 baby copperhead snakes about 8 inches long. I watched them swirl and swim, my mouth open in horror. We have a veritable nest of snakes in that pond, it seems …where Clint has to be in and out of, hauling water, paddling the scamp out to check the depth of the pump. Shooting them will be a problem…for fear of shooting the 700 dollar pump that is the only source of water to the cool cells. This scared me for him and I said so and he pointed out that I was the one poking around in flip flops.

  “True.” I sighed.

“Stay away from this scamp. Snakes like to hide under boats and I don’t want you getting bit.” he said firmly.

I assured him I have no need to go near the scamp. I’m scared of boats and dark water, water that is murky and feet can’t be seen and strange, slimy  things bump up against you and perhaps a fish will bite a toe and a snake will POP up in front of you in the water and stare you down. All of these things have happened to me and trust me, there is no fear of me getting in a tiny boat in dark, water. 

  So, I stood by the well house to flip the breaker off so that there would be no power to the pump Clint was pulling out of the water. He was in a tiny, spinning scamp on dark water. Baby snakes swam and ducked under. Big, ugly snapping turtles broke the surface and stared. The boat yawed and spun and twisted, almost seeming to flip. He looked up at me and yelled “okay! go into the well house and turn that breaker off. Watch for wasps! Be careful!”

  I looked at this man I love, this tan, strong man, his hair shining silver in the sun. I looked at him and laughed and said worrying about me getting wasp stung was the last thing he needed to worry about and I pointed out the snakes, the dark water, the boat. 

“well, woman!  I can’t have you getting hurt!” he said, laughing up toward me on the bank. “somebody’s gotta cook supper and wash my clothes and take care of me and these chickens.” 

  So, I went inside the well house. The wasps buzzed and whined at me from the corners but didn’t threaten me. I threw the breaker, checking it over and over to make sure it was “OFF”, rubbing the dust off with my finger to make sure.  

  Clint got the pump adjusted to his liking and paddled the boat  to the edge of the pond. I helped him out and then pointed out some baby snakes. He grabbed big rocks and pummeled the baby snakes and injured one grievously. We chased around, me following the snake with my eyes and him leveling the rocks to throw. Finally, the baby snake didn’t surface anymore and we decided we got him.

  We headed home after this adventure and I started a light supper of tuna patties and baked potato and broccoli and cheese. Clint cooled off in the pool and came in to watch Gunsmoke and eat.

  We talked about hauling water and pumps and baby snakes and drought and needed rain. We then talked about putting our hand to the plow and just gettin’ stuff DONE.

  I thought about this as I dug wire and rat leather out of the feeder. Putting my hand to the plow, yes, I’ll do THAT, yes I will…  but I shall NOT be  putting my hand into the auger or a feeder with power still running to it or tunnel curtain cables winding their way out of their allotted areas, tangling and tortured, bound and wound, snaking into the wall.

  I ran my bath with warm, clear water and watched the tub fill. How we take clean water for granted! How we just assume it is safe and pure. I thought about Clint, precarious on that little boat, his arm shoulder deep in the brackish water, fishing around for the rope holding the pump, baby snakes and snapping turtles watching him closely. Almost as closely as I do.

   When it rains, dear reader…and I pray it does soon….I will stand on the edge of that pond and watch God fill it (oh, no matter how much water we haul and no matter how big and powerful the pump, we cannot do as good a job as He) and I shall sing as loudly as a trilling frog in springtime.

Dark Water and Clear Thoughts

    Sometimes things break down in the chicken houses and sometimes I can fix them. Sometimes, I can even fix them to where they STAY fixed and that is a grand feeling. My chickens are around  4 weeks old. I’m halfway thru this batch. We are already having to haul water. We’ve never had to haul water this early into a batch of chickens. I watch the news every morning and today, I heard the chipper weather man tell us the reason for the incredible drought was the intense temperatures and lack of rain. I am thinking that if this Poultry Princess thing doesn’t work out, I shall become a weather person and state obvious things such as “We are having floods due to the immense amount of rain” and “ it’s bright out there cause  the sun came up”. Alas, there are no floods.  We are in a drought and the only thing to do is just deal with it.  So, deal with it, we do… and  Clint hauls water in an old tanker truck that used to belong to the fire department. He puts gas powered pumps into one pond, pumps it into the tanker truck and hauls it to the pond that feeds our cool cells. We are strictly well water, no city water at all. They’ve promised us city water for 10 years and, to be honest at this point, I’ll believe them when they turn the valve on and I SEE the water burbling forth  and not a moment sooner. They could be digging and laying the pipe right in front but I’ll still  just have a “wait and see” attitude.  This attitude comes from years of living in rural areas where promises of city water come and go with the election year.

  Today, I was walking thru the chickens and noticed one feed line in house two had no feed in it. I knew there was something wrong when the birds were bunched up on one side of the house and the other side was barren. I walked down to the feeder and first off, I unplugged it. (Always unplug the feeder. Always unplug the feeder. This runs in a loop in my head.  Should I say it again? We must NEVER leave power on to the equipment we are working on.) I kicked it. I like to refer to this as “percussive maintenance”. Sometimes, it just needs something jarred loose. I plugged the feeder back in. Nothing. I unplugged the feeder (chant it again. Always unplug the feeder) and went to taking the cover off. The cover was rusty and the clips were stiff, but I managed to whack them a few times with my screwdriver. (Again with the percussive maintenance)  I pulled off the cover and there was feed stuffed up inside and around the auger. Using my long screwdriver, I poked around and dug in the feed. I never, ever stick my fingers into the feeder. Even with the power off, the auger can be in a bind and if you knock loose what is holding it from turning it can spin so quickly and with so much force it can take your finger off. I once stuck a screwdriver into a feeder and pried loose a bolt that had made it’s way down the auger and when it broke loose, the auger spun and SNAP!! broke the metal screwdriver in half, sending the metal piece flying toward my face.

  Never, ever stick your fingers in the auger. This runs in a loop in my head too, and I continue to poke around.

  I finally fish out a wad of wire, thin, rusty wire. It’s wadded up with something furry…old, dried fur. It looks like a knot of old leather, too and  I can make out a small claw. It’s probably a rat from the feed mill…scurrying back to it’s nest with a ball of wire and he loses his footing and falls down into the feed and dies and mummifies  and rides in a feed truck to my farm and makes it thru that auger and in to my feed hopper and down my feed line and stops my feeder up  and his family is like “why don’t he write?”

  At least, that’s what I surmise happened.

I get my needle nose pliers and pull a few more pieces and strands of wire and rat leather. I put the cover back on and plug the feeder back in. It starts and runs smoothly, filling the pans with feed.

  I think about augers as I walk back toward the Kubota and farm equipment in general. It can be dangerous if you aren’t paying attention and sometimes, even if you ARE paying attention. Something can shift…buckle…bind up…flip…and you’re hurt.

  The tunnel curtains are held up by thick cables that run thru pulleys. Sometimes, the cable will make it’s way off the track of the pulley and bind up in the doohickey that holds the pulley together.

 I had sent the kids to school that morning and set about my work. I don’t have cell phone reception inside the chicken houses, so I don’t even take it in. I noted the cable caught and the curtain was unable to drop. So, with my gloved hands, I grabbed the lower part of the cable and pulled down hard and tried to force the cable back into the track of the pulley. I had it almost there when something broke and the cable snaked quickly into the wall, the curtain falling with a force.

  The cable caught my right glove and yanked me into the cranking system. It was spinning, letting the cable fall. It has teeth to hold the cable in, and a braking system. The braking system malfunctioned and before I could jerk my right hand free, it was dragged toward the hand crank, winding in with the fast moving cable. I jerked hard backward with all my weight. I watched as my glove came off my hand and  fed into the crank system and was ripped to shreds. I fell backward and looked up at my caught, torn glove. I sat there in the litter, stunned.

  It occurred to me that if I hadn’t yanked my hand out of the way quick enough, I would have been tangled up with the cable. No phone. No one at home. No way to get help. Clint would get worried after 4 or 5 hours of not hearing from me, but there’d I’d be, my right hand tangled up inside the chicken houses.

  So, a Poultry Princess must be careful. I called Clint after I was done this morning and told him about the feeder being stopped up with wire and he asked two questions. 1) did I unplug the feeder and 2) were you careful to never stick your fingers in the auger.

  Of course, I assured him I’m always careful. He told me he was glad I could fix things and that he appreciated it but he didn’t want me getting  hurt and he reminds me about the tunnel curtain cable near miss  and the times I’ve fallen and I don’t want you messing with the pumps and stay away from the tanker truck and leave the tractor alone and for heaven’s sake, when you check the water level watch for snakes and put some SHOES on once in a while and quit wearing those STUPID flip flops that won’t protect your feet from anything and gotta go, I love you.

  Last night, I was helping Clint drag his water scamp to the pond that feeds the cool cells. I got to the pond before he did. I poked around the edge of the pond and saw movement. I expected to see turtles or frogs but instead, saw snakes. 15-20 baby copperhead snakes about 8 inches long. I watched them swirl and swim, my mouth open in horror. We have a veritable nest of snakes in that pond, it seems …where Clint has to be in and out of, hauling water, paddling the scamp out to check the depth of the pump. Shooting them will be a problem…for fear of shooting the 700 dollar pump that is the only source of water to the cool cells. This scared me for him and I said so and he pointed out that I was the one poking around in flip flops.

  “True.” I sighed.

“Stay away from this scamp. Snakes like to hide under boats and I don’t want you getting bit.” he said firmly.

I assured him I have no need to go near the scamp. I’m scared of boats and dark water, water that is murky and feet can’t be seen and strange, slimy  things bump up against you and perhaps a fish will bite a toe and a snake will POP up in front of you in the water and stare you down. All of these things have happened to me and trust me, there is no fear of me getting in a tiny boat in dark, water. 

  So, I stood by the well house to flip the breaker off so that there would be no power to the pump Clint was pulling out of the water. He was in a tiny, spinning scamp on dark water. Baby snakes swam and ducked under. Big, ugly snapping turtles broke the surface and stared. The boat yawed and spun and twisted, almost seeming to flip. He looked up at me and yelled “okay! go into the well house and turn that breaker off. Watch for wasps! Be careful!”

  I looked at this man I love, this tan, strong man, his hair shining silver in the sun. I looked at him and laughed and said worrying about me getting wasp stung was the last thing he needed to worry about and I pointed out the snakes, the dark water, the boat. 

“well, woman!  I can’t have you getting hurt!” he said, laughing up toward me on the bank. “somebody’s gotta cook supper and wash my clothes and take care of me and these chickens.” 

  So, I went inside the well house. The wasps buzzed and whined at me from the corners but didn’t threaten me. I threw the breaker, checking it over and over to make sure it was “OFF”, rubbing the dust off with my finger to make sure.  

  Clint got the pump adjusted to his liking and paddled the boat  to the edge of the pond. I helped him out and then pointed out some baby snakes. He grabbed big rocks and pummeled the baby snakes and injured one grievously. We chased around, me following the snake with my eyes and him leveling the rocks to throw. Finally, the baby snake didn’t surface anymore and we decided we got him.

  We headed home after this adventure and I started a light supper of tuna patties and baked potato and broccoli and cheese. Clint cooled off in the pool and came in to watch Gunsmoke and eat.

  We talked about hauling water and pumps and baby snakes and drought and needed rain. We then talked about putting our hand to the plow and just gettin’ stuff DONE.

  I thought about this as I dug wire and rat leather out of the feeder. Putting my hand to the plow, yes, I’ll do THAT, yes I will…  but I shall NOT be  putting my hand into the auger or a feeder with power still running to it or tunnel curtain cables winding their way out of their allotted areas, tangling and tortured, bound and wound, snaking into the wall.

  I ran my bath with warm, clear water and watched the tub fill. How we take clean water for granted! How we just assume it is safe and pure. I thought about Clint, precarious on that little boat, his arm shoulder deep in the brackish water, fishing around for the rope holding the pump, baby snakes and snapping turtles watching him closely. Almost as closely as I do.

   When it rains, dear reader…and I pray it does soon….I will stand on the edge of that pond and watch God fill it (oh, no matter how much water we haul and no matter how big and powerful the pump, we cannot do as good a job as He) and I shall sing as loudly as a trilling frog in springtime.

Dumb and Dumber and a Dumb Belle

    I’m not supposed to have any sort of fowl at all other than the chickens in my chicken houses. Normally, that’s fine. I dislike parrots and other birds in the house (to be honest, I dislike ALL animals in the house) and ducks are loud and messy and geese are HORRID to deal with.

  But…the last batch, the catch crew left two perfectly fine grown chickens in house two, a large rooster and hen. They had hidden in a migration fence (it’s basically a big tube) together. I couldn’t help but picture them as a young couple,  escaping from some horrid event together, trauma bringing them together in that way that trauma does.

  It wasn’t the first time we’ve brought chickens home that were left…the kids kept a couple in the barn named Jacques and Princess Fiona. They lived happily there for a while until Jacques fell ill and died and Princess Fiona summarily threw herself into the horses water trough and drowned. She couldn’t go on without her Jacques, I suppose.

  I’ve brought a few culls home here and there, they live for a few days and then, one morning I get up and they are just… gone. I’m sure an owl or hawk or coyote or stray dog just takes them, these fat, white, slow chicken house chickens that are dumb as bricks.

 But…I brought home this rooster and this hen, who had escaped together, hidden in a tube, hiding for days with no food and no water, the temps inside the unventilated, shut down houses reaching the upper 90’s.

  “these chickens are too dumb to scratch!” we’d marvel as they sat,  wide eyed, blinking in the sun. And they ARE too dumb to scratch and too dumb to DRINK, for heaven’s sake. I resort to taking a pan of water in front of them and just grabbing their heads and dunking it in the water a few times, watching their eyes as a light goes on and they GET IT,that the water isn’t magically going to appear above them in the form of a shiny thing to peck at.

  They also sit and wait for food to magically appear in front of them and don’t know how to eat anything that isn’t tan and crumbly like the chicken house feed. So, I would throw out tomato scraps and melon rinds and place them right in front of them, sometimes pushing their beaks into the pieces.

  When they started finally eating that, I would turn over boards and move buckets out in the barn, sending crickets jumping. I would catch a few and shake them in my hand to disorient them and throw them in front of the chickens. They stare at them, watching them move slowly…then they peck and realize it’s FOOD, glorious FOOD and they jump up, waiting for more.

 But if you think I’m gonna spend a good portion of  my day catching crickets and grasshoppers to throw to fat, white, stupid chicken house chickens…well, you’re right.

  A little bit right. I’ll do it for a bit, enjoying seeing that instinct come ALIVE that has been pummeled down in the dim chicken houses with feed and water at the ready at all times.

  Before long, the rooster (Dumb) and hen (Dumber)  were venturing out of the barn and into the yard, chasing bugs and catching worms. I showed them how to scratch, moving a rock and raking my fingers over the dirt. The rooster took to it quickly and started aggressively scratching and digging. The hen would follow him, and would allow him to steal food she had dug up. Then, she got smart and when she caught a cricket or grasshopper, she would immediately run away screeching, giving herself away. This would get his attention and he would give chase and fight her for the treat and this would go on until one of them ate it and then it started all over again.

 This was fine and dandy for a week. I kept expecting them to just be GONE, but there they were, every morning, venturing out further and further from the barn. They were so fat they couldn’t run, they lumbered around, their big thick legs awkwardly propelling them forward. I threw out scraps of tomato and melon and cole slaw and pasta salad and left over roasted potatoes…they ate it all. I would yell “CHICK CHICK CHICK” and I’d hear a squawk from under the deck or out at the barn and here they’d come, the rooster first, his fat body bouncing from trying to run. They’d happily eat whatever I had. They especially loved left over homemade bread and tomatoes. They loved tomatoes SO much, they ate all the cherry tomatoes out of my little raised garden. I sighed when I saw this and thought “surely, someone will take these chickens” but no one did. Before, someone has always taken them. Not this time..

 I tried to give Dumb and Dumber to everyone. Texted friends. Nobody wanted them. Sigh again. A month came and went.

  By this point, every time I went outside, they came running for me, squawking and flapping. They were huge, the size of small turkeys. They followed me around the yard as I weeded or watered. I’d walk to Clint’s shop and stand in the doorway, Dumb and Dumber peering in around my ankles, making Clint laugh at my trained chickens. 

  My children came over to visit and I showed them Dumb and Dumber…I walked out on the deck with a piece of bread and yelled “hey, babies! Come get something to eat!” and they’d run, flapping and lumbering toward me. My children pronounced this “ridiculous” and they were RIGHT.  

 The final straw came when, as usual, I went for my early walk to the chicken houses.  I had my headset on and was talking animatedly to my friend Tammie. I made it about 20 feet down the road when I heard a noise behind me. I turned and there behind me, were Dumb and Dumber, looking to the world like they were chasing me to the chicken houses. I shooshed them back toward the road and the rooster squawked angrily at me and I SWEAR gave me a dirty look.  Tammie and I laughed about how ridiculous I must look, talking to myself, dressed in an old pink tennis outfit I bought at a second hand store, chickens chasing me down the road.

 The finalest straw (it’s a word, I swear) came the next morning at sunrise. I woke to make Clint’s coffee as he slept and had my walking clothes on. I hear a faint cluck cluck sound and I turn and see Dumb and Dumber standing at the window of the back door, staring at me. Dumb pecked the glass and Dumber squawked in happiness. I tried to quietly herd them off the deck (I have two things I’d like to point out: chickens cannot be herded and they do NOTHING quietly) but Dumb squawked in protest, waking Clint.

  The finalestest straw came when Dumb then decided to pick a fight with Tika, my special needs dog with the demeanor of a snapping turtle with scabies. Dumb ran up onto the porch where Tika lay guarding her food bowl and pecked crazy eyed Tika’s  head hard. To Tika’s credit, she didn’t kill Dumb although she could have. People kept asking how my dogs left the chickens alone. We had spanked them for biting chickens at the chicken house for so long, I guess it never occurred to them. If the pack leaders (Clint and I) said the chickens were stayin’, then  Maggie and Tika just agreed.

  This has gone on for a month. I kind of enjoy the little dudes, they make me laugh and I’ve enjoyed remembering how fun chickens can be, pecking and scratching and fighting for food. But they gots to go, as I like to say.

 Last night, Clint had his friends over to play pool in the shop. This group of guys are some of the hardest working, nicest guys I know. They are men from our church, family men with sweet wives and grown children.  They have prayer time, then they play pool and pick at each other and eat too much junk food.

  I walked to the shop door to tell Clint I was checking chickens and Dumb and Dumber peered in behind me.

“Garland! Here’s these chickens I was telling you about! Come see ‘em” said Clint. Here came Garland, a tall, handsome, silver haired man with a dry sense of humor and a work ethic that is unbelievable. He is over 70, but could pass easily for 50.

  Garland looked at the chickens and laughed. “I do believe those are the fattest chickens I’ve ever seen.” he said.

  “Lichea’s got them so spoiled. She feeds them every time she walks outside.” Clint answered and we admired Dumb and Dumber. They seemed to preen for us and showed out by chasing a grasshopper.

  “Have I got a deal for YOU!” I told Garland. “You can HAVE these fine chickens for free.” Clint laughed and said “he’s already taking them.”

I should have been happy…but I felt a twinge of sadness.

“Oh… good!” I said.

“will it bother you if I butcher them?”asked Garland.

“ oh, no..” I said honestly. “I just can’t do it. I’ve gone and gotten attached.”

“they’re basically organic fed?” He asked.

“yup. Homemade bread, tomatoes and bugs.” I answered back. “oh! and they like oatmeal.” “you feed them oatmeal?” he marveled. “yes! they love it!” I grinned back.

Clint and Garland made plans to catch Dumb and Dumber after playing pool…and they did, without my help. Their last meal in my yard was watermelon scraps from a wonderful watermelon Dwayne had brought. I like knowing that. They loved watermelon.

  Clint said Garland thought it was funny I was attached to Dumb and Dumber and opined I could go get two more and have all the chickens around that I wanted. He also noted that I killed chickens all the time and why did these two seem to be different to me.

  But…Clint and I know we aren’t supposed to have chickens in the yard  and that bothered us and we knew either we’d have to kill them or try to sneak them into the next batch. I didn’t want to do that to Dumb and Dumber, it seemed cruel to place them back into captivity after tasting freedom and I thought they’d be happier at Garland’s house, with his sweet wife treating them kindly until butchering day.

 As I type this, I have another memory of Dumb and Dumber. I was sitting in Tara’s old room, just where I am right now, typing away at the computer. Pecking out my memories, scratching around in my head, finding just the right phrase or word to complete my story. I heard another pecking, off to my right. I turned my head and stared directly into the eyes of Dumb and Dumber. They had wandered into the front yard and had seen me sitting there. The window into Tara’s room is almost floor to ceiling, with an arched top. Dumb and Dumber stared in at me and I stared out at them and for a moment, I pondered that…here they were free to run and scratch and peck for the first time in their lives. Maybe they were staring at me thinking “why does she just stay in THERE? it’s GREAT out here! loose and free from the darkness! not kept captive in a dim, loud place! This outside stuff ROCKS!”

  It made me think about times I’ve been captive and didn’t know it…captive because I didn’t know what was out there or what sunshine was.

  There have been times in my life I was too dumb to scratch. Too bloated and slow to dig and see what’s really underneath. So, dear reader. Here’s to getting out of your comfort zone and scratching and exploring. You’ll get dirty. You’ll dig up unpleasant things from time to time.  Unfamiliar things will scare you…but, perhaps a semi-crazy blonde Poultry Princess will dunk your head in the water, making you lose your breath in the cool wetness…finding you LIKE it and doing it again on your own  with no help or encouragement. You’ll find you like watermelon, but…asparagus…not so much. You’ll find the joy in sunrises and feel the need to find a safe place in the sunset. You’ll run toward people, cackling and clucking,   people that bring you good things and feed your body and soul. You’ll pick fights with Tika, a half heeler/half cottonmouth with cataracts (it would explain her demeanor) and stand firm against gnashing teeth.

   I hope Dumb and Dumber like their new home. I’m sure their end will come soon, swift and sure. But til then, dear reader…..they are making the most of what they had left. A life they never knew existed until they were forced into it.

  Today, dear reader….scratch. Explore. Don’t be scared. Be chicken.

Granny and Broken Glass

    The thing about dropping a glass on my tile kitchen floor is the glass literally EXPLODES, sending shards and chunks skittering and scattering into every nook and corner that the glass can get into.

  The glass was Tara’s, a smoky, purple colored Coca Cola glass. It was a favorite of Clint’s also and I had just picked it up out of the living room. I have a terrible habit of walking around, picking up glasses and dumping them and putting them into the dishwasher…before the person drinking them is actually done. “MOM!!” I’ll hear. “Where’s my cup??” and I would smile sweetly and say “ummm….I thought you were done…” and my son or daughter would grumpily fix another glass of tea and announce that this cup was to stay HERE and NOBODY dump it out that means YOU mom.

  It was one of those things, breaking the Coca Cola glass…that I couldn’t re-enact for Clint. It seemed as though one second it was on the counter and I was thinking and humming and singing and I reached for it and it simply LEAPT off the counter and hung there, midair, as I scrabbled at it helplessly and watch it hit the ground. I have learned to squinch my eyes up tight, as once, a piece of glass hit me delicately above my eyebrow when I had knocked a glass lid onto my lethal tile floor. I also just freeze in place and don’t move, the glass sliding all around my feet and dusting my shins with sparkle. I’m usually barefoot or have flimsy flip flops on and have to traverse tiptoe to get to the broom and shop vac.

  Clint was watching Gunsmoke when I broke the glass and he got up and got some shoes on and yelled at me kindly for not having decent shoes on. “Good Lord, woman, you’re gonna cut your feet to PIECES.” he’ll say and toss some shoes toward me.

  I swept and he fetched the shop vac out of the garage and I had a pretty good pile going when he came in. He got the dust pan and using the little broom that came with it, swept it into the dust pan. It clinked and jangled, that sound of broken glass. He then walked toward the trash can to dump it straight in.

  I feel I must interject here, dear reader. Sometimes, when I want to make a point, my tone of my voice comes out sharper than I intend it to be. Let me just say, I wanted to make a point.

  “NO!” I yelled at Clint. “DON’T THROW GLASS DIRECTLY INTO THE TRASH BAG!!! PUT IT IN A PAPER SACK FIRST!!”

  Clint frowned at me and muttered and…went and got a paper sack. When he came back, I explained in a newer, softer tone, that glass would poke thru the plastic and cut whoever picked the bag up and God forbid they whack the bag up against themselves as they yanked it up from the trash can and the jagged, razor sharp piece of glass stab them where ever it hit. He placed the shards into the paper sack, carefully rolled it down and placed it into the trashbag and went to watch the rest of his show.

  I thought about broken glass, about something being whole and good and then, in one fell swoop, broken and dangerous and deadly  and no good except to cut an unsuspecting child’s foot open. I got a wet paper towel and swiped it across the tile floor, wiping up tiny bits of glass that the shop vac and broom missed. The paper towel sparkled darkly in my hand.

  I thought about being with my Granny Viv, in her kitchen. I was about 8.   She was making pie and let me help roll the crust out on the table. She used the last of the shortening and threw the empty container into the trash. I was angry at the container of shortening, it showed pictures of pie and cookies on the outer wrapping, but on the inside was just white, greasy, tasteless glop. I told Granny that to me, that was lying and she laughed at me a tiny bit and agreed.

  The trash was full, so she grabbed the ties on either side and yanked the bag up and out of the trash can. I didn’t notice it hitting her shin, but it must have. She never said anything, or acted like anything was wrong and she put a new trash bag in and we got on with our pie making. In a minute, I looked on the floor and saw dark, red splotches and splashes. I noticed some of them were shaped like a foot and I tracked them with my eyes and my trail ended at Granny, her back turned toward me as she washed dishes at the sink.

  “Granny?” I said. “What’s that?” and she turned and  looked down where my finger pointed. She lifted her pants leg and we noticed her slip-on shoe was filled with blood. She pulled her pants leg higher, and there it was, a deep, crescent shaped wound…blood seeped out steadily and poured into her sock. She grabbed a chair and sat down, trying to figure out how this happened. I jumped up and grabbed a clean tea towel out of the cabinet and wet it in the cool water from the faucet and held it to the puncture.

  We still couldn’t fathom how she got cut and I trailed and tracked the blood across the floor, finding the furthest point in front of the trash bag. Then I saw it, a vicious, gleaming piece of glass, it’s pointed edge red with blood. It was curved and seemed to be the bottom of a Mason jar.

 I pointed it out and showed her. She surmised that when the bag hit her, the glass had cut her. A crescent shaped hole in her pant leg, sharply cut, edged with red confirmed our suspicions.

  I got another rag and started wiping up the blood off the floor. By this time, the bleeding had slowed and Granny just sat while I cleaned her leg. I looked down at the pile of dirty, bloody rags.

  Someone…Granny never named a suspect….had broken a glass in her kitchen and, rather than let her take care of it or put it in a paper bag or old can….had just thrown the broken glass into the trash bag.

  I noticed as I stared at the pile of dirty rags on the floor that I didn’t feel well. I sat down hard by Granny and noticed I felt hot and weirdly nauseous. I took a sip of my tea, sweet and lukewarm, one lone ice cube floating at the top. It made me feel better and I drank the rest.

Granny and I took the entire sack of trash and carefully  put it into an old cardboard  box once used to incubate baby chicks still in their shells with a lamp and 40 watt incandescent bulb. The chicks had hatched and moved on, but the box was still in the kitchen being used as a cat bed.  

  Years later, when I told Granny I was going to nursing school, she didn’t seem to be the least bit surprised. “I knew that day I got cut in the kitchen and you hopped up and cleaned up the blood that you’d make a fine nurse.”

  When I sang at church, she’d say “I knew you’d be a good singer, you come from good singers and you cain’t help it. It’s in your blood!”

  When I told her that I was leaving the nursing profession to be a Poultry Princess, she said “I knew you’d make a fine chicken farmer, the way you used to follow the chickens around when you were little and catch bugs for them and want to pet the baby chicks.”

  I have a feeling now that if I told Granny that I wanted to write a book about my life and things I think and feel, she’d say “ I knew you’d be an author someday, the way you would prattle and make up stories and entertain yourself.”

I also think if I told her I wanted to write about HER and biscuits and gardens and catalpa worms, she’d suggest a nice medical mystery for me to write.

  That’s the job of Grannies, I think. To tell grandchildren that they are wonderful and smart and talented and they can do anything they set their mind to.

  Trevor and Tara had my Granny, too. They would visit with her and laugh and talk. Even after she had surgery for her brain aneuryism and lost her ability to swallow very well and her voice changed to a hoarse whisper. She couldn’t sing after that or eat much. She had a feeding tube that ran directly into her stomach. She hated it and told me if she ever got it out, we better never put it back.

  The last time I saw Granny at  her home was the third  of July. I had called my Aunt Debbie to see if the Preston family was getting together for Independence Day  and she told me Granny had fallen and they really needed someone to go look at her. I took Tara and we drove all the way out to the mountains. Granny was lying on the couch, moaning. Her breath gurgled. Oh dear God, I thought. Debbie told me how she fell and that they took her to the ER and was sent home. Her ribs were broken. Debbie and I barely got her loaded into the back of Debbie’s vehicle. She was admitted. I sat with her the next day, she drifted in and out of consciousness. When she awoke she looked at me. “What day is it?” I told her it was the fourth of July and she smiled. “Why aren’t you shooting fireworks with your family?” she asked softly. “I hate fireworks, Granny.” I said.

  She looked at me and said “I’m ready to go. I’m ready to go see my mama and my family and y’all will be FINE here without me. You’ll miss me, but you’ll get over it. Let me go when it’s time. Promise you’ll let me go.”

   I told her we would.

And we did, we let her go and we didn’t let the doctor put in the feeding tube even though he looked me in the face and accused us  of letting her starve to death. I have never forgotten this doctor, this rude, hateful man that Sunday morning. My aunt Debbie was in the hospital room with me. We had sat quietly and visited and patted Granny and suctioned her and helped the nurses turn her. Debbie  took in a  hurt, sharp gasp of air when he said that. I smiled (well, really, no, that’s not true.  I bared my teeth, it wasn’t actually a smile. Sometimes, dear reader, they are thisclose to each other) and said “no, we don’t want her to starve to death. She wants to go, she told us so, and said she never EVER wanted a feeding tube again. There’s worse things than dying, there’s laying bedridden in a nursing home getting bedsores. We love her enough to do this for her.”  

  I cried on the way home from the hospital that night, cried about letting her starve to death, hearing those words echo in my head. My aunt Debbie took me aside later and told me she was glad I was there, knowing I (in my sweetest meanness)  stand up to that hateful small town doctor.

  She only lasted a few days after that, her breathing slowing and stopping, slowing and stopping.

  I wanted to lift the covers and look for that crescent scar on her leg, run my fingers over and think about broken glass.

I never did. I didn’t want to bother her or infringe upon her privacy. Was it still there? that crescent shape, where the blood poured out? When she used to tell me singing was in my blood, was it THAT blood? that poured out on that kitchen floor so long ago? Washing the red smears off my hands, finishing the pie crust with her, her leg bandaged by now. Telling her to sit, let me help, wanting to finish the dishes, her refusal to me, telling me she was fine.

  “Always put broken glass in a paper sack or an old coffee can with a lid, or even wrap it in newspaper.” she said that day as I swiped around the floor, smearing and smudging and cleaning up her blood.

  And that, dear reader, is what I thought about…looking down at that wet paper towel, glistening and sparking with smoky, purple broken shards.

  These words, these stories, these songs.

They are in my blood.

I must let them go.

But I must not let them cut or injure.

I must wrap them carefully, couch them in something tougher so they don’t cut through.

I carefully rolled the paper towel inward and threw it into the trash on top of the paper sack.

Sometimes…dear reader…things sparkle because they have broken, sharp edges.