knowing

Sometimes, dear reader,  I know things I shouldn’t really know. Things I have NO way of knowing.

Hear me out.

I’m not saying I’m psychic. I’m not. I don’t see dead people. I don’t talk to spirits. I don’t see angels. None of that stuff.  It’s just that sometimes…out of the blue…I get these...well…nudges.

Little pushes. A thought will bubble up from the depths of my brain like a soft shell turtle popping his head out of the water and I’ll just know something I have no way of knowing.

  It’s from God, I surmise. It’s a mother’s intuition in overdrive. Although, to be frank, it started when I was a child. I have early memories of saying things and getting shushed by an adult saying “my word, child! where did you hear THAT?”. But I didn’t hear it…I just knew it. I learned to not say anything after a while. Learning when to shut up is a marvelous thing. I should really practice it more.

  One funny way it manifests itself is with Clint. I’ll get an idea of something to cook for supper. Swiss steak! I’ll think to myself. Stewed potatoes! Broccoli and cheese! I never make Swiss steak. Once a year, maybe. Clint walks in. “what’s cookin’?” he’ll ask and I’ll tell him and he’ll laugh.

“that’s what I had for lunch.” he  will  announce.

This happens so often that I will now call him to tell him what I’m thinking of cooking. A good 75% of the time, it’s what he ate for lunch. I have no way of knowing this. See?  

Once, Clint called and said “guess what I ate for lunch?” as soon as he said it, a picture of a beautiful piece of salmon popped into my head. I thought “that can’t be right. Clint HATES salmon.”

 But, going with my gut, I asked slowly “did you eat… salmon?”

Clint got very quiet.

“woman, I don’t know how you know that, but it’s creepy. Yes, I had salmon and YES it was good.”

  I won’t write the number of times I couldn’t get someone off my mind. Just be walking chickens and find that even when  I try to think of someone else or something else they keep popping back in.

  So I’ll pray for them and often I’ll send them a text or a message on facebook or call. Invariably, they are going thru some trauma or drama and are happy to know they were being prayed for. My friends are no longer shocked by this, they know that somehow God will give me that nudge, that push, if I am needed.

  Once, Clint invited a young couple to our house for a Sunday School class get together. They were new at our church and had a daughter Tara’s age. Everybody came over and we played volleyball and ate good food. I visited with the new couple a bit and after everybody left, Clint asked me what I thought about the husband.

“he’s the DEVIL.” I blurted out without thinking. Clint stared at me. “what?” he said. “he’s….he’s….trouble” I went on. “ He’s…. bad news. I don’t like him.” I stammered. “Why? did he do something? say something?” Clint looked confused. “no….he just…is…BAD.” I tried to explain but couldn’t. He had acted perfectly fine. He was nice and even funny. His wife seemed likeable.

  This man is now in prison for molesting a 14 year old girl after he was busted for selling meth.

What’s funny is, I have NO idea when the nudge will happen. I can’t make it happen. I can’t pray it into being. Things catch me off guard all the time. But sometimes, it comes together in a fruition that can ONLY be God.

  We went to Branson that July with a couple from church and their children. We had a week planned of Silver Dollar City and shows and good food. On day 5, I awoke from a sound sleep. I had been dreaming of my grandmother’s lake. I could see clearly the tree with the rope hanging from it. The ever present flat bottomed boat pulled up on the shore. The bank of the lake, rocky and steep. Something was wrong. The water was dark, the sky blurry and gray. I woke with tears on my face. It was 4 am. I touched Clint and he woke. “what’s wrong?” he said. “something’s wrong…at home….the lake..at granny and papaw’s…there’s something wrong.” I whispered. “I need to call and check.”

“It’s 4 in the morning!” he whispered back.

“Granny will be up, I know she will.” I said.

I got up and got my cell phone and went into the bathroom. Granny answered on the second ring.

“granny? it’s Lichea. I had a bad dream, a dream about your lake. Something bad had happened. Is everything ok?” I tried not to cry.

“why, of course everything is ok.” she said. Granny didn’t ask about my dream. It was unspoken that she did that too, that she just KNEW things. She didn’t have to set an alarm ever because she would wake on her own at exactly the time she needed to. I do that, too, waking up and sitting up on the side of the bed and reaching for my alarm just as the very minute turns, setting it off.

(once, dear reader, on a hot Saturday afternoon, I had a sudden panic in my chest. I got up off the couch and slipped my feet into my flip flops  and yelled to Clint “where’s my phone??” then I saw it on the counter and  I RAN to the phone just as it rang. I saw it was Tammie and I said out loud “this is BAD this is BAD” and dear reader it  was BAD, she had her one year old grandson in her arms and he was seizuring and Tammie was SCREAMING for me to come, hurry, 911, she said, panic in her voice…Tammie is a nurse, too and had her 2 other grandchildren with her and this seizuring baby…I drove so fast and picked up my other friend Susie and we just FLEW there so fast and we ran in past the ambulance and the baby was still seizuring and I yelled WHAT’S HIS TEMP??? and the EMT’s looked at me like I was a loony and his temp was 104.5 and I KNEW that’s why he seizured and we shouted PRAISE GOD FOR FEVER. A seizure from fever I can DEAL WITH, that means it’s not epilepsy or a tumor or some other scary thing. It’s a fever, a virus, just get the temp down and all will be fine … Then we got damp towels and fans and got his temp down to 101 and the seizure stopped and he sat up and asked for juice. We sat on the floor, all us women…the EMT’s staring….Tammie’s shirt soaking wet from the towels and his fever breaking and her tears. We cried and praised God.)

  Granny assured me all was well. It didn’t settle well with me, though and the dream hummed in the back of my head all day. I brought it up several times with Clint and he just patted me and assured me it was just a silly dream. “but, it was so….just…it was the lake, and something bad…” I tried to make my case.

  We were in our hotel room that afternoon, getting ready to go out one a dining cruise around the big lake. It had nice food and a show and we were looking forward to it.

  There was a knock at the door and John (the husband of the couple) stood in the doorway looking stunned.

“I’ve got bad news.” he stopped, not knowing what to say next. “they’ve been trying to get a hold of y’all all day. Sparky and Carolyn’s son Stephen was killed this morning.”

   Carolyn is one of my dearest friends. Tall and strikingly beautiful. Smart. Wonderful Christian. Sparky is one of those men like Clint, strong and solid and sweet and hardworking. Stephen was 16, just a couple of years older than Trevor. Stephen was one of those boys that didn’t mind letting Tara put makeup on him or playing tea party. He would bring Trevor cool stuff he had outgrown, like  a glow in the dark cup with the cartoon character “Mr. Bumpy” on it. (I have it still, dear reader….it glows softly at me every night from a cabinet in my bedroom after we shut the lamp off. It glows softly and I think of Stephen and how he glowed in this world)  He held the cup up to the light for Trevor, then they would dash to the closet and shut the door and marvel at the glowing cup. He was smart and sweet and handsome. He had just got his driver’s license and a job and was driving himself back and forth. Somehow, he had a wreck and now he was gone. Gone? No, not Stephen. They’ve got the wrong boy. It’s not our Stephen. No no no NO. The word no ran in a loop in my head.

  I fell to my knees, stunned. Trevor and Tara were wordless in their grief. We clung to each other and cried.

  We should have just headed home, but we decided we would finish out this day in Branson and head back to Arkansas in the morning, cutting our trip short. I remember very little about the boat, the show, the food. It’s all a blur of prime rib and baked Alaska…none of which I was able to keep down.

  We drove in early the next morning. We didn’t even stop at our house, we just drove to Sparky and Carolyn’s.

  Their driveway was packed and we made our way in thru the crowd. When Carolyn saw us, we fell into each other, sobbing and racked with grief, wordless, just keening and crying, no words, just sounds, the sounds of sadness.

  She had in her hand a small photo album. She handed it to me and said “these are Stephen’s favorite pictures. He went thru our pictures a while back and picked out the ones he loved the most and put them in this album.  They are wonderful.”

    I opened to the first page. I stared, mouth open. I looked at Clint, shoving the album  toward him, crying even harder now. Clint stared at the picture, stared at me. He held my arm as I felt the world spin, nearly throwing me off my feet. I felt hot and dizzy and sat down on the couch, holding the album, clutching it to my face.

  There stood 8 year old Stephen in the picture, standing beside Trevor. Stephen is holding a fish, grinning and so proud. Trevor is smiling and touching the fish. A day of fun, on a flatbottom boat, in the sun, drinking lukewarm soda and eating soggy sandwiches. Clint and Sparky on the boat, all the kids waving to the camera, Carolyn snapping pictures. What a good day that was! So fun. Such good memories. Trevor and Stephen, laughing and throwing the fish back into the murky water,  Trevor, smiling up at his hero, Stephen who never lost patience with him and played silly games and stood in the dark with glowing cups. Trevor and Stephen, standing in the sun, the old tree visible with the rope swing in the background.  

   (dear reader, this part makes me cry. give me just a moment. take a moment for you, too, because sometimes that’s all you have, a moment,  a snapshot, a nudge, a push, bubbling up from underneath dark water)

They are smiling and proud, Trevor and Stephen, and…. they are standing on the bank of my grandmother’s lake.

knowing

Sometimes, dear reader,  I know things I shouldn’t really know. Things I have NO way of knowing.

Hear me out.

I’m not saying I’m psychic. I’m not. I don’t see dead people. I don’t talk to spirits. I don’t see angels. None of that stuff.  It’s just that sometimes…out of the blue…I get these...well…nudges.

Little pushes. A thought will bubble up from the depths of my brain like a soft shell turtle popping his head out of the water and I’ll just know something I have no way of knowing.

  It’s from God, I surmise. It’s a mother’s intuition in overdrive. Although, to be frank, it started when I was a child. I have early memories of saying things and getting shushed by an adult saying “my word, child! where did you hear THAT?”. But I didn’t hear it…I just knew it. I learned to not say anything after a while. Learning when to shut up is a marvelous thing. I should really practice it more.

  One funny way it manifests itself is with Clint. I’ll get an idea of something to cook for supper. Swiss steak! I’ll think to myself. Stewed potatoes! Broccoli and cheese! I never make Swiss steak. Once a year, maybe. Clint walks in. “what’s cookin’?” he’ll ask and I’ll tell him and he’ll laugh.

“that’s what I had for lunch.” he  will  announce.

This happens so often that I will now call him to tell him what I’m thinking of cooking. A good 75% of the time, it’s what he ate for lunch. I have no way of knowing this. See?  

Once, Clint called and said “guess what I ate for lunch?” as soon as he said it, a picture of a beautiful piece of salmon popped into my head. I thought “that can’t be right. Clint HATES salmon.”

 But, going with my gut, I asked slowly “did you eat… salmon?”

Clint got very quiet.

“woman, I don’t know how you know that, but it’s creepy. Yes, I had salmon and YES it was good.”

  I won’t write the number of times I couldn’t get someone off my mind. Just be walking chickens and find that even when  I try to think of someone else or something else they keep popping back in.

  So I’ll pray for them and often I’ll send them a text or a message on facebook or call. Invariably, they are going thru some trauma or drama and are happy to know they were being prayed for. My friends are no longer shocked by this, they know that somehow God will give me that nudge, that push, if I am needed.

  Once, Clint invited a young couple to our house for a Sunday School class get together. They were new at our church and had a daughter Tara’s age. Everybody came over and we played volleyball and ate good food. I visited with the new couple a bit and after everybody left, Clint asked me what I thought about the husband.

“he’s the DEVIL.” I blurted out without thinking. Clint stared at me. “what?” he said. “he’s….he’s….trouble” I went on. “ He’s…. bad news. I don’t like him.” I stammered. “Why? did he do something? say something?” Clint looked confused. “no….he just…is…BAD.” I tried to explain but couldn’t. He had acted perfectly fine. He was nice and even funny. His wife seemed likeable.

  This man is now in prison for molesting a 14 year old girl after he was busted for selling meth.

What’s funny is, I have NO idea when the nudge will happen. I can’t make it happen. I can’t pray it into being. Things catch me off guard all the time. But sometimes, it comes together in a fruition that can ONLY be God.

  We went to Branson that July with a couple from church and their children. We had a week planned of Silver Dollar City and shows and good food. On day 5, I awoke from a sound sleep. I had been dreaming of my grandmother’s lake. I could see clearly the tree with the rope hanging from it. The ever present flat bottomed boat pulled up on the shore. The bank of the lake, rocky and steep. Something was wrong. The water was dark, the sky blurry and gray. I woke with tears on my face. It was 4 am. I touched Clint and he woke. “what’s wrong?” he said. “something’s wrong…at home….the lake..at granny and papaw’s…there’s something wrong.” I whispered. “I need to call and check.”

“It’s 4 in the morning!” he whispered back.

“Granny will be up, I know she will.” I said.

I got up and got my cell phone and went into the bathroom. Granny answered on the second ring.

“granny? it’s Lichea. I had a bad dream, a dream about your lake. Something bad had happened. Is everything ok?” I tried not to cry.

“why, of course everything is ok.” she said. Granny didn’t ask about my dream. It was unspoken that she did that too, that she just KNEW things. She didn’t have to set an alarm ever because she would wake on her own at exactly the time she needed to. I do that, too, waking up and sitting up on the side of the bed and reaching for my alarm just as the very minute turns, setting it off.

(once, dear reader, on a hot Saturday afternoon, I had a sudden panic in my chest. I got up off the couch and slipped my feet into my flip flops  and yelled to Clint “where’s my phone??” then I saw it on the counter and  I RAN to the phone just as it rang. I saw it was Tammie and I said out loud “this is BAD this is BAD” and dear reader it  was BAD, she had her one year old grandson in her arms and he was seizuring and Tammie was SCREAMING for me to come, hurry, 911, she said, panic in her voice…Tammie is a nurse, too and had her 2 other grandchildren with her and this seizuring baby…I drove so fast and picked up my other friend Susie and we just FLEW there so fast and we ran in past the ambulance and the baby was still seizuring and I yelled WHAT’S HIS TEMP??? and the EMT’s looked at me like I was a loony and his temp was 104.5 and I KNEW that’s why he seizured and we shouted PRAISE GOD FOR FEVER. A seizure from fever I can DEAL WITH, that means it’s not epilepsy or a tumor or some other scary thing. It’s a fever, a virus, just get the temp down and all will be fine … Then we got damp towels and fans and got his temp down to 101 and the seizure stopped and he sat up and asked for juice. We sat on the floor, all us women…the EMT’s staring….Tammie’s shirt soaking wet from the towels and his fever breaking and her tears. We cried and praised God.)

  Granny assured me all was well. It didn’t settle well with me, though and the dream hummed in the back of my head all day. I brought it up several times with Clint and he just patted me and assured me it was just a silly dream. “but, it was so….just…it was the lake, and something bad…” I tried to make my case.

  We were in our hotel room that afternoon, getting ready to go out one a dining cruise around the big lake. It had nice food and a show and we were looking forward to it.

  There was a knock at the door and John (the husband of the couple) stood in the doorway looking stunned.

“I’ve got bad news.” he stopped, not knowing what to say next. “they’ve been trying to get a hold of y’all all day. Sparky and Carolyn’s son Stephen was killed this morning.”

   Carolyn is one of my dearest friends. Tall and strikingly beautiful. Smart. Wonderful Christian. Sparky is one of those men like Clint, strong and solid and sweet and hardworking. Stephen was 16, just a couple of years older than Trevor. Stephen was one of those boys that didn’t mind letting Tara put makeup on him or playing tea party. He would bring Trevor cool stuff he had outgrown, like  a glow in the dark cup with the cartoon character “Mr. Bumpy” on it. (I have it still, dear reader….it glows softly at me every night from a cabinet in my bedroom after we shut the lamp off. It glows softly and I think of Stephen and how he glowed in this world)  He held the cup up to the light for Trevor, then they would dash to the closet and shut the door and marvel at the glowing cup. He was smart and sweet and handsome. He had just got his driver’s license and a job and was driving himself back and forth. Somehow, he had a wreck and now he was gone. Gone? No, not Stephen. They’ve got the wrong boy. It’s not our Stephen. No no no NO. The word no ran in a loop in my head.

  I fell to my knees, stunned. Trevor and Tara were wordless in their grief. We clung to each other and cried.

  We should have just headed home, but we decided we would finish out this day in Branson and head back to Arkansas in the morning, cutting our trip short. I remember very little about the boat, the show, the food. It’s all a blur of prime rib and baked Alaska…none of which I was able to keep down.

  We drove in early the next morning. We didn’t even stop at our house, we just drove to Sparky and Carolyn’s.

  Their driveway was packed and we made our way in thru the crowd. When Carolyn saw us, we fell into each other, sobbing and racked with grief, wordless, just keening and crying, no words, just sounds, the sounds of sadness.

  She had in her hand a small photo album. She handed it to me and said “these are Stephen’s favorite pictures. He went thru our pictures a while back and picked out the ones he loved the most and put them in this album.  They are wonderful.”

    I opened to the first page. I stared, mouth open. I looked at Clint, shoving the album  toward him, crying even harder now. Clint stared at the picture, stared at me. He held my arm as I felt the world spin, nearly throwing me off my feet. I felt hot and dizzy and sat down on the couch, holding the album, clutching it to my face.

  There stood 8 year old Stephen in the picture, standing beside Trevor. Stephen is holding a fish, grinning and so proud. Trevor is smiling and touching the fish. A day of fun, on a flatbottom boat, in the sun, drinking lukewarm soda and eating soggy sandwiches. Clint and Sparky on the boat, all the kids waving to the camera, Carolyn snapping pictures. What a good day that was! So fun. Such good memories. Trevor and Stephen, laughing and throwing the fish back into the murky water,  Trevor, smiling up at his hero, Stephen who never lost patience with him and played silly games and stood in the dark with glowing cups. Trevor and Stephen, standing in the sun, the old tree visible with the rope swing in the background.  

   (dear reader, this part makes me cry. give me just a moment. take a moment for you, too, because sometimes that’s all you have, a moment,  a snapshot, a nudge, a push, bubbling up from underneath dark water)

They are smiling and proud, Trevor and Stephen, and…. they are standing on the bank of my grandmother’s lake.

I had meningitis 12 years ago. Wait, wouldn't that make it Womeningitis? :)

  I hadn’t felt well for a couple of weeks that spring 12 years ago. My neck had been stiff and I felt tired and achy. One of my favorite doctors looked at me one day over an orbital repair  and said “Lickey (that’s what they called me, due to the spelling of my name) what’s wrong with you?” I said I was just tired and hadn’t been sleeping well. Maybe, I said,  I needed a new pillow. My neck hurt.

  This got progressively worse until one Sunday morning I got up to get ready for church. I stumbled around the house. I finally sat on the couch and looked at Clint and said “I can’t go. I don’t feel good at all.”

 I crawled into bed and was still there when Clint and the kids came home from church. By this time, my head was pounding. I knew I had fever, but was too sick to even ask for the thermometer. I couldn’t move my head at all, my neck was frozen in pain. I lay on my side, trying not to move, shielding my eyes from light, getting up only to be sick. Clint came in, worried about me. I rarely get sick, hardly even get colds. I joke that my cast iron immune system only lets the REALLY obnoxious things in.

  I knew by this point I had meningitis. I also knew it was probably viral, as bacterial meningitis has worse symptoms and higher fever. I told this to Clint, in a dry whisper. “well, let’s take you to the doctor!” he said. The thought of moving was torture. I started to cry. “no. no. I don’t want to go.” “why?” asked Clint. “spinal tap” I whispered.

  That’s the thing about being a nurse. You know EXACTLY what’s going to happen. Nurses are the WORST patients, surpassed only by doctors.

  But, I knew I needed to go. If this was bacterial, it could be deadly and harm my family. If it were viral, it could be less deadly and cause less harm to my family. Either way, it stunk.

  So, Clint loaded up my feverish, sick body and took me to the ER. (I feel I must interject here, dear reader. Do whatever you can to avoid the ER. Unless you are vomiting blood or have bones sticking thru skin or a gunshot wound or a knife sticking out of your head or burns covering a large area, DO NOT USE THE ER. Try to go to a clinic. You will get better care and the people at the clinic are more apt to get you where you need to be and you won’t be at the mercy of whoever is on call that doesn’t know you from Adam. Ok. I feel better. Carry on)

They checked my temp, gave me something to stop the puking, gave me a pain shot and….yup.

Spinal tap.

The pain from a spinal tap is unexplainable. So, I shall not try. Moving  right along, dear reader. Nothing to see here.  

They took blood, took spinal fluid, gave me a prescription for phenergan and sent me home. I was worse almost immediately. 

So, within 36 hours, Clint took me back to the ER. (I feel I must interject here, dear reader. Avoid the ER, yadda yadda)

Another spinal tap. More anti-nausea medications. Another pain shot.

I actually don’t remember this visit. I don’t remember anything for a week. The next memory I have is calling into to work and telling my boss Deena that I was going to die. I actually don’t know if I remember that or if she told me about it later. Deena called Clint and they decided NOT to take me to the ER, but to a clinic.

  Clint came home and got me. I couldn’t walk and wasn’t making sense when I talked. He dragged me into the clinic and sat me in a plastic chair and said “stay here while I check you in” He was checking me in and said he heard a sliding sound behind him and he looked and I was lying on the floor. I had decided to lie down on a nasty, germ ridden clinic floor. He picked me up and said “honey, listen…you can’t lay on the…” and that’s when the nurse called my name and Clint practically carried me into the room.

   Next thing I know, I’m being sent to the hospital where they are going to give me IV fluids and try to fix me.

  I ended up where I worked, outpatient surgery. I got special treatment because I worked there and I’m fine with that. Everyone gathered around and fussed over me.

  My next memories are fuzzy. The doctor that took care of me told me later that he wanted to do a blood patch to stop the spinal fluid from leaking from my spinal column and give me IV fluids and probably admit me to the main hospital.

  But….what ended up happening was they had to knock me out with Versed and do a central line in my neck to even draw blood because I was so sick and dehydrated.  Then, the blood patch didn’t go well because I have scoliosis. I also know that things went badly because that’s what they DO when nurses have procedures. Ask any nurse you know. It’s an undiscussed open secret. If anything is going to go wrong, it’s gonna be with us nurses. It’s part of the reason we are bad patients. We know and so do the doctors that something will happen.

  I don’t remember the central line, just vague, fuzzy splotches of memory and blood and needles in my arm and pain in my neck.

  I awoke flat on my back with Clint and my co-workers standing around my bed. I found I couldn’t speak at first, then finally words croaked out.

“hey” I said.

“hey!” they grinned back.

“what happened?” I asked.

Grimaces all around. They told me not to move and just lay there and let the IV fluids sink in and make me feel better.

Clint looked down at me. He looked teary eyed.

“I’m hungry.” I said. “I want Chinese food.”

He laughed and said “well, woman. I guess you’re gonna be ok.”

The doctor came in to see me and looked pained.

“ummm…” he said. “I was going to admit you…but…” I interrupted him softly. “I feel fine!” I said.

He started again.

“see, the procedure we did is only supposed to be done in ICU or the ER. I did it here, but I didn’t know I was going to have to. It was just supposed to be poke your arm, put a blood patch over the hole the spinal tap made, give you IV fluids and help your body get over this viral meningitis. But…a central line. Jeez Louise.” he looked sad. “I should have just admitted you. You should have been admitted 3 or 4 days ago. I’m sorry.”

I patted his big hand and he took my hand in his. “how do you feel, Lickey?” he asked.

“I’m fine. I feel better now than I have all week.”

This made him laugh.

“look, I’m gonna give you another bag of fluids and then you go home and don’t get out of bed except to shower for 2 days.” He instructed.

Clint assured him that’s what would happen and he took me home. I sat in the truck when he went in to get the Chinese food.

I hadn’t looked at myself and pulled the visor down to get a peek in the tiny mirror.

My eyes were sunken and black. Flecks of blood spattered my face. I looked down at my arms, bruised and punctured from the many IV attempts. Veins were blown and my arms burned. A bandage swathed my neck, blood peeking out in places.

Good Lord.

Clint came with the food and got into the truck. I looked at him and said “I look like death warmed over!”

Clint laughed and said “actually, you look pretty good compared to this afternoon.”

He took me home and the kids fixed my plate and babied me and I rested for a couple of days. The bruises on my neck became visible the next morning and by lunchtime, I looked like I had been beaten. Even my face was bruised, blue fingerprints dotting my cheeks from someone holding my head still to start the IV in my neck.

Speaking of my neck…It was completely black and blue with ugly puncture marks. I avoided mirrors for a week.

But, after a week I decided I should try to go back to work. It’s stupid, really. I should have taken a month off to recover completely. But I didn’t and it’s no one’s fault but my own. I had to go be cleared, as I had been sick. They checked me out and said that chances are that I had West Nile Virus and wasn’t contagious. No one else I knew got sick, although several years later a lady that lived near me told me about how she got sick one spring and we compared notes only to find that we had the EXACT same symptoms at almost the EXACT same time and the EXACT central line/blood patch brouhaha.. only she had been actually admitted. They told her the same thing, that it was probably West Nile, but no one drew blood to check. We lived (as the crow flies) 2 miles from each other. We surmise that the same mosquito got us both.

  The day I got cleared was on a Friday and I was due to start back to work on Monday. Since I was in town, I thought I’d get my oil changed at the little Jiffy Lube. I tired easily, and would just sit in the little waiting room.

  My illness left me with the teensiest of a limp. My right foot drug on the threshold as I entered the Jiffy Lube.

  The stares started immediately. I was still bruised and battered looking and my mouth struggled to find the right word sometimes. No one spoke to me or asked why I was bruised. I didn’t want to discuss my medical history in a room full of strangers, so there I sat. A 32 year old blonde, wedding ring on, limping, face and neck beat to pieces. No one even looked at me. Finally, my name was called and I walked carefully up to the desk. The young man rang me up without saying anything, then he carefully slid a piece of paper toward me and looked directly at my face. I read the paper and I started to cry.

“DO YOU NEED HELP? I WILL HELP YOU. DID SOMEONE HIT YOU? DON’T SAY ANYTHING. IS THE PERSON THAT HIT YOU HERE WITH YOU? SHOULD I CALL THE POLICE?”

  I patted his hand, wiping my tears with the other.

“no, no, no” I said. “I had a medical procedure that left me bruised like this.” I looked him in the face.

“But thank you. I’ve been all over town today and no one else has asked. They just look away. You are a good man. Don’t ever NOT ask that question.”

He smiled at me, a little embarrassed.

I asked him how he thought to ask me, what compelled him to write the note.

He pointed to the guys working on my vehicle. They all stared back in at me, serious looks on their young faces.

“we saw how bunged up you were and one of those guys thought it’d be best to ask like that, so’s not to embarrass you or get you in trouble if whoever beat you was here with you.” I waved at them and smiled. I mouthed “thank you” and told the young man again how wonderful I thought it was that he checked on me.

He grinned and said “well, I’m glad nobody beat you up! I’m sorry you had a rough time, but at least nobody hit you.”

“oh, my husband is the sweetest. Wouldn’t lay a hand on me.  He took good care of me when I was sick.” I assured him.

I wrote my check and limped out and headed home. I told Clint about what happened and he said “it never occurred to me someone would think I beat you.”

It hadn’t occurred to me, either and it made me wonder. I saw a lot of people that day. People I didn’t know. No one said anything. No one asked questions. They just let me limp by, bruised and pale and wan.

  Dear reader, I leave you with a few thoughts: West Nile virus left me with migraines, balance issues, some memory loss, and issues with some of my fine motor skills.

I am grateful for that. It leaves some people DEAD.

Avoid the ER if you can. Please.

Always, always ask someone if they need help. Always.

Don’t get offended if people think you’re the one who needs help. Maybe you do and you don’t know it.

I think of that young man. What a spine he must have had, to write that note, to slide it across to me, to involve himself and his co-workers in possible domestic violence.

  I think of that girl, that orbital repair I was scrubbed in on. Her face, one side caved in from being hit with a baseball bat. Our anger when we found the man that did it was in the waiting room…her husband. She was so battered, ribs broken, arms in slings, that we put her to sleep on the gurney and then moved her to the OR table to avoid causing her more pain. I remember how the other 4 nurses with me opined that we should go get metal IV poles and give him a taste of his own medicine. Our anger BURNED. We couldn’t speak. We cried softly. We murmured angry words and vague threats to each other.

 I wonder. Did someone know? Did someone see? Was there someone who offered help? Did someone slide a note to her or try at all?

The most beautiful words of all. Never, ever, DON’T say them.

Do you need help?

Do you need help?

(well…do you?)

Tangled

  I find myself untangling myself from things sometimes. In the chicken houses, I’ll be toodling along and then next thing I know, I’m face planted onto the litter, still holding the dead chickens in my hands. My foot has gotten tangled in an errant piece of cable or rope or wire that has somehow made it into the house, usually by the feed lines where it lies in wait for me to not see it and send me sprawling in the most ungainly of manner.

  Years ago, during our first batch of chickens, I drove Clint’s truck around the houses to check  a cow due to deliver any day.  I drove up near the burn pile and saw the cow in question. She was fine, and I drove home. It was when I hit the highway, I noticed a strange noise. I pulled into the driveway and got out to investigate.

  That’s when I noticed the thin  silver cable attached underneath the truck, trailing out behind, ending in a bundle of tangled mess 100 feet behind. I had, apparently, driven over it during my trek around the pasture. It had been left from building the chicken houses, bits and pieces not long enough to do anything with. I crawled underneath the truck, hoping to dislodge it before Clint came outside to see.

  It was wound around the axle just the slightest  and all I could do was cut it loose…I didn’t have any tools with me, so I crawled out and got some needle nose pliers and wire cutters and cut and picked and plucked and pulled and had it almost completely out when Clint hollered from the porch “woman! What in the WORLD are you doing??”

“umm…nothing. Just…umm…getting this cable cut off.” I yelled back.

“how in the WORLD did you do THAT?” he asked incredulously.

I pulled the final chunk loose and worked my way out from under the truck. “ummm…I’m not sure, really…” I said.

He sighed and walked over and rolled the huge mass of wiry silver into a giant cable ball and threw it into the back of the truck.

    I’ve been in dressing rooms, trying on some garment with strings and ties and sleeves and stays only to find myself stuck, with both my arms up in the air, some sort of fashionable straight jacket. I do NOT want to yell for help, so I quietly work my way out, as a sort of a chubby, female version of Harry Houdini. I’ve learned that those garments give you a tiny bit of warning, a tightness when you pull them up your arms. I go no further than that and toss them to the side. I figure if I keep going, I’ll end up thrashing around on the dressing room floor, trying to quietly escape from a Blouse of Death. So untangle myself, I do, and avoid those things.  

  I once was…well, not really thrown from a horse…what happened was she and I at the VERY same time decided I would be better off on the ground and not in the saddle, so she bucked as I slid off and…there I hung, by my…well….top undergarment as she trotted and my feet were still 2 feet off the ground. So, I pulled myself upward and with one hand…well….let’s just say, I got untangled from the saddle and walked over behind the tree and put myself back together as best I could.

  Today, I hopped on the Kubota to check chickens and took off. Maggie My Dog likes to ride with me, so she ran toward me to hop on. I slowed to let her on and heard a crash behind me.

  How this happened, I still don’t know. I have (well, actually, HAD) a soaker hose in my flower bed with the water hose hooked up to it. I’ve been meaning to move it around  to reach some of the flowers better but have never gotten around to it.

  I turned to see that the water hose was tangled around my left back tire and I had drug it and the soaker hose 20 feet. I had ripped up plants and planters, strewn mulch about, pulled concrete stepping stones up, and the hose was as tight as a banjo string around my favorite young tree, pulling it toward me slightly.  

  Sigh. I got off and untangled the hose, pulling it back to the flower bed. I tried my best to put it back, but I had torn up so many plants I had to pull those out first. I never did get it really where I wanted it, but it’s ok for now. My favorite young tree is fine, perhaps a teensy bit shaken, but fine nonetheless.

  I then turned my attention to the garden hose wrapped around the tire of my Kubota and by backing up and forward and getting off and unlooping it, I got it straightened out.  

 I pondered on untangling things and thought of an Alison Krauss and Union Station song. “Deeper That Crying” is the name.  They have a song for every occasion in my life it seems and I hummed and sang it all the way to the chicken houses.

“this path is not the one I choose to travel

Even as we watch what tied us unravel

and the tears fall like rain

Deeper than crying, the loving still remains”

       (goes the chorus

                          and it ends with)

“so, I’ll the one to pull our tangled lives apart,

I won’t dodge the angry words that hide a broken heart

and my calm fare thee wells cannot obscure

that deep inside, my heart is hurtin’ so”

   I hum that and think of untangling lives, of taking bits and pieces of me that I thought weren’t big enough to do anything with only to find that they ARE, and that untangling was the best thing for me.

    See, I cannot move forward with cables and hoses tingle-tangled all around me. I’ve got to cut them loose, before they rip everything I’ve worked for apart. I didn’t choose this path, I simply found that in my daily walk and work that I was dragging things  behind me that were destructive and bad, a noisy, useless coil wrapped around an axle.   

  So…I’ll be the one to pull our tangled lives apart. God will show me how. Then, Clint will help me roll the mass of tangledness into a ball and throw it away. I’ll cut back the dying flowers and put the soaker hose back where it goes, maybe even in a better place so that every plant gets its due moisture. I’ll spend the time I used to spend on them, getting tangled up in nonsense, on my children and their spouses.

  Oh, I know that inadvertently I’ll end up tangling myself up in something again…but…I’ll recognize that tightness earlier on, that straight jacketedness so quickly…I’ll feel that familiar tightness…I’ll recognize it before I rip anything up. I’ll pull myself away before the wire wraps around my foot, tripping me up… I’ll slide off before I get bucked off and straighten myself up as best I can.

I’ll be the one to pull our tangled lives apart.

    I am the only one that can and so, I shall. I will remember it and write about it in vague ways that will remind me of how quickly I can get tangled up with someone I love, someone who, the entire time is cutting me away, while I wrapped myself up in them… they were unraveling me  the entire time.

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.