Come Early Morning

    I awoke at 5:30 this morning. That’s not uncommon for me, I tend to get up with the sun. In the winter, I can sleep til 6:30 or 7 even…but it makes me feel guilty and sluggish and that I’ve frittered away half the day. “It’s 7:30!” I grouse to myself as I’m heading to the chicken houses. “This day is practically GONE!” Then I’ll remind myself that half the normal world is just getting up and around, or maybe not even UP at all.

  I wake up much like I am all day. I need no coffee, no caffeine, no stimulants at all. I just….wake up. One minute, I’m asleep and dreaming and then POP I’m up and I can carry on a conversation and talk and think and prattle.

  I am, from what I’ve been told, a little annoying in the morning. When I worked in surgery, I got up at 4:30, left the house at 5:30, was scrubbed in and ready to work at 6:30. My friend Angie and I rode together, alternating between driving. She would be awake, but not be talkative  til she got her cappacchino at the little quick pick we stopped at every morning in Charleston. Then she would prattle and rattle and roll right with me. We talked and laughed all day, and all the way home. She is still one of my good friends and I cherish those surgery stories with her.

 So, I got up and headed to the bathroom and put my chicken house clothes on. Often on Sunday mornings, Clint will walk them for me. But today, I was up and ready to go and didn’t have anything to do at the house before church. I like to walk to the chicken houses when I can, in the cool of the morning, smelling the dew and seeing the sun rise. No one is up with me this early Sunday morning. It’s just me and Maggie My Dog and Tika, my brain damaged heeler/hyena mix. ( I could be wrong that she is part hyena, but it would  help explain her crazy eyes and snappish  temperament.)

  I put my old tennis shoes on, the ones I wear in the chicken houses when the birds are little and they don’t throw litter down into my socks. I sat on the porch steps to do this and had a sudden, strange rush from my past.

  I am 11 years old. We live in Cottonwood, Oklahoma. It’s a tiny community with a general store that has wooden, uneven floors and old chairs for old men to sit in and talk and spit on the front porch. The little store sold gas at one time, but doesn’t now and the old gas pumps sit idle and rusty. Old signs advertising oil and cigarettes hang here and there. The cash register is one of those that had a pull down handle to ring up the final price. There’s a tiny school nearby, housing 40 children from

kindergarten til 8^th grade. It’s summer and school isn’t in session. There’s a gym and an overgrown, weedy  baseball field and a small playground.

  We sleep on mattresses on the floor in one big bedroom, all us kids sprawled out here and there. Mom and Dad’s bedroom is just off our bedroom and they sleep with the door shut, the hum of their  window unit air conditioner part of the night sounds, the crickets, the frogs, the dogs barking.

  Mom bought the mattresses  at an auction or maybe a yard sale, often there is no fitted sheet covering it, but still we sleep. We have neighbors, a family with 3 young boys. David is 14, the oldest, he is lanky, with reddish auburn hair and brown eyes. I once make a joke to him as we are sitting on my porch that I get up every morning  and make my mattress and David laughs, a big hearty laugh and tells me I’m funny. I have a crush on him, he is smart and sweet and cute and polite. But he is 14, I am 11 and I know my time here in Oklahoma will be short. I don’t know how long I’ll be here…til dad’s rig job poops out or he quits or mom takes us kids back to Arkansas. I never know. I find out later from another neighbor boy that David likes me. I am stunned by this, as I am ugly, with thick glasses and horrid hair and bad skin. The neighbor boy says David thinks I’m pretty on the inside and I ponder this, thinking this is alright by me.

  We have an outdoor toilet, which I find mortifying. I see David and his brothers outside playing ball or Frisbee and I know they will see me walk thru the yard and climb over the gate. The gate is locked with a padlock and we have no key, so we have to awkwardly climb over that old, red gate, the wood sagging and giving with my weight.  

  I sit on the porch in Oklahoma putting my tennis shoes on. They are some of Bobbie’s old ones and are still too big. Bobbie is two years younger than me, so I get her hand me ups as she was already 5’8’ when she was ten. I got her old clothes and shoes, never really growing into them but wearing them anyway. I am bony thin, and my hair is white from the sun. My eyelashes and eyebrows are blonde, my skin tending to be pink instead of tan. I see pictures of children from Ireland and I see myself sometimes, in these  ruddy, pink children.

  It’s still a little dark this morning. No one knows I’m up, none of my family. They don’t even know I do this, get up early and take off walking.

  I hitch my cut off shorts up on my bony hips and set off walking in Bobbie’s shoes, down the gravel dirt road. I can smell the pond in the distance, that smell of fishy, dirty pondwater. Bobbie’s shoes crunch the gravel. Rabbits run here and there, some of them so used to me walking these early, dark mornings they let me get within feet of them. Mockingbirds mock and call and tease all around. The air feels cool, it will be no cooler than now, I know, and I soak it up.

  I think of Arkansas and my grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. We have no phones. Occasionally we write letters, but I have no paper or stamps and don’t know their address. I walk past mimosa trees, their pink, feathery blossoms…I trail my fingers over one, feeling the soft tickle. There are mimosa trees in Arkansas and it gives me comfort.

  I walk in the cool, singing to myself, telling stories (oh, dear reader. I have changed so little) writing books in my head. I think of my friend David, I cannot imagine him a boyfriend, just a friend who is a boy ( the thought of a boyfriend so foreign, so strange, so uncomfortable)  and  decide I am content with just making him laugh. Once I sing a funny song to him, a song I heard long ago and he tells me to sing it AGAIN, louder and I don’t want to, I feel shy. He says “you have a nice voice. You should sing more.” Does he know I cling to that? think of that kindness years later? I think not, but on I walk.

 I think about being pretty, on the inside. I know I am not a beauty. I have no delusions about the way I look. I wish it were different, but it’s not. I scheme about the day I can buy makeup and paint my face up like some of the women I see in town. I’m fascinated by these brightly painted women, with their cute clothes and dark, lined eyes. I think I will get a job, when I can, and buy makeup…lots of makeup and paint my face (oh, dear reader, years later….the first money I make at my first job at age 13… I DO buy makeup. Lots of it.)

  I walk and I walk. The road curves around, making a big loop. I always stand, where the road goes straight and think about walking down that road. But it is unfamiliar, with houses, with people I don’t know…so I turn left, turn down the road that will wind around and take me back to that house with the outdoor toilet, the stained couch, the unsheeted mattresses on the floor… the bookshelf filled with books I care not to read, left there by a former tenant…romance novels….mysteries…books I HATE and I think maybe I will see if we can go to the library today. I’ve read every book I’m interested in, most of them twice. There’s a limit on how many I can get, so I pick out book after book and shove  part of  them in Bobbie’s pile. She laughs at me and goes along with it. She knows I will read all 25 of these books in a week and be grousing about being bored, wanting to go back.

  I checked out one book, it was a book from the 50’s about grooming and hair and makeup. I found it so interesting and funny. I found others and checked them out, too…even one for black people, how to style hair and take care of skin… which made the librarian look at me strangely. I read about greek mythology and sign language, learning both (oh, dear reader, years later I would be at church camp and would be the only person there that had a rudimentary knowledge of sign language. A deaf girl was there that year, blonde and pretty. We conversed, she and I, in my elementary, halting sign language…dredging it up from the bottom of my brain. She found me amusing and helpful.  She stayed with me, unable to read my lips and learn my name, so she called me “The Girl that Smiles”)

  I walk and walk. The sun is coming up, the promise of the heat of the day hanging like a flag. I head home, making it up the driveway and up the stone steps to the leaning, saggy porch. I sit in the living room, quiet and still…just thinking. My mom and siblings start to stir. Mom walks past me and says “you been up long?” She knows my early to rise tendencies and trusts me to not get into anything. “not too long. Can we go to the library today?” I ask. She says maybe and heads to the kitchen. I should know not to ask anything before her coffee, but the lure of the library is too great.   

   One morning, I get up and slip off my mattress and into my waiting clothes and wander into the living room. It’s dark out and for some reason my bedroom door is shut. I open it, and the light from the living room is on. My mom sits there quietly, drinking coffee. Her eyes are red rimmed. She has been crying. I don’t ask why. I never do. I already know.

  “Where you headed?” she asks. I stammer, knowing I’ve been caught. “ummmm…..I like to get up early and walk.” then I prattle about the rabbits and mimosas and mockingbirds. She is unmoved.

  “you don’t need to go walking so early, by yourself. Wait til someone can go with you.” I don’t argue. There is no point. No one will walk with me and listen to me prattle. I am too shy to ask David even though I had shared my secret of my early walks. He opined that he would go and take a pellet gun and shoot the rabbits, maybe. They get into his mama’s garden. I was saddened at the thought of these trusting rabbits, knowing  I am not going to harm them, only to be shot by my friend….so I dropped it and never mentioned it again. Later, he tells me he got up early and walked that road and looked for me. He said he saw the rabbits, too and wanted to let me know he didn’t shoot any of them. I told him that I had been caught slipping out to walk and couldn’t do it anymore. He seemed saddened by this, but didn’t mention it again.

  He never got the chance to. One day, Daddy came home and said we were going back to Arkansas, just to visit. We’d come back and get our stuff. I gathered up a few things, leaving a green plastic star necklace hanging on a nail in our group bedroom. Bobbie left a poster on the wall she got for finishing her reader in the third grade. It was a furry, spotted baby seal. We thought it the cutest thing we’d ever seen. I ran to David’s house to tell him we were going back to Arkansas for a couple of weeks, but we’d come back. He said he’d be looking out for me and watch for our vehicle. He told how he couldn’t wait for me to come back, to start school there that fall. His friends would love me, my sense of humor.

I wonder how long he watched for us before he gave up. 

  We never went back, never got our stuff…never said goodbye to friends. Library books, never returned. Food in the fridge. Toys in the yard. Mattresses on the floor. Window unit in my parent’s bedroom. What else was left? What else from my childhood, left scattered here or there in that old house, hanging on a nail?

  I thought about that this morning, as I laced up my tennis shoes, Maggie My Dog and Tika my brain damaged Heeler/badger mix (I could be wrong about the badger part, but it would explain her temperament) I headed down the road, my shoes crunching gravel. I smelled the creek, smelling of fish and mud. I saw rabbits, ducking and running under the brush. It was cool, the coolest this day will be, I know and I soak it in. I walk chickens, picking up the dead, singing to myself, telling stories, writing my book in my head. I head home after the last chicken house and see Clint’s truck driving up the gravel road. I walk toward it and he says “woman! I would have walked chickens for you today. Give you a day off.” I smile and climb into the truck. “you been up long?” he asks. “Oh, not long. I couldn’t sleep. I like walking out here early in the morning.” I say. He smiles “I know you do, you always have.”  I smile at him and pat his arm.

  He takes me home and I shower and fix my hair and put on my makeup. I line my eyes carefully, line my lips even more so. One more coat of mascara. I press the powder into my face. My eyeshadow, brown and gold, matching my dress, my hat. I love my hat, it is tan and has a wide black ribbon and black flower. It has a small brim and looks vintage. Clint tells me I look pretty and I kiss him. “You look handsome.” I say, smiling, flirting a tiny bit, lowering my eyes.  He kisses me and the memories of  early walks and mattresses on the floor and waiting, wondering friends  disappear like a rabbit into the brush. Like the dew after sunrise.( Oh, but dear reader. The memories are there. Like a poster on the wall. Like a necklace on a nail. Waiting for me to come back, come back and retrieve them. I can’t and I shan’t. )

 

Sunflowers and Stinky Compost

  Small caveat, dear reader. I wrote this a couple of weeks ago, when my chickens were big. That flock is gone now, weighing in at an average weight of over 7 ½ pounds at 60 days. I got new baby chicks yesterday and didn’t have time to write in between. So, here’s a sort of oldy and hopefully a goody. J  

It’s been very hot and the chickens are very big. Always, in the back of my head…the thought of the disaster that could happen. The water line breaks, flooding the house. The fogger pump goes out and 26,000 chickens die from the heat. The power could go out.  The wells could give out. I check them every hour during the daylight, praying and worrying.

  And, oh the buzzards.

They circle and land near the composter, ripping apart the dead and stringing feathers and chicken feet all around.

  It’s gross. So, to avoid that, we cover the dead birds with a mixture of old chicken litter and composted dead chickens. It’s disgusting, smelly stuff, but is better than a pile of dead, rotting chickens in 95 degree heat.

  People will often call and want a truckload of compost. It is the best fertilizer around, but lawsy lord have mercy!!  It stinks and often still has bits of bone, feathers, and feet with the claws still attached.  

  I’ve been picking up a lot of dead chickens, not uncommon this time of year. Clint has been able to help me a day or two here and there, but mostly it’s my job. So I get out there early as I can, bypassing my morning workout to walk the chickens in the relative cool of the morning. Clint told me I should hire some teenage boys to come and help me. I guess I could, but what else I gotta do? I say to him. If it takes me all day, it takes me all day. It’s my job.

  The mortality was down today and I was grateful. Only about a hundred in all three houses combined. That’s still higher than I like, but I’ll take it. I have to dump the dead in between each house, making 3 trips total to the fly ridden, stinky composter. The tractor is parked nearby, Clint coming home each night and covering them. I can drive the tractor, but as my history will show, I have a penchant for ripping boards down and being destructive in general with the front end loader. I try to be very careful, but I have this fear always that I’m going to tear something really important up and Clint will have to come home and fix it. I hate to give him more work to do and that’s what was on my mind as the tractor started easily and I shifted in into low (granny) gear and pulled with all my might, leaning hard to turn the steering wheel. This old tractor is just a TRACTOR , it isn’t for show or comfort, it is for WORK and WORK only, so there is no such thing as power steering. I feel my arms strain to turn this wheel. The seat is too far back for me to sit all the way into it, so I perch on the edge and turn the wheel while trying NOT to mash down on the clutch or brake.

  I pulled forward into the first bin of the composter, full of dark litter/dead chicken/maggot/unknown bug substance. I lower the front end bucket, then scoop it upward while backing out. I pull forward toward the dead chickens, white and large,  pale yellow bony chicken feet sticking out here and there. I raise the bucket and un-scoop the compost on top of the white feathers, covering up their bodies, no feet sticking out now.

  I back out slowly and decide I really need another load. I repeat the above process, covering most of the dead, leaving only a few showing.

  But, I shall stop now…I have done good work and haven’t broken anything. It’s good enough for today and Clint can bypass this little job tonight. I’ll try it again tomorrow, perhaps I’ll get better and take the job away from him completely.

  See? That’s what I do. I make people feel like they aren’t needed. I don’t mean to do that, I just swell up to fill whatever space I’m put in. I just DO things. I think about a conversation I had the other day with a friend who is like a sister to me. She has a new boyfriend, a much better man than her husband and they got into their first argument the other day. Why? I asked but I knew the answer before she spoke. She had tried and tried to figure out how to get this kid to ball practice and this kid to the dentist and this kid picked up from school and this kid a sitter. (she’s got 4)

  The new boyfriend YELLED at her and said “WHAT AM I?? CHOPPED LIVER?? I can help you, you know!!”

  This had never occurred to my sister/friend, that she couldn’t do it all by herself and that people will help you.

  I’m not so much like that anymore, I was years ago…now I just don’t think to ask for help. I think I can do anything and am stunned when I can’t.

  When we first got the chicken houses, I didn’t even drive the tractor, I just piled the birds up by the door and Clint hauled them off when he got home.

  One day, I thought “this is stupid” and I drove the tractor down there and hauled them myself. Before long, it became old hat and I branched out during cold, cold frozen winters. I would take hay on the tractor to the cows…it was so cold and the wind so strong…I would bundle up and take one bale at a time, making 3 trips to hay the cows, the wind blowing the occasional piece of dry hay into my eyes off of the big round bale. I was afraid to take 2 at a time, one on the front, one on the back, it scared me. But I could take one, and then when Clint came home, he wasn’t driving around in the dark AND cold, haying the cows.

  But today wasn’t cold, it was HOT and the compost STINKS. I didn’t break anything on the tractor and I did it by myself.

  I think about compost.

It is stinky and horrid and terrifying, filled with maggots and bugs and dark beetles, attracting possums and raccoons and rats and coyotes and feral cats and stray dogs.

  But it grows the best garden, bright tomatoes and green okra, yellow squash and speckled zucchini.

I think of my life, of compost I have been handed in the form of people in charge of me, my safety, my comfort, my sense of self.

  So much compost. Stinky, horrid compost. Fly blown and rotten.

But, here have I, in my garden now…my life…blooming with my husband and my children and their spouses. Blooming away. Bearing fruit. Rising up toward the sun, to feel it on our faces, all together, my family, laughing on Sunday afternoons after church, our plates sitting on the floor to be picked up after stories, giggles, teasing, and naps on the couch. Shhh. I’ll get those dishes later, I say. They’re asleep. Let them rest, my grown children, my handsome husband. Shhh. They are tired and comfortable, full bellies and cool fans beckon, they stretch out here and there on couches, on beds.

 So, so much compost I’ve have shoveled my way. Oh, but dear reader. The compost I have had handed to me in my past  has fertilized me like no clean, cushy former life could have.

  And so, I leave this writing, to go to the chicken houses and check the water, check the power, check the chickens, check the temps, check the fogger pumps.

  I’ll glance at the composter as I leave house 3, a few buzzards lighting there, confused. They can smell the death, the rotting chickens…but because of the compost, they cannot get to them.

  The buzzards, always there, always circling, waiting for a spot that is uncovered and vulnerable. They best fly on.

 I turn my face to the sun like a sunflower (oh, aren't we all sunflowers at heart?)  and drive home.

Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed

  Maggie  My Dog is my constant companion, riding beside me on the Kubota back and forth from the chicken houses. She is brown, with a compact build and intelligent eyes. She is part Pit Bull/part… something else.  Ten years ago, Tara picked her out at the Humane Society in Fort Smith from a litter that had just been dropped off.  Maggie  pawed at the glass when she saw Tara, and leapt and jumped and kissed her when we took her into a small room to get to know her. She bubbled with joy and excitement, but would also snug up to be petted, looking up at you with those eyes. She looks at me sometimes like she wants to say something…she just can’t quite get the words out.

  She is sweet and gentle, wonderful with children…never snapping or getting grumpy. She barks when people pull up in the driveway, hair standing up on the back of her neck, putting them back  into the truck sometimes.

  I’m okay with that. I think about that power, too…often wishing I could weigh 45 pounds and still be able to bare my teeth and bark and run someone off.

  Maggie is also…a killer. If a small animal makes an appearance at the chicken houses...they are killed, shaken, ripped apart. A cat. A raccoon. A possum. A rabbit.

  She doesn’t kill chickens…she got a spanking for killing one in her youth, when we first built the chicken houses and let her come inside. Maggie never forgot that and now…even if I sic her on a chicken, she will act like she doesn’t know what I’m talking about, looking away and…I SWEAR….whistling. doo de doo….doo de doo. I’m not listening. I’m not listening, her face seems to say.  

  She chases hawks and buzzards away from the composter. She runs unabashedly at coyotes, snapping at their heels. I often wonder what she would do if she caught a coyote...maybe it’s best she doesn’t.

  She runs the cows away from the feed bins at the chicken houses, but only if I’m there. I’ve often driven up on the Kubota and seen her lying around with Tika, my brain damaged Blue Heeler, cows milling about nibbling on the green grass near the cool cell pads. They leak water and there’s always grass there even if there isn’t anywhere else. She will jump up when she hears me and just clear the way, barking and snapping. Tika, being a Heeler, will jump up to and bite their back feet, pushing them forward. Maggie isn’t quite as talented and usually turns them in circles til they run off. She is worthless when working cattle, but she thinks she’s really doing something.  

  But, mostly…Maggie is a killer of squirrels. Oh, how they taunt her! Jumping into the tree at the last second, running around it, up and down, back and forth, spinning Maggie all around until she gives up.

I do believe squirrels are her favorite.

 I got done with chickens yesterday and Maggie took her place beside me on the seat. She sits most regally, facing forward, leaning in to the curves. People drive past and see her, sitting there beside me, her proud head up. They wave and kids point.

  Maggie has a habit of deciding to jump off while I’m still driving, standing up on the seat on four legs, timing the ground so she can hit it running. The first few times she did this, she bit the dirt and was sent rolling. Now, if she perks up and stands, I immediately slow and so she can leap off without injury. I usually then stop driving, often killing the Kubota to see what she’s running after.

 It was that elusive squirrel that she chases almost every day. But, this time…instead of running up a tree, it ran up a light pole in Trevor and Mykka’s driveway. Mykka and Trevor’s dogs came running when they heard Maggie’s short yip yip and soon, the whole pack was gathered around the light pole.

  The squirrel ran around, up and down, barking and chattering at the dogs. His tail was fuzzed up and he never stopped moving. I watched him run up the light pole, safely away from the dogs. I figured he would tire them out, wait til they left, then go to his tree.

  That’s when the squirrel did a very squirrely thing. To my horror, the squirrel turned and ran DOWN the light pole, right into the waiting pack of dogs. It tried to make a mad dash toward it’s tree, but Maggie was too quick. While the other dogs stood there stunned, Maggie jumped on the squirrel, bit it, shook it hard and killed it DEAD. She sniffed it for a second or two, then, tongue hanging out...seeming to grin…she hopped up on the seat and looked at me. She then tried to lick my face, me shooing her away. I had seen that dog chew on a dead chicken, then kill a squirrel that morning already. Good heavens. No THANK YOU. I petted her and told her I was proud and she seemed pleased.

  I looked over to see Jake, Trevor’s dog…he looks just like a coyote and often I’ll tell them he fools me at least once a day. I cannot believe someone doesn’t shoot him, but they don’t…anyway, he had picked up the squirrel’s limp body and was trotting around, playing catch with himself, throwing the squirrel up in the air and snatching it on it’s way down.

  I drove home, Maggie sitting righteously beside me on the seat and I  pondered that stupid squirrel.

  He was safe. Why didn’t he just stay THERE? He jumped INTO the pack of dogs.Why?

 Then it hit me.

   Squirrels always want to go HOME at the slightest danger. Go to THEIR  tree, THEIR branch, where they feel comfortable. Even if it would be safer to stay put. That’s why squirrels will run UNDER your car when they are safely on the side of the road. They have an instinct to go to their comfort zone, their home…no matter how unsafe the trip may be…no matter that running away would be the best thing to do…no matter…no matter.

  I’ve done that.

I’ve gone back, I’ve thrown myself to the pack with abandon to try to go to the place I knew, the place I KNOW, the place that is MY place… place I’ve been put…the role I was supposed to play.…no matter how deadly or painful. No matter that I would do better to stay up on the light pole, tail fuzzed up and chattering a warning at the waiting pack below. No matter.

  I THREW myself and THREW myself into that pack of teeth and growling ghashingness …only to be shocked and STUNNED when I got hurt and torn, then played with like a chew toy.

So, I shall stay up here…close to the Light. Where it is safe, and my home is lovely with peace and harmony.

  There are no snarling dogs in my life anymore, waiting for me to throw myself  toward them, offering myself as a sacrifice.

Nope. Nope. Nope.

Think about that, dear reader.

Think about trying to get back to someone or something…even though it will HURT you, KILL you inside.

Don’t do it.

Stay put.

Up by the Light, where you are safe and can perch and watch the slightly chubby 41 year old Poultry Princess fly by on her orange Kubota, her dog sitting queenishly beside her, looking forward.

You don’t have to try to get Home. You can be safe and not have your heart torn to bits and pieces. Be bright eyed and bushy tailed and safe.

Don’t be a squirrel. J

 

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

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

Let me explain.

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Tiny you.

 Cute, cuddly you.

 Soft, sweet YOU.

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

 It was YOU.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 A sweet, soft, ripe peach.

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

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

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

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

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

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

   

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

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

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

                                                                     LOVE ADDICT, LOVE ADDICT)

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

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

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

                                                    L-O-V-E)

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

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

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

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

                 I CANNOT run.

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

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

  I try this again. Step, step, step.

Calf moves with me.

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

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

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

still plays loudly in my ears.

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

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

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

                               WHACK!!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

               (HOLD UP, WAIT A MINUTE)

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

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

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

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

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

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

                                                               and I did.

chicken poop, snakes, and hurt feelings.

I wonder sometimes when it’s going to happen. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On I walked.

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

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

But…I killed a snake with it.

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

I pondered chicken poop and venomous snakes and angry words.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 To keep from getting bitten, of course.

And so I shall.

If you wanna sing out, sing out!

I love music of all kinds…on my iPod and Kindle I have worship music…Adele…Jimmy Buffet… Weird Al…my music tastes are eclectic and tend toward older stuff.

My favorite is Alison Krauss, with or without Union Station. I saw AKUS years ago. Clint bought me 4 tickets to see them in Branson and I took my friends Carolyn, Sherry, and Toni. We had a grand time. I drove and I discovered something about myself. When we would exit a parking lot onto the infamous 76 strip with its terrible traffic, I would nose my black Expedition out onto the road. I would make eye contact with who ever was driving toward me. Often it was a man and I would smile and say under my breath “he’s gonna let me in, he just doesn’t know it yet.” Then I would smile even bigger and wave my fingers at him and he would stop and let me in. Then I would pull out onto the road, smiling and mouthing thank you and getting a smile and wave in return. This caused great laughter around me. I didn’t see what was so funny, as this is the sort of thing I do all the time. I do the same thing when I’m walking into Walmart or the mall..I look toward a coming car and I smile and they slow and let me walk across. But it became a staple saying that weekend, every time we pulled out of a parking lot..”he’s gonna let me in, he just doesn’t know it yet.” we would say in unison and he WOULD let us in and we would smile and wave. Tis a fine thing to be a southern woman. I haven’t been to many other places. I wonder if it would work up north or would they think me a loon and honk at me and perhaps give me the finger. I shall try it someday and report back to you.

I think I like Alison Krauss because I can sing harmony with her. Her voice is so high, crystal and pure. I cannot sing as high as Alison, when I try it comes out shrieky and weird. My voice is low and untrained. My Preston side of the family can all sing or play instruments or both. The first time I went to a church as a child of 8 and a woman got up and sang and just BUTCHERED the song, just yelped and screeched and caterwauled as sometimes people do…no one will tell you not to sing if you are willing to get up there and do it..…I looked at my mother in HORROR and whispered “what is WRONG with her voice?”. She shushed me and I sat and listened, feeling almost sick to my stomach and embarrassed for the lady up there just a yelling away. I didn’t understand that not everybody could sing, not everybody sang with their sisters and brother while hanging clothes on the line or doing dishes.

I sing harmony along with Alison. It’s really my favorite thing to do, sing harmony and blend and make that sweet sound. I told people for years I was an alto and then I started singing in the choir at my church and realized to my chagrin that I do NOT sing the alto, I sing what I HEAR and it’s not the alto, it’s the tenor part OR the bass and baritone an octave up. This makes for a hard time for me singing in a structured choir, as my voice tends to be soulful and unruly and does it’s own thing. How do you know there’s an alto at the door? She doesn’t have the key and doesn’t know when to come in, goes the old joke. But I soldier on and fake my way thru the alto part, working very hard during choir practice, only to forget it due to nervousness and sing what I hear in my head. Sigh. Tis my lot. Sorry, Bro. Tim.

My children and I would sing whenever we drove anywhere and when you have young teenagers you drive them EVERYWHERE and so we would sing. “Jesus Freak” was a favorite and Casting Crowns…Tara doing the lead, Trevor doing the tenor, me intoning my weird, low harmony. We would get up and sing at church and people marveled at our harmonies and sound. Trevor hates to sing and will just about refuse to even practice with us. He’s content playing the drums with the band at church. But…his wife Mykka has a gorgeous voice and sang at Tara and Daniel’s wedding. I’m working on her now….she’s gonna let me in, she just doesn’t know it yet.

Tara can sing higher than me, I suspect that’s from her youth and practice. She sings with her husband Daniel. He plays guitar and leads our worship at church. The thing I like about worship songs is they are free-er, I can throw my head back and just sing my harmony like I want to. I can’t hit the notes I used to..not that they were all that high, but I could at least hit them. I can’t now, my voice seeming to get lower and lower on the register. I remember hearing my Granny Viv sing and she had that strange, low, beautiful sound. Perhaps that shall be me and someday my grandchildren will write about Granny Lichea and her weird voice and penchant for reptiles and all things sparkly.

So, today…while puttering around the house, picking up things and putting them back in their places…dusting and sweeping…I am harmoniously singing harmony with Ms. Krauss..



“this old house is falling down around my ears-

I’m drowning in a river of my tears-

when all my will is gone, you hold me sway-

I need you at the dimming of the day”

“Dimming of the Day”



That song is on her latest cd. The first time I heard it, I knew all the words. I really did. I searched my memory, but didn’t remember knowing that song at all. I even knew the harmony, when to rise and fall with her voice. I told Clint about it and asked if that ever happened to him, did he ever hear a song for the first time and know all the words. He looked at me like he always does, bemused… he reminds me of that dog that’s got his head cocked sideways listening to the old Victrola… and said “how would I know all the words to a song I had never heard before?” and I said “that’s what I’m asking! how do I know all the words?” I finally went and looked it up, finding out it came out in 1975. I would have been 5 years old. I found the original version, but it didn’t sound familiar to me at all. But, I must have heard it somewhere, sometime, and along with sitcom theme songs and my old home phone number, it nestled in my brain to be coaxed out by AKUS’s version.

Sometimes, I can’t quite find the note I’m searching for and I’ll try several, cringing when the harmony note I’m attempting is discordant and raw. But eventually, I’ll find one that fits and is pleasing. Tara and I have this thing we do where we start on one note and slide up to another note and we stay in harmony the whole time. We do this without practicing or knowing where we are starting. I can’t do this with anyone else, but I’m working on it with Mykka and we are making progress. I listen where Mykka’s voice goes and I follow. She’s gonna let me in, she just doesn’t know it yet.

Once, Tara and I were watching TV and there was a boring part on the show we were watching. At the very same time, we starting singing the same song, Tara doing the lead, me doing the harmony. It was a commercial jingle…”I am green today, like the cricket sounds” or something like that. It was the strangest, most wonderful thing. We laughed about it later and tried it again several times, always knowing the note the other was going to sing before it was sung. We demonstrated it for Clint. He said we sounded good, but I don’t know if he understood that we were, in essence, reading each others minds about the key we were going to sing in. Tara let me in, she just didn’t know it yet.

I find in my life, I sing harmony with everything I do. I rise and fall in the conversation and mood of my friends, finding the “thing” that balances and soothes and smooths. I shy away from discord, finding my spot to come in, finding the note that goes and makes it sound better. So, that’s me. I want to find a note, a spot, a place to come in and be harmonious to you. There are some people that I’ve tried to do this with and it didn’t work. This always leaves me confused and distressed. Some people refuse to let you sing with them, they WON’T let you in no matter WHAT note you try. I liken this to teaching a pig to sing. You waste your time and annoy the pig. There are so many people who will sing with me, loudly and with abandon. So I keep away from people who’s souls don’t sing with the same joy mine does. So, dear reader, I invite you to sing with me if you are able. Not with our voices, but with our lives, with our friendship and laughter. I must tell you, dear reader, as I smile and wave. You’re gonna let me in. You just don’t know it yet. 