Strange things are happening to me
It was a simple plan. Clean house until lunchtime, meet Doug at the restaurant, then leave for my cousin’s son’s birthday party. Plenty of time. All I had to do was wrangle gas money from Doug (who had spent the morning making candy and in spite of the fact that he hates making candy, he’s always cheerful on candy-making days).
That’s how it looked on paper.
Here’s how it went down in reality.
About 1:00 this morning, Winkin came into the bedroom where we were reading. Her eye was swollen and running – NOT a good thing for a one-eyed cat. We flushed her eye, checked for scratches or boo-boos (there were none evident). It was no big deal really, we have the world’s greatest vet with office hours on Saturdays (he makes house calls too) so we were just going to swing her by to be checked out before going to lunch.
We’re sitting in the office, getting smoochy with the world’s sweetest Doberman and a precocious little lab/terrier puppy when he walks out and tells me the chicks are ready. We can take them home today! Oh YAY! But the building isn’t quite finished, so we decide to bring the chicks home and find temporary housing that will give me time to finish clearing the floor and making sure there are no more bee nests inside. I can do that…a quick trip to the feed and seed for the starter food and stuff to put a fence up tomorrow and we’ll be set. We’d only be a little late for the party.
The large dog crate was supposed to work well for holding them while I did this but somehow, in spite of the fact that the little chickens are way bigger around than the openings in the wire crate, they started to walk right out through the holes. (This is where it gets kind of sad) Buddy picked one of the little black chicks up and hurt her leg. He seemed awful sorry and, naturally, I felt like a real guilty baby chick killing idiot. It never occurred to me that they would fit between the wires. They are so fat. And fluffy, and cute, and full of chirpy sweetness. OH GOD I KILLED A BABY CHICK! I didn’t mean to, really I didn’t. Poor Emily was devastated. She was crying, and I felt so bad…
We planned to go straight after lunch and get the food and latches for the door so that we could be sure the rest of the chicks would remain safe (we stashed them in a non-wire dog crate inside the house this time. We’d only be a little bit late for the party. We would do what we could to make it but the little chicks had to have a safe place to sleep tonight.
We left for Tractor Supply right after lunch.
Mistake. Game day in Clemson. Seven hours before the ball game and traffic was already building up…we’d never make it back in time for the party.
Emily cried some more, but a little talking had her once again sure that finishing the house for the chicks was what we needed to do.
It took a trip to Tractor Supply and Lowes but finally we had gathered all the supplies we needed to fix a fine chicken house and make a lovely little pecking yard for the babies so they can get out (safely) and get fresh air and yard bugs. We stopped for a quick bite to eat so we could get right to work on the building when we got home, I called Doug for directions on how to get home the back way (I don’t know how to get to the new house from there) and we were off.
Not even a mile after we’d exited onto the highway traffic came to a stop. For 30 minutes we sat while firemen and police worked to stop the fire from the crash where a truck had jumped the guardrail just before the bridge. Through that snag, finally, and we were ready to go again. I called Doug again so I could talk to him while I made our exit and made sure I got on the right road to home. He had been badly burned at work and blistered the palm of his hand and all 5 fingers. It would just be me finishing up the floor in the chicken house.
I was on the right road, not too far from home, but with only one more road to get on.
“Stay on 24 and you’ll run right in to 59,” he said.
Ok, I can do that. 59 is the only road around here that I’ve started to really learn. It gets me to Wal-Mart and the girls’ schools. If I can make it there, I’m in good shape.
We hung up so he could pack up to come home and take care of his hand. Hwy 24 did indeed run right into 59, but a few miles down the road, 59 ended. It just stopped and I could go right or left.
I called Doug again. “You need to take a right where the road makes a little triangle with houses in the center.”
Ok did that, but it’s a dead end road.
He tried to explain it to me, got frustrated because I just wasn’t getting it and he just wasn’t getting what I (the girl with NO sense of direction) was saying and he hung up on me.
I headed down the road I was on originally to back track and see if I could find out where I went wrong. All the road signs said I was on 59, so I could only assume that I was on the right road, but headed in the wrong direction. Doug called back and I opened the phone and closed it immediately.
Hang up on me when I need you, how ‘bout it. That’ll teach him. HA!
A few minutes later he called back again and said go back to the building I’d passed earlier…he knew how to get there and he’d be there within 15 minutes.
So we went back and we waited.
An hour and a half after we’d left Anderson, he pulled up beside us.
“I gave you the wrong landmark.” He said before driving off in the direction that would take us back home.
We made it and I finished cleaning the building just before dark. We needed a little help from the flashlight, but it’s done and they are tucked away, safe (we hope) and snug into their house. I’d forgot to buy a new lock for the door so I did the innovative country girl thing and drove nails and bent them over to hold the door tight shut.
We named the little dead chick Muscadine and buried her under the bush of the same name. I’m so sorry about that little chick.
Doug’s hand is in pretty bad shape.
If Winkin’s eye isn’t greatly improved by Monday morning, she has to have surgery to try to save it because it’s the only one she has left. We have no idea what happened, but that isn’t important now. It only matters that she doesn’t lose it.
We didn’t make it to the party.
What a day.
That’s how it looked on paper.
Here’s how it went down in reality.
About 1:00 this morning, Winkin came into the bedroom where we were reading. Her eye was swollen and running – NOT a good thing for a one-eyed cat. We flushed her eye, checked for scratches or boo-boos (there were none evident). It was no big deal really, we have the world’s greatest vet with office hours on Saturdays (he makes house calls too) so we were just going to swing her by to be checked out before going to lunch.
We’re sitting in the office, getting smoochy with the world’s sweetest Doberman and a precocious little lab/terrier puppy when he walks out and tells me the chicks are ready. We can take them home today! Oh YAY! But the building isn’t quite finished, so we decide to bring the chicks home and find temporary housing that will give me time to finish clearing the floor and making sure there are no more bee nests inside. I can do that…a quick trip to the feed and seed for the starter food and stuff to put a fence up tomorrow and we’ll be set. We’d only be a little late for the party.
The large dog crate was supposed to work well for holding them while I did this but somehow, in spite of the fact that the little chickens are way bigger around than the openings in the wire crate, they started to walk right out through the holes. (This is where it gets kind of sad) Buddy picked one of the little black chicks up and hurt her leg. He seemed awful sorry and, naturally, I felt like a real guilty baby chick killing idiot. It never occurred to me that they would fit between the wires. They are so fat. And fluffy, and cute, and full of chirpy sweetness. OH GOD I KILLED A BABY CHICK! I didn’t mean to, really I didn’t. Poor Emily was devastated. She was crying, and I felt so bad…
We planned to go straight after lunch and get the food and latches for the door so that we could be sure the rest of the chicks would remain safe (we stashed them in a non-wire dog crate inside the house this time. We’d only be a little bit late for the party. We would do what we could to make it but the little chicks had to have a safe place to sleep tonight.
We left for Tractor Supply right after lunch.
Mistake. Game day in Clemson. Seven hours before the ball game and traffic was already building up…we’d never make it back in time for the party.
Emily cried some more, but a little talking had her once again sure that finishing the house for the chicks was what we needed to do.
It took a trip to Tractor Supply and Lowes but finally we had gathered all the supplies we needed to fix a fine chicken house and make a lovely little pecking yard for the babies so they can get out (safely) and get fresh air and yard bugs. We stopped for a quick bite to eat so we could get right to work on the building when we got home, I called Doug for directions on how to get home the back way (I don’t know how to get to the new house from there) and we were off.
Not even a mile after we’d exited onto the highway traffic came to a stop. For 30 minutes we sat while firemen and police worked to stop the fire from the crash where a truck had jumped the guardrail just before the bridge. Through that snag, finally, and we were ready to go again. I called Doug again so I could talk to him while I made our exit and made sure I got on the right road to home. He had been badly burned at work and blistered the palm of his hand and all 5 fingers. It would just be me finishing up the floor in the chicken house.
I was on the right road, not too far from home, but with only one more road to get on.
“Stay on 24 and you’ll run right in to 59,” he said.
Ok, I can do that. 59 is the only road around here that I’ve started to really learn. It gets me to Wal-Mart and the girls’ schools. If I can make it there, I’m in good shape.
We hung up so he could pack up to come home and take care of his hand. Hwy 24 did indeed run right into 59, but a few miles down the road, 59 ended. It just stopped and I could go right or left.
I called Doug again. “You need to take a right where the road makes a little triangle with houses in the center.”
Ok did that, but it’s a dead end road.
He tried to explain it to me, got frustrated because I just wasn’t getting it and he just wasn’t getting what I (the girl with NO sense of direction) was saying and he hung up on me.
I headed down the road I was on originally to back track and see if I could find out where I went wrong. All the road signs said I was on 59, so I could only assume that I was on the right road, but headed in the wrong direction. Doug called back and I opened the phone and closed it immediately.
Hang up on me when I need you, how ‘bout it. That’ll teach him. HA!
A few minutes later he called back again and said go back to the building I’d passed earlier…he knew how to get there and he’d be there within 15 minutes.
So we went back and we waited.
An hour and a half after we’d left Anderson, he pulled up beside us.
“I gave you the wrong landmark.” He said before driving off in the direction that would take us back home.
We made it and I finished cleaning the building just before dark. We needed a little help from the flashlight, but it’s done and they are tucked away, safe (we hope) and snug into their house. I’d forgot to buy a new lock for the door so I did the innovative country girl thing and drove nails and bent them over to hold the door tight shut.
We named the little dead chick Muscadine and buried her under the bush of the same name. I’m so sorry about that little chick.
Doug’s hand is in pretty bad shape.
If Winkin’s eye isn’t greatly improved by Monday morning, she has to have surgery to try to save it because it’s the only one she has left. We have no idea what happened, but that isn’t important now. It only matters that she doesn’t lose it.
We didn’t make it to the party.
What a day.
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