Proud Moments

Sometimes I find my own idiocy rather enigmatic. I can’t always put into words why I’m an idiot.

Tonight, however, it is clear. I will share, because I know my being an idiot is the only real draw to this blog.

It occurred to me at 11 p.m., just a few minutes ago, that I hadn’t fed or watered the chickens today. It also occurred to me that they had appeared hungry.  In retrospect, I wonder why I chose to care.

I was sitting in the brown chair watching the Miami Heat spank that other team (not gonna pretend to care) like bad pet goats. I knew I had to go feed the dirty beasts. I was wearing pajamas. None of that was going to change. I just needed shoes. So I rolled up my pajama pants to my knees and put on my turquoise Keens. No sense in going into the coop with a bad sense of fashion. Just my appearance alone was going to demand their respect.

Like any smart idiot farm girl, I got myself a high powered flashlight and went out into the night, forming my plan in my head as I walked. I would turn on the lights to the pole barn. I would go into the coop and use the food in the red tupperware. I would quickly feed both sets of chickens, check their water, and get out.

The lights on the pole barn definitely made things less scary. It took the ax murderer element out of things. But it added the scary big spider element and I had to take a detour from my plans to go grab the spider killer. I am much braver in fights against spiders now that I know they make aerosol cans of toxic spider killer. I win every time. Even against this bad boy.

OK. Back to the chickens. I went into the coop where I stupidly left my red tupperware and stopped dead in my tracks. The little boogers had gotten the container open and had made a huge mess. It looked like a crime scene. Apparently they were NOT underfed today. They fed themselves like kings and then pooped like this was their last day on earth. Guess who will get to deal with that? Me again.

“You little stinkers,” I said to them. “Look what you’ve done.” All four of the big ones looked very guilty. Trust me. They did. This was a cartoonesque moment for me. They totally hate me. They totally know what they’re doing.  But then there were the little guys, inside a bunny hutch in the coop. They weren’t privy to the thieving going on just outside their cage. And they were still hungry.

So I got some food, cleaned the water containers out inside the house (normally I do this in the garden using a hose, but the garden was the most frightening place on earth tonight), and washed my hands both literally and metaphorically.

Many mistakes were made in this process. They are as follows:

1. Forgetting the chickens early in the day when sunshine was my ally.
2. Remembering at 11 that the chickens were hungry.
3. Caring at all that I forgot and then remembered.
4. Getting up to do something about the caring and the remembering and forgetting.
5. Turning on the porch light, thus inviting every fly and scary bug in the county to come to a party at my back door, where my face was.
6. Leaving the extra stored food in the actual coop (pretty sure this was an oversight, not a conscious decision).
7. Traipsing through my downstairs with chicken water bottles, wearing the Keens that have just walked in a chicken coop. Yes, there were souvenirs.

It’s done now. I will leave you with this.  I have at times heard the “Cost of Eggs” conversation between people who’ve never met an actual chicken. Eggs cost so much. Why does it cost $2.59 for a dozen? How do they get them so white? Should I buy organic? But eggs cost so much.

If you think you are paying too much for eggs, you are not.

You are not paying NEAR ENOUGH FOR EGGS.

That is all.