Have Mercy

The text from the barn reads "Clucky is sick".   "What's wrong?" I text back.  "He's sick."

I should expect this from my youngest son.  Descriptive, diagnostic, deductive language is not in his wheel house.  I will check on the rooster in the morning.  It is dark, the long day has stretched me thin and wimpy, rubbing tired eyes that just beg to close and be let alone for a summer night's short slumber.

My son is tired too, but will never admit it.  He insists and negotiates.  It is the ritual.  A person with autism can always win an argument by sheer perseverance.  The thing is to out-think the argument and turn the requests into inert concepts, this while every creative cell in your body aches for rest.  You still eke out the will to hold on to structure, order, and prayers that he will go to bed or at least let you go to bed despite the emphatic and repetitive statements that: he's not tired, and why can't he play video games, and he's quite sure that his older brother plays video games while we sleep, and can he have one more snack?  

I wash my face, hiding in the basement bathroom to avoid the pelting of repetition and demands. He's 16.  This "phase" is not going away soon.  I pray for maturity - his and mine.   "He's tired," my voice says aloud meant to console my own self, and blissfully I don't argue with me, if only to prove that the statement can be made without an ensuing battle.

I fall asleep in a nano second and wake to a sleeping house, except for the wide awake deaf dog who has taken up barking at 550 am each morning.  This is the dog who a few years ago wouldn't so much as whimper or whine even when she accidentally got locked in the attic for a few hours.  Now, she barks, but only in the morning, and only at me.  She wants to eat earlier each day it seems.  Does she think I'm a morning person?

The barn is quiet.  The sheep see this entourage- caretaker, 3 dogs, and a calico cat posing as a 4th canine, and announce our arrival to the peaceful zoo. Forget about the roosters banging that morning gong, it's the sheep that really begin the cacophony.  Small peeps from chicks, chuff chuffing turkeys, and finally the complaints of ducks matching the sheep to the decibel.  "Good morning you throng of beings!"

Can you hear me now?

The first barn door opens and teenage chicks rush the open air as if they were fleeing a burning building.  In the exodus, a few fly onto the arm that holds open the barn door and then stare at me surprised.    How can a chicken look so surprised?

A few stragglers remain.  The fuzzy headed Golden Laced Polish named Fluffy, her companion "Little One" and then there is Clucky up on the roost teetering ever so slightly.

The barn stinks.  Fetid is the word that bounces around in the sunshine streaming through dusty window panes.

I lift Clucky and examine his back end expecting diarrhea because there are reddish brown streaks on his legs.  I see and smell an awfulness that I don't know how to describe. There is an opening I think, but it is moving. No...writhing.  I look closer because I can't wrap my brain around this grotesque moment.  The writhing, it's maggots and the opening is large. Really large.  The maggots obscure the magnitude of the sore, but there is wetness, and dare I say, a foul juice leaking from him.  

I can't think and just put him down staring into his eyes looking for communication of pain or weakness.  He looks back at me then tends to his wound and looks at me again. It's a "can't you do something about this?" look.  

"Maggots are good" comes out of my mouth.  They are good.  They eat necrotic tissue, and have been used in deep wounds even in people to aid healing.

In chicken populations, it is important to keep things from being shiny.  Shiny is irresistible.  Blood and pus are shiny and the other chickens will peck out of curiosity, and like a "B" rate sci-fi movie, may turn carnivorous.

I find a bottle of Blu-kote in the medical supplies.  It is an anti-septic spray that coats an area blue and dries to a matte finish.  I spray Clucky.  He looks relieved.  He leaves the barn and I watch him closely.  He drinks and drinks from the waterer just filled cool and fresh .

The hens who have shunned him for years come along side of him.  I think "How sweet, they are comforting him", but no they are following him and eating the maggots that fall from the wound. Ugh!  Why didn't I become a vet?  Isn't there more I can do??

After chores and picking vegetables, I tend to breakfast dishes.  Our dog Bailey stays outside while I wash.  She starts barking and I shoosh her.   "You are going to wake the kids!" I whisper-yell.  She doesn't stop.  I walk outside to see what she's fussing about and there is Clucky in the carport looking and smelling like the walking dead.  Her hair is raised at this rooster who has been a pet since his birth.  Unusual.

I lament that I can't do more, but then I realize that I can give him antibiotics to help with the infection.  Getting the needle ready, I see him duck into the cover of the grapevines as if he knows that a needle is coming.  I catch him which is hardly a feat, clean a spot on his thigh and press the healing into him. After that it is prayers and time.  Truly, I am out of ammo and turning it over to God.  I set him down and realize just how warm he was.  Febrile and wounded- poor sweet baby!

The next morning, he looks better.  He feels cooler.  The maggots are still at work but the smell is less intense.  Whew! Maybe he gets a reprieve.  He's young, strong and kind.  He's been taking care of a crippled rooster for years, fetching him food, protecting him from the more aggressive roosters. Truly, karma should be on his side.

Clucky's buddy Crooked Neck.
When he's tired, he just can't
hold his head up any longer.

I notice in the corner, "Little One" is fluffed out like she is cold.  Holding her to my chest, she warms up.  I set her by the food.  Her crop is empty, her keel bone has no meat on it, and she is not growing like the other chicks.  This one is not well.  I wonder if she has survived merely because our 16 year son loves her the most of all 20 chicks in the barn.

I text my boy and let him know that she is sick.  He comes to the barn and puts her into a pen with fresh food and water along with her faithful companion, Fluffy.  Maybe a few days of easy food and a little rest will turn her around.

Another night passes and again, the barn doors open, the chickens burst forth into an unseasonably mild day as if summer has taken a summer vacation.  Clucky stands next to a wall propped up.  "Little One" lies motionless in the pen.  I take Fluffy out and relieve her of duty letting her know that she did not let her friend die alone. 

Fluffy

Clucky is hot again, burning up.  Blu-kote in hand I lift him up towards the sunlight.  The maggots have cleared from half of the wound. The opening is larger than I thought and the cleared portion shows his intestines.

There is no fixing this.  There is no magic spray, or liquid in a needle that can fix this.  This is a fatal error and this is the day that mercy begs to be doled out.  Sometimes, we have to show mercy.  Sometimes, you wake up and you have to, or maybe you get to stop a being from suffering.

I grab an empty feed sack and place Little One inside,  the feed sack seeming to weigh the same after the addition.  She was even more slight than she seemed.

I grab another empty feed sack in my right hand, stoop down and cradle Clucky in my the crook of my left arm.  We walk steady to the house, opening gates gingerly not wanting to cause Clucky even the slightest discomfort.  "You are a good boy." I tell him all the long walk home.  

My oldest son is getting ready for work and I ask him if he can help me with one small thing.  "I'm really in a rush" he says.  "It's Clucky, I just need you to start the car. " I say back.  My voice is steady and my boy knows that he will help me out.  

I open the feed sack, gently place Clucky inside and hold the mouth of the sack up tight against the exhaust from the truck. My oldest son starts the car and I count seconds.  At 45 seconds there is a flapping and a squawk, and then nothing.  I count to 180 and shut off the car.  He has flown.  

The 2 bags feel so limp, or is it me?  I set them both inside of our burn barrel.  I have a meeting at school, so I rush into the house and shower.  The tears run and I shave my legs blindly, reach for shampoo and conditioner, wash my tear streaked face and dry my hair.  Still crying, I apply a thin layer of mascara, grab my purse and drive away from the 2 bags and one sleeping child.

The meeting is so "other" world.  I wonder at how pulled together these women look.  I wonder if anyone else killed a friend this morning.  I wonder what pain is lurking behind their smiles.

I text My youngest son during a break to let him know that 2 of our flock are gone.  I blink tears away while I write it out.  He sends back, "they are in heaven now."  I blink faster pushing the remorse deeper.

My empathetic son greets me at the door when I get home.  "Where are Clucky and Little One?" he asks.  I tell him about the bags and we get a shovel for burial.  At first the plan is 2 holes, but it changes to one after the 20th shovelful.  We dig 2 feet down and place the bags, rolled up so neatly, into the hole.  

I think about the paper feed sacks, how they resemble the brown paper bags the homeless clutch to hide the liquid shame. I should uncover our pets, but it's too much to see. It's tidy this way and easy.  

We cover them with dark crumbly earth, and mark the place with a stepping stone.  It is done, our burdens passed on to the microbes and insects.  We walk back to the house and my youngest asks if I'm ok.  "Yep. OK" I say.  "How about you? Ok?" I ask back.  "I will miss them."  He says.

We walk back into the house arm in arm and he asks the question he asks every day after lunch.  "What are we having for supper?"  I almost say "chicken," but it's too cruel to joke yet.  

"Corn.  We are having corn and something."  

"We just had corn!" He complains.  

"Yep, but the corn is ready so we will eat corn tonite and maybe tomorrow, and probably the next day."  

These are the rules of the farm.  You eat what is in season, you tend to the sick and provide health to the well. Sometimes you cull out a being.  


Always you are merciful.

Clucky, Handsome and Strong.

Hung Up

Hung up

The calf is in the orchard. Again. Number 250, staring me down with an innocence that melts reason. "I will love him and pet him and name him George."  My IQ falls by tens in the beam of his stare somehow made more intense by cud
chewing. Maybe he can stay in the orchard. Is he really harming the trees?  The bent branches make their own plea.

It's a mile around the pasture. Long pants I bought at the Goodwill are tucked into the leather farm boots. The handle of my "fence fixing" pail squeaks as left then right foot land and avoid the hoof ruts on the beaten down grass path.

We take for granted smooth lawns. Nature doesn't lean toward smooth, it is full of nooks and ridges where it can store more life like an excessively pocketed purse. Snakes dwell in those pouches of nature and grass half covers the ground
hog holes.  Intentional steps and laser focus slow the pace allowing the brain to sort out the fence while 13 calves and 7 sheep look on. 

 Sheep "Baa" loudly sounding more like "Maa" appealing for food, activating the guilt lobe in the brain. If you are a woman, you know the guilt lobe. It's located near the lobe that makes us crave
chocolate.

Squeak squeak, Baa, buzzing cicadas, 20 pair of eyes, tops of boots swishing through dry grass, smack a horsefly dead... The fence is hung up on barbed wire
here and on a branch there. The wire breaks in the untwisting and more wire is patched in. Begin and stop, bend and stoop, drooping branches pruned, the electric wire free now to corral the four legged.

Confident steps propel me toward the barn feeling I've all but finished.  Then eyes catch poison ivy growing fresh and bold at the fence corner. The
pruners do their work, but in the stooping, an "aha!" The corner wire is jammed and sneakily twisted around the wires that hold the insulator in place. The root of all hang ups and the whereabouts known only from a tattletale ivy. The wire is pulled tight and tangled, stretched by the greedy gait of number 250 no doubt. A few thistles pulled, then grass laid low under a hand scythe, and finally the fence is switched on. The orchard is safe.

I am safe from making yet another cow my pet, and this a borrowed pet at best. After the losses of last summer with 3 dead cows in less than 3 weeks my own fencing guarding a heart too soft is roughly patched and hung up precariously.

250 belongs to a farmer friend who graciously agreed to bring calves to graze our pasture.  Steers that belong to him, medical bills that belong to him, and guilt and sorrow that belong to him in the event of tragedy.

I carry the green plastic scoop filled with molasses covered grains to the demanding and greedy sheep, and greet each friend- Spanky, Indigo, Larry,
Darryl, his other brother Darryl, Mo, and Birdie.  A quick stop back  inside the house to change into cooler shorts and shoes to return to planned chores in the already sultry garden. 

 I grab a water bottle then reach for a piece of chocolate on the way out.

This post is over a week late....

Only Eight O'clock AM and I'm dripping beads of summer effort when it's not yet a calendar summer day.  Tell that to our cat stretched out pancake formation on the concrete of the car port or the chicken laying in a heap in the screened porch. Tell that my hair slicked back like the Fonz-oh to be cool on any front!

  Chickens do have concrete thoughts!

The sun is not turned up to "full" quite yet.  The morning haze draping the sleepy drooping earth protects us for just moments more, and then whammo! the whole farm is braced-still under the interrogation of heated beams.

The plants gather energy reserves and hum "ohm".  I repeat my own mantra from Psalm 139, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made."  The sweat drips and my thighs drive the wheel hoe through the gathering  of weeds between beans, between corn, between tomatoes.  "God doesn't make weaklings.  It's not hot.  It's not hot."  This is the chant until I cease red-faced, heart beating alarmingly fast.

Thank God for pools of water snuffing out the fire, a seeming sizzle as muscles release in the wet.  Me, a spaghetti noodle loose and yielding.

Only 800 am.

"To do" lists remind me that the day is only getting hotter.  "Quick dry" shorts and tank top drip back to the garden, not bothering with a towel.  Japanese beetles munch leaves of fruit trees tearing holes into the efforts of Spring.

Grape Leaf "After" being mobbed.  The white spots are kaolin clay.

Grape Leaf "Before"

"Stop!"  I want to yell to them.
 "Eat the weeds!  Eat thistles! Oh please, eat thistles!  
Eat the grasses that have bent over the electric fence and strangled the charge.  
Eat the green that makes this earth so much work!  
I'm not your enemy, stop being mine!  
There is no murder by chemistry here.  I study hard the laws that Nature mandates and follow the rules- well, the ones that I understand.  
Go eat somewhere else!"

But I know the beetles and thistles can't hear my voice over the drumming thumps of DNA firing cannons of "SURVIVE." So I spray kaolin clay on the leaves mixed with compost tea- a deterrent for the bugs and a palliative for the leaves.  A concoction where every little bug step on every little leaf is a road sign saying "EAT SOMEWHERE ELSE!"  

"Survive" will lead them somewhere else, and quickly is the hope.

"It's not hot.  It's not hot."  The rooster crows half heartedly.  I call back "you are fearfully and wonderfully made!"  A collection of 5 Japanese beetles bristle frantically in a closed palm.  Fingers spread palm open and bronze beetles crawl fast towards edges but my sweet rooster friend is too fast.  They are crunched, crispy protein nuggets.

He didn't always like the beetles.  At first he would peck a bit, flip the insect over, and walk away as if repulsed.  Over time all of the poultry have figured it out.  Like children, introduced to a food enough times, they get the hint, develop a taste.  The chickens have learned to eat what I hand to them.  Yell "treat!" and here they come running, wobbling, flapping, and cackling with gusto!

How can I entice the beetles to eat other things with more than just the "keep out" sign, but a "welcome to the buffet" attempt.  How do I yell "treat!" to a beetle?  

A friend of mine in the entomology department at college studied what scents were released by corn plants that called insects to dine.  Perhaps instead of trapping the beetles, I could spritz a little eau de grape vine on the thistles.  The theory is that the Japanese beetles would cluster.  What a workforce!  Thousands of munchers at my disposal (cue the maniacal laugh).  This just might work.  A couple of fruit leaves, a blender, a spray bottle, it's worth a shot.  

For now, the sprayer coats the trees and grapes with a white slurry of thistle compost tea (extra smelly) and kaolin clay.  Any dog or chicken or farmer standing near will also be polka-dotted. 

Clay mask anyone?

I've always been a little pasty

Wish this were scratch and sniff! EEWWW!
Thistle make every little thing all right!

Today the orchard is covered so to speak.  Tomorrow is another "not hot" day as is the remainder of Spring into Summer.  Five am is looking better every day.  

Ahhh!  Summertime!!!

HOW DO IT KNOW?

The eggs have been incubating 28 days and 18 hours or so.  Six of 10 have kick boxed their way out.  Wet and slimy they lay slicked and exhausted.  Little oil spills all rubbery from exertion.  Bits of shell cling to them, evidence of toil and trauma.  Then an hour in the brooder and they fluff up like bread rising in a warm oven. From slippery and gooey to ADORABLE in an hour!

Huey, Looey, and this would be Gooey?

So fluffy!!!

Unhatched, the remaining 4 sit and I can't help but watch them! Occasionally, they vibrate, and if you are patient, you can hear a peep.  There is a  little hunk of shell raised and flapping a bit on each egg.  Oh yes, somebody's knocking on the door. This is amazing!

Amazing, we use that word so often, and miracle, and beautiful. This is it though, all of those things!  Amazing, miracle, beautiful sinks in and a giant burble of "How?" rises to the top of the lava lamp in this brain.

"How?"  Yes, I know, a mommy and a daddy duck loved each other very much...and then there is the 100 degree incubator, and this Farmer's hands along with her tender 15 year old son nimbly turning eggs 4-5 times a day for 25 days (the last 3 days the little ones are positioning themselves for the big breakout).  This Farmer sings to them, and the embarrassed teen designates her a "whack-a-doodle."  Me, I own it.

But how is life?  How does a combo of DNA and soup manifest a new life? Where does the spark come from?  I believe in Science, and that one day what we know now will seem like rubbing 2 sticks together to make fire.  I also believe from the marrow in the Creator of the spark and that He wants us to know the deep secrets of How.  But I grunt caveman questions wanting eloquent answers.

There is an old joke about a teacher who explains to her student that the thermos is an amazing invention.  "It keeps hot things hot, and cold things cold," she says.  Her wide eyed student asks in amazement, "but, how do it know?"

And here I am asking, "how does a soul know ("How do it know?") to enter into the goo?"

There are some who disagree that there is a soul in any egg apart from a human egg.  This Farmer can only disagree.  No controlled studies, no numbers crunched, just observations over years that some would blame on anthropomorphism (attributing human characteristics like compassion, altruism, love and justice to animals). 

Again, "Ugh!"  Me and my two sticks trying to make a fire, form an argument.

So I ask "How???" to you and to the Soul Bearer because in the questions, however simple, are answers.  In wonder and awe are perspective and truth all building on our current understanding.  

I wait for it all.  The answers to how, the peeps of babes urgent to break out of an orb into an entirely new soup, and for more questions.  How I love the questions!

 

...And thermoses- thermoses are amazing!!

and Stanley the duck it is...

Imminent lists of Spring

To do and Ta daa....

This is no good. I've reviewed my list. There is a shortage of time!  Have you noticed, or is it only me?  

Tomato transplants
 in the basement growing room

Today, a rainy one, is set aside for inside chores.  Funny how the farm invades the inside of our home too.  This day set aside to catch up on all of the maintenance that weeding and planting and spraying and fencing have forced me to neglect, little things like cooking and laundry and vacuuming.

The baby turkeys in my basement, outgrowing their inside pen, scold me and chirp loudly in "get me out of here" fashion.  The turkey whistle for "I'm bored!" is unmistakable.  Usually they join their duckling friends in a movable outdoor pen** that is inside of the greenhouse.  On a sunny day, it is tropical in there.  The babies haven't fully feathered out, so they still need to be kept warm, 70-90 degrees will do.

Bored Bored Bored

The Tropical Chicken Tractor Resort

Holding the loudest one to soothe his anxiety, he is calm, L-Tryptophan calm.  I am calm too, really, really calm.  Has anyone determined whether a nap-coma can be induced just by holding a turkey?  Perhaps, monitoring the heart rates of people who hold the babies is a worthwhile venture.  Maybe we all need a pet turkey. The aroma from the pen wafts acrid and thick and the new thought, "no, no pet turkeys."  I laugh and tell myself to stop playing with the food.  Humor, the only antidote to the reality that some creatures will be food.

Today is 50 degrees with no chance for sunlight- oh and it's pouring down like God left the faucet on.  

There is an outdoor, above ground*, pen that is ready for these squawking fowl, but it is breezy and even with a heat lamp, it's doubtful that they will be warm enough. Besides, consistent with the stereotypes, turkey's are really not bright.  The above ground turkey pen is designed so half is covered by a roof and half has a chicken wire ceiling open to the sunshine.  I can't trust that these vacant eyed, tiny brained critters would come in from the rain. 

A few years ago we raised 16 turkeys, the broad breasted white factory breed.  You know the ones, bred to be gargantuan-Turkzilla.  One night the barn door wasn't latched properly, and it must have blown open in the wind.  One lone Tom ventured out into the darkness.  I found him lying on his back, legs sticking straight up in the air, dead as if he had partied too hard.  The other turkeys were clustered inside of the barn in the darkest corner, afraid to enter into the day light.  

I imagined the scene being a turkey Twilight Zone clip where all of the turkeys warn eachother not to go into the darkness, but one Tom, full of turkey testosterone, on a dare from the other Toms, ventures out.  Five feet out of the door the Tom, losing the miniscule amount of sense he thought he had, realizes that he is alone and it is dark and then starts to run around screaming with his palms-um wings- in the air until he drops dead.  The onlookers shrink back in fear, blaming an alien presence.  No sense what-so-ever.

If farmers didn't raise these mostly brainless beasts, surely, this strain would be extinct.  There are other heritage varieties that haven't had the brains bred out of them or the instinct to survive.  Unfortunately, heritage breeds are expensive- $10-12 per chick.  Turkzilla stock is cheaper. I paid $4 a chick for mine.  

They will all be eaten mainly because these rotund creatures have also lost their ability to mate, negating any hope of keeping a breeding pair around.  Seems that due to girth, the necessary parts cannot span the distance to line up in a matter conducive with reproduction.  How do these creatures continue to exist?  Well, there is a farmer intensive collection and insemination process that quite honestly I'm going put in that "ain't got time for this" file.  Frankly, I'd much rather vacuum or fence or weed.   Which brings me back to time... not enough time.

 Unfortunately, I am off to clean the cages of some very disgruntled teenage turkeys whose output is far greater and smellier than their input.  I will look into their vacuous eyes and tell them that "tomorrow will be an outside day," knowing that their thoughts are likely narrowed down to a repetitive loop of "what's this?....what's this?  Bored! Bored! Bored! and perhaps a prolonged 'DUUUUUDE!"  

That outdoor pen is tempting me...

Duuude!  Got any Cheetos?

 *The pen is above ground because baby Turkeys can catch a deadly disease from chicken feces (and we have plenty of that here) if exposed to it before their immune system kicks in (usually at 3 mos or so).

**The chicken tractor in the greenhouse is sitting on soil never soiled by chickens