The Minnesota Farm Woman

The ten sweet fluffy chicks that I got this spring have turned into a bevy of clucking screeching teenage girls. As with human teens, this can be a difficult age. Earlier this summer, I had to crawl into the bushes where they had hidden themselves, getting a wood tick bite with a classic bullseye rash which bought me ten days of antibiotics. Later, when HE lit a fire to burn the tree trimmings, they were frightened by the flames and ran cackling into the woods. It took both of us to cajole them into the safety of their coop. Yesterday, I spent the morning cleaning the house. I don’t know why I bothered, since we were expecting a visit from Max, our 1 1/2 year-old grandson, who can spread pots, pans, and crumbs from one end of the house to the other in no time at all. Despite the fact that I desperately needed one, Max was determined NOT to take a nap, which reminded me so much of his mommy, whose first short sentence was “No nappy!” and as she grew, had a discussion with her kindergarten teacher in which she told her she would lie down during nap time if she had to, but she certainly wouldn’t sleep. I’m digressing, though, so I’ll get back to the chickens. After the cleaning, cooking, toddler chasing, and dinner, I was ready to put the girls to bed. In other words, I wanted to lead them back into the coop with my handy-dandy broken fishing pole chicken guider so I could relax and fall asleep in front of the TV like normal people do on a Saturday night. The older chickens obligingly went into the coop, but the teenagers saw me coming and ran off into the corn field, scattering in all directions. I managed to get through the maze and chase them back into the yard, but I was more than a little worse for wear, being covered with corn pollen, dust, and quite a few icky spider webs. I must have looked like some sort of scarecrow when I emerged, still carrying my broken fishing pole, because I managed to scare most of them into the coop except for two, who ran flapping and screeching into the swampy woods near the coop, otherwise known as the land of wood ticks and foxes and bears, oh my. Not my favorite place, by any means. By the time I chased them out of the woods, the others had all come out of the coop and were heading back for the corn field again. I threw down my fishing pole in disgust, needing an icy-cold bottle of hard cider to revive myself and not caring at that moment if the real or imagined wildlife ate every one of them for dinner. Chickens always come home to roost, though, and once the sun started going down, they all headed back to the coop, taking their sweet time, I might add. I did a head count, safely latched the coop door, and headed back to the house, which was all picked up and much too quiet. I’ll bet little Max fell asleep before they got out of the driveway. Grandma needs a bath to wash away the spider webs and wood ticks, along with a good night’s sleep. Hopefully tonight I’ll dream of rocking my grandbaby rather than chasing my chickens through a maze of maize.