Chores

Jody called the other day to tell me he had forgotten to feed the baby calf before work.  So the boys and I headed to the barn to mix her bottle and feed her.  I was proud of my boys' calf handling skills.  They definitely know their way around a cow.

(On a side note...yes, Sam is a redcoat.  And proud of it.  Jack has a new favorite word...baby.  And Will can balance on a bucket like nobody's business.)

We were also told to let the chickens out.  Sam was suppose to let the chickens out.  This is him, in all his redcoat glory, pleading with me not to make him do it.  

"They're flapping at me Mama.  I hear them flapping."  

I floundered between comforting my child and his understandable bird fear and forcing him to suck it up and just do it so I didn't have to.

I begged him to do it.  I told him he was the bravest boy around and had nothing to be afraid of.  I got really desperate and said, "Sam, any real cowboy could let the chickens out.  Are you a real cowboy?"

He wasn't buying it.

I searched all around the barn for the longest contraption I could find.  I had a plan.  I'd hide behind the door, protected by an old chicken/rabbit box, and force the door open, completely out of sight and away from the stampede that would ensue.

I found a long metal pole and got into position in my hiding spot.

My children waited patiently on the gator.

My pole wasn't long enough.

I reached.  I leaned.  I balanced on one foot, stretching as much as my body would allow.

I couldn't reach.

I was forced to stand in front of the door and use my pole to flip it open.

I approached quietly.  I heard nothing.  "Hmm," I thought.  "They don't hear me.  They're still roosting.  I can do it. I can do this."

Wrong.

Those birds are like Pavlov's  dog. 

They hear a gator motor in the distance and they start stretching and getting into their sprinter stance.  Quietly.

So I flip the latch and ...

STAMPEDE!

I toss the pole, scream loudly and beg my legs to run faster than they ever have.

I spin out on a rock, leaving a cloud of dust behind me.

I dove onto the gator, Dukes of Hazard style, screaming and scaring the *&$% out of my children.

And only after pulling into our driveway did I feel the result of my burn out on the gravel.

I hopped of the gator, feeling pretty good about my speed and agility.  And then my feet hit the concrete and my legs buckled.  Hello groin muscle, where have you been all my life?  

I limped for three days.

And I made it very, very clear to my husband that never, ever again will I "let out" or "put up" anything with wings on this farm again.

Period.