Poultry Whisperer

I got chickens today.  Lots.  of.  chickens.  

My niece is also a chicken woman.  She has bunches, many kinds, even shows, sells and trades them.  Well, she is moving to somewhere as yet undetermined, and until she gets settled, her chickens have to go somewhere. Where else but Aunt Lynnie's!  It is where extra kids, animals, birds, and plants go to recover, hide out, or learn to behave.

My daughter came from her college town forty miles away and we drove an additional seventy five miles away to fetch chickens and pens.  In my four wheel drive GMC and utility trailer.  Out west cruisin' in style.  

The hillside behind my niece's house was covered with pens full of chickens;  giant, award winning Cochins, little-bitty miniature Old English game, dramatically feathered Pheonix.  None of whom wanted to be captured, placed in little carriers, and driven to a new home.  Without saying so, they did get their point across.  Luckily, I am the Poultry Whisperer!

It is not something I just run up and announce or anything.  It's a stealth identity.  But, anyone who has seen me around chickens knows it.  I can herd, wrangle, or catch just about any bird.  This unique but totally unmarketable skill comes from growing up with lots and lots of chickens.  Laying hens, fighting roosters, pet chickens, you name it, we had them.

Today, I was on.  I had those birds under my spell.  I was quickly and gently catching birds, sometime two at a time, with almost no screeching or flapping of wings.  I 'talk' to the birds in a sing-song/clucking way that I learned from my father.  It is like going back to my native tongue, natural and soothing.  I never lunge, I never rush.  

I go in low, arms slightly out to my sides, and use just my wiggling fingers to direct the birds. They turn away from the side I am wiggling and go where I want them to. Eventually, they stop or just hunker down and wait.  I pick them up from under the breast and capture their wings.  

I watched my daughter catching chickens.  She is tall and slender, with athletic limbs and the grace of a dancer.  She, too, is fluent in the language of chickens.  She gently approached them, crooning a song generations old, and picked them up effortlessly.  She turned each one over, spread each wing, inspected the vent, and checked eyes, comb, and feet.  A wellness check, as natural to her as combing her own hair.  I knew I was watching family history manifesting itself.   

Warning: You cannot please me! But, please, keep trying!

from Google Images

Some folks ought to wear a warning label.  It would save the rest of us a lot of time, energy, emotion, and effort we would otherwise spend in attempting to make them pleased, comfortable, satisfied or content. Some folks are just disgruntled and angry.  They will never be happy, pleased, or grateful.  

How great would it be if they all went to live away from the rest of us?  But, alas, then they would lose their power and, thus, the reason they behave as they do.  They need us, the regular people who feel and reach out, who get angry as seldom as possible and who treat others fairly, if not gently.  They need us to draw back in astonishment or pain at their petty onslaughts.  They need to watch us redouble our efforts to satisfy them.  They draw power from seeing us in a service role, knowing in advance that we can never earn their approval. 

If these emotional tyrants had a warning label for all the world to see, we could all relax, do our best, and know that killing ourselves for them would be futile and unnecessary.  Poof!  Disconnect.  No need to be hurt or confused or exhausted.  And, it would put the rest of us on an 'Aha!' alert when these folks further flex their dysfunction by complaining about service, reporting inadequacies, or passing along hurtful tales. Again: Poof!  Credibility failure.  Time, energy, effort, emotion: spared!  Wow--a labor saving device.

Sometimes, nurses get a feeling about some patients.  Their behavior seems to go beyond stoic or stern. They turn away from their caregiver, often frowning or with pursed 'pissy lips' (you do know pissy lips, don't you?).  They answer in short, dull, inaudible monosyllables and participate only minimally in their own recovery.  They seem to resent any effort to make them comfortable or to gather important information about them.  They act as if the nurse is an intrusion, a servant to be waved away, to be held in line.  I have come to learn that these are all red flags, and a call to action to watch my back.  

These are the folks who are gonna bite the hand that heals them.  They will make their nurse miserable while they are being cared for, and usually, they'll continue to do so after they leave.  They will complain about their care, or the environment, or their 'experience'.  Case in point: remember the difficult patient I wrote about a week or so ago?  The one who didn't want to hurt, but didn't want medication, the one who wanted nausea meds, but to not be tired?  The one whose husband kept me on the phone grilling me about his wife's care?  Well, when I returned to work a few days later, damned if they hadn't complained formally that I wouldn't, get this: let her urinate while in recovery!  What?!  She had been offered a bedpan and refused it!   

I now record my care notes in even more excruciating detail, yet another CYA move to counter yet another nasty person who should be wearing a label.  Taking up even more patient care time.  

So, to the chronically displeased, the career offended:

Hey, asshole...here's your sign!

Please don't drive off with our driver

Sign behind a Costco store in Phoenix, Arizona

When I first spotted this painted on the back wall behind a Costco in Phoenix, I asked one of the guys working the dock if the problem of driving off with a forklift and driver was common.  'Oh, yeah!  Before we put up that sign, we used to get frantic cell calls from lift truck drivers headed down the freeway in the back of some truck!"  Apparently, truck drivers didn't bother looking in the back before closing the doors and heading to the next stop.

Quote

I have done much in my life, but I have yet to conquer ice cubes in a glass.

--Me, after the millionth stained shirt

Equity

How come my nephew was given twenty years in prison for receiving stolen property when armed robbers, rapists, and child molesters get three or four or nine years?  And when the two guys who actually stole the goods served four years and two years?

Frog eat frog world

As I have mentioned before, I do not like invasive species.  In our neck of the woods, the top ten are:

1. Zebra mussel, Quagga Mussel
2. Northern Snakehead
3. Asian Carp or Silver Carp, Bighead Carp
4. Chinese Mitten Crab
5. New Zealand Mud Snail
6. Rusty Crayfish, Red Swamp Crayfish
7. Oriental Weatherfish
8. Feral Swine or Wild Boar
9. Red Eared Slider, Common Snapping Turtle
10. American Bullfrog                                                                                           Learn more about them at:  www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/  

Anyway, they creep and they crawl and they munch and they crowd and they push all our little native guys aside and gobble the food and leave nastiness behind.  They are probably okay where they came from, but we are not prepared to deal with them here.  Some of them, I like to eat, like the bullfrog.  But, I would gladly forego the opportunity to harvest locally the occasional les cuisses de grenouilles in order to help out our natives, especially the Pacific chorus frog, which the bulls love to eat.

Late last summer, I was out fishing for bass in our pond and I caught a big ol' bullfrog.  What I love about it is that, nasty eating machine that he is, he got caught in a frog-eat-frog situation.  I was using a frog lure to fish, and that's what the monster gulped after!  Now, that is the code of the west at work!

The person in my child's life

As my children have grown older, they have fallen in love and created relationships with others.  The relationships have changed from 'we're dating' meaning hanging out after school, on the phone with and crying at misunderstandings to long term, committed, quietly solid bonds.  With some very nice people.

If dating is hard on the dater, it is equally hard on the parents of the dater.  I love that which enhances and improves my child's life, I abhor that which causes pain or anxiety.  My children want us to approve of their chosen love object, eager to hear glowing appraisal. But when things go bad, it is hard to trust the next person who comes into their heart, for fear of the pain that might inevitably follow.

My children, now in their early twenties, are relationship people.  They do not comfortably play the dating game.  They thrive in monogamous committed unions, most lasting years.  Refreshing in such young folks today.

The people they choose are bright, funny, educated and motivated.  They are good looking and polite.  So, why do I worry?  I worry because they hold the most precious thing in the word to me in the palm of their hands, my babies' hearts.  They have the power of pain and heartbreak over my precious child.  They have the ability to leave irreparable scars in their wake.  Until you've been a mother you don't realize how protective you can be.

I have committed myself to enjoying these wonderful young people for as long as they occupy our lives and not worrying about the future.  Oh, yeah.  Didn't that sound so grown up and balanced?  In reality, I worry.  I worry about my children's hearts.  I worry that I'll grow too fond and lose someone I care about.  I worry about losing the silly animals that these people bring into our lives, especially a goofy Pug named Winston who knows me as Gramma.  I worry that I worry too much.

When our children are small, we protect them from falls and burns and sharp objects and mean animals.  As they age, the threats change, but the sense of protectiveness remains, so we prepare them to independently assess and avoid risk and danger. Then, they fall in love.  And suddenly, all their vulnerabilities are laid bare for the other person to exploit if they so choose. And the parent is out of control.  As we should be, of course, but still...  

I want to bring my babies home, tuck them in all clean and safe, read them to sleep like before, and keep the world away. Where I can keep them from harm.  Where they don't need to be tough or careful.  Where no one can break their heart.

As my husband says, assuming that we will ultimately find that one person with whom we will spend the rest of our lives, then every relationship before that must end.  That means some breakups and some pain. For them and for me.  I just hope we all survive intact and stronger.