Big mistake
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
Every once in a while, we make a big mistake and taking the consequences of that error in judgment, can be hard.
A friend that I've had for 30 years came to visit from Montana last week. We had so much fun — like good friends do — reminiscing. Remembering was a good place to start connecting again because our lives had been going in different directions the past 10 years. She'd moved to Montana. I'd moved to Kansas. I'd had one of those bad-news surgeries. She'd just finished a bout with chemotherapy.
"Remember how I left Karee at the gas station?" she laughed. I did. We had a carload of people heading to southern California to put on a performance and stopped for gas, along the freeway, when Sue's seven-year-old said, "I'm going potty Mom, now don't leave me." Big mistake!
I've never forgotten my kids anywhere but I do get onto a track and block out everything else like letting the water run in the sink (which has no emergency drain) until it's tumbling over the edge of the counter, into all the drawers and creeping across the kitchen floor. Big mistake.
I left my billfold in a phone booth, on a seat in the airport, and my purse beside Tim's feet at the baggage carrousel. Big mistake. Keys always were something I had trouble keeping track of until I got a huge ring for my car keys and elastic bands on my office keys — I still keep a couple of spares. One time I absentmindedly locked my keys in the trunk after loading up the groceries. Big mistake! An even bigger mistake was remembering there was a trunk release button inside my car just as Jessica drove up to deliver the spare key!
Remember when I ordered baby chicks and didn't realize how important it was to specify whether I wanted "straight run" or little girl chicks? Big mistake.
A couple of days ago — the day after the rain, in fact — I decided that I had to start mowing in any area that was dry enough to maneuver and got too close to the ditch with my wonderful zero-turn mower. Big mistake. On that same mowing expedition, I saw those hens — who have been giving me more than a dozen eggs a day — standing in their chicken yard with muddy feet. "Let us out into the fresh green grass," they implored with their little beady chicken eyes and their noses pressed to the fence. So I did! Big mistake.
Yesterday morning, I woke up at sunrise with a start. "Oh dear," I groaned putting my jeans on in a hurry, "I forgot to shut those chickens in last night!" I'd already made this big mistake a couple of weeks ago and lost one of my roosters to the wild kingdom. When I rounded the corner, the chicken yard was strangely quiet and the gate was closed. "Mom must have shut them in," I almost sighed with relief except for the fact that things were too quiet and was that a dead chicken over there in the grass? It was! Fifty feet away I found another one. The hen house was completely empty. There were no chickens anywhere — just feathers. Eighteen chickens were gone! All gone! And it happened because the wind had blown the gate to their chicken pen closed and they were locked on the OUTSIDE all night! Big mistake!
Okay, I've grieved, mourned, yelled at myself, commiserated with Jess, felt bad with Mom, reported to TTT, and confessed to my art class. Now I'm telling you about my big mistake. I'm so sad! Tooltime Tim reminds me that these coyote calamities or foxes foraging are part of country life and as they say so often at funerals, "They had a good life." Although not a long one! "Now you don't have to worry about where to put that hen with her chicks," Tim suggested — ever practical.
It's another day in the country, and today I'm ordering more chicks — eight chicks and one hen is not enough. This time I'm ordering all pullets and hopefully, they'll get the gender right! I've learned from my mistakes.
