WTF is wrong with that Chicken?

I hate winter. Combine the too cold temps to go outside with cold and flu season and you have the perfect recipe for really bored kids. Lately we have been watching way too much television and playing the iPad to the point where my 6 year old can not only work the remote for both normal tv and the dvr but I think she has figured out the sound system too. Did I mention that she asked me for her own Facebook page?

We had a large-ish box sitting waiting to be thrown out with the trash this week so yesterday morning I pulled it out and cut a window in it. Chloe climbed in it and pretended she was on TV and T and I had to sit and watch her. That was the sign that I needed to get them out of the house when even their games were TV related. That and the fact that the girls were about to come to blows over who was going to play in the box.

I packed the girls up, stuck them in the car and skidded out of the driveway to go to my parent’s house. I left the hubs at home so he could continue to laze around without the disturbance of the girls having a cat fight every 30 seconds. I didn’t bother to ask him to do anything since he had a sore throat and the idea of doing the dishes or vaccuming may bring on a hospital stay and I had not yet hit my deductable.

Last year my father finally got something that he has been wanting for quite a while – chickens. Personally they scare the crap out of me. I don’t know if it is the constant pecking, the flapping of wings, or the dead zombie look in their beady little eyes but they straight up give me the heebie jeebies.

My girls, on the other hand, LOVE the chickens, so much so that they each got to name one and tell their friends that they have pet chickens. My neices also were able to name some chickens so they all had cutesy names like Shiney and Pecky. So when we got to Mom and Dad’s they immediately had to run over to see them, chocolate stained princess dresses on and all. My sister was there too and as we were looking at the chickens and feeding them she asked my mom where One-eyed Jackie was.

Who the hell is that?

My sister and mother proceeded to tell me (in front of the kids of course) the horrendous story of how one of the hens was attacked, presumably by a chicken hawk, and was found lying on its back, feet sticking straight up in the air. Of course at this time even if a cotton candy truck pulled up filled with kittens my girls could not be dragged away from hearing the details.

Once she found the chicken feet-up she left it there and got my dad telling him one of the chickens was dead. Dad went out there and the chicken was still lying there but was softly clucking for help, apparently Mom didn't get close enough to it to check it's pulse. They put the chicken in the barn and decided to wait a day to see if they needed to “take care of it” or if it would survive.

The next day the hen was still breathing and Mom noticed her eye was gross looking. Her Kansas
farm-girl background kicked in and she proceeded to clean the eye out with God knows what. Every day, a few times a day, she would go out there and gently clean the eye and squeeze a little around it to get the puss out (barf). A few days in while doing this the freaking eyeball fell out and was just dangling there.

Me- I would’ve probably screamed, passed out, thrown up, or got out the box of Shake n' Bake. Not my mom. Instead she PLUCKED THE EYE OUT.

Naturally T wanted to get a closer look at the pirate chicken so my sister took her in to the coop where that hen was. T comes out a few minutes later looking a little sad and says to me “Aunt Lisa said that it was my chicken that got attacked" I shot my sister and dirty look and asked how they knew it was her chicken.
"Aunt Lisa said they all had name tags on their feet and her's said 'Shiney'”. Thanks a lot, sis. T got over it quickly and was actually pretty excited about her chicken being the one that needs an eye patch.

This morning on the way to school there were some buzzards flying over the field near our house. Chloe looked up and said “Momma, there are some chicken hawks, you need to call Grampa to come and shoot them before they attack your eyeballs”.

Great, now my girls will be wanting to wear safety glasses to go outside.