The Most Eventful Week

The later half of July will go down as some of the most memorable days of my year. Because I have what's known as "Mommy Brains", I am going to jot down the highlights here so I don't forget. For my memory, and of course, for your sheer amusement.

A dear, longtime friend announced her pregnancy to me last fall, and graciously accepted my offer to be her doula. This would be my first birth to attend (other than my own babies!), so I was a little gittery as her due date approached. I read a couple books to refresh, got excellent advice from doula friends, packed my bag, and had the kid's and my suitcases ready for a good week before baby was due. Two days before baby was expected, I got the feeling that I needed to head down south to be closer to my friend. I'm giving credit to the Lord for urging me to make the trip, because I hadn't been in town even 24 hours when my friend sent the text saying her water had broken!

What a privilege it was to help my friend labor through the night, then have the reward of meeting her baby the next afternoon! That rush of joy and elation when a baby is born hit everyone in the room, and was an excellent high to drive home on after being awake for 32 hours straight. *Note: there is such a thing as a doula hangover after a long birth!

Once mission **Bring on Baby** was complete, the girls and I spent another couple days seeing family. Before I could leave, my Mom finally (FINALLY) decided it was time to part with her old, unproductive hens. They had lived like queens of poultry in their fancy coop, given their best eggs, and it was time to hit the freezer. The only catch was that Mom couldn't bear to watch her girls depart, so arranged a sweet crew to assist me in the butchering. These fine city folks put on their best farm faces, and helped me get the job done! They exemplified great bravery, and were eager to learn about everything, from catching it to place in the cone, to seeing everything inside of a hen that you don't see when you buy it from the grocery store. Six hens was pretty quick work with 5 helpers, and now Mom's freezer is stocked with stew hens. May they rest in peace.

Once back at home, I set about returning to normal. This included washing clothes, and watering growing things outside that were starting to look a little crispy. Andrew had mowed the grass just before we'd returned, so as per our mowing routine, anything that shouldn't be mowed, gets put up on a bench or landscaping timbers. I noticed the kid's t-ball stand near a flower bed, so grabbed the stand part and swung it away. What was below made me gasp and jump back.

A copperhead snake was perfectly coiled up underneath. It didn't move, so I quickly ran and grabbed a pellet gun. Olivia watched from a safe distance as I aimed...and only nicked it enough to make it angry. Fail. I had also grabbed a long handled garden tool, so slammed it down to hold the snake in place while I took aim again.

Y'all, if you're ever unfortunate enough to come across one of these snakes, let me tell you, they are aggressive! Get thine self away!!! Or drop an enormous boulder on it's head so it doesn't chase you down. In fact, I suggest keeping a boulder with you at all times just to be on the safe side. The snake, unhappy at my efforts to kill it, began recoiling and lashing out towards me (but couldn't move...thank you garden tool), and then the next pellet made contact with it's evil little pea-brain. Buh-bye, horrible destroyer of safety in one's own backyard! For kicks, we offered it to the cat. She messed with it until we put it in a bucket to later show to Andrew.

As if we hadn't enjoyed enough excitement after the snake, the following day I received a text from Andrew saying he was heading home with a raccoon kit. Yes. Evidently he and his coworkers had been hearing something like birds chirping in a wall for about a week. After that, they heard small footsteps on their ceiling. They ruled out birds, and called a pest control guy who pulled a mad mama raccoon and three babies out of the wall! The next morning, Andrew went into the office to hear more chatter and realized a baby had been left! He pulled it out of the wall and brought it home for us to nurture. Oh joyous rapture. NOT.

With Andrew's lunch break too quickly over, I found myself the new surrogate mother of a week old raccoon. It's eyes weren't even open, it made horrible chattering sounds, would. not. stop. crawling. and, (thank you internet) I learned that baby raccoons require stimulation in their, urr...nether regions, in order to properly urinate. Or their bladders will explode. Or something like that.

When the kids went down to rest in the afternoon, I found myself sweating in the garage, wrestling a crawling baby raccoon, forcing it to take a bottle it didn't want, to drink milk it certainly didn't like, and getting raccoon pee on my shorts when it let loose of it's bladder to the rub of a towel between it's legs. Yes. That happened. I couldn't make this kind of thing up. Raccoon = 1, Trophy Wife = 0

The internet also informed me that baby raccoons need to eat every two hours, so if you will, please repeat the above scene a few more times, with vigorous scrubbing my hands raw in-between each feeding. This went on for only a few more times before Andrew returned home and I waved the white flag. The helpless masked baby he lovingly named "Bandit" (because we have to name every thing that comes past our gate), HAD. TO. GO. Andrew was very understanding that a raccoon that young was extremely high maintenance, and that if I had to keep caring for it, he might never have clean socks or underwear ever again.

Kind friends of ours whisked it away the next morning, and I breathed a sigh of relief. That is until we walked into the backyard and noticed a chicken gimping around. Her wings were droopy, and began to twitch. Andrew guessed that she might have mites. He caught her, I lifted up her feathers, and to my absolute HORROR, she was crawling with them. As is common for poultry keepers, I immediately went into horrible chicken-Mom guilt. It looks something like; assuming the coop hadn't been cleaned frequently enough in my absence, being too busy to notice and could have caught it earlier, neglecting to do more preventative because I should have seen this coming...you know, the usual.

The truth is that when you have free ranging birds, other wild birds have access to their grazing area, and can infultrate with their wild creepy crawlies. Its disgusting, and I'm considering a sound machine with "No Trespassing" bird calls for all the native winged-animals. Okay, so maybe humor is another stage of disguising the Mom guilt, but whatever man. I'm in recovery.

I dove into what I immediately knew to do. That evening found me bathing the affected chicken in warm, soapy Dawn detergent water. It might even sound relaxing if you ignore the fact that there were mites and a chicken involved. This poor bird sank into the warmth, enjoying a little relief from all the itching. Afterward, she pretended to be dead when I dried her off and dusted her with DE power. For those out of the know, DE powder is diatomaceous earth, aka pulverized sea shells. The power looks like powdered sugar, but is really minuscule razor sharp sea shell bits that will cut the exoskeleton of a tiny critter. **Insert evil laughter**

For those in the know, you are likely smart enough to wear protective eyewear when using DE powder! Alas, I was not. The bird decided to become un-dead, jumped up, fluttered her wings, and poofed a fine dust of DE powder into my eyes. I awoke the next morning with the feeling that my eyes were peeling away. A look in the mirror revealed about as much, and may have falsely indicated to others who saw me that day, that I was a druggie or heavy drinker. I would've loved to have defended myself, but didn't think anyone would believe that I had simply, stupidly failed to wear protective eyewear when dusting a mite-ridden chicken with sea shell powder after a bath in my vintage enamel-wear bucket. I mean, who wouldn't believe that?! Seems a simple enough explanation to me.

With the hen in quarantine, I knew I had to take drastic action with the rest of the flock. What's that saying about an ounce of prevention? Yes, well after a few pleas for advice on some chicken forums (yes, those exist), my fellow fowl friends informed me on the best course of action. A insecticide used on cattle in minuscule doses would be non-harmful to my birds or eggs, yet efficient enough to deter any more pesky pests. Instead of chasing down 30+ chickens with a syringe during the day, I waited until dark, when everyone had gone in to roost. Because I like to keep Saturday nights alive and wear pajamas with fabulous camo crocs out to the coop.

They were all perfectly lined up, ready for me to dribble a little magic syrup on their backs. Everyone remained calm, except for the banty hens who screamed at me, like I'd come outside, entirely for the purpose of harassing them. The ungrateful wretches didn't understand I was simply there to save their lives. Over 30 chickens treated, and I could finally sneak back to the house and sleep. Ahh, sleep!

When Sunday afternoon rolled around, we ended our exciting week with one final adventure. The one thing out of the whole eventful week that had been planned: getting a kitten. But true to form, and how our week went, nothing went as planned...and we left with two kittens. But that's another story for another time.