Chicken Butts and Loose Donkeys

Hi friends, both old and new! A big welcome to my new subscribers, if I could reach through the screen and hug your neck I would. My posts are about all sorts of things, but I hope you enjoy the philosophical and deep words I’m sharing with you today. Life isn’t always just sunshine and rainbows, sometimes you wrestle with the hard questions, search intensely for meaning… or maybe just a rogue donkey. Anyway, I hope you find some meaning here (or maybe a giggle, sometimes it’s the same thing). Proceed.

Never say never. Isn’t that what they always say? And if you’ve been a parent longer than a minute, you say it pretty much daily. And since I am a parent, and Fifi’s basically an only child and needs responsibility and companionship, I did what I never thought I’d do: filled the barn with animals you can’t ride. Or eat. And since never say never generally has a domino effect, two things happened this week that I never imagined would ever be a thing. First of all, I washed a chicken’s butt. You heard that right. Her name is Big Mama. I washed Big Mama’s butt—right clean, too. Chickens apparently get something called “dirty butt” (so creatively named) and my poor hen was walking around with her tail feathers matted in poop for weeks… Don’t judge me, it took me a while to adequately consider my options: 1. Wash the butt. 2. Allow the butt to stay nasty. or, 3. Pop a cap. (I know a guy…) As you can see, each of these options requires courage. Each has lasting implications. And each was a moral dilemma. And since I’m a girl who generally likes to do the right thing, I took one for the team and opted for door #1.

How exactly does one wash a chicken’s butt, you ask? Fill a bucket with warm water, catch the dirty chicken, put her in the chicken jacuzzi for 20 minutes and speak loving (and cleansing) words over her. That’s right, I spent 20 minutes of my life holding that chicken down in the purple bucket singing love songs. Fifi came and helped “soothe” Big Mama (poking her in the eye, kissing her on the beak, squishing her comb) and I, with gloved hand, proceeded to swish the poopy water around while trying to dissolve the ancient, matted poop from her ample backside—until Big Mama decided enough was enough. She flapped her pepper-sprinkled wings and got the heck out of that Chicken-cuzzi, spraying poop water all over me: from heat to toe, including in my hair and on my upper lip. I’m still disturbed. I still can’t stop exfoliating.

But the crazy doesn’t stop there. Only a few days later, while I was doing some work at nap time and chatting with my 18 year old son in the kitchen, I looked out the window and noticed a giant poop pile on my lawn. Donkey poop. Leaping up, I looked out to the barn and realized the donkeys were… missing. Now, last month we decided it would be a great idea to acquire some miniature donkeys to be besties with our baby Pygmy goats (I decided only miniature and female animals are allowed). We have an old one and a fat one, and both are the friendliest, shaggiest, sweetest, beasts. Anyway, donkeys are smart, and they figured out how to escape into the wild and open spaces of my neighborhood. So, while Isaiah tipped his handsome blond head back and blithely drank chocolate milk straight from the carton, I proceeded to beg him to go with me on a donkey hunt.

This is what that sounds like:

Me: Oh my gosh the donkeys got out! Will you help me catch them?

Isaiah: No way, dude.

Me: Come on, please? What if I can’t catch them?

Isaiah: Real smart getting donkeys in the first place. Not my problem, bro.

Me: Okay, fine. But don’t think you get to eat food here ever again. (Leaves in huff).

Needless to say, the donkeys were caught and again safe in their pasture. The chicken butt is fluffy, and the teenager is still inhaling carbohydrates at light speed. (They also say “never make empty threats to your children you won’t follow through on”).

All’s well that ends well:)

I hope you love your crazy today!

Love,

kate