So today I felt five for a great part of my day. I am of course, closer to 50, however when I get yelled at, I’m five pretty quickly. I started my morning way too early with Grace O’Malley dying to get outside to lay near the chicken. I forced myself up, and headed first thing to go to the local feed store to seek advice and or medication for my new chicken, in need of repair. Apparently, this chicken used to live here at the Earth Home and was gifted to my friend to care for, after not doing so well. She was put in a pen with some hefty girls, and seemed to come back a bit but more recently, started to not look so great. I offered to take the chicken out and see what I could do.
I have zero experience with chickens. Well, actually, that’s not entirely true. I was in fact one of those mothers that gifted baby chicks to her daughters for easter one year. We raised them by lamp light in our spare room, until it was time to bring them out to the great pen I had made. Well, I apparently needed to do a lining of cement of wire UNDER the structure, which I didn’t. Thelma and Louise lasted about two weeks before the fox got the them. One morning I went out to feed, and all that was left was a little beak. It was quite distressing.
This time, I took chicken wire and wrapped this sucker tight, so nothing could get in to this chicken. And of course, she has an almost 24 hour guard watching over her from Gracie.
So anyway, I walked into the feed store and I got maybe two sentences out and the lady started yelling at me. “You should have saved this chicken long ago!’, “she was crushed by the other chickens!” You should have done something!” You can’t save her! You must shoot her!” and it went on. Until this, she says ‘ YOU can’t mix Puerto Ricans and Rednecks in the same bathroom!!”. I think at that point, I thought, Oh my god, did she just say that out loud? and I looked at this little girl working quietly behind the register, and she was head down not looking up. So I said, is this something you learned in school here? And she says, You just can’t mix those people! So I grabbed my purse and thought, ‘Okay lady, if you know as much about chickens as human behavior, then I am no longer listening to you and left. She refused to sell me medication for the chicken, told me to shoot it. I left feeling like I was not liking this scenario so much. Poor chicken. Poor me, I ran out of there feeling like a bad kid.
So, my chicken, got a little bath, where i force fed her some water, but she won’t move so much and she won’t eat. I am determined more than ever to fix this little sweetie. Wish me luck!
Faith and Spirit 
just an update, my chicken died slowly. I picked him up every day and sang him little songs, but he refused to eat or drink. He sat quietly, and every day turned his neck a little bit around, until he formed a spiral. He basically broke his own neck. Living in the woods with critters can be hard on you sometimes – especially people sensitive like me. I loved the chicken, and gave him a little place to rest.