A year in the life of Lupe

January 5, 2011

It is amazing what can happen in a year, or two. I just read my old blogs from a time when things were not so much black and white, and realize they still are not so black and white, more like yellow and sienna.

I have watched the chicks that arrived so fresh and strong willed in their box, grow and nurture to a point where they could be kept outside, free, graze on the grasses of life, and then to be eliminated by the neighbors dog in one swell swoop. That day was dark. And one that brought me back to my childhood, when we would hear the cackle of the chickens in their pen, that meant distress. My sisters and I would drop everything and run to the pen, scared to see what was inside but also protective of what we had coveted as our own. It was often times bloody, heads chewed off and left with the bodies, wasting away like a used McDonald's wrapper.

That would be a weasel, the next time a hawk, or the worst, the neighbors dog that slipped under the fencing and would run by you claiming his prize in his squawking mouth and disappearing down the road.

The day my daughters chicks died, was one of the worst memories I can remember. It was partially my fault, and 99 percent my neighbors dogs instinct.

I had just let the chicks now pullets out for an afternoon in the sun, after being in our basement for 4 weeks, they wanted to see the light. Well, they saw the light maybe a bit too brightly. We had devised a temporary fencing. Wire around a small pen, which was secured by plastic electric fence poles. I had just put the girls out and was watching their excitement as they flapped and fluttered and ran with new vigor at the space they were not used too. It was time to pick up my daughter from school, a 15 minute round trip, without traffic, 20 minutes at most if behind the bus. Loaded up the Berkster in her car seat, and headed out.

You know that little voice in your head that says 'maybe you should have put the chickens back in, before you left'...well I didn't listen to it. But I did get that no so happy feeling in my gut while driving 45 in a 30 mph zone. I even remember herding Sydney under my wing to get her out of the classroom and into the car, saying 'we have to hurry Sydney, I left the chickens out'...

No herding or speeding could have helped the mass executions we received while driving up the driveway. The chicks were still, silent, and warm. Lying in the same spot as when I had left them, except for one, who lay halfway in the pens door, slowly working to breath just another breathe. She died in my hands as the adrenaline pulsed through my veins , and that little voice became a loud thumping 'I Told You So'. 13 dead, 2 injured, all splayed across my driveway for my daughters to behold.

The screams of the children were almost unbearable. They could not understand how or why this had happened. Berkeley kept remarking' you can take it to work mom and fix it, it's alright, it will be alright' Unfortunately Berk it won't be alright. They are dead, passed on, spirits and soon to be earth. It was a hard concept to grasp even for a 40 year old. I had loved these chicks from day 3 of their lives, and they were gone.

Since that moment I have excepted that little voice, it knows what it is talking about. The chickens were compensated for by our neighbor, the funeral under the apple tree gave a sense of closure to my children, and the new box of chicks arrived several weeks later. However, the haunting truth will never leave and I have a feeling my children will be the ones that have that same childhood memory I grew up with many years ago.