Home Alone

It was a dark and stormy night.  And day.  And night.  And day.  And night.  And day.  As in, we got about ten inches of rain in three days.  As in, crazy thunder and lightening and losing power.  That's pretty much the sum of my staycation over Memorial Day weekend.  I was all by myself in scary storms for three days.  Home alone.  Alone.  By myself.... 

Working mothers out there, do you hear me?  I was home.  Alone.  By myself.  Uh huh.  

It's not that I don't want to be with my family.  They went to North Dakota to help my brother build a second garage.  I really wanted to see my brother's family.  I really wanted to see my parents.  I love to spend time with my kids.  I love to sit quietly by my husband on long car trips, when he drives and I hold his hand and just think.  But unfortunately we couldn't find anyone to look after the farm, and one of us had to stay home.  Since running power tools falls more into Dan's skill set than mine, I volunteered to stay home and do chores.  

Now, if it would have just been the dogs, we could have found somebody to help us out.

  
Honestly, look at those brown eyes.  Anybody would have been happy to care for her if we all went away.  She's no trouble at all.  In fact, when the weather got a little dicey, THREE nights in a row, she helped me to hold down the bed.  Such a protector, that girl.

And this guy?  He was saving me from rabid squirrels and scary sparrows left and right.  He totally even chased them up trees.  Who wouldn't want a boy like this for a long weekend?

  
The cats aren't much more trouble.  We might have been able to find someone to come out to feed them.  In fact, they can generally feed themselves. 

(I know, I know, I was cringing as I was racing to grab the telephoto lens....)

Generally the cats just chill and love.  This guy?  He's Romeo.  

He's a lover, not a fighter.  He braved puddles to make love to my leg.

And they all look out for the baby ones, so anyone watching our place could have just let them babysit each other.

The horses didn't need anyone to come out.  The torrential rains have produced abundant grass in our pasture.

Not that they would turn down grain, mind you.  But no caretaker was needed for them.

We didn't even need anyone to come out to water the yard or the plants, because.....well, the days and nights of torrential rainfall...

Why, then, did I spend three days home alone?

Yep.  The chickens.

And the turkeys.  (Dear God).  No one in their right mind wants to help do our poultry chores.

Thankfully Cooper, the bird dog, helped me keep them in line.  

I was actually pretty proud of myself.  Wearing big leather gloves, I even grabbed two eggs from underneath a roosting hen.  And I worked myself down to only one scream in the chicken coop by the last day.  I was leaning down to try to grab a water dispenser from a group of absolutely insane teenaged chicks and my hoodie touched my neck.  It felt like a chicken touched me.  Whew.  Close call.  The insane chicks really loved it when I screamed.

I spent three days at home, by myself, while my family went off and had fun, so I could take care of chickens.

God bless our chickens, every one.