October 22, 2011 The Weirdness and The Funny Never Ends

I decided to start a blog today. I may not add to it daily, but my life is so full of these unusual moments that I need to record them somewhere. Why not in a blog? Yes, I post some things on Facebook but not all my friends are interested in the funny things that my family does, both the 2-legged and 4-legged variety. This gives me an outlet and if someone wants to read it, then have at it. If not, then go away.

I actually debated starting a blog yesterday afternoon. "Why?" you ask. Well, the absurdity of it all struck me as I started loading the dishwasher. I was looking out the kitchen window and letting my mind wander, as I do frequently when doing household chores. I got the dishwasher loaded and went to grab the final casserole dish which had housed some delicious loaded mashed potatoes. Now, I will freely admit that I do not always wash dishes immediately after a meal. I am not ashamed. I enjoy sitting back and relaxing with my husband and/or kid(s) after a meal.  So, this particular dish had sat empty overnight and as you may or may not know, mashed potatoes harden to a cement-like substance. It's always a good idea to at least rinse the dishes if one is not going to immediately wash them.  I did not do that. So, I grabbed the dish and was stabbed in the finger by mashed potatoes. I yelled "OW!" which scared a cat and made it run out of the kitchen like it was being hunted by a rabid dog. I looked at my finger and thought to myself, "Who else in the world can say they've been stabbed AND wounded by mashed potatoes?" I wonder about these things.

Today was rather uneventful until about 2 pm when I went out to gather eggs from our chickens. I have to search in 3 separate areas because they all like to lay different places. The normal chickens lay in the nests in the coop, bless them. Then there are those who prefer to go in the old coop and lay their eggs back in a corner. Finally, there is a little old wooden dog house that we put next to the eastern side of the house for those who like to lay their eggs in that region. (I stuck my hand in there the other day and got a handful of cat, but that's another story.) I gathered the eggs and thought that I'd give the chickens a bit of a snack. They enjoy that kind of thing. I opened the garage door and one of our cats, Teeny, immediately went on alert. The twitching tail and the hopping around told me there was a mouse in the vicinity. Note: we are surrounded by about 149 acres of corn fields belonging to the Methodist Church. We see a lot of mice. So, I grabbed the plastic box that he was prancing around, lifted it out of the way for him so he would have better access and he stalked off. I guess he didn't appreciate the help. This plastic storage container just happened to have a partial bag of cracked corn in it as well as a mouse that decided it grew springs in its feet. It started jumping trying to get out of the container. It was kind of cute. Boing, boing, boing.

It was at this point that I recalled a couple of months ago seeing one of our chickens running through the yard carrying a mouse. Our cats are pretty much too lazy to do a whole bunch of hunting, but the chickens apparently are good mousers.  Since I was going to give the chickens a snack anyhow, well you see where my mind was headed.  I closed the lid on the box, lifted it by its handles and that's when I realized there was more than one mouse in there. Yep, there were two frantically scurrying around the bottom of the box. I chuckled gleefully to myself thinking it was going to be a real hoot for the chickens to have such a chase. And no, I don't feel sorry for the mice. They'll make more.

I carried the box inside the fence and said, "Ooooooh girrrrrrrls, look what I have for you!" A couple of the Barred Rock hens and one of the Americaunas came over to see. I opened the box and boing, boing, boing that little bouncy mouse started up again. So, I tipped the box and it boinged right out and took off. And wouldn't you know it, those chickens all chased it with their beaks at it's tail and their tail feathers up in the air. The mouse was squeaking until a Barred Rock hen grabbed it right in the middle. She went running around and around with the mouse head dangling out of one side of her beak and the mouse butt swinging out of the other side. Suddenly the other hens caught sight of the mouse and they gave chase. In the meantime, I'm standing there yelling, "Hey! I've got another one right here."  Chickens are not good listeners.

Eventually they calmed down and I let the other mouse out and it ran off. Let me interject here that people use the term "birdbrain" to describe someone with very small processing capabilities. Let me tell you, this 2nd mouse was dumber than that. It ran out of the chicken wire - smart move - and then back in through the gate - not smart at all. It too was grabbed by a Barred Rock hen. A chicken stampede ensued.  I congratulated myself on ridding our garage of the mice AND providing a nice fresh protein snack to the chickens. I told them they deserved a handful of the cracked corn that was in the bag in the box.  I opened the bag and suddenly realized that there was not just another mouse, but two inside the bag.  "Woohoo, girls" I yelled. The chickens were starting to catch on and gathered around. I let #3 out of the bag and the chase was on. This one ran to the old coop and disappeared. The peahen had also joined in the chase and decided to stake out the coop just in case, but the chickens came back for #4. I let the last one out and it was soon caught, chicken stampede, yada yada yada.  I sighed, stretched and decided it was a good day for chickens, bad day for mice.  At that point I glanced at the peahen and she was gobbling down the remains of a mouse.  Birdbrain? I think not.