Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Country Gal by Vanita Blundell August 19, 2008

Last week I went down to my old home place. I was looking over the place where I had many memories. It was kind of like when you watch a movie and you see and hear the characters thoughts. As I was walking around I saw the gates that were painted silver. I can remember when they were painted. Vickie and Virgil got to paint, Dad would not let me as he said I was too little and would make a mess. That was one time where I felt I had really been slighted. After all, it was not my fault I was younger than my brother and sister. I just knew after Dad thought more about it he would relent and let me paint. That never happened. I imagine the more he thought about the more he was positive that he had made the right decision.
There was the brooder house where we kept the baby chicks. That held a special memory as well-I would go down to the brooder house and open the door when Dad had bought more chicks than he was suppose to purchase from the hatchery. The door swung in so you had to be really careful and not open the door too fast or you might smash a chick. Smashing chicks was something that was frowned upon by Mom and Dad. One had to be very cautious as the chicks were frightened of every thing. They would bunch up in a corner and pile on top of each other and that was not good. After I would get in and get sat down- I loved to watch the little chickens running around pecking and cocking their head to one side and then the other as they listened to new sounds. I liked to pick them up and hold them and talk to them. I usually was not in their too long before Dad would catch me and say, “Vanita get out of there, if you handle the chicks too much you will kill them.” I thought that was unfair. I was not just handling them- I was taming them. I figured one day he would thank me for having such nice tame chickens. One time, for some reason I got to keep a chick in the house. I cannot remember the reason for this, as we had a place for him to live. Anyway, he stayed in a box- I would catch him and play wit him all the while Dad said that it was not good for him to be handled all the time. I must have been about four or five years old and that made Virgil fourteen or fifteen years old. We had a rainy day and Virgil decided that my newly found pet needed a special place to live. He built ‘chicken little’ (oh, that was an original name) a little house out of a box. He made a two story house. It had an upstairs, that the chick could actually climb, and I thought it was great. I do not know where Virgil got his idea, but it was a nice thing to do for his little sister. Since Chicken Little was a rooster- I found that raising a rooster was not the best thing to do. After he had grown into a full feathered cock, he would chase me and flog me from the house to the mailbox and back to the house with me screaming both ways. This is where I lost my interest in grown feathered birds. Even now going into a chicken house is extremely difficult thing to do. It is a sad thing when you are chicken of a chicken. I can tell you that ‘Chicken Little’ was not all bad- he made good chicken and noodles.

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