Oklahoma Dreaming: Life Is Cheap
by Donna Schoenkopf
It's been a week of tragedy.
First, the guinea chicks.
The little tykes were safely tucked in their brooder coop that Elmer and Sherry Lynn had given me and doing nicely, thank you, when one day, about a week into their stay here at Chigger Lake, I noticed one of them was trapped behind the milk crate I had covered with a black plastic trash bag, securely taped, for purposes of housing the little darlings when they were nervous during wind and rain storms. It was like a little house in their big house and was placed there so they could run inside when they wanted to. They loved it. It was cozy.
But there the little guy was. Trapped between the crate and the wire wall of the coop. When I looked closer I saw that its little leg was trapped under the milk crate. HOW??? Oh, God. It must have been when I was checking them the night before to make sure they were all still alive and well and put the crate back down. ON TOP OF THAT POOR LITTLE THING!! I quickly lifted the lid of the coop and reached down to pull the crate out, wrenching my dislocated (and torn rotator cuff) shoulder (injured by a bolt of electricity from my improperly grounded electric stove). PAIN surged through me. But I struggled through, just thinking about how miserable that chick had been all night. When I picked it up, I saw that its whole left foot was gone. And that its leg was completely dislocated. I freaked out. I didn’t know what to do. I felt like a complete and total idiot, a mutilator of innocent beings, someone who couldn’t be trusted to do the simplest thing. I thought, “I must put it out of its misery. ” But I didn’t know how. I walked around with it for endless minutes with it cupped in my hands. I thought of picking up a large rock and crushing it but couldn’t bear the thought. I thought of leaving it in the woods and letting the animals get it, but I couldn’t bear the thought of it being lonely and scared out there. I thought of wringing its neck, but it was too little. Finally I thought of throwing it into the pond. I read that guinea chicks die when they get wet and I thought it would be relatively quick and so I walked down to the pond and stood on the edge and threw it far out, into the middle. BUT IT DIDN’T DROWN!! IT SWAM AROUND AND AROUND, ALL SCARED AND TRYING LIKE HELL TO LIVE!!
It was too far away to rescue. I couldn’t bear watching it swim around in circles, swallowing water as it paddled.
Filled with guilt and horror, I walked quickly away up the hill, back to the house, head down, totally and utterly shaken by my complete incompetence. I went inside and stood looking down at the pond and wondered how long that sweet little thing fought to stay alive.
But that wasn’t all. No, no, no.
The next day, after I got over the ordeal, at least partially, I went back to the coop and discovered almost all the chicks had feet that were cut. Some had completely lost toes. Was the wire flooring cutting them to shreds? Or were they pecking each other?
I worried and fretted and felt their pain, although they didn’t seem to notice it themselves, just bopping along as usual, so I let them be. After all, what could I do? Kill them all? And they DID seem to be dealing with it.
But that night another thunderstorm hit. POURING rain this time. And nonstop lightning. I had covered them with the tarp and they had been doing fine, but something told me they weren’t okay. Every time I started out the door to check on them, the lightning would come crashing down, all around. This went on for hours, until finally, in the morning, there was enough of a break for me to dash out to them.
Of the seven chicks left, four were lifeless on the floor of the coop. I couldn’t believe it. I lifted the lid, again blasting my dislocated arm and scooped them up. ONE OF THEM MOVED SLIGHTLY. Could that mean they weren’t dead?? I found a cardboard box carried them all, living and dead, into the house. I warmed the lifeless ones with my hands and found a plastic trash can, put a towel in the bottom and propped an unshaded lamp over them. The one which had moved began to move a little more. I picked it up and put it under my shirt. It was so cold. But it breathed. The others lay there with no movement. All day I held the little guy, until I thought about its not having food or water. I put it in the cardboard box with the healthy ones so it could eat and drink. But it wouldn’t. I finally took it out and put it back under the heat lamp. The other lifeless ones were truly dead. They actually began to smell. I carried their lifeless bodies outside and put them gently under a tree on some moss. They lay on their right sides, snuggled alongside each other, in their final resting place.
The little one in the trash can seemed to be getting better. I finally went to bed.
About two in the morning I got up to check him.
He was dead.
The next morning I carried him out to the tree where I had left the others. They were gone. The animals had gotten them, which made me happy. They had entered the food chain of the planet. I laid the little guy down in the same spot and went back to the house.
I called Bob, the man who had sold them to me, and told him what happened. He said they needed some lawn cuttings and a heat lamp and that I could come over and get some more chicks. So I went to my yard, which was knee high in grass, (couldn’t pull the cord to start the lawnmower ... dislocated shoulder, remember?) and started cutting grass by hand with my scissors. I put it in the coop, got more guineas from Bob and put the newcomers in with my three remaining chicks.
They loved each other.
I have nine guineas now. I tie the tarp down every night and always turn on their heat lamp. They are happy. They LOVE to eat bugs and chase them around the inside of the coop. They recognize me. I call them my Little Peepers. They have been through two storms and come out just fine.
But that’s still not all.
I really wanted another cat, so ...
The kitten. Free. From an ad. Sick. Diarrhea. All over the place. Vet. $53 and then the A & D ointment for his little butt, raw from the runs, and the Pedialite for dehydration, and the antibiotic and the Frontline for the thousands of fleas he had. I was told he was weaned and litter trained. No. He wasn’t. The woman who gave him to me had sprayed him with Avon “Soft as Silk ” to get rid of his fleas, so I thought that was why his third eyelids (known as “haws ”) were half-covering his eyes. You know, those funny things that come from the inside corners of a cat’s eyes? Every hour a Pedialite dose, and hand feeding. Wash his little bottom and back legs because of the mess. He is so young that he snuggles up in my hair at the back of my neck and starts “nursing. ”
But not just one kitten—TWO!
A sweet offer from Jim and Aline for kitten #2 a couple of days later.
They love cats and knew I wanted another one besides Rosie the Cat and just happened to have one that had wandered into their yard. “Sure! ” I said. “Love to have her! ” So home she came.
She (MichelleObama) and he (CheGuevara) played endlessly. Beyond cute. She even licked his butt (eeeyewww!!) whenever she could pin him down long enough and he would scream from the rough tongue applied to his boy bits.
But I was allergic to her and a week later drove through a blinding thunderstorm in the middle of the night to the Emergency Room with asthma so fierce that no inhaler would faze it and I thought that I would actually die.
Got home about four in the morning, exhausted and dosed with steroids.
I, sadly, took MichelleObama back to Jim and Aline.
So, five dead guineas later, one sick kitten later, another returned kitten later, I sit here at Chigger Lake and realize that my life has become weather and animals.
Storm coming later today.
Thought you’d want to know.
By the way, I would appreciate it if you all would seriously think about getting decent, non-polluting cars which will not contribute to the endless stream of intense storms I am having to endure.
Everything is connected to everything else in the Universe, you know.
Editor’s Note
After Donna submitted this story, I sent her the following. She asked me to include it with the story, so ...A little from the other side of things ... a week and a half ago I found a baby hummingbird on the ground. Couldn’t find the nest. Called a hummingbird lady who said to cut a section from a cardboard egg carton and put tissues in it and put the bird in it and attach to foliage near where it was found. So I did. Its mom found it within fifteen minutes and didn’t seem to care that the nest wasn’t her handiwork. She continued caring for it and three days later it took its first flight. Now the two of them hang out in a ficus near where the nest was. She’s still watching out for it - I didn’t know they did that after they left the nest.
donna@fourstory.org
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