Life is not always good and unfortunately that part is missing from blog land. We tend to post about things that make us happy, not sad. Which makes sense, who wants to hear about the bad, right? I know I don’t always want to. But then there are times when hearing that someone else’s life is not this perfect image that you have imagined is good, it makes you feel human and not the only person with ups and downs. I would like to share a down moment from today partly because I think it may make me feel a little better to get it out and to share some reality. I am going to give a warning that it involves the death of a baby chick, so if this in any way might bother you , my dear readers, stop reading. Are you sure you want to continue?

This morning bright and early wingnut and I went to the feed store and bought 12 baby chickens. Both of us were very excited and happy. I mean how could you not, the things are sooo cute. I put them in a big container with food and water under the heat lamp in our bathroom. Of course wingnut was so excited about the chickens that he was moving too fast and not being as careful as he should be. I kept reminding him to be gentle and go slow which worked for about ten seconds before his excitement took over again. If he even remotely started to seem too rough, I made him leave the bathroom for awhile. After several petting sessions he was doing better so I thought that when my buzzer went off telling me my bread that I was baking was done, it would be OK to quickly go and take the bread out of the oven. the kitchen is right next to the bathroom, it would only take two minutes tops.  As I was putting the bread on top of the oven and closing the door, wingnut comes out of the bathroom holding onto one of the chicks. This is your last chance to stop reading. …Wingnut comes out of the bathroom holding a chick that is completely limp in his hand and saying its sick, mommy. Its sick. I immediately freaked out of course and had him put it in a garbage bag and I thought we would bury it when my husband got home.  I started talking to wingut about how sad it was and about what happened while shedding some tears, when I heard the chick move in the bag. What, it is not dead? I opened the bag and it was starting to move around so I put it back in with the other chicks. It could barely walk so I thought well maybe it broke its leg. I have heard of chickens that had healed from broken leg and was hoping for the best. A little later I notice that one of the chicks had a speck of blood on them. I checked it and it was not that one that was bleeding, so I searched for the sick one and saw that it was bleeding from it’s vent. That is when I realized that there was no hope and I felt like throwing up. I mean my son who did not intentionally try to hurt the chick did because of his excitement and now I had a suffering chicken who was slowly and painfully dieing. I texted my husband, who was at work, and he told me I had to take care of it. I told him I didn’t think I could do that. But he convinced me that I had to, part of being the owner of animals was to take the responsibility of putting them down when they are dieing and hurting so they do not have to suffer. I knew I had to do it. Crying hysterically I took care of it and it was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I am still crying while typing this…….

I am pretty sure wingnut understood that he did something pretty bad because he was actually listening to me when I told him that he could not touch the chickens again and he was quite a bit quieter the rest of the day. Iknow he did not mean to, he loves animals and is never intentionally mean to them. He is just an excitable three year old boy. I am not sure if he understood that that chick died and was no longer in with the others. There was originally 12 chickens in the box and you really can not tell that one is gone with that many.

In my future I want to live on some land and have a milking cow, chickens, ducks, goat and maybe even a pig. With what happened today I am reminded of the reality of being an owner of animals, it is not always picture perfect, there are going to be bad/horrible times. But is it worth it? We will see.