Welcome to Poppy's
Blog!
Today I will be reading a story I wrote on Thursday - One Spring Day
It was a beautiful spring day on the ranch. I woke up, made a cup of coffee, and went outside to check on the sprinklers and turned on a few water
lines. I noticed some sprinkler heads were clogged, so I turned off
the line and took off the sprinkler heads and blew on them to try
and get the earwigs out or used my pocketknife. I turned the sprinklers
back on and headed down the hill. I let Leo, Zach, and Charlie out
of their pin for their daily run down the road. When we returned to the
ranch, the dogs went into the run except for Charlie, he liked to lay on the
porch while I worked in my office. I went over to the chicken coop
and counted them and let them out. 
Last
night I was missing Gayle and the red head and this morning they are a no
show. I was a bit worried, but I had to get into the office and
work. As, I walked up the hill, I turned around and could see the chickens
sprinting across the pasture to the pine trees that lined the westside of the
property. My two ducks were in an argument because the mallard male was hiding behind the water trough.
I came back up the
hill and poured myself another cup of coffee and went into the office. I
was terribly busy working on a contract to sell a large parcel to a Southern
California development company and I had to make sure I dotted my i’s and
crossed my t’s. I was on the telephone for a while before I realized I had not turned off the water lines. I walked out of the kitchen back door down
to the deck and noticed all my sprinklers were just spitting water. There
was no water pressure. I walked back into the house and turned on the
kitchen faucet and found the same issue.
I turned off the water lines and sprinklers and ran down the hill to see
if my water tank was empty. It was not, but no water was making it up the
hill. I came back up the hill and called the well people. I met the
guy at the main gate around 1pm. I asked him to do whatever he
needed to do to get the water up the hill and went back to work. As I
walked up the hill, I still did not see Gayle my bantam or red head hens that were
missing.
I decided to take my
lunch. Halfway through my lunch there was a knock at the
door. It was the well guy. He said, he had bad
news. I said, OK. As I took a sip of my water, he said, your
bladder is blown. I looked at him dumbfounded and said, can you repeat
that, again. I said, ma’am, your bladder is blown. He then said,
follow me and I will show you. As we walked down the hill, he explained
the bladder function. The well pressure tank uses compressed air to push
pressurized water out of the tank and up the hill into your home. Pressure
tanks have a diaphragm, also called a bladder, that separates a chamber of air
from the water. As the tank fills with water, it compresses the air
chamber. As we approached the tank, he knocked on the tank and it was
(full) and it was waterlogged. He said, the tank should sound hollow above
the bladder. I said, I am learning something
new every day. I asked if he could take
care of it today. He said, yes ma’am, I need to go back and pick up a
tank. I said, great and I let him out of the main gate. Just when I
went to close the gate, I saw my red head hen coming down the hill with 7 baby
chicks walking behind her. Then I noticed the Gayle the bantam in the
pasture with 4 baby chicks. My neighbor yelled over and said, oh my, you
are a grandmother. I smiled, waved, and laughed.
The well guy came back
and finished the job. I paid him and he was on his way. It was getting
dark and I went and opened the chicken coop. All the chickens came in
except for the Gayle the bantam hen. I saw the baby chicks near a tree,
and I looked up and noticed Gayle the bantam hen was perched on a tree
limb. I told Gayle to come down and tend to your children. She did
not. I sat there for about 15 minutes waiting. Still nothing. I
walked over to the chicken coop and grabbed my new jersey giant and another red
head hen and dropped them near the chicks. Within a few minutes, my mature
hens said, cluck, cluck and opened their wings and became the stepmothers of
the baby chicks. Meanwhile, Gayle the bantam hen was still in the
tree. I closed the chicken coop and looked over at Gayle the bantam hen.
She was acting like she did not see me. I came in the house and called it a
night.
The following morning,
I went down to open my dog kennel and Gayle the bantam hen was still in the
tree but making weird noises. I decided when I get back from my run with
the dogs, I will catch her with my net and put her into the coop by
herself. We had a nice run and returned to the ranch.
I grabbed my ladder
and the net. I caught her on my first try. Gayle was
agitated and fought as I talked with her. I think she was crying. As
I sat in the coop with her, I believe she had a condition called “postpartum
psychosis.” I heard some women go crazy, become depressed, anxiety,
etc. after giving birth. I guess chickens deal with this too? Gayle sure had the signs. I
fluffed a nice bed for her in the corner of the coop. I must have
sat with her for about an hour. Gayle just stared at me and made
these weird noises. I had to go back up and open my
office. So, I left Gayle in the coop.
That evening I went down to open the coop I found Gayle the bantam hen dead. I think
her little heart just gave out. I picked her up and buried her in
the garden. I thanked her for the babies and promised they would
grow up healthy and happy. That night I sat quietly drinking a beer and watched
the stars from my deck.Let me leave you with
this quote – in any given moment we have two options: to step forward into
growth or to step back into safety.
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One person would start, then
another would add to it, then so on. Our
new friend even added to the story. He
thought it was quite amusing. We had a
wonderful night with our new friend. 
