Heartthoughts: Hitting the Hay!

I was in the house at the computer when the phone rang. I saw it was Howard, obviously calling from the chicken house where he had gone. "Thelma, get down here right now! A chick got out and the dog is trying to get it!" He needed me to help him, so I dutifully, if unwillingly, hurried, even running, down there.

There was the baby chicken dodging the attempts of the family pet, Pebbles. I reached to grab it, but it darted the other direction. Then, scrambling to another corner, the chick was within my reach, but my reach wasn't good enough. My feet slid out from under me on the scattered hay, and to my terror I felt myself falling! Oh, no! All I needed was to break something on the concrete floor!

I felt a scrape on my back as a hit the floor! A jutting corner of a 2x4, I surmised. This was frightening, and I was bawling and scared. "Why did you make me come down here!" I yelled, to which my worried husband replied, "I told you to get Adam (our grandson) out here right now! I didn't ask you to come down."

Well, I had misunderstood, but that didn't help much. When I heard him telling our son Greg about it on the phone, I got the full story. "I was cleaning out the chick's cage, and I saw that the cardboard box they get into at night was very dirty, so I dumped it out and several chicks fell out, too. A little later," he went on, "I saw Pebbles eyeing that box on the floor."

"I shook the box and a little chicken ran out, and Pebbles was after her. I tried to catch it, but it got away, so I called Thelma to ask her to get Adam down here right now!"

Long story short: Adam saved the chick, and my only injuries were the scratch and to my dignity. The scrape was minor, duly tended by my spouse with ointment and band-aids.

"Why didn't you help me up?" I demanded of my husband later, still smoldering at the event and remembering my limping to the house in righteous indignation.

"I tried to, but you wouldn't let me!" he exclaimed. Well, I didn't remember that, but it was highly possible. In my haze of anger, fear, and confusion, I was probably lashing out at him and didn't want to be touched, so I got up by myself! I'm not convinced that hobby farming is for me. Maybe I'd rather just go to Hobby Lobby!