I plodded up the stairs to change into my old jeans. I pulled on my oldest tee shirt and headed out the door.
The chickens seemed to be very quiet this morning. Usually, the minute I opened up the chicken coop door, they'd fly all over the place and screech and take on something awful. Today, they didn't seem to even have the energy to get off their nests and eat their corn.
Dust motes hung in the hot, damp air. The dust chocked me and I pulled my tee shirt neck up over my nose to make it easier to breathe.
As I reached my hand under a hen to get her eggs, she pecked me. "Ouch!" I yelled and swatted at her beak. I looked at my hand and wiped the spot of blood off on my jeans.
"Stupid chicken!" I yelled, as I slammed the door and left the chicken coop.
I took the eggs up to the house and drew some warm water to wash them. As I reached for an egg, it broke in my hand and ran down my arm.
"Yuck," I said.
I must have been so mad that I grabbed the egg too hard. Now I had a mess all over my hand and arm and it was dripping onto Mama's just mopped floor.
"Dang it," I muttered, as I grabbed a rag to wipe the mess off the floor and me.
When I got the rest of the eggs washed and put away, I went out and pumped some cold water out of the outside pump for Jimmy, our dog.
Poor old Jimmy. He was as old as I was. Papa said a dog had seven years to every one human year. I was ten so that made Jimmy seventy years old!
Jimmy couldn't do too much as he had lost one of his legs in a hunting accident a year ago.
Papa had taken Jimmy hunting for rabbits and one day, Jimmy had gotten tangled up in an old rusty fence and the cut on his leg festered up and got infected. The vet had to cut off his right front leg to save his life.
"Well, Jimmy, you old three-legged dog, how are you today?" I asked as I dumped out his water dish and filled it with cold, clean water.
Jimmy was still pretty good at taking walks with me. I just had to walk a little slower, but he was a good old dog.
He usually didn't go with me if I went for a bike ride. He just couldn't keep up and got very tired and thirsty from trying. It was easier to keep him tied up on his chain at home.
I unhooked his chain and asked, "You wanna come and watch me paint the fence today?"
Jimmy walked and hopped along beside me as I went to check out the rabbits.
I filled the two water dished with cold water I had left over from Jimmy's dish and dumped rabbit food pellets into their two food dishes.
I had three rabbits. Samantha, Blossom and Bucky, the boy rabbit.
Samantha had made a fur nest and was expecting baby bunnies any day now. I had seen the fur pile a few days ago and asked Mama about it. She explained that when a mother rabbit was going to have babies, she pulled the soft fur from her tummy to make a nice, warm nest for the babies to be born in.
I didn't see any movement from the fur nest so I knew that the babies weren't here yet.
Next I checked the vegetable garden for weeds. None today! Great, at least I didn't have to do that chore.
I went toward the shed with Jimmy limping along beside me. When I pulled open the door, it was dark and cool inside.
I went inside and sat down on an upside down pail for a minute.
"Hey, Jimmy. Why don't we stay in here all day and keep cool. Would you like that, boy?"
Jimmy wiggled his behind, as if he agreed with me.