(Originally posted Mar 23 2012)

As I type this I’m in bed, sick. I’ve been sick since Tuesday (today is Friday). Probably the flu with the addition of a stomach bug at the same time. Horrid. 103 degree fever. So I haven’t done anything at all since Tuesday except lay in bed and make trips to the bathroom. Thankfully I have an amazing husband who is not only taking care of the animals for me, he’s doing it without complaining! One dog, three cats, 12 rabbits, and 29 baby chicks are all supposed to be my responsibility. I had just gotten the chicks on Friday, and the outside brooder is acceptably predator-resistant, but not perfectly so and I was intending on making it better this week = but couldn’t because of this illness. PLUS I had just gotten two new rabbits on Monday night, not realizing I would be sick in bed the next morning.

So, that’s what’s going on here. So I’m in bed, doing nothing, when there is a knock at the front door. Drat. I know it’s hubby’s college textbooks being delivered. Too expensive to leave them unattended on the front porch, especially with how great he’s being taking up my chores this week. I drag myself out of bed. I don’t immediately fall over, so there is chance this will go well…

As I pass the back door, I glance outside, and see two stray cats stalking my chicks! I hadn’t built it to withstand the weight of TWO cats! So I jam my bare feet into flip flops and fly outside, still in my (short) nightgown, to rescue the chicks. The cats glare at me, I slip in the mud, the cats hiss at me, I yell at them (at least I try to yell, it comes out as a whisper), and finally I spash my way into the chicken run, which causes the cats to flee.

I count the chicks, none had been injured or taken. Moving the rabbit cages in that area around will cause the brooder to not be able to be tipped over. As I head inside I pet the two new rabbits, realizing that I hadn’t actually seen them in daylight yet. They look good.

I get inside and it dawns on me – I’m splashed in icy mud up to my knees, the cold air is making me cough again, I probably mooned the whole neighborhood when I bent over to count the chicks. But I’m happy. This is what we do, right? Protect our animals against predators? I’m not too sick to do that! Definitely not the brightest thing I’ve ever done, so I can’t title it “the day Diane did something stupid” since there will eventually be too many of those to count. So this one gets called “the day the mailman saved the chickens” because he knocked on the door at exactly the right time. Hopefully he wasn’t still around to observe the mooning!

Hubby has four boxes of books on his desk. I’ve gotten up to get every single one of them today, and checked the back yard every time!