Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Another Sad Day…

Today is the saddest of days…At some point, in the early hours of the morning, my sweet Opal Chicken passed away.  She had not been as spry as usual for the past several days, and she was looking a little “rough”, but it was not really obvious what was wrong with her.  We still don’t really know why she died.  Due to the extreme weather (at least for Texas), I had been taking her to the coop so that she could eat and drink and move around during whatever might be the warmest part of the day, with heat lamps blazing; however, she had been spending the nights (and even some parts of the day when it was really cold) inside the house with us, in her crate in the craft room.  She had been moving around the coop as usual when I brought her in yesterday.  When I took her out last night for her bedtime feeding and drinking, she was eating and drinking okay.  Robert brought her in and we put her to bed.  The strange thing was that instead of plopping down and settling in as usual, she was still standing up when I went to bed late last night.  Still, it was quite a shock when Robert came in the bedroom and told me this morning that she had died.  I’m guessing that might have been that faint little “peep”, “squeak”, “sigh(?)” sound that I heard early this morning…I wish I would have known…

I’m glad that Robert was here when that time came…it’s just really hard for me to handle things like burying my little friends, and I’m so grateful that he takes care of those things.  As soon as Robert had finished digging the hole, we wrapped her in a blanket and together we placed her in her final resting place.  She is buried next to her sister, Ruby Chicken, near their coop, and I’m sure that I will think of my sweet Opal Chicken every time I trot out into the back yard.

I loved Ruby Chicken also, but since she left us some time ago, I had a lot of time to spend with Opal Chicken.  Since she was a lone chicken, I felt a need to make sure that she felt extra-loved, and it was important to me that she didn’t feel all alone in the world (hence, sleeping inside the house at times).  She was a fun little companion and provided me with lots of comical moments.  I made sure that we always had some mealy worms on hand (I bought them at Tractor Supply), and she would go bonkers over them!  She could be on the other end of the yard, but as soon as I started shaking the jar, she would come running…chickens are so cute when they run!  She loved to cuddle, and if anyone ever tells you that chickens are mean, you just tell them that they never met Opal Chicken!  I sure hope that she knows how very much I loved her.

We are not going to get any more chickens for awhile.  I have enough to keep me busy with all that I have going on right now, and I also don’t think I could ever “replace” my sweet Opal, and I’m not ready to try.  But, someday….down the road…when we are ready…we will have a little flock of chickens once more, and it will be solely because of our memories of  the joy and love that we have known from sharing our lives with two wonderful girls named Ruby and Opal…