Close to Nowhere

• We’ve started calling oldest granddaughter Merideth “the crazy chicken lady.” And for very good reasons, I might add.

Her mom, daughter Dana, has always liked outside better and farm animals and dogs and horses, etc. So Mere comes by it honestly.

But she’s gone over the top with “her” chickens. We have chicks, roosters, laying hens, broody hens of all breeds and kinds and we even have some ducks now. All the grown chickens and ducks live in what used to be the big dog pen.

All the little ones are in the dog kennel in the front of Dana’s house.

Mere and her hubby Tim have moved back down here. Tim discovered Pop’s shed and Mere discovered that she did not like living in the city at all. So my wonderful, perfect, awesome great-grandson Shepard is going to grow up the way his momma and grandmother did -- in the wild country.

I came home from work one day last week and Mere and Tim were coming around the shed. Mere was carrying, by its legs, a cleaned, plucked chicken. Tim chops the heads off and Mere cleans and preps them and then (gasp!) they eat them!

Everytime I see Mere with a cleaned chicken I think about Mike, the headless chicken. Mere told us that story years ago.

Ask her where all this “chicken” knowledge comes from and she says, “well, I was in FFA.” Her FFA teacher at Potts Camp School, Mr. Shannon, would either be amazed or pleased at how far she’s taken her FFA lessons.

• My ribs are another story all together. My ribs are not edible. My ribs are attached to my spine and protect my poor lungs.

I’m not what you’d call long-suffering with my lungs. I’ve had chronic bronchitis for many years and all this pollen has not made me a happy camper.

I  waddled off to a lung doctor last week after having pneumonia and I was generally pleased with the results.

The only problem was that I’ve coughed so long that I have pleurisy. Pleurisy is an old person’s problem. I am not, I repeat, not, an old person! I figure when I hit 85 or 90, then I’ll be an old person.

And I’ll probably still be coughing and hugging my ribs because pleurisy makes your ribs feel like they’re broken.

Cough, cough...