The Harrowing/Heartwarming Parent Moment of the Week

Some of you have gone on backpacking trips with me, been camp counselors with me, or have been my campers. You know my embarrassing secret. I sleepwalk. I come by it through the curse of heredity. My Grandpa Dewsnap was a sleepwalker, not good if you wanted to join the Navy. One of my uncles sleep walked on camping trips and his mother tied his ankle to the tent to keep him close by. And then there is me…the other night I was dreaming and thought that several dangerous items had exploded from the ceiling. Somehow I knew that the next thing to explode would be dangerous and hurt my boys. So I jumped up and stood on the bed and swiftly unscrewed two light bulbs from the ceiling fixture and hid them under something on my dresser. The crisis averted, I went back to sleep. Of course, the next day I had to find those light bulbs. But at least everyone was safe, right?

So, it snowed a bunch over night. The chickens were trapped inside their coop by the deep drifts. I sent the boys to dig them out and pack down some trails for them to walk in. The boys made a trail to the closest tree and dug the coop out. They also made a chicken castle out of all the lose snow and then had a marvelous afternoon putting the chickens into all the different rooms and windows and towers of the castle. Our chickens are very patient and actually seem to enjoy all of this rowdy attention. They come running when the boys call and get jealous if another hen is sitting in the lap of “their boy”. I read in a chicken book that one must watch their chickens in the winter for boredom. Bored chickens will sometimes attack each other and eat the eggs. I seriously doubt that our chickens are bored. I just had to laugh at the ingenious nature of little boys. Send them out to free the hens from the snow drifts, and they will build a chicken castle. So fun!