Camp Thor IV: The Shadow Weeked

Thursday afternoon I dropped Silas off with my brother Max (Ben would meet them there) so they could drive to North Carolina for Camp Thor IV with three other fathers and sons.  As I was leaving, I heard Max tell Silas to put on his pants so they could go tend to the bees, and fifteen minutes later, I got a call saying there had been a little accident.  My first thought was Silas swarmed with bees, but no, he'd sliced his finger with his pocket knife.  Is it bad?  Well, you should probably come.  And I knew Max telling me that, meant I should pull a u-turn right there on the highway.

I walked in to find a slumped, red-cheeked boy with a frown to his knees sitting at the table, finger wrapped in gauze and duct taped held above his head.  We drove to a surgeon's office, and I sat holding Silas's cheeks, holding hand-blinders up to his eyes, and whispering to him while the doctor put several numbing shots into his finger, scrubbed it (was the knife clean, by chance? ... I mean, it was backyard stick clean; he was whittling with it yesterday), and put four stitches into the skin of his knuckle.  Just as she was finishing, I felt a wave of nausea, a little lightheaded, and in less than a minute, I'd turned green, eyes rolling, and passed out cold.  Apparently they yanked Silas off the table and hoisted me up, where I lay for longer than the whole procedure had taken, waiting to be able to sit up. Unprecedented.

Friday was easy.

Today is Saturday and while the boys are away, we girls (cousins and aunts) are making yarn wall hangings, banana bread, and having a sleepover while the rain drives against the house.  At least that is what we were peacefully doing until Eden walked in from the deck with wide-eyes: I think one of the chickens is dead.  No, it's probably just sleeping in the grass -- they do sit in the grass.  But her eyes were big and she shook her head.  We all walked outside.  It turned out not one chicken was dead, but three, sprawled on the grass and partially deafeathered.  Somehow, a fox had dug under the fencing and attacked mid-day during the rain and left the bodies.  The fourth and last chicken pecked happily around the yard, apparently oblivious to the massacre that had just happened.

We stood in the kitchen wondering what to do -- scoop up the chickens' bodies that looked plastered to the ground with trash bags and throw them out?  As Sara went out to survey the scene, I picked up the drumsticks and chicken thighs for the hot grill.  Ella, 10, at my elbow, groaned, I'm not eating THAT!!  Riiiiiiiiight. 

But I had to grill the chicken anyway or it would go bad.  As I squeezed out the door, Toulouse, the dog, shot out past my leg rampant with urgency, and within a minute, the fourth chicken was cornered and attacked.  The house spun into chaos -- I was screaming after the dog and to the heavens, Ella and Eden hysterical laughing-screaming in the kitchen, Sara down NEXT to the chicken coop shrieking at the scene, and the two little girls still in the house watching Daniel Tiger arguing with each other like cartoon babies: yes!  no! YES!  NO! YES!!!  NO!!!  YESSSSS!  NOOOOOOO!

Sara has since gathered the dead chickens, and the wounded one is still making broken warbles from under the deck -- we don't know what to do with her but shoot her, so she's still there.

The chicken legs are cooked and plated on the table where no one will touch them.  Sara is showering off the trauma.  The big girls and I are settled on the couch processing, and the little girls continue to argue. 

Go Camp Thor Shadow Weekend.