Farmsitting

Farmsitting, like babysitting can be a fun and rewarding experience; a beautiful country setting and well-behaved animals, likewise children, can lend itself to the perfect employment set-up. But what if something were to *gasp* happen to one of the charges on your watch? It becomes a farmsitter's nightmare...

When my husband and I were dating, he took his children on a family vacation and I was thrilled to be able to volunteer to stay on the farm with my children and look after the horses and chickens; all that room to roam and best of all... horses! Paradise at last...what could possibly go wrong? Some things were a bit hard to get used to like the lack of curtains or blinds on any of the windows. It took several days to convince myself that no one could possibly be bored enough to come way out in the middle of nowhere and stand watching me do a Friday night popcorn and videofest (unless you've seen Nightmare on Elm Street that is), then cut my phone lines, electrical lines and chase me to the barn in the darkness where all the sharp pitchforks are...agghhh..I want to go home!!

Each morning my daughter and I would let the chickens out for the day to play and each evening, all we had to do was a headcount and lock up their coop for the night. Emma, who was about six years old at the time, was especially good at this.."three, four,......mom, one is missing", she yelled from the coop. "Count again", I called as small beads of perspiration began to form in the back of my very responsible mind. Sure enough, one was missing, but which one? The black one, rusty one, white one..big rusty one..I didn't know them well enough to know who was who. We searched and searched most of the evening, and just before dark, Emma pointed to a small lump behind a bucket in the barn aisle, "There he is mom!"

There he was alright, dead as a doornail behind the bucket..and on my watch too. Dating was hard enough without murdered animals being thrown into the mix; Tom would never want to continue dating such a horrible, irresponsible.......chicken killer! How could this happen..did I feed him the right food, give him water...he could have been ninety years old for all I knew. We gave him a nice burial and send off out at Dead Chicken Hill; no doubt a popular banqueting spot for all the local coyotes, and, dragging my shovel dejectedly back to the barn, began to plan exactly when I should give Tom the bad news.

All in all, we had a great time though, and finished out the week with a barbeque and hike in the back fields. Tom called from the cab on the way home from the airport and I sheepishly let him know that the little rusty chicken had passed. "What!...Harold? Harold died? and then to his kids while covering the mouthpiece of the phone "Harold died". At this point I can hear muffled sobs coming from the other end of the line. "Jessie's bawling", Tom whispered, "He was her favourite chicken....friendly, just like a dog". Oh great, that's it, I'm handing in my resignation!

Photo by Tom Zsolt