Two Things that Really Happened

[Baitfinger]

First, the flood last weekend. For those of you who don't understand the expression, "Lord willin' and the crick don't rise," here's a photo of the neighbor's house after an honest-to-God Texas flash-flood:

For the sake of comparison, here's the same house during last year's snow. Notice that it's not actually waterfront property, contrary to what it may look like in the prior photo.

Next, the chicken story. Check out these cute little guys and their mommy.

Wanna know the story? Here goes.

My brother was working for a gentleman in good ol' Santa Fe who had some scrap metal we needed for something we were building in the back yard. He also had about 20 chickens he was trying to get rid of. After my brother and I loaded the scrap metal, I made the comment that the chicks would be really cute in the photos Deb was doing for the League City Easter Egg hunt the next day. Next thing I knew, I had myself a dog crate with three chicks and a momma hen. So I headed home, wondering what the hell I was thinking, and, as I pulled onto my street with my goodies in tow, a group of wedding guests were arriving across the street (at a historic LC special event establishment), walking past the bed of my truck and giving me strange looks. To top it all off, when I pulled into my driveway, the hen AND my dog both went crazy (then again, what bridezilla doesn't want distant, loud clucking and barking in their keepsake video?). Of course, the girls were excited, but Deb...not so much. Fast forward to us making it through the night without League City police or animal control being called out. Of course, the chicks were a big hit at the Easter egg hunt (even Deb conceded), but we weren't able to pawn them off on any of the attendees. So when I got home, I started making phone calls. Good news! One of my neigbors knew someone in--anyone? anyone?--Santa Fe who had chickens and might want more. Then, more good news--they DID want more. Oh, AND my neighbor wanted to know if I could pick up some eggs while I was there, on account of the fact that she sold the eggs produced by the existing chickens that this person already had. No problem! We hopped in the truck and taxied the yard birds back to their town of origin. As it turns out, the guy taking the chickens knew the guy who gave them to me and said he would go over and get the rest of them during the week. Yeah! The chickens were saved! I picked up six dozen eggs for my neighbor and figured all that was left now was to take the dog crate back to the guy who gave me the little squawkers in the first place, then drop off the eggs back at my neighbor's place. Except that when I got to the dog-crate-dropoff location (also the original home of the chickens), my brother was there and asked if I could take my dad's truck back over to dad's place, on account of the fact they had used it to haul some furniture over to put on the burn pile. So I unloaded the dog crate, gave Deb the keys to my truck and had her follow me over to dad's to give the truck back. Of course, my niece was at my dad's when we arrived, and my girls wanted to know if she could spend the night. Okay, so you get the idea--we went home with an extra kid and a bunch of eggs, and through numerous games of phone tag were eventually able to get everything and all God's creatures, human and non, back to where they belonged.

I thought it was a pretty redneck weekend myself.