Clutzy, with a Capital C

Mister Duck

Some of you may remember the tailbone incident of last fall. I’m embarrassed to say, I have another chapter to add to my storybook of clutziness.

Monday, like all of the holiday weekend, was hot and humid. I’d taken up the broiler chickens’ feeders around 9:30 a.m. Around 3:00 in the afternoon storms started to roll in west of us, and ahead of them the air started to cool. The chickens started to come out from under the shade of their tarp, so it was decided they should be fed now before the storms hit. Notice I’m not blaming saying whose idea it was.

I hustled out to the pasture, filled feeders and waterers, checked for corpses of birds that had succumbed to the heat. (There weren’t any, hallelujah!) It started to thunder, and then to rain, and I was hurrying, and I was running and bounding and hurdling merrily over the tent stakes that hold the tarp down when BAM! I was skidding on my face through the grass.

As soon as I came to a stop I jumped up and OW! My arm. My right arm. Oh no, don’t be broken. Please don’t be broken. There’s nothing protruding, I don’t feel any sharp edges under the skin, it can’t be broken.

But the pain and swelling indicated otherwise. Reluctantly I made an appointment to have it looked at the next day. Our family doctor was on vacation so I saw one of the PA’s whom I also really like. When I told him how I received my injury he got a little excited.

PA: What kind of chickens are these?

ME: Broilers, meat birds.

PA: And they’re, like, free-range?

ME: Yes, we raise them on pasture.

PA: And you don’t feed them any yucky stuff?

ME: No antibiotics, no hormones.

PA: And do you sell them?

ME: Yes, also beef, pork and eggs.

PA: I need your address

So…once the farm business was out of the way, we got back to the elbow business. And I had x-rays. (Why not? I’m sure my deductible has already been met after two ultrasounds and a CT scan already this month.) And the x-rays were rather inconclusive. Maybe I fractured my elbow, maybe not. Either way, it just has to heal on its own. No cast, no sling.

I was actually quite excited to come home and tell Matt that we potentially got a new customer out of the incident. Hey, I took one for the farm!

Mr. Glass-Half-Empty pointed out, “The money you make on these birds probably won’t cover the cost of your x-rays.”