the last stand of the gimpy chick

It is hard to count the moving carpet of speckled chicks moving noisily around the yard but if I were to guess I would say there are 15 medium, 14 small, and 14 extra small. 
Beach loves and knows only one. 
She has been complaining for days about its not quite right leg demanding we do something- but what she wanted, she didn't know.
BC offered her a life shut up in a safe pen where she could learn to sit for us be the mother of all the eggs we pull to raise.... like in the Giver.

Beach hated the idea. "You need to do something." she whined after trying to fix it a perch with a Frisbee so it might safely roost in a low fruit tree "like the others". 

Do you want us to kill it, we asked. 
Of course not, was her answer.
For now it keeps up just fine, we would tell her but to this she strongly disagreed. 
It struggles and is always far behind them plus it falls all the time...."

In the dark before the rain the skunk that had been circling came back. And in the dark before the rain BC, the good farmer that he is, once again walked the farm yard at 3 am counting heads. 

"I found the victim," he said sitting heavily on down on the bed. "It was Beach's gimpy chick."

By morning August rain had washed most of the skunk smell away. In certain corners it still lingered mixing with sweetness of the river and wet grass.

I watched the chickens grazing the lawn as I waited for coffee to drip.  Most of us have survived July.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to do nothing. 
To sit back and let time pass...

Wendi M. Brown- Bevan, born May 2, 1970 to Jon and Julie Brown, in Slat Lake City. In the pouring rain, on August 1, 2006, long after her spirit had left this world, the body of Wendi M. Brown-Bevan was laid to rest.  Wendi leaves behind a family she loved most of all two beautiful children, Chloe and Jonah.  Wendi loved her children more than word can say, she existed because of them.  She will be remembered for her kindness and compassion, and her love of animals. Her gentle loving spirit may have been no match for this world.  Wendi, we know your sight was often unclear, your path mostly unpaved, but whatever life may have held for you and all of us who cared for you along the way, we want you to know that you were, and forever will be truly loved by us. 

May you find the peace you were seeking…

She was my sister.