Christmas Eve looked different that year. Things were a bit blurred and out of focus. I had started grad school for a Masters in English AND I was teaching full time. The frenzied pace of the fall semester carried over into the holidays.
But that year, things were blurry for a different reason.
Did you know that chickens have pin-point accuracy? That they can spot a moving figure out of a field of multiple moving things and peck that one and only spot? I found that out the hard way.
Our girls were just old enough to start laying eggs, and my husband and I waited anxiously for those little butt nugget breakfasts! Every day we listened to the clucks and would occasionally hear a girl practicing her egg song. And every day we would check the nesting boxes, bushes, tubs, and crates hoping to find a gem waiting.
This particular egg search, Christmas Eve of 2018, gifted a different surprise. The surprise of first-hand knowledge of how accurately a chicken can peck.
I was stooped over looking under shrub branches keeping one eye on Darling, the ever-defensive rooster, and one eye out for eggs. Lo and behold, Laverne hopped up on my shoulder and clucked happily in my ear. She had decided to pose as a red-neck parrot. Now, Laverne loved to munch treats from our hands, but she normally wasn’t too friendly and didn’t like to be held, so I was quite surprised at this sudden camaraderie. She was also one of Darling’s favorites, and he was not happy with our new friendship.
As I monitored his threatening foot stomps and wing flaps, I tried to gingerly convince Laverne to leave my shoulder. She was having none of it and looked me dead in the eye while chatting away.
The last thing I remember seeing was her tiny black eye staring straight into mine. Then it was all over. Her little orange beak streak toward my eye once and only once.
I shrieked, she clucked, Darling stomped and then it was over.
Flinging her forcefully off my shoulder, I clamped a hand over my left eye and ran toward the house screaming for help. I just knew my hand would be full of blood by the time I reached the porch.
Hearing the commotion, my husband rushed to my aid. Warm compress in hand, he slowly lowered mine from my eye. Nothing. No blood. No bruise. Not even a scratch. But things were blurry. Quite a bit so.
That little pecker had snagged my contact lens and only my contact lens. Amazing pin-point accuracy at its best. This was a first (and only) for me, and was for sure one for the record books for the optometrist!
What's up, Mother Cluckers? 