The NFC B-Day Chat Thread

[perchie.girl]

I'm so sorry you lost your mom. She was still a young lady. I'll be keeping you and your family in my thoughts and prayers. Back a couple of years ago byc member JaeG posted a poem on this thread that I found very touching. If I'm not mistaken she is the author.

If I be the first of us to die,
Let grief not blacken long your sky.
Be bold yet modest in your grieving.
There is a change but not a leaving.
For just as death is part of life,
The dead live on forever in the living.
And all the gathered riches of our journey,
The moments shared, the mysteries explored,
The steady layering of intimacy stored,
The things that made us laugh or weep or sing,
The joy of sunlit snow or first unfurling of the spring,
The wordless language of look and touch,
The knowing,
Each giving and each taking,
These are not flowers that fade,
Nor trees that fall and crumble,
Nor are they stone,
For even stone cannot the wind and rain withstand
And mighty mountain peaks in time reduce to sand.
What we were, we are.
What we had, we have.
A conjoined past imperishably present.
So when you walk the woods where once we walked together
And scan in vain the dappled bank beside you for my shadow,
Or pause where we always did upon the hill to gaze across the land,
And spotting something, reach by habit for my hand,
And finding none, feel sorrow start to steal upon you,
Be still.
Close your eyes.
Breathe.
Listen for my footfall in your heart.
I am not gone but merely walk within you

::Sob:: this is so touching....
thank you Pert...

deb

 

[Meg-in-MT]

@Meg-in-MT, it's amazing how many families have had to deal with this insidious disease. Our daughter in laws apparently healthy mother was diagnosed just prior to Thanksgiving and died just before Christmas.

Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry. That is incredibly quick. I read a lot after she was diagnosed and it varied a lot, but the end was not far away. It's hard to understand how your body can fail you so quickly.

 

[ShrekDawg]

Forced the littles onto the big girl roost tonight which I kind of felt bad about but they have to learn at some point.

Was a bit of an ordeal/process though. LOL

When I checked on them none of them were on them; they were all on the baby roost. And there were also bigs on both the lower roosts including Angel aka Meanie and not quite living up to her actual name lately on the roost closest to them and two others on the one behind that.

So idk if Meanie just wouldn’t let them up or if they are still just scared/unaware of these roosts or what but I pushed Meanie off (which I also felt bad about... she kinda fell off and then gave up and went to the nestboxes instead but I didn’t want her attacking littles) and then put the littles up there one by one.

Then I tried to give Meanie a chance to get back up on a roost. Went over to the nest box she was in and shined the flashlight up on a roost bar, the low one with the other bigs. She took forever to even decide to go up there but she did finally try and was in the air a while but kinda crashed back down. I think maybe the others wouldn’t let her on their roost. She gave up and went back to the nestbox.

Meanwhile in this chaos 3 littles had jumped ship and were running around freaking out. Scooped them up and put them back up there. This time they settled in but one took a particularly long time to catch and kept running out of reach. Finally caught her though and put her up there. She settled too.

Then I thought I would try to get Meanie up on the roost through the pop door so I picked her up from the nest box, carried her around to the run, unlocked it, opened the gate, walked in, went to the pop door, then realized I really couldn’t reach the roosts from this door after all, walked back out, tried to figure out what to do. Felt bad just making her sleep in the nest box all night when I’m the one that pushed her off.

So I decided to just try her with the littles and see how she does. It was a risk but I figured, it’s really dark, pretty late, she’s tired and a little confused from me shoving her off then carrying her around and just wants to go to sleep, so maybe she will be fine.

So I put her up right in between the littles (they had split up and settled some on each end) and waited a little bit, watching in the dark. It seemed to go okay. She kind of turned around a few times and scooched close to them, thought she’d peck them to make them move but she didn’t. The littles were a little disturbed by all this but settled in again and I think Angel just wanted to be close to other chickens. Anyway, she settled in and I just checked again a little while ago they were all snuggled in.

Well, I disturbed them by opening the door. Really need to get a coop camera lol but she was surprisingly nice.

Actually, May my Barred Rock was Miss Meanie tonight!! Sweetpea walked across the roost frame/wall to get to the other roost, and thought she’d try to snuggle in next to May, May pecked her!! Sweetpea tried again, another peck! Sweetpea retreated and walked back to her own family lol poor thing.

Hopefully May will be more accepting eventually and maybe now that they have roosted together they’ll be one big family tomorrow.

It was so cute though, two of the chicks settled on the very ends, laying right on top of the 2x4, all snuggled up against the wall.

And I am thinking tomorrow will be roost/coop cleaning day. Or at least just roost cleaning.

And sorry for yet another novel.

 

[Meg-in-MT]

I'm so sorry you lost your mom. She was still a young lady. I'll be keeping you and your family in my thoughts and prayers. Back a couple of years ago byc member JaeG posted a poem on this thread that I found very touching. If I'm not mistaken she is the author.

If I be the first of us to die,
Let grief not blacken long your sky.
Be bold yet modest in your grieving.
There is a change but not a leaving.
For just as death is part of life,
The dead live on forever in the living.
And all the gathered riches of our journey,
The moments shared, the mysteries explored,
The steady layering of intimacy stored,
The things that made us laugh or weep or sing,
The joy of sunlit snow or first unfurling of the spring,
The wordless language of look and touch,
The knowing,
Each giving and each taking,
These are not flowers that fade,
Nor trees that fall and crumble,
Nor are they stone,
For even stone cannot the wind and rain withstand
And mighty mountain peaks in time reduce to sand.
What we were, we are.
What we had, we have.
A conjoined past imperishably present.
So when you walk the woods where once we walked together
And scan in vain the dappled bank beside you for my shadow,
Or pause where we always did upon the hill to gaze across the land,
And spotting something, reach by habit for my hand,
And finding none, feel sorrow start to steal upon you,
Be still.
Close your eyes.
Breathe.
Listen for my footfall in your heart.
I am not gone but merely walk within you

Lordy... Thank you so much for sharing this. I'm going to print it off and send it to my family. It's amazing how words can touch your heart in such a way, while very sad, it gives you hope. Thank you for taking the time.

Everyone reaching out has been such a blessing in such a difficult time. You guys are such great people.

 

[ShrekDawg]

Hey everyone, thanks for checking in Debby.

Been a rough go around here lately. My mom was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer on Oct. 13, 2018. I've been trying to get her to come back since then, and far before that. She had a bit of an independent and stubborn streak, that lady But she decided she was going to make the move. They ended up having to turn around about an hour outside of Portland and head back to OHSU, where she remained for about 5 days.

Finally got my mama home and settled in after the week journey from Coos Bay to here. She told us when she got here that the doctors in Portland had given her two weeks, based on her latest scans. We got to spend four precious but horribly short days with her, before she passed away on Saturday, June 1st. She was 54 years young.

I've never known a loss of this magnitude. I'm just trying to figure out a new normal without her...

I am so sorry Meg!

I'm so sorry you lost your mom. She was still a young lady. I'll be keeping you and your family in my thoughts and prayers. Back a couple of years ago byc member JaeG posted a poem on this thread that I found very touching. If I'm not mistaken she is the author.

If I be the first of us to die,
Let grief not blacken long your sky.
Be bold yet modest in your grieving.
There is a change but not a leaving.
For just as death is part of life,
The dead live on forever in the living.
And all the gathered riches of our journey,
The moments shared, the mysteries explored,
The steady layering of intimacy stored,
The things that made us laugh or weep or sing,
The joy of sunlit snow or first unfurling of the spring,
The wordless language of look and touch,
The knowing,
Each giving and each taking,
These are not flowers that fade,
Nor trees that fall and crumble,
Nor are they stone,
For even stone cannot the wind and rain withstand
And mighty mountain peaks in time reduce to sand.
What we were, we are.
What we had, we have.
A conjoined past imperishably present.
So when you walk the woods where once we walked together
And scan in vain the dappled bank beside you for my shadow,
Or pause where we always did upon the hill to gaze across the land,
And spotting something, reach by habit for my hand,
And finding none, feel sorrow start to steal upon you,
Be still.
Close your eyes.
Breathe.
Listen for my footfall in your heart.
I am not gone but merely walk within you

That is beautiful Pert.

 

[Blooie]

Lordy... Thank you so much for sharing this. I'm going to print it off and send it to my family. It's amazing how words can touch your heart in such a way, while very sad, it gives you hope. Thank you for taking the time.

Everyone reaching out has been such a blessing in such a difficult time. You guys are such great people.

I think I printed it out from here once before. I am not sure I would have gotten through losing my much-adored younger sister without being able to come here and put it in writing. We were in Tucson on the second anniversary of her death, and one of the ladies remembered it because we had to go to South Dakota’s Grand Lodge the day after Linda’s services. Kathie was there for that Grand Lodge. Out of nowhere the group we were with at the banquet (see the dinner photo) offered a toast in her memory, hence the reason in that photo I have no makeup left on my face. Imagine that! The Grand Master of Utah, Past Grand of Colorado, and next year’s Grand of Idaho - and their ladies - remembering and offering a toast to “Love without bounds, tears without bitterness, and grief without anger. To Linda.” Yeah, well, maybe the first part. I’m still working on the last two.

 

[Meg-in-MT]

I think I printed it out from here once before. I am not sure I would have gotten through losing my much-adored younger sister without being able to come here and put it in writing. We were in Tucson on the second anniversary of her death, and one of the ladies remembered it because we had to go to South Dakota’s Grand Lodge the day after Linda’s services. Kathie was there for that Grand Lodge. Out of nowhere the group we were with at the banquet (see the dinner photo) offered a toast in her memory, hence the reason in that photo I have no makeup left on my face. Imagine that! The Grand Master of Utah, Past Grand of Colorado, and next year’s Grand of Idaho - and their ladies - remembering and offering a toast to “Love without bounds, tears without bitterness, and grief without anger. To Linda.” Yeah, well, maybe the first part. I’m still working on the last two.

I bet that was a wonderful and heartbreaking thing. Thank you for sharing that. I'm so sorry that you lost your sister, Blooie. It doesn't get easier, does it?

 

[Meg-in-MT]

I am so sorry Meg!



That is beautiful Pert.

Thank you

 

[Blooie]

I bet that was a wonderful and heartbreaking thing. Thank you for sharing that. I'm so sorry that you lost your sister, Blooie. It doesn't get easier, does it?

No, it never does. I'll feel her hand in mine, hear her contagious giggle, and recall her wise words forever. I took losing her very hard....and I'm still not over it. I don't know that there are many on this thread and on Rachel's thread who didn't know Linda - I sure talked about her often enough! The folks here held my hand through her hospitalizations, her surgery, and those bleak days when she was on life support. They celebrated with me when she just suddenly "woke up" and was discharged from the hospital just a few days later. And they were with me when she was put on hospice and died just 2 days later.

I hope that I've been able to offer comfort here in return, to pray or to celebrate victories large and small. I love sitting down at my computer and sharing a laugh and expressing a little indignation when someone has been wronged. And I offer all of those things to you as well. If I could give you one piece of advice it would be this - live as she prayed you would.

 

[rjohns39]

Good morning folks