The Visitor

Today my 3-year-old niece Rachael came to visit for the day. Rachael really likes to come to Aunt Niese's farm. But I wasn't born yesterday, I know that it has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the chickens. Like an addict, she just uses me to get to the chicks. Rachael plays with them like they are barbies, in fact Ken & Barbie would be jealous. She rocks them, talks to them and if you ask her they even talk back. In her words, "They said 'we want to go for a hike up the mountain' ", "they want to play dress up, this one wants to be a princess, is it a boy or a girl?" "Oh look its smiling at me" And she adamantly tries to convinces me that they really did talk to her. Despite her pleas, I've never known a chicken to request make-up and being dressed in baby clothes.

I let her gather the eggs. She wanted to put them in the "nursery." She was shocked to find out I was not going to put them in the nursery, but rather was going to eat them. Ha! Now she was speechless, but only for a few seconds. "Aunt Niese," she scolded me "you can't eat it, the egg said 'you can only put me in the nursery.' ". Uh, no, I'm pretty sure I heard the egg say eat me, before you heard it say put me in the nursery.

Also like an addict, she would go from family member to family member begging to go out and see them "just for this many minutes." 30 seconds after returning, she was onto the next person. Rachael is a reasoner, I'm convinced she's a lawyer in the making. You can't tell her something without her reasoning through your logic and giving you an off the wall solution...usually involving animals talking. It is pointless to try to outsmart her with logic, and yet I continue to try my luck. After chasing the smaller chicks and holding them upside down, rocking them in her arms for hours, I told her the chicks said "We don't want Rachael to hold us anymore, we're getting sick."

After which I got a lesson from her on giving a chick an enema.....yep an enema. Okay, that was more information than I wanted to know, especially form a three year old. But according to Rachael, "if you do that they will never, never ever get diarrhea ever again, so its okay if they get sick, you can just fix it." Well, that one set me back a bit. I didn't have a plan "b," I'd just been out-reasoned and made speechless by a 3-year-old. Time for a nap, I knew I needed a break.

Rachael is full of questions, interesting answers, and off-the-wall comments. She keeps us in stitches with her antics and we learn a lot of interesting things from her. I'm a better person because of the vast wealth of unsolicited information she divulges. Example, if your chickens ever get sick, give me a call, I can talk you through giving them an enema.


Rachel in her "dress-up clothes" with a chick. Don't worry, she heard it, it said it likes to be squeezed.


Rachael in awe of the chicken riding on Hershey's back.