A frigid rough neck…or chicken neck?

Everyone’s posting Valentine’s Day stuff of their significant other.. I thought I would just do what I do best.. tell a story about The Stauff.. we have been together like 22 years. I have a mitt full of stories..everyone always asks me “how did you meet? I always reply with “ya want the story we told the Father during marriage classes or the real story?”. Both are pretty good. But I was reminded of this story this week and it goes with this bitter cold.. one tidbit you have to know before this story unfolds is we had one chicken on the ranch. She ruled the place. Had PTSB from watching her pals murdered by raccoons in the past. She was one tough bird.. Ok..Many moons ago a company was drilling an oil well south of our house about 30 miles. The Stauff had done some work with them and was kinda on call with them. One super frigid night we got a phone call asking if The Stauff could bring down the blade to pull trucks of pipe up a hill. We get up and I went to help him get the blade started. We get the heater and throw under the blade and wrap tarps around it to trap in the heat. We go inside to warm up. After awhile we go back and and crank it up. Smoke flows through the pipes and a cold growl starts warming the engine. A thermos of hot coffee thrown in the cab and The Stauff heads off.. it was Bitter cold.. I head back to bed. I awoke to The Stauff basically frozen crawling into bed about 4 hours later. Me half asleep, half listening to his story.until.. I hear, “I just told her you keep me warm and I will keep you warm”. Me, now fully awake ask him to repeat what he just said. He says, “geezus Christ did you not hear anything?”. I just sat there and was like, “ummm, no”. He says, “ok, listen.. I got all the way down there and tried to pull up the first truck. They were hauling pipe, so it was heavy. I needed to chain up. There were all these people walking around the blade. I went to put the chains on the front tire and I saw something on the mow board. It was our damn chicken. I thought she had froze to death. She rode on top of the mow board 30 damn miles. So, I thought it was dead and I pushed it and the damn thing moved. At first I was like geezus Christ if these oil patch people see me packing a damn chicken with me I will never live this down. So I picked her up and threw her in the front of the cab. She just sat there in the corner while I pulled up all these trucks. When I was done I lifted her up on my lap and said, if you keep me warm I will keep you warm”. I sat in amazement playing this whole scene in my brain. Picturing a chicken. claws wrapped around the mow board looking death in the eye..wind smoothing down her feathers..heading to work..Then, I busted up laughing. I said, “what? You are shitting me.” He looked like he maybe wanted to slap me, but he said, “no, I am not shitting you. I suppose with the shop doors open she came out and found the heat on the mow board. I threw her back in the shop when I got back. She is fine, but we both about froze to death. I still have no idea how she made it.” I finally quit laughing and we went back to bed..that was one hell of a chicken..oil field trash..lol…. I still get tears in my eyes from laughing about that dang chicken..