Slightest Breeze

Can almost see it moving here

Don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows.  Bob Dylan said that.

Laid horizontal by a tiny puff

Mexican Feather Grass will tell you all you need to know about the wind.

Now golden in the sun

Things I get to do today on this hot afternoon surely include sitting back in the shade.

Prayers answered

As I pray for a bit of wind, the Feather Grass sends me hope, registering even the slightest breeze. And while it drifts, wafts, glides on a breath, my soul is soothed.  All is well.

Second Best Friend

Teaching my chickens to swim: Things I get to do today.  That's going to be a tough one, I'm afraid.  They don't even like showers let alone plunging into swimmable water.  This would be just a precautionary measure:  Bob Dylan, master of song, sings urgently over the last week, "If it keeps on raining, the levee's gonna break."

Plumbers' tape secured with nylon zip ties

With obstacles as big as catching the girls for regular lessons, I'm going to forego the challenge and focus on prevention.  Around the hen pen the greater concern would be that the one of the intense and sudden showers would wash the feathered females into the raging current of the drainage ditch.



A more plausible course of action is to create some shelter outside where the torrents cannot touch my girls.  The Giant Sequoia next to the coop is perfect for holding the corners of a brown tarp. Ladder, tarp, fasteners--I need all that. Further consideration says that the fasteners need to be squirrel-resistant since there is a record of these rodents nipping down light strings, prayer flags and clothes lines.  I plan with "not chewable" in mind--metal plumbers' tape and nylon zip ties (I'm praying for their hardest qualities).  The time I spend in the bucketing rain should be a minimum if I'm not planning to recertify my own swimming credentials.  Zip ties are my ally.

Shelter from the storm

With all four corners of the tarp secured to create an awning, the ground beneath becomes a space free from the puddling drops from the tree.  Couldn't have used the stapler for this job.  Any other fastener would have been troublesome at best as the rain ran down my arms through the up-turned cuffs.  I have such good friends!

Lay, Ladies, Lay

Bob Dylan probably didn't raise chickens.  His lyrics (with minor adjustment, I must admit) have been ringing in my (chicken's) ears lately.  "Stay, Ladies, Stay. Stay in the nest awhile."

Eggs laid on a "big brass bed" on New Year's Day!

Things I get to do today: learn to count to four!  When it comes to counting, I know what "0" looks like in the nest. That's what we have had since the first part of November.  Straw, straw and golf balls.

We had four (4) eggs today!  That's a big number for this chicken/egg (did I get them in the right order?) farmer. I'm just tickled tan to be able to tell you about this, 'cause it means I'll have eggs to share very soon.  Take a number, be on my sweet side and we'll see what the Ladies can do!

One More Cup of Coffee for the Road. . .

So the song goes.  Mr. Dylan keeps me company in my head while the carpet cleaner  screams in my ears.  Cleaning the little red pickup, Donk is his name, is on the list of Things I Get To Do Today. 

It was obvious that the floor mats needed to be vacuumed.  The floor itself, yes, that, too.  And the seats.  Then clean the windows and I’d be finished.  But while vacuuming the seats, and I have to admit I noticed two or three on the floor as well, I became aware of some light brown spots.  So now the task is not so simple, not so quick. 

A-lick-and-a- promise approach makes for a bitter, cranky feeling in my gut.  If you are doing a task that you do not enjoy, even the slightest little bit, I have always maintained that doing the task better will produce, if not a “like” for the job, at least a much higher degree of satisfaction during the process and upon completion of the task.  After a very short mental discussion about how to proceed, I rustled up a pan of water, some rags and the cleaning solution.  Two minutes later, I hauled out also the carpet cleaner and adjusted it to the “tools/upholstery” setting at highest sucking power.

I shifted into compound low—just-anybody-try-to-stop-me-now mode—and headed for Donk.  He shivered a bit after seeing the pan of cold water but saw my mood and offered no resistance.  Soap, water, scrub, suck, rinse, suck, rinse, suck!  The seats looked remarkably better in short order.

The floor was next—those areas I had hardly notice earlier—it was their turn.  The little brown areas just disappeared.  Now that was cool.  But wait!  The water being sucked up by the howling equipment was a rich, coffee brown.  Carpet looked clean.  Water coming out was brown.  Better go over the area again. And again.  And again 5 times.  Another 5 times.  Lost count at this point.  Just how many cups of coffee has slipped from the drivers’ (correct playing of apostrophe, since my daughter had used Donk in college, and many, many of her friends had driven this sweet, hardworking little pickup) hands and ended up on the floor.  They were all in the dehydrated state between the carpet and the floor boards.  And I’m sucking them up, cup by cup.

The rich coffee finally became weak in its color, and I knew there was no more “juice” available in the dregs that remained.

And now as I'm heading out on an errand, sitting on a towel to keep my pants relatively dry on the still-damp seat and very carefully balancing a drink in my hand, I feel sweet satisfaction.  “One more cup of coffee ‘fore I go.”