Monthly Archives

November 2011

Sixty Dollar Eggs

The Winter Coop is bird-worthy at last. Two weeks in the making. Five treks to Lowes. Twice to Ace. A few [dozen] modifications to the original blue print.

The upkeep of chickens can be a harrowing endeavor.
In the process of the Winter Coop’s construction my husband and I learned we may be “chicken people” – thus ordained by the nice girl behind the Ace counter who chattered fondly of birds she once raised and a ‘chicken mansion’ her brother constructed and reportedly still improves upon. Yeah, we know the feeling.
But our ladies — my word, such a racket! Bigger, warmer, safer, drier…not a single new-coop feature could impress our finicky flock. They bickered and fussed and turned huffy, indignant shoulders toward the new windows and fancy nesting box. Impossible to please, these.
But tomorrow’s Thanksgiving Day forecast calls for snow. Though our ladies refuse to thank us we will nonetheless sleep soundly this holiday eve knowing our climate controlled, temperature-monitored, easy-access coop is nothing if not a striking force against any New York squall. Bring it.
And in the morning we will feast with gladness on our eggs. The current cost of acquisition: sixty dollars a piece.
Happy Thanksgiving!

A tale of [minor] suffering.

Life isn’t fair. No news flash there. Every so often fairness nonetheless rears her lovely head. Today, for example. I work underground. No windows, no clue day in or day out about the state of things; consequently, I sit below and pretend it is raining. And why shouldn’t I? It’s better than envisioning the ungrateful world going about business in the glorious sunshine while I’m stuck in a hole. But today I emerged from my workcave to a fine November rain. I listened, gratified, to the grumblings of the umbrella-less. Who should have known better. But didn’t.

Book Love: A Confession

I hear the e-reader industry is doing very well. Not hard to see why: they are economical, convenient, green. Several people I know use one type or another and swear by them. But e-readers are not for the likes of me.
Because I love the book. The thing with a front and back cover; owned. Flipped through and marked in, corners turned down. I love collecting and arranging books in stacks; gazing at them on shelves with the self-satisfaction of a conqueror, recalling from the title where I was and what song played.
I love the thrill of embarkment; of gaging my time investment by page-weight. I love settling down to Paragraph One with this prayer: Dear Author (of whom I am jealous because you are published and I am not), I am a patient reader – willing to suspend my disbelief and forgive you of any clumsy. All I ask for is a worthful journey.
And then I plunge in. With both feet. Often amused.
Occasionally amazed.
In the beginning I devour with abandon, forsaking all else willing to wait. But as the heft shifts from the right hand to the left I am more inclined to savor. Then ration. But always in the end, The End.
e-Reader: can you move me this way?
My Book Love manifests in another, maybe strange, way. I collect tiny books and keep them with me, bound together by elastic. I write these storylines; two are journals with distinct purposes; another keeps my passwords, contacts, lists; one holds my sketches; one is for blog themes; and one for story ideas – my stories, the ones I’ll some day write to connect me with the soul of a reader in the way I now allow storytellers to bond with mine.
I know, I know: my iPhone could track my addresses, passwords, sketches, lists, stories, more. Keep me organized and modernized – if I let it.
Which I won’t.
Because I have this thing for books.
Inner workings of a strange mind, revealed