Some days…

(This wasn’t supposed to get so long, and it’s mostly just rambling. But read on if that’s your pleasure.)

Short, sporadic bursts of activity can actually accomplish a lot. I sometimes immerse myself in a good book when I should really be working, then come out of my nod hours later and lament the lost time. And sometimes I don’t lament it, because I don’t consider the time lost. Depends on the book, and my mood.

But sometimes, as in yesterday afternoon, I’m just using the book to count time between bursts of energy. I’m not really paying attention to the words on the page at all, I’m thinking of the moves I’ll be making when I get out of the chair. Yesterday, sore back and all, the boys and I went out to the wash and filled a trailer-full of half-bags for filling in the bits of the cabin skirting full bags couldn’t deal with. This is reasonable activity for a guy with an amorphously sore back, you’re not risking your damn life every time you lift something. So then all those bags were on the trailer, mocking me. And every now and then I’d get up and lay a line of sandbags, then go sit down for a while. As a result, I finally finished the worst part of the worst wall to be skirted.

Then I went and played with the Bald Ladies. This time of year the grass sprouts, there being a lot of moisture. I’ve been trying it out on the chickens. There’s a species of broad-leafed grass I’ve never seen around the cabin before this year, but it likes the layers of composted mulch I’ve been laying down for my someday garden and the chickens are almost as fond of it as they are of lettuce. So I took a mud bucket and went out and picked them a whole bunch. And they by god did their diligent duty to convert it to chicken shit without the slightest delay.

I tried to lay down a fresh layer of straw in the Fortress of Attitude, only to find that the half-used bale in the corner had gone to mold. So I scraped it all out of there, wheelbarrowed it to the place-that-would-be-a-garden-in-a-diligent-man’s-yard, and I must come up with a less cumbersome name for that, then broke open one of my two remaining decent bales and started over. The ladies do not appreciate all this activity in their domain, but once it’s there they start running around and scratching in the new fluffy layer like it’s their delight in life. Which I suppose it is – there might be an uneaten bug in there somewhere.

Landlady’s broken-legged pullet is starting to look bedraggled, and I’m afraid it’s failing. I’m thinking of making her my very first mortal chicken victim before she starts to really give up the ghost. This is kind of an existential moment for me. I’ve killed animals and eaten them before, but I’ve never raised one – then killed it and ate it. I’ve only ever raised pets. I’m a city boy and expected this to cause aesthetic complications, and find to my surprise that I couldn’t care less. I’ve never thought of the chickens as anything but walking egg factories and at the end, meat. I would never abuse one, but won’t have the slightest compunction about killing every single one of them – and somehow that’s not abuse. It’s just farming on a very small scale. This is where meat comes from.

I have another session on the tractor this morning. J is building a genuine greenhouse for what he hopes will become a new business opportunity, raising cacti and succulents. Apparently some of them sell for great gobs of money once they’re halfway mature. Personally I think they’re very ugly, I just see them as sharp pointy things that complicate my life. But I’m not against making a buck on them and J’s good about slipping me a twenty for an hour’s sand-hauling.

In contrast with the past half-week, this morning dawned gorgeous. Which probably means it’ll rain all afternoon. Last few days the usual pattern has reversed: Rain in the morning, sun in the afternoon. But right now there’s no cloud to be seen.

It’s quarter after seven now, and I’m off to play in it while I can.