A Time to Remember

This photo was supposed to be of an impressive rain of mortarboards hanging mid-air above the heads of the Roby Seniors, but my camera gulped after I pushed the button, and I only captured the aftermath.

As the kids got ready to toss their hats into the air, the group of people I was with started reminiscing about their own graduations, which made me think of mine. I then rode a long train of memory, wandering paths not taken, thinking about missed opportunities and bittersweet moments. I don't like to admit regret, though, because every single step I've taken has led me to the people who are in my life, and I most definitely don't want to tamper with the recipe that brought them to me. I just have to revisit those thoughts every once in a while and make sure it's all as I remember and desire.

The heat and the wind are wearing us all down out here in this semi-arid hell hole. It will make the rain all the more sweeter, but good grief, how bad of a mood can one woman get into? I guess we're going to see.

I had free XM radio this week. I was pretty excited at first, until I realized that the same programs are repeated every two hours and day to day. There's a lot of potential, but it hasn't been realized. Also, if I'm going to pay for radio, I don't want to listen to commercials. I switch stations every time one comes on. They last so long, like when you're trying to watch a movie on TBS. You forget what program you were enjoying before the advertising ensued.

I would like to comment on the latest Dolce & Gabbana ad featuring Matthew McConaughey. They took a beautiful, beautiful man and airbrushed out his best features. It's creepy and made me feel weird, like looking at an animal that's otherwise perfect except that it has three ears or an extra limb. They should have left him rough and scruffy, even if he was wearing a suit. It's just a travesty.

I would also like to comment on Bob Dylan at this time. I don't like his voice at all. I think he was just what the listeners yearned for at the time, though, and that he cleansed the palette. Don't buy his book Tarantula. I'm sure he was making some sort of statement, but it would be a waste of your money. It looks like a monkey or chicken was let loose on a typewriter. I'm not saying that to be hateful, that's all it is, just a bunch of random typing. No words. Just junk.

If you can't tell, I'm working from a list I made of things that I wanted to talk about. I'll try to finish it up fast: I heard a shoe was running for president, finally, a worthy candidate; I saw an old episode of Orange County Choppers the other night and thought it was a new one, that they had gone back in the original direction, which I believe is all it would take to bring it back; and I think I could have a talk show since some of the ones that I've heard this week are so lame. One lady talked for hours about her local butcher. Another seemed to have suffered a speech impeding illness. I am sure I could titillate listeners with talk about chickens and going to the bar and weather. A sure formula for success, indeed (Sherlock Holmes influence)!

Swallow Solution

Aren't you getting tired of seeing photos of the front of my house? Well, here's one more. We put streamers along the eaves of the house to see if that would deter the swallows, and it did! I tried to think of something that would make them leery of flying, because birds are all about their wings. I still don't understand what made them abandon the culvert. Maybe because there wasn't any rain to wash the old nests out. I may go out there later and attempt to clear the way.

I was reading an article about country living. The author was talking about the joy of living on his historic fancedy-pants ranch, drinking Beaujolais wine, looking at centuries old age-ed wood out-buildings while wearing his uber-stylish but "distressed" rich stitched boots which were propped upon his anally maintained porch-rail (Not exactly his words, but just precious).

Here's my take: living in an old farm house in need of constant repair, drinking a cup of Folger's coffee, looking at a shop that we made ourselves while wearing an old t-shirt, sweats and flip-flops, sitting on old metal patio furniture that's been painted a million times. And lovin' it. It's so nice to get up in the morning and walk around in the yard with a cup of coffee, piddling with chickens, kittens, the sprinkler, plants. No neighbors to stare you down, just lost in your own world.

I guess the author of that article probably enjoys the country life as much as I do, but his is in the manner of J.R. on Dallas, while mine is more of an Ace Reid type of existence. Both suffice, I suppose.

The Birds

I've had a series of experiences with fowl in the recent weeks, the latest occurring today when a bunch of mud-nest making birds decided to reside under the eaves of my house. I keep going out there to shoo them away and spray down the beginnings of nests with the water hose. I went and looked in the cement culvert they usually stay in to see if there was an obvious reason they had taken to the house, but I didn't see anything. Maybe they know it's going to rain and wash away their nests.

I saw a pheasant out here a few weeks ago, and I've had three other people tell me they have also seen it. He just pecks along the side of the road, not caring a fig about traffic, so busy with his doings. It's so funny, because one year we went to North Dakota, and I was just about guaranteed a pheasant sighting, but it never happened. I had to wait until pheasants came to Texas to see one.

That same week I also heard a road runner make a sound for the first time in my life. One time I heard one thrum it's beak when it thought I was threatening it's baby, but this time I heard an actual voice. I was at a neighbor's house getting out of my car when I heard a mournful sound that I first thought was a dove. Then I thought it might be a dog shut up in the garage. I moved my head to hear the sound more clearly when something on the peak of the roof caught my eye. There was the roadrunner standing there, then I saw his throat move, like a rooster's does, when he made the sound. It's nice to know there are still things to discover in a place I'm overly familiar with.

Also that same week I had gone north from Camp Springs up to the ranch at the end of the road, then turned left onto the dirt, when I saw some of the funniest white birds. They didn't look like an egret. Each had a big, rounded-out face with an amusing expression. It made me laugh.

Of course I didn't have my camera for any of the photo opportunities! Prepared? Not me. I was sorry to see what looks like grackles in the back yard this morning. I'm a big animal lover, I hate to run over even a mouse in the road, but those rude birds may inspire me to do some target practice with the .22.

P.S. Ms. Chicken and five chicks have been forced back to the coop since I found one dead on the shop floor. Boy, was that a dumb idea!

An Independent Chicken

A few months ago, one of the hens moved out of the chicken house and onto a shelf in the shop. I thought, "Hey, this chick has a mind of her own", and left her do as she pleases. Also, I don't know how to make a chicken do anything beyond their normal instinct.

One day when I was looking for something, I stood on a stool and found that Ms. Chicken had been laying eggs up on that shelf. Some had even rolled down and fell on the breaker box. To keep the eggs from rolling, I put hay up there. I didn't collect or toss the eggs because they felt warm and I didn't know how far in she was with them. And chicks on a shelf? I'd just cross that bridge when I got to it.

Yesterday I heard a ruckus and figured it was just the usual chicken antics, but I went outside to see what was going on, and found one little chick peeping around on the shop floor. I scooped it up and popped it back up on the shelf while mother hen threatened to flog me. I got to watching her and saw that there were three peepers up there, cute as can be.

It probably seems like I should get them all down and put them in a safe place, but I tell you what. Last year when I found chicks, I immediately put them in a pen that we raised the original bunch in, with a dog carrier for a nest area. The baby chicks couldn't make the jump up to the lip of the carrier, so I put a piece of wood there for them to jump up on; there were two mother hens, so I put them together, and one pecked a hole in the other one's chick's head; the chicks got out of the pens through the holes in the chicken wire (wonder why they call it that), etc., etc. Anyway, after a myriad of issues, the chicks were finally big enough that they were roosting with the other chickens. Then one morning  after I opened the pen, I went back out there for some reason, and something had eaten every single one of them.

So this year, I'm just going to let mama hen be the chicken expert. If she wants here babies on a shelf, so be it. I'm not going to put a lot of work into killing them, this time. I'll just keep picking them up from the shop floor and tossing them back in the nest.