vituperation

Fred, what is that your monitor is sitting on?

That’s the bass module for my computer sound system.

Growing? Growing??? I still have 2 feet of snow on most of the ground, and they’re calling for highs in the 30’s and possibility of snow all week. and I’m with Farmwife-what growing?

Are you guys saying I shouldn’t talk about how it’s been over 80 every day this week, and that our beans, okra, squash, and peppers have all sprouted? Because I wouldn’t do something like that if you didn’t want me to.

Forgive me if you’ve explained all this before, but…how does an egg become a chicken? I.e., the fertilization process. I mean - I get that the egg is dropped, then sat upon or incubated, then hatched and we get a chick…but… is there hot chicken lovin’ going on in yonder coop before the egg is laid?

There is, in fact, some hot chicken lovin’ going on, but not in the coop. It goes on all over the yard. McLovin is quite the stud. Most mornings, he’s the first one out of the coop, and he waits by the door, picking the girls off one by one as they come out.

He thrusts a wing down, like a flamenco dancer with a fan, and shuffles sideways towards the object of his affection, stomping his feet and raking the tip of his wing on the ground. The girl, naturally alarmed, tries to run away. He races after her, leaps into the air, and grabs a mouthful of neck feathers. He yanks back, which causes her to stop running and raise her tailfeathers. Her ass goes up, his tucks down, and the two join.

One or two seconds later, it’s over. Seriously.

He jumps off, she shakes out her feathers, and they both go back to scratching and pecking the ground.

Fun fact: female chickens can lay fertile eggs for up to three weeks off one love session.

*ahem* Baby chickie update please.

The chickies are still growing. I need to do a full-batch candling this weekend to make sure they’re all still good. There are a couple I’m worried about — they’re growing, but no air sac is forming at the top of the egg like it should. That means they’ll probably drown before they hatch.

Cross your fingers. Our buff girl went broody on Wednesday so I stuck four eggs under her with the one she already had. As of this morning, she’s still settin’.

“May I help you?” the teenaged clerk asked. She looked to be all of seventeen, maybe eighteen.

I gestured towards the display case in front of me.

“I need a .22, but these all look like pellet and air rifles,” I said. “Do you guys still sell real guns?”

I was in Walmart, a store I generally try to avoid because I don’t like their business practices. However, in cases of emergency, like this, I was willing to be a little bit of a hypocrite (and yes, I’m aware my wife shops there) for the sake of expediency. Otisburg, the nearest not-as-small-as-Smallville town, doesn’t have the plethora of places to shop that Huntsville or Madison do. I was in the only place I thought might sell rifles, even though I hated being there.

Her face fell.

“No, all we have is these,” she said.

“Do you know anyplace else in Otisburg where I can get one? Surely someplace around here sells guns.”

As the words came out of my mouth I thought about how desperate I sounded. Desperate to get a rifle. Like a terrorist would sound.

Yes sir, Officer, I heard the girl in my mind. He did seem unusually interested in getting a gun. He was kind of twitchy, too. Standing there in his dirty clothes, looking all shifty-eyed around at the guns. He was pretty disappointed when I told him a fine American establishment like Walmart didn’t carry guns. You might be able to walk into a department store in some godless Muslim country and get a gun right off the shelf, but not this Walmart! I was a little scared, to be honest. He looked like he might snap at any moment.

“I have a crow problem,” I said. “And I need to take care of it before they get the rest of my corn.”

Robyn tells me I over-explain things to complete strangers. Now you know why.

Thursday afternoon, when I was out on the tractor cutting the back forty, I noticed a couple of crows hopping around where I’d just cut. The birds really show up when I mow, especially the robins. While I cut, one of them flew over to the tilled area where I planted corn and beans for the pigs, and started pecking around there. I chased him off. Yesterday afternoon when I got home from work, there were four of the bastards in the garden, plucking up tiny corn plants.

I’ve read that crows are smart, and that the best way to deter them is to kill one and either leave his body out where it can be seen or scatter his feathers around. Works for me. Plus, I’ll need the rifle when it’s time to process the pigs into sweet, sweet bacon.

(says the man who hasn’t fired a gun at another living thing in almost 30 years)

“I just moved here,” she said with a rueful smile. “I don’t know where anything is.”

“Same here.”

I thanked her and went looking for another associate to ask. I found an older woman, who told me of a combination gun and pawn shop near downtown Otisburg, but she wasn’t sure of exact directions. The greeter at the door, however, was able to tell me exactly how to get there.

Yes, I did explain to both of them why I needed a rifle.

A few minutes later and I was in the gun/pawn shop, standing in front of a wall of rifles while a large-bosomed young woman in a low-cut shirt chattered at me about the various features of each. Unfortunately, she knew about as much about them as I do, which made for inanity.

Twenty-twos are much more expensive than I thought the would be. Most were nearly $400, and some were over $1000. Finally, though, I found exactly what I wanted: a long barreled bolt-action .22 that was only $99.

The whole gun-buying incident was an exercise in being uncomfortable. I haven’t needed to purchase a gun in several years, and I’ve never bought one that was in a pawn shop. I had to stand at the counter (feeling vaguely guilty) and wait about 15 minutes until they could find the box for my rifle. Watching all the people was a little depressing: people coming in to pawn items, a man who needed to make a payment on his wife’s engagement ring so it wouldn’t become the property of the pawnbroker, someone who came in to buy his tools back. None of the people who came in looked poor or downtrodden, and I took the time to reflect on the state of our economy and wondered how much worse things are going to get.

I feel like we dodged a few bullets (no pun intended) over the last couple of years. We sold our house for a profit before the bottom fell out of the market, going to a better home with a smaller mortgage; I sold my gas-sucking SUV before the price of gas went through the roof; we started producing a goodly amount of our own food before inflation and shortages started driving prices up. I’d like to think it was prescience, but it was more like good luck.

Back home, I took five bullets and a soda can and went out back. I hit the can four out of five times from 50 or 60 feet, missing only when Robyn came out there to watch one. That told me the aim on the gun is true, something I was a little worried about since it was so inexpensive.

Reason #473 why living in the country is so great: you can go out back and shoot your gun, and no one freaks out and calls the police. Because it’s perfectly legal.

The crows, of course, haven’t been back since I got the rifle. That’s how things work, you know.

Mister Boogers investigates

Yes, it’s really him singing.