Discover Top Posts Tagged with #random post of randomness

Hello (again)

I hope you are well. I hope you and your loved ones are doing alright. I hope things are better for you, and if not, I hope that they will be very soon. I am doing alright, and have been keeping busy due to work, which I am grateful for, though I have missed you. I hope we can reconnect, and I am sorry (very sorry) for my absence, and for missing your messages. I am thankful for them, please know that, and I will try to be much better.

#random post of randomness #hello from whatever side I'm on #I miss you

The Tale of the Random Chicken

So, those of you who’ve been here awhile I know I live in the geographical Ass End of Nowhere, southeastern Pennsylvania edition. How much so? The house I live in was originally intended to be a seasonally occupied hunting cabin that was later transformed into a small farmette used primarily for goats and sheep (our upper field is actually a quarter acre of pond, trees, and steeply pitched ground full of boulders, ideal goat territory) and a great many of our neighbors up and down the (still partially unpaved) local tangle of roads keep livestock of some variety for home use. Goats. Sheep. Alpacas -- in fact, there’s an entire alpaca ranch occupying a couple hilltops on the far side of the valley that used to be an apple orchard.

The neighbors directly across the road from us and down in the cleft of the valley keep goats and also chickens. We are aware of this for several reasons but the most salient of them is that their livestock fencing leaves a lot to be desired and, in the last two years, I have spent an inordinate amount of time chasing one of their more adventurous goats out of our field (which, I hasten to remind you, is a goddamned goat paradise meant to be scaled by creatures with four legs and significantly greater balance than I have ever possessed who are also not asthmatic fortysomething freelance writers). And now? A chicken.

As with the goat, we first noticed the chicken when my youngest son was getting ready for school. More specifically, he was pulling on his jacket, looked out the door, and announced, “Mom, there’s a chicken on the patio.”

Sure enough, there was a chicken on the patio: a white hen, lightly speckled gray, stepping lightly across the wood, pecking here and there, undisturbed by the small quantity of children across the road hooting enthusiastically at her. Our dogs, accustomed by long tolerance to weirdness, eyed the avian intruder apathetically and didn’t even bark. Thing Two went outside and the chicken paused in her perambulations, eyed him briefly, and went back to what she was doing. She scuttled away when the bus arrived, disturbed by the noise, and disappeared but returned by the afternoon, when Thing One returned from the middle school and helped me in the task of chasing her off the side porch, out of the side yard, out of the back yard, prevented her from going into the upper field, and eventually managed to get her back across the road and onto the neighbor’s property, from whence the Elder Thing saw her coming when he got home.

Over the next handful of days, we saw her a few more times, ducking and covering around the yard, and chased it back home when we did. One morning I let the dogs out and was startled by an indignant bukbukbukbukBUK right behind the door and the sight of a gray-speckled mass of tail feathers going over the side of the patio as she made a rapid exit. The dogs don’t chase her. In fact, I suspect they’re amused by her. One morning, she was here when the mate was leaving for work, and poked her head out from beneath the stack of patio furniture sitting just next to the door, came out, and submitted to a gentle petting. She apparently found that spot beneath the patio furniture, stacked with cushions and outdoor blankets draped over the side quite convivial because on three days running we heard her bukbukbuking outside and saw her tail fathers wagging a bit in the gap between the stack and the side of the house.

And this morning we discovered why!

Eggs. At least twelve pale blue aracuna eggs. Not likely to survive, even if they were fertilized, because she hasn’t been sitting on the nest she built on our patio, underneath our patio furniture, very consistently and the temperatures have been dropping below freezing by night. (Yes, I know it’s almost spring. We have officially had more snow since the beginning of March than we had the rest of the winter put together and there’s more coming next week. Y’know. WHEN SPRING OFFICIALLY FUCKING STARTS. But I digress.) Our buking intruder was looking for a place to nest and we’re seriously considering getting a little chicken hutch for her. The kids are giving me sad puppy eyes on this topic. The mate is waxing cheerful about fresh laid eggs. I do not want to be a chicken farmer for even one chicken at this late stage of my life, but I’m outvoted.

Send cracked corn. I think I’m going to need it.

Maybe she’ll make friends with whatever that cryptid thing was back in January.

#Random post of randomness

Why do I feel vaguely threatened by this ad?

#like I live here in Alberta #why do I get this ad #is there something I should know?#random post of randomness

Fall starts early!

Those who know me know I love me some Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks, *BUT* I also love Dunkin’ Donuts Iced Pumpkin Coffee, and THEY HAD IT today! AHHHHH!!!!!

I needed this as I’m trying to use my spare time today to GET SOME FLIPPIN’ WRITING DONE grrrrrr

#random post of randomness #writing fanfic #or trying to #but at least I have iced pumpkin coffee!#wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Honey, I’m home!

...after nearly two weeks, I am finally back and...boy am I exhausted.

But THANK YOU for the kind notes sent (including some birthday ones) :o) I MISSED YOU GUYS and missed being here! Hope to catch up on some writing in the next few days and get some stuff posted, as well as catch up on here too!

Can’t believe that so much of June has already passed! WHAT IS UP WITH THAT!? Anyhoo, happy summer solstice and LOVE TO EVERYBODY!