Proportions

The elk jerky is quite good. All lean and peppery.

I needed a good protein source, and by "good" I mean tasty, for I get a lot of protein already. I could almost say too much but I'm not certain that is the case. In a ratio to my carb intake at this time though, protein is overwhelming. It's this gut diet, you see. Think modified Atkins. Consequently, I weigh less now than I have in fifteen years. Maybe eighteen. But I had help before the diet, though not by choice.

But enough of that.

Twelve more gallons of the blue stuff was sprayed around the place yesterday. The effects are apparent this morning. So much bed straw, a fair amount of poison hemlock and thistle. At times I feel like just bombing everything green and starting over. Of course, it would be a battle I'd lose for there are enough seeds in the dirt to keep the "plants misplaced" coming back for fifty years. So, I'll settle for cosmetics. This evening I'll get out the weed whacker for some more trimming around the outbuildings. And later this week, maybe even as early as tomorrow, I'll start in on the blackberries.

"No, not the blackberries!" one might protest. No, not all of them. Just most of them, which will still leave us with gallons of berries this summer. And the berries I don't pick will get eaten by the birds so there will be plenty of seeds shat about to keep the next owner of this place (or even me, if we don't find a buyer for a while) busy for years to come.

If parentheticals can act as transitionals, I can tell you about some orchardists up the road who have had their place on the market for three years. Age, you understand, makes this type of work harder with each passing year, and they are both ready to kick back some, she to paint and he to continue with his first love, the study of rocks. Anyway, their place is now in escrow, an offer accepted by folks who first offered two years ago at an absurdly low price. All have evidently come to a better understanding of what the market will bear.

Meanwhile, houses in some Portland neighborhoods are staying on the market for no more than ten days and offers are being accepted over the asking price.

By way of a nod to all that is good, the bluebirds are feeding their young in the boxes we put up in the back ten acres.

Not much of anything

The Mallard hen and ducklings are nowhere to be seen.  And like last year, they posed for one photo shoot and were gone. It seems that even the drake is a little perplexed as he returns to the pond for several hours every day.

Other than that, not much to report. I painted blue the tansy and scotch broom I could find yesterday. Today is going to be warm, so herbicide, do your magic! Sun, do yours as well.

Smoking three pounds of elk strips for jerky today.

For your pleasure flock together

Call me Crazy, up this hour, but I've been working. Not as extreme if you consider that I took a two hour nap in the early evening, yet maybe Stupid because I went to bed when Thumper told me to after pushing, pushing, pushing it with an early rise, hitting the road, hopping from gallery to gallery, then a meeting with my new employer/editor, all the while mainlining caffeine. Excitable boy.



Reminds me of a story. When I was in high school, the gym-basketball coach/Civic-Economics Teacher, knowing that I lived on the grounds of the local state hospital told of person getting a flat tire along the road in front of that institution on a rainy day. Having removed the damaged tire and retrieved the spare from the trunk, he found that he has somehow kicked the lugs into the water in the ditch and cannot find them in the murk and mud. At about this time a mental patient strolls by and asks the matter.

"I've lost the lugs and I'm now in a fix."

"No problem." the resident says, "Just remove a lug from each of the other tires and put them on where three of the five you lost would go. That'll get you back into town."

"Hey, what a great idea! I never would have thought of that. And, if you don't mind me asking, then, why is a smart guy like yourself in a mental institution?"

To which the patient replied, "I may be crazy but I'm not stupid."

Heard that one before, have you? It loses its subtlety the older I get.

I know crazy when I see it. I can almost smell it and can spot a Thorazine shuffle from three blocks away. So, this is a gimme:

Worth a chuckle, perhaps. Without clicking on the picture, let me describe the finer parts. There are KEEP OUT signs in both the car and house windows. An old mattress springs and what's left of a mattress frame lean against the tailgate of the car. The windows have a grating on the inside and one is boarded over with a piece of plywood.

I have driven past this house many times. On occasion I have seen the car full of stuff. I mean full, not only as it sat in the driveway but around town. The woman who lives there sometimes sits outside and reads a book. I've assumed that she has a couple problems, one being paranoia and the other, because of the car filled with stuff, a problem with hoarding.

This is a small town and the adage holds true. It took asking one person... only one... about who this woman was. My mechanic. "She comes in and buys her spark plugs from me, then goes up to D&W to get a distributor cap and the wires she buys at NAPA. Doesn't want folks to know what she's up to, I imagine."

He also told me the car is sometimes filled because she removes all of what she perceives as valuable from her house whenever she goes someplace. Knowing this, among other things, the person I asked told me that she parks the way she does because of him.

"I was out test-driving a repair one day and I saw B down from her house about 200 feet talking to neighbor, so I pulled into her driveway and sat there long enough to make sure she saw that someone was in her drive. Ever since that day...

The "among other things?" She is supposedly writing a novel based on the history of the area. I told him should he speak to her again, to tell her he knows a writer who would be very interested in the manuscript.

I would.

New(s)

There's a reason we call it "news," although it does not necessarily refer to a completely original event.

That's the pseudo-brainy thought for the day, so obvious I should start over. But in all of the excitement, I won't.

Wait around long enough and something will happen. That's a good rule of thumb out here in the sticks. I often get the urge to write a post, but usually while I'm mowing the lawn or some similar chore. I think, "I could write about running out of gas and then spilling over when I thought the tank would easily take what remained in the five-gallon can." But that's what other forms of social media are for, which is why I don't. Of course, I just did, but for other purposes.

I just had a little bit left to mow. One strip. Yet, now with a full tank, there was grass out toward the barns that needed cut as well, so I headed out there. I started at the opposite end from where the pond is, and I mention this only because I then headed toward the pond, up a small embankment, onto the driveway, hung a left to come back down and saw the ducklings. The mowing came to an end for the day.

It's not a very good photo. I needed to stop it down more or maybe push the ISO up a notch for these little buggers. They were looking for Mom, who was nowhere to be found. Hopefully, they'll still be there tomorrow and I'll use my 100 mm lens accordingly. Mom and Dad showed up as I was headed back to the house. I probably scared them off with the mower.

And, I have a new writing gig. A bi-weekly column that will highlight single pieces of art in exhibits, the one piece that stands out in an otherwise fairly unremarkable show, six  or so little snippets at a time.  Now I just need a name for it. I'm thinking "Spot On."

There's also a light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak, on the health issues. I'm visiting the loo a lot less due to a magic potion and precisely placed needles. It's a welcome change but there's an aspect of the inconvenience that I'll rather miss, and that is, as unseemly as it may be, familiarizing myself with more public facilities. Even so, I believe I have enough photos now for a series.

I'll leave you with the latest.

Tonight's Sunset and Moonrise

By association

If you bothered to read the link in the last post, you might be interested in another perspective. This guy's a heavy-hitter. I wonder if he reads me.

Matters of taste.

I knew what the sound represented right away when it woke me this morning, a scratching, scratching, scratching, but in that first fog could not place where. I sat up, looked around and focused. Outside the bedroom window? The roof? The cat heard it too. Scratch, scratch, scratch. In the ceiling just above my head. The same place as a couple years ago. Most likely a mouse honed in on another mouse's urine smell and thought this a good location. I'll be baiting the attic.

Certainly not much new here. Another essay. This one a bit rambunctious, even though, not certain foul words would fly, toned down a bit from earlier drafts. Still, based on what I've read from earlier discussions about this artist, there may still be an opportunity to let loose a few.

But no, not much new. Seasons cycle, which is sometimes enough excitement. The mallards are back, or rather, some mallards have taken up residency on the pond again. The hen is in the tall grass or briars somewhere near and the drake is still hanging around, meaning that the clutch is still being built. It is still a mystery where last year's mama and babies got off to after sighting them once. No evidence of feathers or even spent egg shells. Anyway, here's wishing them luck.

And the first opportunity I get, that stray tomcat is going to taste some lead. The compost pile is hungry.