Post #7 - Books & Bruises

B.J. Boomhauer is a collector. His farm is strewn with packrat treasures as small & common as wheatback pennies and as large as an early 1970s firetruck (that still runs). He and I trade a lot of junk...err...vintage treasures. I guess the distinction depends alot on whether you're the buyer or the seller.

He knows I like books. I don't just enjoy reading books, I like the tangible item itself - sometimes the content is irrelevant. I have lots of books and, like vinyl records, seem to accumulate them without even trying. One day, B.J. called me up and offered a box of books.

What kind of books?

I don't know. They're books. You want 'em?

How many are there?

I don't know. It's a box. It's full. You want 'em?

Of course I'll take them. They're free. Maybe there's something interesting in there. Perhaps even something I could sell. Instead, what I got was a box full of romance novels. Lots and lots of romance novels - Harlequin, Silhouette and the like - some dating back to the mid 1970s. I get a chuckle out of the covers but, as a literary genre, nothing in the box interests me.

Well, one thing was interesting. A big portion of the books were all love stories centered around Arab Sheikhs: Surrender to the Sheikh, Hide-and-Sheikh, One Night with the Sheikh, Sheikh Surrender, Taming the Sheikh... There were dozens of similiar titles. I cannot help but imagine some repressed Baptist Alabama hausfrau getting all hot-n-bothered in the Wal-Mart book aisle, fantasizing about her dusky desert warrior.

Which reminds me...

Remember when I posted that photo of the big bruise on my ass that I got from a dog bite? You may or may not be aware that many people across the globe have a fetish for bruises. It's a fetish I never really gave much thought to. I certainly wasn't thinking about it when I titled the photo "ass_bruise.jpg." So now, if you do a Google image search for ass bruise, my ass bruise is in the top ten results. Put those words in quotation marks and it's the first image returned.

I get up to 50 unique hits a day from people doing image searches for ass bruise. People around the world are looking at my bruised ass. A good percentage of the hits - perhaps a third - come from Middle Eastern countries such as Iran, Egypt, Kuwait, U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia. (Eastern Europe comes in second). Apparently bruised asses are popular in that part of the world.

Bet that Dixie hausfrau never read about anything like that in her romance novels.

Has it been a month already?

It's been a month since my last post. Sigh... It's been a busy month. This court shit is busting my ass. In addition to my community service (11 days down, 19 to go), this month I've had to attend re-education camp in Roanoke every Saturday. That's 25 miles one way. That's 8 rides I have to search for (sessions are about 5 hours long) because I don't get my license back until the middle of May.

Fortunately (for me anyway), Bark Boomhauer has to go to the same re-education camp as me. He got a DUI over a year ago across the state line and had finally finished all that the court required of him. He applied for license reinstatement and was basically told "Well, you may be squared up with Georgia but Alabama still has a few hoops for you to jump through." So now he's paying $265 for re-education camp and I'm bumming along with his rides. Re-education camp also required us to attend four AA meetings this month (another 5 miles each way).

I also have a once-a-week trip to Wedowee for community service. That's another 15 miles each way - 10 more rides this month. And the once-a-month trip back to Roanoke to pee in a cup. And the once-a-month trip to Wedowee for "court review." That's when everybody on community service shows up to court and has to face the judge.

You sit around waiting for your name to be called. Luckily for me, it's alphabetical so I get out of there pretty quick - less than an hour. God forbid your name is Williams. You go in front of the judge, a hard ass straight out of central casting, who asks if you've been coming to community service every week and if your fines are up-to-date (even though the court already has paperwork on this shit). If the answer to those questions is "no," you will go to jail. If you do not show up to court review, a warrant will be issued for your arrest. The cops will show up at your house.

Many people I've worked with on community service have lost their jobs because of these demands on their time. Those who were already out of work can't even look for a job because who's gonna hire you when you're guaranteed to miss at least one day a week?

In another stroke of good fortune (for me anyway), I met someone at community service who lives very close to me and I now hitch rides with her. She was one of 148 people arrested at a weekly cockfight a mile down the road from me. She got 40 hours of community service and fines totalling almost $4000 - a much harsher penalty than drunk driving. Hell, she probably would've gotten a lighter sentence had she been selling drugs in the school parking lot. Not to condone cockfighting but this seems silly to me. In all honesty, those birds probably didn't have it any worse than the millions of factory farm chickens being raised and slaughtered for meat in this country.


Speaking of factory farm chickens: I got four new refugee hens a couple weeks ago. Like all my new refugees, they are sad and pitiful looking. They are missing lots of feathers and scared of everything. They are still confused by the "real" food the other birds greedily devour, preferring the feed they grew up on (of which the factory farm kindly donated about 150 pounds). They spend all day inside the coop even though that have access to the whole outdoors. Only one of the new hens has started venturing outside and has discovered that earthworms are magically delicious.




Speaking of creepy-crawlies: I recently uncovered this humoungous grub while transforming the old barn floor into my newest garden plot:


It's the larvae of a scary-looking yet harmless stag beetle. It's probably three or four years old. It's been underneath the old barn this whole time, feeding on rotting wood. Decades of decomposing pine planks and oak rafters has left this little plot with six inches of some of the best, rich, black soil on the property. And, since it's all encased in a concrete foundation, it's a raised bed garden!

Since the wondergrub will do no harm beyond scaring small children, I snapped a few pictures and put it back where I'd found it.

Not everyone was in agreement about reburying the grub. Buddie was eyeing that thing like it was a juicy jumbo prawn. A bug that size could choke a chicken!



Speaking of choking the chicken: I finally had to dispatch my overly-aggressive rooster, Caleb. At the time of his death, he weighed a whopping 18-pounds. Not only was he constantly attacking me, he had grown so large that he could no longer safely mate with the hens.

He had previously injured Murray who spent a month being mostly confined to the porch while she recuperated. She had finally healed enough that I was able to let her run loose with the rest of the flock, though she still had to wear a saddle to protect her from Caleb's amorous advances. I fashioned it from a 50-year-old flour sack I'd found in the old barn.



When his sharp spurs ripped holes through the skin of a second hen, I knew it was time for him to go to that big chicken coop in the sky.

The question was how to send him there?

His neck was so large I couldn't even get my hand all the way around it. There was no way I could get a hatchet through it with one swift blow. His feathers were so thick they would've blunted any blow I could deliver. When I had killed Cornelieus, who weighed almost 15 pounds, it took more than a few swings to do the job - a situation that was horrible for both of us.

I came up with the bright idea of shooting Caleb in the head - kneel down next him, level the barrel to his temple and pull the trigger. Have you ever tried to shoot a chicken in the head with a .22? Even at extremely close range, it is not an easy task. A chicken's head is in constant motion. They're like bobbleheads.

I put the gun away then chased Caleb around the yard until I caught him. I held the struggling rooster tight and weighed my remaining options.

I thought about wringing his neck. I've never been comfortable with this method even though it is widely recommended. I tried it once with Joshua, the first chicken I ever killed, and it didn't go so well. I hadn't tried it since, opting for the chopping block. I wasn't sure I wanted to give it another shot, at least not with Chickenzilla.

I was reconsidering the inadequate hatchet when he almost broke free of my grasp. I knew if he got away, I wouldn't be able to get near him all day. If that happened, I'd end up having to shoot him in full view all the chickens. I hate killing chickens in front of other chickens. Besides, I'm such a lousy shot that the prospect of all that could go wrong made this prospect unpalatable.

Instinctively, my right hand reached for his neck and squeezed. Yes, I literally choked the chicken. And he fought me every inch of the way. Can't blame him. Hell, I don't even blame him for the things he did that made me have to kill him. He was just doing what roosters do. But he was large and under the misconception he was in charge - a dangerous combination. There was no way I could have this angry, horny cock running loose in the yard all spring. In the end, I was just doing what farmers do. Well, I don't think this was the way a real farmer would've done it.

I fought Caleb mano a mano. While he got in a few good hits, I finally pinned him to the ground with one knee, one hand wrapped around around his feet to keep his sharp spurs from digging into my skin and my other hand wrapped around his neck. I didn't dare let go now - I'd never get near him again. I held on for dear life until I knew for certain he was dead - a fact made evident by the evacuation of his bowels. In other words: With his dying breath, Caleb shit on me. I reached for my nearby knife, slit his jugular vein and bled him out.

After butchering him, I had ten pounds of meat in the fridge and freezer. His drumsticks and thighs alone weighed four and half pounds. That's about how much each of my other two roosters weigh. The breast meat came to three pounds.

a single chicken breast - one and a half pounds

Speaking of something completely not related to anything above: Angela recently posted photos to her blog of a bruise she got from wiping out on her bike.

After being roommates for almost a decade, Angela and I are like this (you can't see it, but I'm crossing my fingers to show we're super tight). We can read eachother's minds, we can finish eachother's sentences, we can leap to the same conclusions in a single bound. Even our periods were synched up.

What I'm trying to say here is that a mere 5,000 miles cannot break the bond that we share. So it was no surprise to learn that Angela got a big bike-related ass bruise within days of me getting a big bike-related ass bruise.

A neighbor-cousin lent me an old-school one-speed bicycle while I'm without a driver's license. I use it for traveling to and from various odd jobs. It sucks not being able to change gears while traveling this hilly terrain but it still beats walking. It's not so bad going to jobs because I live on one of the highest points around and can coast downhill much of the way. Coming home is a different story, taking at least twice as long because I spend a lot of time pushing the bike uphill.

The furthest commute takes place on Fridays when I ride five miles each way to earn twenty-five bucks cleaning a house (though, if someone is home, they'll give me and the bike a ride home). I had just pulled into their driveway when their dog ran up and bit me on the ass.

This is no ordinary dog. It's a full-grown male Great Pyrenees, weighing well over 100 pounds. He's big enough that he can keep all four feet on the ground and still reach my ass on a bike seat. He didn't bite me nearly as hard as he could have, yet it still hurt like hell and left a bruise that looks like somebody punched me in the ass with pointy brass knuckles.

Sadly, no one was home that day so me and my sore ass had to pedal/push the bike home.

So, Angela, this ass shot is for you:



There are still absurd tales from community service and re-education camp I want to share but those will have to wait for another day. I hate to see March pass without a single post and I'll never get this done if I try to tell those stories right now.

Happy whatever-it-is-you-celebrate!

First off, I want to thank everyone who has donated to the cause. All I want for Christmas is to stay out of the pokey in the new year and, thanks to good people like you, it looks like I may get my wish.

My court date isn't for a couple more weeks yet so there's still time to donate if you haven't already. Even five or ten dollars helps. Think of it as the beer or two you would buy me if we ran into eachother.

Been borrowing a neighbor-cousin's truck to get to a few cleaning jobs but otherwise I've been sticking around the homestead. That job at the nearby poultry farm never really panned out. A few days here and there but not nearly as much work as I'd hoped for.

Been cleaning stuff out of the old Mitsubishi I drove from Alaska. It's just been sitting in the driveway, serving as a storage unit for over a year. In the summer, I used the heat trapped inside to sun-dry tomatoes, apples and hot peppers. After I get it emptied, I'll give it a jumpstart and see how she runs.

The only reason I wasn't driving it was because I had the truck. No sense paying insurance on two cars. I was going to switch back to the car this spring when the tags expired on the truck because the car gets better mileage. Ah well...I guess it'll happen a little sooner than I planned.

No matter how far out in the boonies you live, you cannot escape advertising. It will find you!

Recently had a blimp fly directly over the house. As I've mentioned before, the airspace above Spenardo del Sur sees many types of flying contraptions.

Most noticeable are the navy jets which frequently pass overhead at sometimes alarmingly low altitudes. Helicopters are common too - whether solo or in military groups of eight. Commercial jets fly way up high and almost out of sight but, when the weather is just right, they leave the sky criss-crossed with contrails.

But blimps are rare. This was only the second blimp I've seen since moving here - and the first one probably didn't get within 3 miles of my place.

But this one was coming straight for us. Della switched into guard dog mode and ran to the edge of the hill to confront the intruder.






I couldn't help but laugh as she wildly barked at the approaching blimp. But, in the end, the blimp did leave so I guess Della had the last laugh. I gave her a treat and a little extra lovin' for being such a fierce guard dog.



Glad to see solstice pass. While winters aren't nearly as dark (or cold) in Alabama as they are in Alaska, I'm still glad to herald the return of the sun. Thirteen years in Alaska makes you realize that winter solstice is the really big kahuna of the holiday season. Yay, sun! Go, sun!


Well, it's Christmas Eve. I didn't put up any decorations this year. Last year I hung some lights & decorations on Donner the Dead's antlers. But I sold Donner to B.J. Boomhauer a couple months ago. He'd been begging me to sell him that caribou head since the day he laid eyes on it. A few months ago I needed some cash and I finally gave in.

It was two years ago over the holidays that Donner & I drove out across the frozen wilderness, crossing from Alaska to the Yukon to British Columbia and south back into the states. We had some good times.

Donner chillin' in the Hollywood Hills.

Donner will get a spot of honor in the cabin B.J. built this year by the creek on his farm. He loves that raggedy old caribou head. On the first few days of deer season, he drove around with Donner's antlers in the back of his pickup just to fuck with the locals.


This year, the only sign of Christmas in the house is the holiday cards on the mantle. And I'm cool with that. I spent a decade working jobs that abnormally extended the holiday season to anywhere from 3 to 10 months of the year. It's nice to take Christmas off.


I didn't even build a fire tonight. Hell, it's 60 degrees out. Screw ambience - I'd rather save the wood for a cold night. I'm drinking some of B.J. Boomhauer's homemade blueberry wine and munching on toasted pecans.

Playing old records on the record player I bartered for last summer. No Christmas music though. Currently playing old Beatles LPs (though "Hey Jude" does kinda sound like a Christmas song - at least it does when you're drinking blueberry wine). When I was in junior high, I got a few friends to raid their parents' record collections and bought many old 50s & 60s LPs for a fraction of their worth.

I'm actually listening to these records now to ascertain their condition. The time has come to sell them. I need the money more than I need the vinyl.


Thinkin' about making a pot of rice. Need to clean up the house a little. I'm expecting guests tomorrow - a couple old Alaskan friends who currently live only a couple hours away.

The mice have not stopped stirring. The world has not stopped spinning. It is just another night.


Last but not least: Angela has finally jumped on the blog train. Check out her daily drawings at Life In Spenard.

Never meanin' no harm...

Was hired to do some cleaning for a guy that I’m pretty sure will be the next Boomhauer Brother. We’ll call him Ray. He lives not far from B.J Boomhauer’s farm. I hadn’t expected to work anywhere except home on Monday but Ray stopped by that morning and asked if I’d be available for a couple hours work. Hell, yeah! I’m poor. I need the dough.

I tell him I’ll be by in an hour and a half. I haven’t eaten yet and need a little something in my belly otherwise I’ll be absolutely starving in four hours. I stuff a little of the previous night’s pasta in my maw, just enough to keep me going until I’d get back home around 3pm - almost 2 hours before sundown. That’s the time the chickens need to be locked up inside Frankencoop so as to be safe from nocturnal predators. (After the dog attack from the last post, I kept them locked up for about a week but then started letting them out again. I hate keeping them locked up all day and, besides, it's much cheaper when they can forage for their own food.)

After a while of working at Ray’s place, he offered me a whiskey and coke. Alcohol - especially hard liquor - is a rare luxury for me these days so I gladly accept. We take a smoke break and shoot the shit for a while. As I get back to work, he refills my glass before putting it away. The next break saw my glass refilled a couple more times.

I used to be able to hold my liquor but now out of practice. Plus, I don't always remember that there’s 65 pounds less of me to hold that alcohol with. By the time three o'clock rolled around, I had no business being behind the wheel. I told myself that it was only about three miles and it was all back roads.

It was broad daylight on a clear afternoon. I was driving down the road - a bumpy red dirt road winding through the backwoods. I’ve been down this very road a couple hundred times and I never go over 25 miles an hour. I always have so much crap in the back of the truck: stuff pulled from the old barn that needs to come into the house, stuff from the house that needs to go in the storage shed, stuff in the storage shed that needs to go to Frankencoop. You get the idea.

When going down bumpy dirt roads, I worry about the tailgate dropping down while I’m driving. It only happens about once every four or five months - but that’s enough to be extra cautious when I have dozens of glass canning jars in the back of the truck. These jars - dating mostly from the ’40s and ’50s - had been washed and loosely boxed for transport to the storage shed. I probably would’ve done this Monday had Ray not dropped by.

I have no recollection of the accident. All I know is, about a mile down the road , the car veered out of control. I went back to look at the tire tracks the next day. There’s not much traffic back there and the tracks were still easily visible. I could see where I just started swerving. And the gouge in the middle of the road where my wheel came off. Not just the tire but the whole damned wheel. Busted the rear axle too. And the scars on the embankment where my truck came to rest after one complete rollover (in which it also ended up facing in the other direction).




Good thing I always wear my seatbelt. It's one of the few good habits I have.

All those glass canning jars in the back went flying. Fortunately, I have a topper on the truck. Or I should say “had.” It ended up tearing loose in the rollover but did managed to confine most of the broken glass to the pickup bed.

I don’t know how fast I was going Monday afternoon but, like I said, I never drive over 25 mph on that road. I don’t know why I pulled the wheel so hard to the left. Nor do I remember the driver’s side window facing the dirt or the buckling of the windshield. The most exciting thing to happen to me during my almost two years here and I miss it.

I do remember the old lady asking if I was alright. I remember picking glass up out of the road and tossing it the back of the now-open truck bed. And I remember B.J. Boomhauer coming to the rescue. He’d heard about the accident on his police scanner. Since he was already so close by, he went to take a look.

He stayed with me and my mangled truck until the cops arrived. He left to take a bucketful of feed to my chickens and locked up them in the coop for me. When he came back, he was able to talk the tow truck driver into dropping the truck off at my house down the road as opposed to taking it all the way to town 30 miles away. The driver agreed to it only after insisting on payment up front. God bless B.J., he paid it.

For a while, it was looking as though I might be able to just walk away from the mess - only be stuck paying B.J. back for the tow bill. But then the news came over the radio: a state trooper had somehow been called and was on the way. Fuck. Any hopes of making this quietly go away vanished.

It was almost an hour wait for him to show up. Then I was whisked away to the county jail about 15 miles away. Fingerprinted, photographed and suited up in orange. After being issued my mat, sheet, blanket, toilet paper, comb, towel and toothpaste, I was dumped in a concrete block room with a dozen other women. Most of them were sitting on the floor in front of a small television that sat atop an upside down garbage can. It was tuned into an episode of “Samantha Who.” Someone said it was the only channel that was coming in worth a shit.

Most of these women were not here on an overnight visit like me. They were serving out sentences of anywhere from a few days to a couple months. It gets really boring in the Randolph County Jail. I was something new and therefore interesting. After about 90 minutes of being the center of attention, I just wanted to lay down and not think about it all for a little bit.

I know some of you, at some point in your life, have seen the inside of county jail. I don’t need to tell you that you don’t sleep well in jail. But, for those of you who haven’t had the experience, it’s a very noisy place. Lots of people in jail are loud people. They don’t care if you’re trying to sleep. Sounds echo in those concrete walls. Everything is amplified. You hear people through the walls. You can’t always tell what they’re saying but you can hear them. A cellmate demonstrated that, if you yelled directly into the vent next to my bunk, you can carry on a conversation with someone in the juvi section. Of course, she did this while I was trying to sleep.

Being the new fish, I got the least desirable bunk. It was a top bunk in a room that slept four. The other top bunk had two metal steps bolted to the wall to help getting up there. My bunk was missing that amenity. You had to step on the lower bunk while pulling yourself up on the frame of neighboring bunk bed. You threw your leg over the metal edge of the bunk that dug into your skin - even through the orange jumpsuit - and use your upper body strength to hoist yourself into bed.

And if you had to pee in the middle of the night, you ran the risk of stepping on your lower bunkmate during the dismount. And the toilet in our cell was the loudest toilet I’ve ever heard in my life! The toilets in the other two cells were probably just as loud but were muffled to my ears by the concrete walls. But the cold bare steel bowl in our cubical sounded like a jet engine.

At 4:30 am, breakfast was served. A Styrofoam plate with a small serving of plain scrambled eggs - no discernable salt or pepper, thin oatmeal with only the slightest hint of sugar and one slice of unadorned slice of stale white bread. I hadn’t eaten anything in about 17 hours so I greedily accepted the grub. I watched other inmates do a little trading. “If you’re not gonna eat your eggs, I’ll give you my bread for ‘em.” I just ate my food in silence, leaning against the wall, dumping the empty tray in trash before clambering back into my top bunk. Most everybody went back to sleep within half an hour of eating.

I grabbed a few more hours of shitty sleep until finally climbing out of bed a little before 8am. I’d been told I’d go before I judge around eight. I wanted to be sure my hair was combed and my face was washed. During booking, I’d gotten a look at myself in the mirror. Big mark on my forehead. Bigger than a scratch but smaller than a gash. I could feel a couple knots along my hairline. I didn’t know it yet but I had developed a big purple shiner. No mirrors in the jail cells. Turned my socks inside out. They were dirty and spotted with blood. That doesn’t look good. I don’t know why I wasn’t given back my shoes. Everybody else had their shoes, Mine were with all my other clothes in a paper sack elsewhere in the building.

I sat in the common area between the cells, where the TV/garbage can set up was. I sat there for at least an hour and a half, waiting to see the judge. Everyone else was still asleep. I watched some fuzzy CNN for a while but then the reception on all channels cut out unexpectedly, leaving me alone with no books, no newspaper, no nothing. Not even cigarettes. That’s fucking cruel. My fellow inmates said the men get to smoke. I made some tiny paper airplanes out of a scrap of paper found on the table.

Finally, a female officer called my name and I was told to gather all the stuff I’d been issued and follow her. I was getting out. No appearance before the judge. My half-asleep bunkmate muttered “Congrats” as I pulled my mat off the top level. I gave her my roll of toilet paper.

I was led back to the room where I’d been booked and handed the sack holding my clothes. I changed out of my orange jumpsuit with “RANDOLPH CO JAIL” in black block letters running down the leg and into the grubby work clothes I’d worn the day before - now splattered with blood.

Then I was led into a room where B.J. Boomhauer’s smiling face waited to greet me! He'd come in to fill out all the necessary paperwork and take me home. We still had to go across the parking lot to the courthouse and go see a man about a court date, but then I was going home.

I face the judge early next month. Regardless of the outcome, I will be stuck with some hefty fines. Fines I cannot really afford considering I live on only about $300 a month. So I’m in a money gathering frenzy right now because I don't want to go back to the pokey. I’ve already sold the truck for parts-n-scrap, though I still have to finish cleaning all my broken crap out of it first. Also scrounging around for more stuff to sell on eBay. I’ve still got a number of housecleaning gigs set up for the month but now have to borrow someone else's car to get to them.

I still have the Mitsubishi I drove from Alaska - all it needs is a jumpstart and a tire inflated. But before it’s street legal, I have to get new plates, tags and registration. And that costs more money that I don’t have. Not to mention my insurance rates will go up now. And property taxes are due at the end of the month. And all my regular bills.

So, if anybody out there wants to make a donation, I ain't too proud to beg.

Dogs gone wild

Bocephus Boomhauer stopped by in his truck last week. Two of his dogs followed him up the long drive leading to my house. The dogs have followed him up here before and I always keep one eye on them because they always seem to keep one eye on the freely wandering chickens. Up until now, the dogs had never bothered the birds and would semi-obey Bocephus when he called them.

But Wednesday, as Bo and I were talking in the front yard, one of the dogs started chasing a hen. The second dog joined in the chase. The hen became increasingly frantic which only excited the dogs more. No amount of Bo's yelling was going to stop the dogs.

I took off running after them. As I passed through the remains of the tomato patch, I snatched a 3-foot wooden stake out of the ground. The dogs chased the poor bird about 50 yards before finally pinning her, leaving a trail of white feathers in their wake. I charged like a sword-wielding warrior.

The dogs ran off and I gingerly picked the hen up out of the grass. She was still alive. She had some bad puncture wounds on her back but, before I could check for other injuries, I saw the dogs running towards Frankencoop where 17 other chickens were congregated. So, with the injured hen tucked under my left arm and a tomato stake in my right hand, I charged down the hill.

The dogs ran into the flock, snapping and barking. The chickens scattered like a billiard break. Chaos ensued. I put the injured hen down on the ground near the coop. She was heavy - about eight pounds. Felt even heavier after two consecutive 50-yard dashes. For the next few minutes I sprinted to and fro, swinging my tomato stake, trying to keep the dogs away from the birds.

Sometime while this was going on, Bo drove his truck from the house down to Frankencoop. He yelled at the dogs but they paid him no mind. He asked if I had a gun but I told him it was up at the house.

The dogs chased another hen towards the road. I rushed after them but, before I could reach them, they pinned her to the ground and started to bite her. Once again, the dogs ran off when I got close. This time they ran to the road and headed up the hill to Bo's house. Bo said he was going to go home and make sure the dogs stayed away from my place.

I turned back to face the coop and there wasn't a chicken in sight. Not even the hen that had just been attacked or the injured hen I put on the ground. I walked inside the coop and found Corny the rooster hiding out in the back room. I was exhausted. My legs were rubber, I could barely stand. My tomato stake sword was now a cane. But there were still 17 hens to account for.

I returned to the house and checked on the three remaining chickens that were still in the front yard where this whole fracas began. I threw the rifle in the truck and drove back to the coop. With a bucket of feed in my hand, I set out to find my birds.

Most of them had taken cover in the thick brush between the coop and the woods. I trekked through the kudzu and briars, trying to coax them out with the feed. A few slowly followed me but most weren't ready to come back into the open. A few had hidden in the brush between the coop and goat pasture, including the one the dogs had attacked near the road. She was dead when I found her. Her belly had been ripped open and her intestines shredded. I'm surprised she was able to manage the 30-foot distance between the attack and where I found her. I put her in the back of the pickup.

More of the birds were making their way back to the coop. After about an hour, I had rounded them all up except for the first hen that had been attacked - the one I'd set on the ground. It took about another 20 minutes to find her cowering in the kudzu. She was still alive. I took her up to the front yard and started fixing up a cage in the house. I still didn't know the extent of her injuries but it was obvious she couldn't sleep under my porch like she usually does - especially since it was supposed to be below freezing that night.

I set her up in a large cage with food and water. Her appetite seemed good and she was able to walk, albiet with a limp. There didn't seem to be any internal injures. As long as her wounds didn't get infected, maybe she'd be able to pull through.

She didn't. She died after a little more than 24 hours.

They were both big white factory farm refugees. Chicken house chickens just can't fly like my other birds. Makes them an easier mark for predators. Neither of these two birds had names. I can't even tell most of the white hens apart from eachother.

I guess that's what made it easier to salvage the meat from these two hens. There are some of the chickens that I could never bear to eat. But neither of these two hens had been standouts - just good, solid egg layers that looked damned cute running around the yard. And I'm too poor right now to even think about not eating them.

Bo came back later and apologized. Gave me a couple bucks for the dead birds. Said he'd shoot the dogs himself if they ever killed another chicken.

Since the attack, the Frankencoop chickens have been locked up most of the time. Once a day, I let them out for a couple hours while I work nearby where I can watch over them. Of course, the gun is never far from my side during these supervised visits. The three remaining chickens sleeping under my front porch still get all-day access to the outdoors.

Eventually, all the chickens will have their outdoor privileges reinstated. But, for now, I am being an overprotective mother hen.

Jerry Springer and Unexpected Visitors

If there's any television show that the Boomhauer Brothers love, it's Jerry Springer. Whenever I go over to B.J. Boomhauer's farm to hang out and drink beer, it always seems that Springer is on the TV (unless there's a NASCAR race going on).

Now I got nothing against Jerry Springer. I actually am quite fond of him and his show. I've watched it sporadically over the 18 years it's been on the air. It's silly, but it's entertaining.

I even donated $20 to the exploratory committee he set up when he was considering a run for the U.S. Senate. Scoff if you must, but remember that he has a history in politics - dating back to the '60s when he was a campaign aide for Bobby Kennedy and the '70s when he served as councilman and mayor of Cincinnati. When he decided not to run for the Senate, he sent my $20 back. That made me like him even more.

Anyway, the Boomhauer Brothers don't care about Jerry's politics. The watch the Springer Show for the fighting, the trannies, the midgets, etc... It's silly, but it's entertaining.

Months ago, B.J. Boomhauer started joking about how he wanted to go on Jerry Springer. "We'll both go on. Tell 'em we're having an affair. We'll break the news to my wife on the show."

Yeah, right. Like I would ever go on television and tell the world I'm fucking a Boomhauer Brother. "Sure, B.J. But the real twist will be when your wife and I reveal that we've been fucking all along behind your back."

This only made him roar with laughter. He thinks this would make great television.

A few weeks ago, I went out to dinner with B.J & Mrs. Boomhauer. We took a little side trip across the state border so we could pick up some beer. While they were in the store, I nosily picked up a Fed/Ex envelope laying on the backseat next to me. I opened it and saw that it was from the Jerry Springer Show. In addition to an autographed photo of Jerry, there was also a letter that thanked B.J. for contacting them and mentioned the inclusion of a disposable camera. I flashed back to the memory of B.J. snapping my photo with a disposable camera a week or two earlier.

Oh fucking Christ.

I hadn't really thought about any of this until today. B.J. stopped by this afternoon to do a little trading. I swapped him a couple old doo-dads I'd found - a 1940s fountain pen and an equally old enameled pan - for a 12-pack of beer. We were sitting on the poop deck working out a trade of a tobacco pipe shaped like a gun (you put the barrel in your mouth) for a brand new pair of binoculars when his cell phone rang.

He starts talking to some guy named Fred on the other end of the line. They talk about something or another, B.J. telling him he won't be home for about another hour. He says he's hanging out with a friend who moved down here from Alaska. "Here, you should talk to her."

I really hate it when somebody hands you the phone, insisting you talk to someone you don't know. I don't know Fred. I have nothing to say to Fred. Ignoring my protests, B.J. thrusts the phone into my hand. "Just talk to him."

"Hi, Jackie. This is Fred from the Jerry Springer show."

Oh fucking Christ.

Fred goes on to explain to me how the Jerry Springer Show is going to be moving away from the fighting, the trannies, the midgets, the fighting tranny midgets and getting back to real people drama. Did I happen to know anybody with any drama going on that would want to appear on the Jerry Springer Show? Did I want to be on the Jerry Springer Show?

I was completely taken by surprise. I didn't wake up this morning thinking I'd be talking to the Jerry Springer show today. I'm no good at improv. I just stammered something about while I'm sure there's plenty of drama in this tiny town, I just hadn't lived here long enough to be able to recommend anyone or anything to him at this moment. I'm slightly better at outright lying than I am at improv. He asked me to give him a call if I thought of anyone who'd be interested in appearing on the show and to remind B.J. to call him back when he got home.

While a free trip to Chicago plus whatever stipend they pay is enticing, rest assured that you will not be seeing me anytime soon on the Jerry Springer Show. But if B.J. Boomhauer decides to make an appearance, you'll read it here first.



Okay, now that we have that weirdness out of the way, let's get back to regular farm news.

Had a couple unwanted visitors to the chicken coop this week. This morning I was making my rounds in the coop when I noticed this:


In case you can't tell what this is, it's a freshly shedded snakeskin hanging out of a mousehole above a boarded up door.

I never bothered plugging up the mousehole in the drywall because the little bastards would just chew another one. Besides, the mice don't really pose much of a problem and there's little I can do about them anyway.

The snake doesn't really pose too much of a problem either. It's not poisonous and it won't attack the chickens. But it will eat eggs. And there is a hen sitting on a clutch of eggs at the bottom of that boarded up door. The first thing I did was count the eggs in the nest. All present and accounted for.

For all I know, the snake left immediately after rubbing its old skin off against the rough wooden boards that make up that wall (cut from trees that started growing in the 1820s - I counted the rings). Even so, I was extra cautious before reaching into unattended nests to grab fresh eggs. I'll admit it's pretty creepy to think that snakes are IN THE WALLS.

When I pulled the skin out of the hole, it was about two feet long. But the head and tail portions were missing so who knows for sure how big this snake was. Judging by the girth, I'm guessing at least four feet. I really didn't feel like reaching into the hole to see if I could find the rest of it.




It's things like this that remind me why I'm waiting until winter to crawl under the coop to salvage the rest of the old copper plumbing pipes. I'm not particularly afraid of snakes, but that doesn't mean I like them.


The other visitor to the coop was much more unexpected. A few days ago, I was working a couple hundred yards from Frankencoop when I heard the chickens squawking up a storm. I knew something was wrong because Sanchez, the young rooster hanging out with me in the garden, took off running towards the coop the instant the ruckus started.

I ran down the hill, expecting to chase off a neighbor's dog or a stray cat. Instead, I found a juvenile Coopers hawk INSIDE the coop. All of the chickens were wisely outside of the the coop.




The hawk was about half the size of my smallest chicken. I couldn't help but think of Henery Hawk from those old Foghorn Leghorn cartoons: "I'm a chickenhawk and you're a chicken. Are you coming quietly or do I have to muss you up?"

Mice, coyotes and rednecks

I've been doing my best to keep the mice in the house under control. For a while there, they'd gotten mighty bold and were driving me crazy. They'd managed to get into kitchen cabinets that used to be off-limits, tearing into previously safe foodstuffs and leaving a mess that then attracted ants. I plugged up the new mouse holes but they just gnawed more of them.

I emptied all the cupboards and gave everything a good cleaning. All vulnerable foodstuffs either went into the freezer, fridge or plastic containers. For the first day or two, the mice merely gnawed on the plastic containers, leaving tiny blue plastic shavings which at least didn't attract ants.

Eventually, their numbers dwindled. I would go days at a time without a sign of a mouse in the house. Oh, I knew they were still there - but at least there were fewer of them. I can deal with a small population.

But the few that stayed behind are crafty, stubborn little fuckers - an emerging strain of supermice. Since regular food is now out of reach, they have gone to great lengths to find other things to eat.

About a two weeks ago, one managed to reach one of the higher bookshelves. It climbed a stack of books and stole all the corn kernel teeth from my Hunter S. Thompson Day of the Dead skull. It's nothing I can't fix but it still pissed me off.




A few days passed and then I discovered a mouse had climbed on top of a dresser and devoured the corner of one of my sugar skulls. This was damage I could not fix but it didn't really ruin the piece. In fact, I kinda liked how it looked with half of the lower jaw missing.

I can't help but wonder: Why am I compelled to make skully art out of food products?

I moved the sugar skulls to the fireplace mantle for safekeeping. Well, that didn't work. Some sly mouse figured out how to get up there. This time, it knocked the damaged skull right onto the floor where it shattered into more than a dozen pieces.


At first I thought simple gravity might be responsible. Perhaps it just tipped over due to the missing corner. But closer inspection revealed fresh teeth marks on the back of a second sugar skull and tiny turds near the base.



But I have a much larger wildlife worry now. Two days ago I saw a coyote in my yard. I was inside around 6pm when Della started barking. She rarely ever barks during the day. I poked my head out the backdoor and saw a large animal about 80 feet from the house. At first I thought it was a small deer but, when it turned to run, I saw a long tail.

"A fox," I thought. "A really big fox that wants to eat the chickens in my front yard." I grabbed my rifle and headed for the front porch (which should now be called the poop deck since the chickens figured out how to get up there). The animal was standing in the tall grass (I really need to mow more often), just looking at me. I took a shot and missed. It ran across the back field. I managed to squeeze off two more bad shots before it disappeared in the brush.

Later that night, I was looking up a little information on foxes and came to the realization that what I'd seen was actually a coyote. I knew coyotes were in the region, I've often heard them at night but this is the first time I've ever seen one. And while I always enjoy spotting new wildlife, I'm quite unhappy about seeing a big, hungry coyote so damned close to my house (and chickens).



I'm still flippin' out about this Sarah Palin thing. She's all over my TV, radio and computer. She's gonna be on Face The Nation this weekend. Tom Brokaw's talking about her. My beloved McLaughlin Group won't shut up about her. Michael Carey and Eric Croft are being interviewed on NPR and CNN is talking about Hollis French and Wev Shea. As an Alaskan-in-exile, this is some seriously weird shit.

It really makes me miss working at the recording studio in Anchorage. Election season was always my favorite time of year because my office was a nonstop parade of politicos recording TV and radio ads - from lowly school board candidates to that indicted troll, Senator Ted Stevens.

Hell, it really makes me miss Hunter S. Thompson. I would give my left tit to hear his take on this circus sideshow.


Politics is one of the most interesting things in the world to me but I have no one here in the boonies to talk to about it. I'm scared to talk politics with these people. The subject does come up from time to time but I'm never the one to bring it up.

I was happy when B.J. Boomhauer volunteered the info that he's voting for Obama. That was a surprise, considering he's such a redneck good ol' boy. He told me that the Republicans had fucked shit up so bad that there's no way he'd vote for one this year.

But before I had a chance to feel all warm and fuzzy about a Boomhauer Brother voting for a black man, I met a straight-out-of-Deliverance motherfucker that made B.J. Boomhauer look like Bobby Seale.

I'd only met this guy once - over a year ago. He recently stopped by to say hi when he saw me working outside. I don't even know how the presidential election came up in the conversation. Lord knows I wasn't the one to bring it up. But, seemingly out of nowhere, he said "If Obama gets in the White House, he's gonna tear up the rose garden and put in a watermelon patch."

Ummm...yeah... It's 2008 and this asshole's making watermelon jokes. I wanted to tell him the joke would be funnier if he said "arugula patch" but figured that he wouldn't get it. Instead, I lamely offered "He certainly can't be any worse than what we've had for the last eight years."

"Bullshit!" Mr. Redneck exclaimed. "Someone's gonna shoot that nigger." The conversation went downhill from there.

Mr. Redneck went on to explain to me how, in the wake of Obama's assassination, the country would descend into anarchy and chaos. All hell would break loose and it would only be a matter of days before people in the nearby cities of Birmingham, Montgomery and Atlanta ran out of food and supplies. Hungry, desperate people would descend on rural areas - like the one we live in - and good, God-fearing folk like ourselves would have to defend our property with our God-given guns.

He also said something about how black people should be grateful that we brought them over as slaves from the barbaric hellhole that is Africa and civilized them, giving them a chance for a better life. I couldn't even respond to this because I had trouble hearing him over the voice in my head, screaming "DID HE REALLY JUST SAY THAT? THERE'S NO FUCKING WAY HE JUST SAID THAT! NO WAY IS ANY OF THIS REAL!"

Ummm...yeah...It's 2008 and this asshole gets to vote.

I really wanted to ask him if he was going to vote for McCain and how he felt about voting for a ticket with a vagina on it. Instead, I quickly changed the subject. What the hell do you say to someone like that anyway?

Well, I guess I could've started with "Get the hell off my property." I apologize for being a gutless wuss.