Can this be called progress?

I was talking with one of the locals about the upcoming election for sheriff. The current sheriff is retiring and at least four people are running for his job.

One is "Johnny Law" - mentioned in an earlier post, Spenardo & Chickenfight Girl get Strip Searched Part Two (yeah, I know, I still owe you parts three and four). The local and I both agreed that Johnny Law is a prick and we'd never vote for him in a million years.

Another guy seems to be running on a "throw more druggies in jail" platform. The moldy old jail is already overcrowded and throwing more potheads in there ain't gonna do anything but funnel more funds into the courthouse coffers (and that worthless re-education camp they call the Alabama Court Referral Program).

I didn't know anything about the third guy but the local assured me he was a prick too.

That left one guy. I'd already decided that he was who I was voting for. I'd dealt with him a number of times during my community service and he seemed like a decent person - one of the very few I met during that experience that seemed capable of treating people fairly. I told the local that my mind was made up - I was voting for that guy.

The local replied "That's who I'm voting for too. Even if he is a nigger."

Sigh...

Hot damn! Now I'm cooking with gas!

Actually, I won't be cooking with gas until tomorrow. That's when I'm having 100 gallons of propane delivered. It's been three long weeks of cooking with a toaster oven, taking whore's baths in the sink and having the fireplace as my sole source of heat. I'm looking forward to a long hot shower, a slow-cooked pot of chicken soup and cranking the thermostat back up to 60 degrees (okay, maybe 55).


Had to officially shut down the east wing of Frankencoop last weekend. It's the room that used to be my grandmother's kitchen. The eastern exterior wall is crumbling fast. The sturdiest part of it has to be the door I boarded up three years ago.

See the white area above the door? That's drywall. You know it's bad when the drywall has become a structural element of the building. You can also see where one of the panes of glass fell out of the window. Boarding up the window isn't an option since the surrounding wood is so rotten it probably wouldn't hold a nail. The ceiling leaks really bad in that room too. It was just too nerve-wracking to go in there everyday to collect eggs.

The west wing is still open for business though. All the chickens were already sleeping in that room anyway so the change didn't cause too much of a ruckus. But I will miss the sight of hens laying eggs in grandma's old oven.

Flyover country

As I've mentioned before, Spenardo del Sur lies directly in the flight path of Navy jets on their way from North Carolina to the Naval Air Station in Pensacola. In the three years I've been here, I've seen them pass by hundreds of times. Sometimes they fly a little to the east or west of my property but they often fly directly over my place. Sometimes they fly low enough to see me and will tip their wings to me.

I always love it when they appear. It turns me into a little kid for a few seconds. When I hear the approaching roar, I drop what I'm doing and scan the skies for the plane. Today was no different.

Oh wait, yes it was!

I was locking up Frankencoop for the day when I heard the unmistakable sound of a jet. I could tell it was going to be to the west of me. I turned to look and saw it just on the other side of my house. Then something amazing happened.

The plane banked extremely hard to the left. It had abruptly changed course and was coming right at me! The jet rotated 90-degrees so that its wings were perpendicular to the ground. For a fraction of a second I wondered if it was going to crash into my chicken coop.

The wings were brought level right as the jet screamed directly over my head, perhaps a mere 200 feet off the ground. I felt like I could've reached out and stroked the belly of the plane.

I raced to the other side of Frankencoop to watch as the jet's wings rotated 90-degrees in the other direction. It was only a couple hundred yards past me when it banked hard to the right and continued it's southerly route to Florida.

In the space of about 2000 feet, the pilot made two 90-degree turns as well as rotating the plane 90-degrees then 180-degrees in what I can only assume was a private airshow just for me.

Thank you, whoever you are. That was fucking awesome!

Three new hens

Got three new hens from a local factory farm - or 'concentration coop' as I now like to call them. I picked that term up from Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead. It's a Troma film. Troma makes great films. I love Troma films.




I also got over 200 pounds of leftover feed to go with the hens.


I'm getting pretty used to having the heat off during the cold nights. Woke up this morning and it was 39 degrees inside the house but it felt like 50. Hopefully I can get some more propane next week. I've got less than 15 gallons left. As soon as I get the tank refilled and can run all the hot water I want, I'm butchering me some roosters. The poor hens of Frankencoop are being run ragged by so many roosters. It's cock city down there.

If me and the resident hens are lucky, the new arrivals will offer a little distraction for the younger roosters in the meantime.

Spenardo del Sur in the news & on the map

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

Yours truly is the feature story in the newest issue of the Anchorage Press. Check out the cover:

Click on the picture for a larger view

The author of the article, David Holthouse, along with his wife, Priscilla, came for a visit last fall with the idea of writing this article. During that weekend, I killed and butchered one of my roosters to provide my guests with a lunch of sweet & sour chicken. That's poor Tweak in the pot. Here's Tweak in better days:


If anyone wants Tweak's dried preserved feet as a memento of this grand occasion, make me an offer. Angela already has all the dried chicken feet she can use right now and I'm still trying to scrape up enough scratch to get my propane tank refilled.



I'm also still in shock that Google Maps has gotten around to adding my neck of the woods to their street view feature. Below is Frankencoop as seen from the road:



It's not very clear but, if you look just to the left of the building, you can make out a couple white dots. Those are chickens. I'm just glad Google's camera didn't catch me peeing outside.