Post in which I piss and moan a lot

Gah! This place has robbed me of my will to write! That's the only explanation.

I think a lot about writing. Really, I do. But when I sit down in front of the computer...nada, zilch, kaput.

I'm not just talking about slacking on the blog either. I wish I could say I've been busy writing that novel or working on essays or at least churning out poetry like I did in the golden days of yore. But no. My repertoire seems to consist of nothing but Facebook updates and shopping lists of things I can't afford to buy (fucking socks have been at the top of the list for fucking months).

I think this place feeds on the creativity of its people - some sort of artistic vampire. It sucks the marrow out of any creative bones in their bodies and shits out hymns, humidity and horrendous creepy-crawlies (like the scorpion I killed in the kitchen last night).

Maybe it's just the PMS, but this place is really chafing my ass even more than usual lately. I'm sick of dumb people. I'm sick of nowhere to go and nothing to do. I'm sick of racists. I'm sick of the word nigger. I'm sick of tea baggers. I'm sick of racist teabaggers using the word nigger. I'm sick of people who think Applebees is fine dining. I'm sick of people thinking Boone's Farm is real wine. I'm sick of people thinking drinking is a sin.

Gah! The more I dwell on it, the angrier I get. Angry at the people who think and do these things and angry at myself for ever agreeing to live amongst them.

Sigh. It's not all bad. There are good people here too. Even people I would go so far as to deem cool. I know enough cool people within a thousand square miles that, if they all had the same night off, I could assemble a decent-sized cocktail party without having to import too many people from Atlanta.

Grrrrrr. I know a lot of this is PMS. I get extra angry/sad every month around this time. Just because I made this stupid bed doesn't mean I have to enjoy laying in it. Oh, woe is me. Just ignore this shit, okay?

Look! Here's a picture of me at a party earlier this month:


It's actually a nice picture. I look half-way decent. But you know what? I don't really look like that. It's a Herculean effort to look that civilized. I actually think I'm turning feral in this environment.

You can't tell from that picture how bad my back and right hip hurt damned near every morning. You can't tell that the stupid pipes under my stupid trailer are leaking and I had to shut the water off, turning it back on once a week for scheduled showers and laundry, hauling water inside two gallons at a time the rest of the week. If you saw me now, you'd now I'm overdue for a hosing down. Nor can you tell I whacked myself in the face with a two-by-four this summer and lost a tooth in the process. If I can't afford to buy fucking socks, do you think I can afford to go to a dentist? Don't even get me started on how the car's transmission is at death's door.

Gah! Maybe it's not just the PMS. Maybe this place really does suck ass and I was an idiot to ever leave Spenard. Hmmmmm.....I don't think there's any maybe about that. I am currently inclined to believe that leaving Alaska was the dumbest dumbshit thing I've ever done - and trust me when I say I've done a lot of dumb shit in my life.

Okay, I'm going to go to bed now. Tomorrow is a brand new day, a brand new month even. Perhaps after I wake up and hobble over to the stove to boil water hauled from outside to make a cup of coffee, I might feel a little better. Probably not but, stranger things have happened. It would probably be cathartic to take the shotgun out and blast some shit but, sadly, bullets are also on the shopping list.

I'm really not searching for sympathy here. Honest. It's just the final hours of the last day of the month and I needed to write something. I was just in no mood to write about current chicken events. So, instead, you get this wailing and gnashing of teeth. Sorry 'bout that. I'll make it up to you later with pictures of the new adorable baby chicks.

August in a nutshell

I had a birthday in August. I'm now 43. Sometimes feel much older though. If I knew I'd live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself.

Went to a hula party. It was my friend Evan's birthday party but it was the day before mine so I just celebrated early. That's Evan in the coconut bra.

The Freaky Tiki

Lightning struck Spenardo del Sur again. This time it hit a dead tree next to the goat shed. I'm sure the goats were not pleased since they were in the shed at the time - a mere 30 feet away. I watched the strike from a more comfortable distance of 500 feet.

It wasn't until the next day that I saw the damage the blast did to Frankencoop 100 feet away. The east wing of Frankencoop has been closed off for a long time now. The eastern outside wall was in bad shape. I mean bad. The ceiling ain't great either. Got too scary going in there everyday to collect eggs so I sealed it up.

The day after the storm (which only lasted 45 minutes but left an inch of rain and numerous lighting strikes within three Mississippis), I stepped into Frankencoop and noticed that this dresser was face down on the floor.

The dresser helps block the hole in the drywall that leads to the east wing. (On top of the dresser are old feed boxes salvaged from the barn I tore down, repurposed as nesting boxes.)

When I looked through the uncovered hole, this is what I saw:

The lightning had been the straw that broke the camel's back - or in this case, broke my grandma's kitchen wall. The entire door frame, which I'd boarded up when I first started work on Frankencoop, came crashing down which, in turn, knocked the dresser over. The window which had been next to the door actually had fallen out a couple months back. If you click and embiggen the picture, you can actually see the trunk of the stricken tree. It's currently being obscured by the mass of kudzu covering the outside of the wall (or, should I say, where the wall used to be).

I knew the day would come when that wall came down. And that day came in August. I think I really need to finish tearing that old house down this winter while some of the vintage wood can still be salvaged. That means a new chicken coop because the 19 birds currently living there have to go somewhere.

Here's a pic of the tree. It's to the left of the shed. It's just a trunk. It died a few years ago and all the branches had already fallen off. I'm surprised the shed is still standing . The goats have absolutely destroyed it over the last four years.

Celeste and Rosemary mug for the camera.

I was bummed to see that the pine struck back in June is starting to die. I noticed last week that the needles on a number of branches are turning brown. Damn it. I liked that tree.


Other stuff happened in August too but it's late and I have to be up early.

You either get it or you don't.

Chickenfight Girl's son just graduated college. He cleaned out his apartment in Auburn and dumped all his stuff at his parents' place. She gave me a couple lamps. She pulled a small coffee grinder out of a box. "What's this?"

Me: A coffee grinder. For grinding whole coffee beans.

Chickenfight Girl: Huh. I've never seen one. I never buy whole coffee beans.

Me: I don't much either anymore. But I prefer whole coffee beans. Just can't always afford it.

Chickenfight Girl: Why is the stuff in here green? That's not coffee.

Me: Let me look at that. (removes lid, scrapes a fingernail across the green powder and takes a whiff) Nope, that's definitely not coffee.

Chickenfight Girl: What is it? It's not coffee.

Me: Uh...well...You can use it to grind other stuff too. I've used mine to grind corn for tortillas. You could technically grind up a lot of different stuff in there. Wheat, rice, beans...

Chickenfight Girl: So it could be, like, wheat germ or something?

Me: Yeah, wheat germ. Or something.

Chickenfight Girl: Do you want it?

Me: Yes. Thank you.



For those of you who didn't really get the above exchange, please enjoy this picture of Lemuel hula-hooping around the bonfire one recent summer evening:




There's something awesome about watching an almost-7-foot farmer bust a move with a hula hoop. Lemuel is really quite good with a hoop. Lemuel and Shadrack actually make and sell hoops. If you're at a farmer's market in East Alabama/West Georgia and you see two dudes spinning hoops and selling okra at the same time, tell 'em Jackie from Spenardo del Sur sent you. You won't get a discount or anything - it would just be a cool thing to do.

Old school from waaaay back

Among the many things I salvaged from my grandmother's old house (before turning it into a chicken coop) were lots of school textbooks from the '30s and '40s.

Here are some of my favorite color illustrations from the 1936 edition of "The Body and Health." The book credits the illustrators as Mildred Lyon Hetherington, Helen Bilger, Irene Dorcy and Grace G. Mitchell. As always, you can click to embiggen.

It must be the end of the month

Once again, I'm slipping in under the wire, posting at the end of the month simply because I cannot bear to have an empty month in the archives.

So here's some photos of a pine tree that was struck by lightning - only 100 feet or so from the house. One of the few exciting things to happen around here and I wasn't even home to witness it.

I'd always liked this raggedy old pine because it had somehow managed to be the only tree on this open field to survive the kudzu - although the kudzu did kill the bottom branches. I spent many hours removing all the kudzu from the pine in hopes that it would thrive. I doubt it will survive this lightning strike, though I can still hope.

As always, you can click on the photos to embiggen.


Intense heat turned moisture in the tree to steam and blasted off strips of bark up to 30 feet away.



The bottom seven feet of the trunk was scorched black.


You can see the house in the background.


The tree as seen from the poop deck (aka the front porch).