Sunday, July 31, 2005

Life on the farm

While my folks are visiting my brother and his family in Japan, I am queen of the hill. I have the added responsibilities of chickens and cat, as well as taking the garbage and recycling down our very long driveway. There are also other little spendid jobs that I take for granted that my dad and mom so discretely attend to, such as, removing dismembered bunny parts from the front porch (thanks alot Jasmine), disposing of dead mice and cleaning up spilled food and broken glass because the raccoon got on the side porch again. (Note to self: close side porch door completely at night.) I was blessed by the fact that I did not have to learn how to operate the tractor to mow the lawns. Dad found a friend to manage that, but I did need to pick up all the "outside" toys from the lawn first (another job I often take for granted that dad attends to). The chickens are laying about a dozen eggs a day, and so far I've sold two dozen and given one dozen away. That leaves eight dozen in my folks fridge and two in mine. Eggs anyone? They are only $1.75 (but because of supply and demand, I may just give them to ya).

So far there haven't been any problems other than the raccoon getting in and breaking a jar of thistle seeds and the dismembered bunny (that was pretty nasty, but as mom always says in an event like that, "That's life on the farm"). We had a tornado warning during a storm last week, but only a few branches were lost up here, but on the church property below us, a tree or two went down.

The kids and I have been enjoying the kiddie pool, shade provided by glorious trees and the sound of the cicadas and crickets in the evenings. The noise is rather loud for cityfolk, but to me it sounds like home. I've lived here most of my life...in fact of my 32 years, I've only spent 7 or 8 years of it elsewhere.