The heat is stifling. I might as well pull the racks out of the oven and put a lawn chair in there and bake myself at 200 degrees for 12 hours. It's as hot as Missi-freakin'-sippi during the basketball camp vacation last year.
Today I returned to T-Hoe after a doctor's appointment, and discovered the temperature reading to be 111 degrees. Yesterday, as I stood beside Poolio for a brief moment to speak to the #1 son, our chickens meandered out of the woods. Just in case any food happened to fly off of me in their direction. Survivor, our very first rooster, a buff and orange and black specimen of prime kitchen-towel-calendar splendor, stopped a few feet away. He laid down. He slowly slipped sideways, with one wing askew.
"What's the deal with Survivor?"
"I don't know. I hate them all. They run at me and I try to kick them."
"You can't do that."
"I don't hurt them. Just get them away. But I'd like to take that little speckled rooster and throw him like a football."
"He attacks everybody. But Survivor's all right."
"Yeah. Survivor is OK."
"Look at him. Is he dying?"
"No!"
"Why's he laying down like that?"
"I don't know. He's breathing, though."
"His eyes are closed. He's not taking a dust bath. There's no dust."
"Maybe he's tired."
"He can't take a nap in the sun. He'll die."
"He's fine. Start over there."
"Oh! He's up! I guess he was just laying on that little bare patch to cool off. It's like mud from where I dump D'Hummi twice a day."
Farmer H tells me that the blackberries are withering from the Hillmomban summer. He knows this, because every day he eats a handful. And complains that the deer have been eating them.
Yes. Farmer H has a bone to pick with nature. Those blasted deer have been eating his berries, when they could have hopped in their deer car and driven to town to buy their own snacks with their deer currency, like sugar-free oatmeal-raisin cookies, or seedless green grapes, or whole-grain Honey Nut Cheerios. How dare the wild fauna deprive him of the wild flora that is so rightfully his!
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5 comments:
Sometimes birds will lay on the ground with one or both wings extended to "sunbathe"...to soak up the vitamin D. I've seen some big ole' Morning Doves do it on my patio and hawks do the same thing at the Nature Center where I volunteer. Even the buzzards will do it, but they're really cool...they will stand with their wings open and slowly rotate around like they're showing off.
Let us swap, you have our winter, and we will have your Summer, thanks :)
Chick,
My guineas were doing that this afternoon. They lay on their sides. They were in the dust, though, so I would have thought they were taking a dust bath, except they were still, and on their sides like Survivor was.
I really don't like the guineas. We had two, and another one showed up. They are bullies to the chickens.
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Cazzie,
I do love winter, except for ice storms. Summer is actually my least favorite season. And anyway, you'll only want to swap back in 6 months, when you are enduring the drought and the two weeks of 100-degree days. Well, for you I suppose it would be 37.8 degrees! :)
I never knew birds were given to sunbathing. Cool!
Guineas are great burglar alarms through. Never want to tangle with one!
I am so ready for fall--I LOVE fall and spring. Well, I love fall and spring when nature decides that we will be blessed with one!
labbie,
Those guineas are paranoid. They're always clicking away with that annoying eheheheheheheh sound. And it's creepy the way they run and their bodies stay still while only their feet move. I am no fan of the guineas. They remind me of that cartoon at the beginning of The Partridge Family.
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