Happy Leap Year!

This morning, my mind woke me up with the usual b.s.: how are you going to get out of debt, how are you going to get everything done, why don’t you ever exercise anymore, etc., and just as I was about to roll over and try to sleep some more, I remembered it was a…

This is Izzy

This is Izzy and her egg. She’s one of the last chickens I paid money for, before I started slipping fertilized eggs under a broody hen’s bum and giving them the chance to be a mom. I bought Izzy so Ruby wasn’t all alone, as she was the lone survivor of Betty’s babies and there…

Where can I bury my chicken?

Betty is dead. She died under the fig tree I had just seen her under two hours ago, happily eating and pecking at the ground. And now she’s dead, under a low lying limb, like she was going to get up but something told her to stay down on the black soil for a minute…

ashes

My father died on this day two years ago. He had requested that his body be donated to science, and my brother and I honored that request. His remains would be returned to me once the Anatomical Society was done with his body, which I was told could take up to three years. Surprisingly they…

cafe dead day

There had been a live feed of the destruction. Once it started, it was hard to look away. It was my birthday, and I had been on this earth for 42 years at five in the morning, but by noon they were tearing down the kitchen I used to flirt with you in when I…

Carl

  I had to pick Frankie up from the groomers on my lunch break, and since we were close to my dad’s nursing home I decided to stop and let Frankie visit his granddaddy. As we were walking towards the entrance, I noticed an elderly fellow on a bench by himself. I had not seen…

wrong number

As I was walking Frankie this morning, my cell phone rang from deep in my pockets. The number displayed was unfamiliar, but it was 7 am on a Sunday so maybe it was important. After I said hello, the woman’s voice on the other end was cracked and old as she asked to speak to…

JEB

This is J.E.B., which is short for Jolene Elizabeth Bennett, and she’s our new addition. She came to us by way of a toothless farmer at a Tractor Supply chicken swap. He saw me looking at her, and he remarked on how the rooster “wouldn’t get off her.” “Damn chicken rape,” I muttered. And, knowing…

my dog is an asshole

I try to warn people. I pull him to the side of trails, run the opposite direction, and make sure he never encounters a live dog when he’s on a leash. But sometimes he’s very sweet to other dogs, so I never really know what I’m going to get. But most of the time, no…