Busy day yesterday with Peg dragging the golf cart back from Santa Rosa to Perry, while I flew the Cardinal across a hazy panhandle to Tallahassee for a little scheduled maintenance. She picked me up at the FBO, we made it back to the farm too late for supper, and hit the pillow like a ton of bricks.
There was no alarm this morning, so P could catch up on her sleep after three days of intubating Covid patients. Alarm or no, around 8:30 Mange started crowing, loudly. Very, very loudly.
P peered one eye over at me. "I think Mange wants out of the pen."
"He's gotten awfully loud. It's like he's under the house."
And, in fact, he was. Our friend Almon had already come by the house, around dawn judging from the wet tire tracks across the pasture, and let out the chickens and the guineas. The chickens had set up shop for the morning under the porch, and Mange clearly got tired of waiting for Mom and Dad to come out of the main house and started emphatically demanding an audience.
I pulled on jeans and some boots, and walked down into the yard. Around the time I was peering under the porch, and Blackie the hen ran out like a puppy to greet me, all but one of the ducks and geese came dashing from eating our eggplants in the garden to demand their daily handful of chicken crumblies. The missing waterfowl was Gus, who'd gotten himself stuck in the east pasture with the cows. As I walked the others over to the trash can full of feed, Gus frantically ran back and forth along the fence line, screaming and trying to wedge his corpulent frame through the hogwire, unable to figure out that the rest of him was wider than his aerodynamic head. I never said geese were smart.
After throwing a little feed, I walked over and tried to rescue Gus, He seemed to follow along behind me on the other side of the fence, with a brief detour to dodge Skeletor, a pregnant heifer who leaped and dashed toward him as if with a mind to stomp him flat. I arrived at the gate, pulled it open and stood like a New York doorman, gesturing for him to walk through and join his friends. Instead, he waddled off in the other direction, trying to go back the way he came when he got himself stuck there.
I never said geese were smart.
George and his young helper were already on the property, installing the flooring in Splinters. We are maybe a week away from having our very own tiny house complete and ready for guests. After a short visit to talk about our need for a trailer to drag the tractor to the shop, and some lumber and wood that used to be our carport back from Dune Allen, I walked to the house to tug Peg's toe and start our day. The guineas had arrived by then, and were standing on George's lumber that was stretched across a couple sawhorses, shrieking and enjoying the spectacle of people working while they hung out.
By the time I got back to the house, Peg was sitting on the steps petting Stripe, who'd managed to survive our three days away. "I wondered where you got off to." Not sure if that was for me or the cat.
Maybe a little golf later, and watching P cook a gourmet brunch as I write this.
So, so good to be back on the farm. You can have the beach.
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