Wanderings

It is Christmas Eve and we’re still mourning the loss of Glinda, our Star Spangled Hamburg. She was killed by a Hawk a few days ago. The chickens are terrified and they run screaming for cover whenever any bird flies overhead. They were really spooked. The picture on the right is Elanor, Millie, and the black one is Bev.

I came home with the Christmas Turkey that Justine bought us about 4PM and the chickens were hysterical, yelling and running from bush to bush trying to hide. I stood around with them hoping that seeing me would calm them, but I could only count 13 hens when there should have been 14.

Around 5PM it gets dark and all of the chickens usually march into the hen house and get ready for bed. Some take longer than others, but by 5:15 they are usually all on their roost. There were only 13 chickens in the coop.

Bev was missing.

I spent a while looking under bushes and all the places that she hangs out. I was looking for a sign that the Hawk had come back – usually just a bunch of black feathers. There was no sign.

My brother called and told me that a package I had ordered for Erica’s Christmas present had arrived. I took the truck over to pick it up. When I got back, Erica asked me to take the flashlight for one more look.

I started at the chicken coop, calling her. I wandered all over the yard, around the house, and back along the fence on each side. I even checked out in the road for flat chickens.

I shone the flashlight under the deck where chickens like to go and under the barn where they sometimes go, and there was no sign.

I walked all the way to the back of the property and came back around the huge pine tree that went down in hurricane Sandy. I walked all around the bee hives and behind the barn.

Several times I heard something move, but it was always McGruff the Cat who was following me everywhere.

I shone the light on my lumber pile and under the old wood chipper, and I saw a glint to golden eye. Then I saw Bev’s Red comb, and I figured that I found he body, but she winked at me.

I very carefully crawled into the little cave formed by the leaning lumber and the wood chipper, and Bev let me pick her up. She seem fine, but she was shivering with fear or cold.

I brought her inside and surprised Erica. Erica checked Bev as best she could and there seemed to be no damage. I set her on the floor for an instance. She walked just fine and seemed interested in wandering around the house, but we can’t allow that as you can’t house train a chicken as far as I know.

I put Bev back in the shed with the other chickens and she gobbled up some food and seemed happy. I went out later and she was on the roost with her friends and seemed fine.

God bless us, everyone!

I was out taking pictures and the stray cat who lives in the basement followed me around. He does not get along with the other cats and sprays urine wherever he goes so he can’t come in. It is a little sad. He likes to sit on my lap whenever I sit on a lawn chair and some nights I’ll let him watch TV with us, but I have to keep him on my lap. He can’t be let loose or there will be a splash of eau du chat on a piece of furniture or a fight with one of the other cats.

He is really a nice cat with a bad upbringing. We have made him a friend, but he will never be a house cat. We have a cat door to the cellar and he sits on my computer chair when I’m not there. When I am there, he sits on my lap. I call him Snuggles, hoping that he will live up to his name.

Early this morning, I felt a slight twinge. The room seemed to shift slightly, like an out of phase streaming video. There was no pain or any sensation at all except for a feeling that something had changed.

I believe that I have experienced the end of the Mayan Era, and the world may have suddenly ended.

I have had the feeling all day that I am out of joint with reality. I believe that, perhaps, our whole universe may have been loaded into a very large computer running a simulation. Someone watching our reality may have decided that, like Downton Abbey, it was worth continuing, even if it its not very good. This super entity, who was watching when we were all instantaneously destroyed, felt the desire to see how the stupid universe ends, and threw our data into a large scale virtual reality.

For this I am grateful, because Erica and I watched the Season Two Christmas special of Downton Abbey on Wednesday night, and I’d to see how it all works out before the world ends. I cannot put the show into a computer simulation, but I was able to download season three, which has already been shown in England.

This weekend, rather than watch White Christmas or It’s a Wonderful Life, I will be watching to see if John Bates is ever proven innocent, and if Mary will ever find happiness, and trying to figure out what’s the story with the gay guy and the cranky maid.

I will be spending the next few days looking for the back door in this computer simulation. I want to get root access to reality because there are a few things I’d like to change, not the least is to spring John Bates from York Prison.

We cut down a tree today up in Germantown, NY.

It’s been a long time since we did any driving. We stopped by our favorite bakery in Red Hook, NY and spent $30. We would have spent more, but they were sold out of apple pies.

Lore 2.2, a magazine of imaginative fiction, is available on Amazon. I just got my copy and I am enjoying reading the stories. It has my story, Finny Moon, a departure from H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth. I started writing a story just after I had reread Lovecraft’s classic work of horror, but I wandered off in a completely different and unpredictable direction, including some funny moments.
All of the stories in the collection are just as unpredictable – some frightening, some intriguing, and some downright strange. Lore 2.2 is a highly recommended collection of unique short stories.

My brother Ward’s Honey: local honey rochester ny.

I’ve been out of honey for a while and my personal supply is almost gone. I may have to beg a few bottles form Ward.