Waterlogged(6 Oct 07) back to the main page

Old Friend(14 Sep 07) back to the main page

The Recognition of Sakuntala (27 July 07) by Lea Brock back to the main page

The Gopher (12 July 07) A gopher came over. He just showed up with no invitation. This upset Tessa, a rather rodent-phobic member of the household, so much that she chased him under a floor-shelf, and began barking: "yap. yap. yap. yap. yap. yap." Meanwhile Mouth, who would I'm sure claim that between canine, hominid, and the occasional kitty-kat we have quite enough personalities around here, sat in an erlychia-induced stupor - "no no, Tessa, use the paws, not the snout... oh, he's batting at you, well, what can you do..."     I finally realized that an all-out interspecial war, battleground the kitchen, was not in my interests (nor the landlord's), so I drew Tessa away. I had to tie her to a post, the little terror. Eventually, after rather wisely deciding to do his socializing in the basement, the new friend returned and waited by the door until I could let him out.     But the real question here is: why did Buddy the Gopher think we would be good hosts to him? And how did he get into our house? back to the main page

Ice Storm(12 Jul 07) back to the main page

Straw Dog(4 Jul 07)

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Guitar (27 Jun 2007) back to the main page

The Farm Cat (19 Jun 07) A friend of ours (Cari Stebbins) had a bike race / torturation which stopped here. Look:

He Runs Away(13 Jun 07)

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Beast Mandar (10 Jun 07) Yesterday I got to be part of a wedding. It was over at the "acrosser's" place. When Lea and I first moved to our farm here in Spring Green we felt really weird all the time, and we would be kind of hidden away in our house looking out the windows at the farm across the street, which is really big and awesome in the strikes-fear-into-your-heart sense. So we called them the acrossers. Then we would crack up and call the people driving by on County Road C "drive-bies" ("-bys"? "-byes"?).     Well then as we got to know them we had to refine our language a bit. So Shelly Johnson, who we know the best, became The Acrosser, and her family the Acrossers, and then the other family became the Crossers.     It was the Acrosser's brother's wedding. I played classical guitar before and during the ceremony, and didn't do too badly, (I worried I would make the bride stumble if I messed up!). Lea tended to the cart-horse. She was going to drive a cart too, but the horse she was set up with would not stop. Not a good wedding horse, that.     One not good wedding horse did manage to monkey up the works a bit. He's an orangutang sized pony named Mandar. One time, the kids over there were taking him for a walk - they got to the end of the driveway where I could see them from my kitchen window. The beast must have gotten wind of my wife's horse Rosy, and as they turned around, he started rearing and kicking, pulling on the rope to cross the street. Well 7-year old Eilly couldn't keep him, and he dragged her out into the street just as a red Corrolla flew by. I think I would have tapped the brakes at the sight of a miniature rodeo playing out on County C, but maybe the driver was cracking open a new Coors light (lots of roadside recyclers around here).     By this time, I was already frantically putting on my shoes. Even without the highway, if that giant dog freed himself he'd be all up in the electric fence in no time, and then it's horses in the street, and even if Rosy's big enough to total some drunken Sunday driver's Toyota, I don't like it.      So at this point I ran out the door with my shoelaces dragging in the mud, thinking I was going to save the day and all, but before long I was kicked and bit, pushed right into the snow, which had fallen in heaps a few days earlier. It being Spring, my untied hiking boots scooped up slushy-fulls of cold slop before I could give up. We tied him to the stop sign and waited for the girls' mother (the Acrosser) to come home.     Well, at the wedding, Mandar lost it when the huge beautiful Percheron draft horses came up. The flower girls were sitting in the cart, the cart was hitched to the pony, and the whole lot of them went all over the place until the driver jumped out, the cart came undone, and the girls were in the dirt.     It's the kind of thing that's really funny unless it isn't. b back to the main page