Who sang that again? Ah, thank you Google. Gilbert O'Sullivan. Sure. In case you want to wax nostalgic here's a link. And you can be thankful that we've passed that hair phase for men. But maybe not. I'm feeling pretty ambivalent about the Justin Bieber boys and their head toss. But I digress.
So the Carpenter is out. A daunting reality at the top of Spring at the Hacienda what with tilling, digging, chickening, seeding, planting and composting on the list. But when I mentioned that with a bit less "hang time" and bit more "work" going on...we'd be on schedule. He of the hang and coffee klatch for 3 hours every morning, got offended. To his credit, he's a good worker when he's on. When he's not, he's kinda like all the rest. Tools outside. Extension cord tumbleweeds. Unfinished stuff all over the yard. You know, like a HUSBAND.
Which I don't want.
My mom says it's because I cook for these workers, but I cook for everyone. Wait, they all end up sucking. Well, the Mexicans don't. I mean Luis is still tractoring the property and cutting my trees. But yea, he kind of moved in first. Well The Carpenter was running out of things he was good at, and I started to feel like outdoor jobs may have to go to someone else. So maybe it's for the best. He said I was "cond-a-sating" to him the other day anyway. And well, if me asking him if I could get him a chair to enjoy his latte whilst I turned the chicken shit compost made water evaporate then so be it.
Armed with little else than an idea and my new AWESOME Dewalt cordless nail gun and a bunch of left over lumber, I decided I didn't need any of them. The helpers, the sorta kinda boyfriends who come around sorta kinda regularly, the guys who bid projects and never come back to actually DO them. I got this. So I made a chicken tractor. Not like the cute ones you see online in Backyard Chicken Porn...nope this was the everything I've learned about construction and outside livestock work I learned from Guatemalans. Stick and chicken wire. Moveable to fertilize the grass in a different spot each day, full of fun branches and leafy bits of pruning and piles of dirt for their "dry showers" and a tarp in case they wanted shade. Which they did not. At 10 days old these gals are all about being Chickens. They scratch, find worms, eat grass, stretch wings, clean their feet, climb the trees, drink lots of water, form alliances for warmth and canoodling with each other. All of that on instinct. No mom, nothing.
I wonder what happened to our People instincts sometimes. Like, not knowing how to take care of ourselves and sort of abusing our mental and physical health. Not trusting our guts in love. Not having the faith. I am getting back to mine of course because I live in the middle of nowhere with animals, too much land and have to have my wits about me. If for nothing else to communicate in Spanish with all the workers and boyfriends and grow my own food. But it's taking a long time. I think the only way I've kept the faith that everything will be (maybe) okay is by spending time in nature. As long as there are birds singing, flowers exploding out of the ground like popcorn, sky above and worms in the compost pile, I guess it's all working the way it's supposed to. Letting go is empowering. Even if my tractor is ugly. It works.
