Jungle heat.

I was out briefly this morning trying to square off a floor beam with a chainsaw and adze. Since we had a downpour yesterday evening it was humid and not a good day to be outdoors. I decided to work on a drawing I’ve had in mind for awhile. It’s been a long time since I used scratchboard, and it looks like it’ll take a couple tries to get this right. But I do think this is the medium to use for this particular illustration. It’s for a Southern Gothic novel.

Lucie

Lucie

My wife used to do a lot of animal rescue. We were well situated, living in a rural area and having a small pasture adjacent to our old house, and we weren’t as remotely located as we are now; so emergency vet assistance was never more than half an hour or so away.

The local animal shelters began to call us when they got the occasional exotic. At one point we had four pot bellied pig rescues, two of which had been found roaming around the city of Charlotte by another rescue organization, one from the local shelter in Oxford, and one who’d been used by a couple of lawyers in Cary as free publicity ( Carpetbagger lawyers frequently do this. They get a free sob story written in the local paper about restrictive covenants depriving them of the company of their beloved pet, challenge the covenants knowing they will fail, get more press and more business from idiots, then dump the pig in a shelter to be gassed).

Then there was Lucie.

In the couple of years prior to our acquiring Lucie the Emu, I’d noticed a lot of local TV news stories about emus turning up in suburbs and small towns near us. Apparently some cash-whore farmer had gone bust with them, thrown up his hands and simply released his flock. If this were a modern industrialized state, such people would be ferried out to a shark encircled island to break rocks in the sun or pick oakum until their twilight years. But it’s North Carolina, so he’s likely in the legislature.

Lucie turned up at the drive through window at a MacDonald’s in Henderson. Most birds have huge olfactory lobes, and she was probably attracted by the scent of frying, or simply curious. The shelter picked her up and called us because they couldn’t squeeze her in the chamber to be gassed.

We made a couple of mistakes when we first got her, being ignorant of the creatures and the response they provoke in lesser beings. First, we put her fenced area near the property line with our knuckle dragging, inbred, fundie neighbors. They’d wait till they thought we weren’t looking, to taunt her, or throw stones or poke her with sticks through the fencing to see how she’d react. I can only assume they thought she’d been put there by the devil to test their shabby medieval faith. The second mistake was trusting the available agricultural literature in regard to raising the animal.

Utter horseshit.

You’d think the extension people must have cribbed their notes from a Dutch slaver’s bestiary of the seventeenth century, but you’d be fucking wrong because none of them can even be bothered to read English, much less Dutch, apparently*. Fortunately we already had a variety of birds on the place, and had learned enough from raising them to figure out what she needed.

When we moved her to our new place, we expected some difficulty getting her out of the truck. The previous time, she’d cowered and was obviously terrified. But no, this time she hopped straight out and immediately started picking at stuff, interested. A few weeks ago we decided to let her out into the open field with the bull and the steer. She seems to enjoy it. When we first got her from the shelter, you couldn’t touch her. Now she’ll actually look for us. To get a pet, a bath with the garden hose, or just to hang out. It’s amazing the things you discover when you don’t have neighbors close by.

* A Babelfish translation, however, must serve as the template for farm labor standards.

Republican fuckstick. Or do I repeat myself?

The guy who shot up the church in Knoxville yesterday did it because he “couldn’t get a job” , and because “they were liberals”. Expect to see more of this as the inbreds and biker types run up against the fact Bush has broken his dick off in their asses. They’ll want to kill everyone who knew what would happen. And their first impulse is to draw blood. Always.

Crushing injury, anyone?

before felling

There’s an oak on the place that’s been girdled by a tag-team of European wasps and termites, and it may possibly take out one of the outbuildings. It’s about eighty feet tall, and has three huge branches sprouting from the main trunk. We’re going to cut it down today. I’m not certain which way it wants to fall.

Pictures later, if we’re alive.

Firewood

Well, it came off pretty much without incident, except for the fact it fell the way I didn’t want it to. Fortunately it missed the building by a good ten feet, and only smashed a ladder and a section of woven fence. It also drove the calf to drink.

scarred for life

Arcimboldo's pride

I’ve got a mild ear infection, and it’s Saturday. So here’s a picture of Bob Novak’s angry, shriveled genitalia. Bon appetit!

Owwww!

Portrait of Soul Trapped in Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song. Oil on Panel 12"x 16"

If you ever decide to take up welding, and you’re not too far from a community college, take a class. I’ve gotten to the point I can weld, but it probably takes much longer than it would if I had a fucking clue about what I was doing.

And make sure your goggles fit properly. Yesterday I was trying to adjust them while trying to juggle the welding torch and the brazing rod, and even after my bath I still smelled a little of burning hair. I only got a small burn, but it occurs to me if I were left handed I might be having my nose reattached about now.

Milder weather here

It'll look better with a little paint

It’s not quite as hot here now, so I’ve been a little busy tying up loose ends before I resume work on the new barn. For one thing, I’m finishing up a log carrier so I can drag felled cedars out of the woods to use for posts. The last set I put up I dragged out with the pickup, but I don’t have the luxury of doing that now. The posts I just cut are on a steep incline, and they’ll have to be removed by human power.

I found a simple design for a log porter that retails for about $4000.00 , and decided to put one together with some scrap from an old boat trailer we found on the place. if you ever purchase an old farm, you’re sure to inherit a ton of junk. Don’t landfill it immediately. So far I’ve managed to build a wagon that doubles as a portable work station, a sheep milking stanchion, a forge, and now this beast from the tobacco tiers and various other impedimenta previous occupants have left behind. I still have a small mountain of scrap metal left, and I’m confident I’ll be able to put most of it to use.

I spent most of the day today turning the wooden handles for this, but I already tried it out on a 250 lb cedar log, and discovered it was worth the effort to build. I did have to purchase a set of skidding tongs ($120.00) and a couple of wheels with pneumatic tires ($30.00).

When I finally get mules, I’ll put a breast bar on this, so they can pull the logs for me.

What to do

It’s going to be ninety-eight degrees here this afternoon. I was out in the yard earlier today chasing the bull back into his fence and yelling at him (for effect) and nearly gave myself a fucking coronary in the morning sun. I’m sitting here in front of a fan right now and trying to figure out how to accomplish something today without moving.

Last week I actually managed to put a roof on a lean-to, but it was like pulling teeth. The body knows when it’s too hot to work, and when you drag it out in the middle of the day to do manual labor, it basically just stands around and curses you: So anything you try to do just takes longer, and you’re better off doing what I’ll probably wind up doing today, which is not a goddamned thing.

If i happen to get a wild hair up my ass, I might go carve on my Buddha bookend some more.

Currently brain-dead

this is a drawing of a creature that, at the moment, has higher brain function than me.

My wife and I just got back from doing voter registration with the Obama campaign. Our presence at the parking lot of a local department store luckily coincided with a fish-fry, so we were registering folks as they picked up their food. Not many, but more than three times the number of voters Hillary beat Obama by in this county. He lost here by three votes.

We rarely travel at all anymore, and even a short car trip leaves me in a virtual coma. Must have coffee now.

Mindless self-indulgence

Apron guy and cafeteria lady ponder the lineaments of gratified desire. Oil on Canvas. 32"x48"

I was going to make pizza Majorca tonight, but a lack of onions, and a comparative wealth of other garden produce  made me reconsider. I tried not to use too much cheese, but sometimes you’ve got to use it before mold jumps on it, and it usually  tastes better that way .

Sauteeing tomatoes and peppers

Add previously sauteed Black Tuscan kale and eggplant

Before cooking

Ready to eat

Please pardon my photography. I was hungry.