I was sitting at my computer early this past Monday morning answering a few accumulated emails. The darkness of the late leaving night still lingered as there was a heavy cloud overcast. When I checked the weather satellite it predicted sun in the late morning, indicative that the heavy, low-lying fog will have lifted by noon. So I decided to wait around for a while before I went out to work on a quantity of bat house kits that I had started assembling the week before.
I had every intention of sitting around, slumming it, while groaning and grunting and scratching the odd itch in socially unaccepted places, as most men my age are prone to do; especially if they think that no one is watching. But that didn’t happen.
I first heard a blue-jay screaming at the top of his voice. That was followed by the warning calls of several robins. Then, Eberheart – remember Eberheart, my killer cochin? My first prize winning, gold-laced, self-winding alarm clock. He got into action and announced again and again that he wasn’t too happy about what he thought was about to take place. He wasn’t crowing; he was cackling. It was his way of letting me know that something serious was about to happen.
All this racket came in to me through the baby monitor that I have so placed to pipe the songs of my canaries into a mock cage hung from the ceiling of our kitchen. It was an idea spawned by my Little Lady, quite a few years ago. It works really well. In addition, because most of my indoor time is spent in what I refer to as my library, I have placed a second monitor which relays the outdoor sounds to me while I flirt, squabble, or downright fight, with the spell-check of my computer. Which, incidentally, is a long marathon trek from computer to kitchen door. It’s across the master bedroom, back down the hall, skiddy-corner through the livingroom, past the bathroom and angles across the kitchen. It’s a no cost, self induced, exercise program that has been quite successful. Because of the number of knock, knocks on my back door, I have lost 60 lbs in the last year and one half.
By the time I got to the kitchen door, there was a raging battle about to take place, right before my very eyes. A large, all black, obviously feral cat had decided that one of Eberheart’s two little hens would make a nice breakfast. Just as I got to the door it pounced. Before I got the door open, Eberheart was taking the law into his own hands and although aiming at the eye he managed to grab an ear which he held on to firmly; while he continued to rake the cat with his long and razor sharp spurs. Very few feathers, but a lot of fur was sure flying.
When I finally got the door open, the cat had released the young hen and was trying to scramble away, but my killer cochin refused to let go. He held onto the cat, and while being dragged along, he continued to make the fur fly, long after the little hen’s escape and the cat’s scrambling amply indicated that it wanted to be immediately elsewhere.
All is well that ends well, and I am pleased to tell you that Lacy, twin sister to Lucy, Eberheart’s two new young wives, escaped with only two or three flight feathers out of place on her left wing.
In the meantime, I was being robbed by a bunch of head bob, bob, bobbin robins, which congregated in my ever-bearing, heavily laden, raspberry patch. These I had intended to pick the evening before, but somehow ended up forgetting. The lesson I was to learn there was, “never put off till tomorrow what should have been done today.” They left not a single ripe red berry.
In the meantime folks, on tap this weekend are another three or four dates that you just should not put off. I’m talking about the Erin Fall Fair. It is the biggy of Wellington County, so mark your calendar: October 10 to 13 in the year of our Lord 2008. Eight bucks gets you in the gate, and $25 will buy you one of my books, The Best of Bits and Pieces, containing 200 easy-to-read articles, a valuable keepsake of historical memories. And on the Monday you get to see Eberheart, and his lovely wives, strutting their stuff in the poultry tent at the chicken show. How could you possibly turn down offers like that? See you all there.
Take care, ’cause we care.