Saturday In Lloyd

That was me last night, talking to Kathleen on the old plug-in, do-nothing-but-make-and-receive-calls phone. Mr. Moon took the picture and I didn't know he was doing it. There is nothing wrong with that phone at all except that you have to sit on the piano stool while taking calls and if I can't do the dishes, make the bed and do the laundry when I'm on the phone, those things will not get done. You can see on top of the piano that I had set up the new Phone System but it was charging. Sixteen hours of charging.

And this morning I got up and recorded a greeting and tried it out and it all works and I am very happy about it. I set the time and the date and the ringer volume and the ringer tone and we're good to go. I think the AT&T's system is easier to manipulate than the Panasonic's. Just sayin'.

When Mr. Moon and I were in Best Buy to return the old Phone System yesterday, I noted that they have an Apple Store within.
Whoa.
I dragged Mr. Moon over there and he kept saying, "Where? I don't see it," and then as I began to fondle and caress the iPad and the new laptops, he got visibly nervous. "Look," I kept saying, as I used the touch screen, "Look at this!"
"Uh-huh!" he said and then he backed away and started heading towards the phones.
Poor man. His wife has such expensive tastes in computers.

But I was talking to Hank later about Macs and I said, "You know, I would say that I wish Apple would design a phone but...they already have."
"Yeah," he said. "If they designed a land line, all you'd have to do would be to take it out of the box, plug it in, and it would do everything and anyone could figure it out."
Too true. The fact of the matter is, elegance of design and use is a beautiful thing and Apple is all over that. As much as I like to think of myself as a Luddite, I know I am not and I appreciate beauty when I see it and there can be beauty in technology, just as in anything.

So it's Saturday morning here in Lloyd and overcast and the humidity is back to being 90% and that fall crispness has gone back into the sauna and come out wilted. Mr. Moon got up way before me (I had announced last night that I was going to sleep all day today but that obviously did not happen) and has been working on his Arctic Cat. This is his newest toy and he has been twisting wrenches and pushing levers and tightening bolts and installing flame throwers and adjusting the parachute feature and setting the temperature on the small refrigerator under the dash.

Okay. I made most of that up.

I have no idea what he's been doing out there in that garage for weeks now but I know that one night I ended up cooking a big ol' southern meal for a mechanic whom I'd never met but who had come over to help.
And today- the Arctic Cat is ready to roll and here's Mr. Moon on it, looking mighty happy. He started the engine for the picture, just so you know. It sounded real sweet.

He's about to take it out into the woods where he's going to be hunting this fall. Again, I have no idea what any of this is about but it sure makes him happy and thus, it thrills me too.
I love that man. I swear to you, I remember like it was yesterday when we first started dating and he brought over some tiny birds he'd hunted and he sat in my kitchen and cleaned those sweet little dead creatures and put them in plastic bags with Italian dressing and laid them in my refrigerator and I thought, "What the fucking fuck? Who IS this man?"
Well, that was in 1983 and I still wonder about that but I'll tell you this- I love him more every day.
And I think he sort of likes me, too, even though I spend (waste?) hours sitting here and typing away on my Magic Box (aka the MacBook he bought me) and I do funny things like hang out at the Opera House and have crews of strange people in our house, making a movie with lights and booms and actors and so forth while he's trying to watch the hunting channel on TV and wondering how he can get to the refrigerator without getting in the shot.

Well, it all works out and thank god because he's saved my life more than once and been such a good daddy to our babies and he makes me smile and he makes me feel safe and he loves it tremendously when I cook his game.
That is not a metaphor, okay?
But it could be.

So anyway, where was I going with this? I have no idea.
But yes, it's Saturday and here are my chickens, my beloved chickens:


Some of them, at least. This morning when I let them out of the coop I noticed that Shalayla was not among the flock and I was worried but then I found her in the nesting box on Mr. Moon's work bench. She must have spent the night there. She is being a bit broody. And moody, as well. Poor Shalayla. She is so obviously the favorite of Elvis. Her back is bare from his attentions and she has to go off and hide sometimes. It may be good to be King but it is not always good to be Queen.

Feral Carol has not been seen in weeks and I am sad about this. What a fine hen she was, escaping from next door and coming to live in our yard. She laid me such beautiful brown eggs and she was really becoming part of the flock. I fear she has been taken by a predator. Either that or she's laid up somewhere raising a nest of biddies. I wish that were the case but I don't really think it is.

Here's Daffodil.

Isn't there a poem about a chicken next to a wagon? Can someone help me out here? Anyway, Daffodil is standing next to my old wheel barrow which is so rusted out in the bottom that I have to put that sheet of roofing tin in there for it to function in its intended purpose.
And I should go out and put it to its intended purpose, hauling weeds that I pull from the garden. That's my main focus this weekend. That and rehearsals at the Opera House.

Labor Day weekend and I shall labor in the garden and in the house and at the Opera House and it is all my joy to do so and it is also my joy to tend my chickens, to sit here and fritter away the time at my beautiful MacBook which is old but still perfect (knock wood, I know I am tempting fate) and perhaps tonight I'll cook up some fish or venison from the freezer and serve it to my man-back-from-the-woods with some broccoli and poached pears and I'll listen to Prairie Home Companion while I cook and oh, honey. That is heaven to me.

I hope you're having a good holiday weekend. Be safe and check in frequently. Mama worries. You know she does.

Love...Ms. Moon

Lagniappe:

I was just signing off when Mr. Moon crossed the back yard on the ATV with Elvis and some of the chickens leading the way and although I didn't get THAT picture I got this one and well, there you go. Doesn't he look happy?