Thursday, February 28, 2013

This Is A Mess. Just Like My Life. Oh Well


Well, I guess I've lost my mind. Or at the very least, become what Phil, the Patriarch of the Duck Dynasty clan would call...a yuppie. I am, AS WE SPEAK, drinking a damn smoothie that has kale in it. 
Kale.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. Kale is some sort of miracle green. Frankly, I have avoided kale, believing as I do that our indigenous miracle green here in North Florida is the collard. But after reading sweet Melissa's blog posts about her green smoothies, I decided I would finally try the kale. Plus, Publix had a big old bag of organic kale for sale the other day and I thought, well, what the fuck? Why not? I chopped some up in our chicken and rice the other night and this morning I threw a handful in my blender which had some remnants of a regular yogurt and fruit smoothie left in it along with half an apple and some frozen pineapple. Pineapple makes EVERYTHING better. Chicken, cake, fruit salad, sweet and sour anything. So it sure couldn't hurt in a kale smoothie, right?

It's okay. And now I'll feel all healthy and virtuous and shit all day long, knowing I've had my kale.

It's a beautiful day here in Lloyd. The sun is out full force and it's chilly but not cold. It is, however, supposed to freeze again this weekend. Will the dogwoods ever get a chance to bloom? I do not know.

Anyway, my hip pain has gotten steadily better although the anterior part of my thigh on that side feels a little as if a mule kicked it. This is to be expected, I guess. I am going to do my exercises (which I seriously doubt I am doing correctly) and then go and take a little walk, trying like hell to do THAT correctly. I miss my walks fiercely, especially on a day like today when the sun is shining so brightly and making our rain-washed world so pretty. All that rain we got last weekend added up to the most rain received in the shortest time in recorded history or something like that. It was some sort of record. I am feeling pretty good overall and last night while I was cooking supper I straightened up the baking dish cabinet and the leftover container cabinet so that feels good too. I am listening to another James Lee Burke book on CD narrated by the fabulous Will Patton and so I have been trying to find busy-work to do while listening. The cabinet where I keep the cake pans and pie pans and bread pans and cookie sheets and muffin tins and casserole dishes was to the point where opening it was a real and dangerous threat to my feet. And you know how those leftover containers multiply and lose their lids. But now those areas are tidy and I've washed the dishes and have sourdough bread rising which I started yesterday and I've let the chickens out and fed them their scratch.
Here's Miss Baby.


I just love that hen. She's been running with the flock again because we threw the eggs she was sitting on away. That may sound cruel but those eggs were getting nastier by the day and she could sit on them until Kingdom Come and they were never going to turn into baby chickens. Ever. As in- I am not sure that hen has ever had sex. I love the chicken and admire her spunk but I do not think she is the Virgin Mary of domesticated foul and I don't believe in any sort of Immaculate Conception and the fact is, you have to have sex to make baby chicks. So. The eggs are gone and she's back to scratching and digging and eating at the bird feeder. Which makes me happy. I mean, if she ever raises a clutch I'll be thrilled but this is not the time. I know she must be laying somewhere but I can't figure out where. One of the places she used to lay in the garage has been taken over by a hen from next door which is awesome because that hen is a laying machine. She gives us an egg a day and all we have to do is provide the box she's laying in which was already there and allow her to eat bugs out of our yard.
I have tried and tried to find the Duck Dynasty clip where Jase talks about chickens and how it's a human right to be able to raise chickens in your yard but I can't. He was in a fight with his homeowners' association but he lost because he'd signed the contract.
"Yuppie," his daddy would have said.

We watched some of the Top Chef finale last night and a collard slaw was served. One of the judges said, "Collards are the new kale."

Jesus.

I can't keep up with this stuff but I think that basically one should never sign a homeowners' agreement, one should eat whatever greens one can grow, and that the raising of chickens IS a human right and besides that, it's a joy.

All right. Since I started writing this the world has changed almost entirely in ways I can't even put my finger on but I think maybe my dog Dolly has had a stroke and I'm not even kidding. I guess I better go deal with that. And I don't even know what that would mean. I joke all the time about wanting these dogs to die. And seeing as how this has been such a great year (Owen appears to have finished puking but who knows?) she probably will.

Lord, y'all. Well, at least it's not boring.

Love...Ms. Moon

11 comments:

  1. So, I read these two posts backwards and haven't stopped laughing.

    I love you.

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  2. We make kale, banana, apple, lemon and orange smoothies a lot. That long kale variety is really great in juicers.

    Thanks for your emails. I treasure what you wrote.

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  3. Ha! Yes, kale does make one feel most virtuous. Though, when I bring my smoothies in to work my boss says, "That just...doesn't look natural." I want to say, are you serious? Could it look any MORE natural?

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  4. The virgin mary of domesticated foul?? I think I wet my pants a little. I'm not sure humor gets a whole lot better than that... at least for me. Thanks.

    Glad your hip is coming along. Good for you for sticking in with the exercises. (I can't even IMAGINE what an expert would say about my walking/posture!) Yikes!
    xo

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  5. Your healthy and virtuos self cracks me up. S Jo

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  6. I love Baby too. Kale=collards. They're both extremely good for you and make you strong and invincible, like Wonder Woman's magic bracelets.

    XX Beth

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  7. egg-maculate deception!

    glad to hear the hip is on the mend!

    xxalainaxx

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  8. Elizabeth- GOOD!!!! I am in a good mood today. Can you tell?

    Syd- I treasure you. So there you go.

    Melissa- Well, if by natural you mean green which I suppose is very, very true. Maybe it looks too natural to your boss. Hey- I linked you today and I've put you in my blog roll. I love your writing.

    Ms. Fleur- We are all crooked. I believe this.

    S. Jo- I am virtuous. Believe me. So far. Today.

    Beth Coyote- I consider collards to be the Queen Green because you have to cook them the longest. I think you'd have to have a juicer to handle those babies. But I only have a blender. But if spring makes my collards come on more, I'm going to try.

    Mrs. A- Your posts are cheering me up.

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  9. Yep! I'm still laughing. I've never even thought about virgin hens until this post. I can already tell that your blog is going to teach me things. (I don't mean that sarcastically, btw.)

    Kale is okay, but i've never had it in a smoothie. I like the kale chips though. I think it might be the salt though. And they might be even better dipped in chocolate!

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  10. Mary- Well hell. What wouldn't be better dipped in chocolate?

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  11. I threw some kale in a soup once. Totally ruined it for me. I'd rather eat almost anything than that stuff again.

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