The other Sunday we went on a "coop tour". Yes, even in Big "D" there are a few people keeping chickens in their backyards. The tour started at Mother's old elementary school, 'Stonewall Jackson' :-) and took us all around Lakewood as well as Little Forest Hills, another nice area by White Rock Lake. People actually keep chickens in several lovely areas of Dallas, though the coops differ with every neighborhood. Some were custom coops built and designed by an architect specializing in chicken coops (one hasta wonder where he fell in his graduating class), others were homemade coops but just as special if not slightly quirky. A few were even artistic with murals of, what else... chicks, I guess to get them in the mood for layin, sorta like chicken porn, if you will. Why, there was a surprise waiting at every address!
One house even made us step in a shallow tub of water to clean our shoes, to keep from "spreading bad chicken germs"? It wasn't as if we were walking on the chickens or inside the coops for Pete's sake, but I didn't want to see the chicken man get angry so we happily went along with the program. After watching a video in one backyard, I asked the head chicken wrangler if her neighbors minded the noise and she told me that one of her neighbors came over and said she never even knew they had chickens until she saw them, that very day during the 'coop tour'. Funny, because we couldn't help but notice the 10 foot fence between the yards! In fact we saw several rather tall fences that Gary called "smite fences". Hmmmmm
We learned a lot about chickens, too. It will come in handy if we ever decide to shuck it all and move to a place where we can raise chicks and grow our own food but judging from our puny little tomato plant in the courtyard, we'd likely starve to death. That was sure a theme among the chicken folks though. All of them had fabulous gardens. I had to wonder if the chickens clucked to the plants or something to get them to thrive. Maybe I need to start cluckin and scratchin while tending the garden.
Several friends asked if we were thinking about raising chickens, just because we went on the coop tour! Can you imagine? Guess they were remembering the time I wanted to raise Emu back when 1st husband and I had a little ranch. I kinda have a history of thinkin outside the box. We thought that was pretty funny, just the same. I mean, I do love animals and all, but dont look for me to raise chickens anytime soon. Besides, I checked and we cant do it here. Not to mention the fact that I had enough of the ranch life way back then. Those dadgum cows were always getting loose and I would have to chase them down often times in my PJ's with a bucket of range cubes! And the scorpions! They would come inside the house and I would have to coat them with perfectly good hairspray and put tea cups over them until the ex returned from business trips. Nothing says welcome back quite like a floor littered with teacups hiding scorpions frozen into a state of suspended animation! These things never happened while he was home but just let him leave town and all hell would break loose! Why, one time he didn't even make it to the airport before a mouse drowned in the dog's water bowl and one of the cows tried to come inside the screened in porch and got stuck in the doorway. Parts of country livin I surely to goodness loved, but most times it was only slightly better than campin out!
We had a large pond in the front of the property that I wanted for Koi. I had the shape all drawn out and everything but the fella who "dug" it did it his way which meant it looked like a big crater hole. I hate to say it but most of those country men have little to no imagination much less a sense of aesthetics. Eventually I got my way but good grief, I liketa died trying. I would buy Koi a few at a time because they can be expensive. They live a long time so I figured it was a good investment and I wanted to train them to eat from my hand. Dont laugh. So, every day around dusk I would go to the pond and feed them. It wasn't too long before I started noticing there were fewer and fewer Koi. Where the heck did they go? They weren't floating on the surface. I swear, it was a mystery. Then one day I ambled down to the pond and no sooner did I get there, when a big ol white egret hit the water and carried one of my Koi away! The next evening I got the shotgun and off I went. After a few minutes of hunkering down behind a bush here he came. He just swooped down as easy as he pleased and nabbed a Koi. I was so angry I jumped up, cocked the shotgun, aimed and fired. The egret dropped the Koi but I never found it. A lot of the time I felt as if I were living right smack in the middle of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom! I hated facing the brutality of life's food chain every single day.
Back when I was single I knew a fella who was a broken down retired NFL player. He had a spread in East Texas. Occasionally, when the spirit moved me, I would hop in the car on a Friday and head over there for a weekend of playing cowgirl; riding, tagging baby calves, and baling hay. I always had a great time and he loved to cook and have people over so the weekends were always fun and relaxed. There was a steady stream of frozen drinks along with Jimmy Buffet blaring around the pool, too, but I never hung out by the pool because there was always something more to my liking, out in the pasture.
See, even though Im a pink and diamond wearing girly girl, I have always harbored a love of heavy equipment, especially front loaders and giant tractors with air-conditioning and a colored TV inside. Why, sometimes I couldn't even wait to change out of my court clothes which made climbing up there pretty tricky. I didn't care though. My favorite thing to do once I arrived was grab a cocktail, head for the tractor and start spearing the big round bales that peppered the pasture. Then I would carefully stack them like a pyramid on a big ol flat bed trailer. I could get one bale in the front with the giant formidable spear and one in the back of the tractor with the peenchy things. It may sound easy but getting them perched just right on the trailer was an art! Sometimes they would all roll off when I placed the last one on top! It was much more fun than a video game and more challenging, too. I know what you're thinkin, drinkin and drivin and operating heavy machinery but it was only me out there in the pasture, no animals or anything else for me to run into. Being up so high in the tractor on a blisterin day with the air-conditioner hitting me, sippin on a cocktail, watching the sun set and aiming the spear for a big round hay bale was my nirvana and even better than a Calgon bath. The best part was I could go back to my city life in Dallas on Sunday evening feeling rejuvenated and ready to face the week ahead!
Hanging with the Peeps and My Love of Heavy Equipment
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
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