Really, fell asleep without closing up the chicken coup. Dumb dumb dumb.  Wake up at two thirty, go out, can't find them. Traps are set, but no coons, no chickens to be seen in the coup either for that matter.  Sleeping restlessly, dreaming of chickens.  Can't sleep, wake up, go and sit outside and I hear one of those chickens in a death screech.  Grab the flashlight and a twenty two but don't see anything to shoot at.  Eventually back to bed, those damn chickens rolling through my head.  Then  I get woken up by the chucking of a chicken under my bed, and I realize I am not dreaming. Sure enough, one of those new black chickens has wondered over to the safety under my bed.  I think I'll put it in the bathroom for now so it won't keep me up.  It will probably hide behind the toilet and I'll  forget about it and it will refreak me in a few hours. 

Sitting on the back porch last evening, discussing life and pondering the chicken killers.  There were two twenty two's laying on the table, left there after Dylan and John stayed up till three to kill whatever was getting into the chickens.  Well, five minutes past three the coons came by again for buffet.  The dog, Romeo, is not working out so much, he just upped and left and haven't seen him back yet.  Bought coon traps at Orschelns' today, maybe that will do something.  They do work, I already trapped one of my own cats, live traps luckily.  I saw this real cute bunny hopping around grabbed a twenty two and nailed at 25 yards, yessss, 5 minutes  later he was in the fridge, and now a day later he is  cooking, as we are typing.  Googled it and the chances of tularemia are scant, ate quite a few rabbits in Nicaragua, and there you would really have to wait a long time before you could eat one after the first frost.  
It has been nice weather, really unusual.  So Dylan is on the pumpkin plan today.  We're working on this 50 cubic yard of compost, trying to spread it, till it in and plant.   There wasn't a whole lot to sell at the market (basil, tomatoes and potatoes, but that will all be there next week too) and Dylan suggested I help him with shoveling the compost.  So I played hooky, from market and we are shoveling, and some more and doing some weeding and we have deep meaningful conversations.  When asked why we are doing what we are doing, shovel shovel, weed weed I couldn't come up with anything better than to say  than there really isn't anything on TV. 
It's not like we are in a hurry but we can't seem to get past this idea that everything has to be faster.  I actually like digging in a heap of compost, putting it in a little garden cart pulling it up to a bed and then dumping the cart in a controlled fashion.  Quiet, simple, a shovel at the time, no noise, the way the Dutch built all those dikes.  We did it the other day and used a truck, three filling it up, then one driving and two unloading.  It goes faster but only because you have 3 people, since I am the oldest one I can do the driving.  But today Dylan borrowed a manure spreader, it holds a bunch, but it comes out rather slow and you have to go over the same bed a couple of times and you got that tractor putt putt noise.  So after maybe the third loaded spreader we go to the house and get a glass of water and next thing you know we are both sound asleep on the couches for an hour, slaving away... 
Later I see my neighbor driving by, as in dreamland, with a bobcat on a trailer, ideas about noble medieval honest work are instantly abandoned and I go to his house.  But, he is getting ready to go to Joplin and do relief work for the tornado disaster and I really don't want to ask him for such a piddly thing.  So back to the grinder.  To me it is interesting how we want to completely eliminate any kind of hard work.  In the USA they are able to put an engine and a pull rope on a broom. Next time I have a pile of compost and a manure spreader I will organize someone with a front end loader, and if I can't find that, it will be done by hand.    
Oh, when I was at Orschelns' I did buy this really cute chainsaw, now those things are handy.
Update: did set the traps, both were sprung at 1 am.  The cat food was gone, and so was whatever ate it.  So whatever got in there is smarter than the people that make those traps or my cats.  Going to sleep next door to the chicken coup in the trailer.  I am pissed!

So the last couple of mornings I have woken up (that's good) and my eyes would fall on this poster of John Lennon.  And all of a sudden it dawned on me that I have actually outlived him.  I am 45 and he had just turned 40 when he died, maybe I should get past this idolization.  Imagining there is no heaven is no fun for than I would never get a chance to talk to the dude.   Remembering when I heard a song called Nobody told me: "always something happening and nothing going on".  Strange days indeed.      ( youtube that one!)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBCdlBrgEmE
Got a call last night, (and just to sketch the setting, earlier in the day I had purchased a quart of topnotch white lighting, corn alcohol with at least 60 percent alcohol as evidenced by the contractions in my esophagus and the blue flame after I lit my glass on fire) some woman had heard that I was lonesome and dogless and she had two she couldn't afford to feed.  So I went by there this morning, after she called me to remind me of my commitment,  and next thing you know I was really smart and turned down the really cute pitbull, called Pede.  One bunk of muscle and slobber on a chain, really cute with no ears.  Then I did something really dumb and drove off with this Malemut Alaskan homp of hairy dog in the back of my station wagon.  Romeo.  He is salivating so  badly and stinking so badly he clogs up the airco in the car and I have to gag out of the window.  He has about half the brain of soks.   When you say sit he lays down, when you call Romeo he runs away. Definitely top notch dog, going to fit right in.  Stopped at Gails, to show off my new life partner, she thought he was cool and ok'ed the unleashment, and then he was gone.   We walked back to the house and there he was, ferociously digging a hole to bury the chicken that he had just snatched.  Took him by Dylan in Hermann, and he said: nice dog, let her roam, sure she roamed, so two glasses of wine a tank of gas later we found him.  Got home, tethered him, especially after he had gotten another chicken,  and that didn't last long because he pulled so hard that he almost pulled the post of the back porch out and downstroyed the roof.  He was not able to move the combine, yet.  
Tater, the orange  cat is the only one that can deal with this dog.  He actually thinks this new thing is a nifty purchase that is there for his pleasure.  So you got this red tutored tomcat that is trying to bat this dog that is 10 times as big,  back and forth like a mouse in a pinball machine.  I am not gonna let this dog in the house, and right now I feel like Brittney Spears feels about the papparazzi, I have all three doors in the house barricaded, and this stalker outside ramming the doors.   I took him for a walk around the perimeter of the property.  It was great, I had never water skied before, and especially through swampy mud waters, whoa whoa whoa, slow down partner, and he turns it up another notch.   Another error, don't leave the door of your car open when it thunders and lightens, and you have a scared dog on your property, guess he'll go to work with me tomorrow.  I should have gotten the chiuaua (sp?. tried it 6 different ways, how do you spell chiwawa?)

Oh I forgot, this is a farm blog. Except there is nothing to farm. Well, it's been a great year with regards to weeding, it has been so wet that I have yet to touch a hoe.  My ex boss from NRCS came by and dropped off a bunch a chickens that qualify for historic plates.   They are in the same ball park intelligence  as Romeo (-13) so I had a hell of a time getting them in the coup tonight.  Got me some food to keep em alive, which reminds me of my mother who went to the vet one time to only have her be told by a smirking vet, why don't you just get a new chicken, that is cheaper than what I will charge you?  Anyway, Romeo got one of those, so at least I don't have to feed him tonight. 

How does that work, the stuff factor? 
I take 20 dollars, go to St. Louwie and buy a clock, a curtain, a bed cover, clothespins, a telescope, X mas lights a pair of shoes and still have change.   Brother Jan almost didn't get through customs in Chicago because he didn't have enough stuff with him  ( and he was a wee-bit wobbly in the legs).  I came to to US with 2 suitcases in 1993, I had them packed chock full of" stuff" seed and they all germinated and stayed home and multiplied. Since my stuff is bottom of the barrel quality ( think dumpsterdiving at the goodwill,  how low can you go?) I have multiples of everything.  And now for the first time in 12 years I have trash pickup, actually, it comes with the house I bought in Hermann.  So now it  is a relief when something breaks down.  Yesssss!!! the breadmachine pooched it,  let me try the other one.   Great,  ah, the washingmachine is shaking the house.  "right-on, Uprgrade, upgrade".  Hooora,y the tostada baker ( ( Some of the stuff I don't even know what it is, but I have been told that my life is a failure if I don't have it. So sure: "give me two of them thingamajigs))"  is smoking and smelling like plastic.  "Oh ma,  you broke that teapot, thanks! how bout you throw some cups on the floor too and make it a set"?     I am a friendly feller, so when people hear about my luxury of stuff removal they want in on the action.  It has come to the point that the trash pile is actually taller than the house itself on Monday night.  And that brings me to the realization that I need help.  There is something wrong with dumpster diving in your own trash (so yes, you can go lower than goodwill dumpsters).    So to get "the economy" going again we have to go out and buy more stuff.  Can anyone explain that to me?   I think I have done my part in stimulating I doubled up on all my stuff, it's your turn to go and stimulate something. 

 Some stuff is crucial, but not very much.  Right now I think little things like airplanes are important to get my mother back to me. Ma missed the egg hatching by one day, and I miss my ma after one day.  They are peeping again, in the first incubator (because of course I have two of these too).  

Been hectic here, brother Jan was here, my ma is here and whoever else shows up at random times.  So on Thursday it is too wet to get the tractor in the field, and on Tuesday, 5 days later it is so dry that you can drag a disk over the field, but not through the field.  I am starting to get suspicious of my farming karma. Starting out with snowmageddon, this 15 inch snow (oh what I wouldn't give for that right now), baseball size hail, 2 months of rain, a tornado or two, and now record heat in June, and a Missouri river that will be flooding soon.  
In case you missed it, spring this year was May 24th, between nine thirty and eleven am. 
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So, the spring crops, schlapped in between rains could never get weeded, or drowned out, plowed them up, then put 500 transplants out, they were good looking tomatoes, emphasis on were, they drowned out, so for the third time we are ripping up this field here.  
Orval isn't happy with the wheat either and it will take some prodding to get him to combine them, for it is hardly worth it he says.  May have to put the pressure on him, after all, this monstrous machine is clogging up my shed space, and if we are not going to use it I would like to turn it into a yard ornament.
Than we got a chicken murderer in the midst of us, not sure what goes into the coop at night and just kills them for the heck of it.  (At least when I kill one I eat it, these animals just take one bite out of the neck and let them rot, buggers).
So we are looking at some barren fields here, my normally solid oak sunny disposition is turning into rotting pine, but, nothing a glass of wine with Ma can't fix.  

Anyway, not hindered by any relevant knowledge we'll just keep on plodding onward.