Chicken Wings

A troupe of anorexic chickens roams through the yard here and occasionally the canine gang of four rouses themselves and gives chase. One of them caught a chicken long before my arrival, and killed it, and was punished in a manner that has kept him from doing it again, but apparently his carnage lives on in the memory of local poultry.

Yesterday after Yong (fortunately still among the living after her insect bite) opened the windows of the studio to air the place out, there was a loud flurry of barks and chicken noises followed by dazed and confused yelps. When I looked out, I saw all of the dogs at the studio's closed door with the unmistakable sounds of a chicken in panic coming from within the building. Yong, being as I have said already, of sturdy rural stock, went into the studio and pitched the chicken back out through the way that it came in--on the wing and in a burst of desperate optimism through an open window that is at least five feet off the ground.

So there you are--an unprecedented burst of bucolic excitement and I missed the best part...

Small jolts of sunlight that are brief but intense make me realize why people choose to live here. Then the clouds gather, the rain drips, and I begin to question the sanity of country-dwellers all over again.

No wonder they sell their votes, I have decided, what else do they have to do? Attention, cash bonuses, competition for their ballots...hell it must be exactly like having the circus come to town.