When We Mistake Each Other for Ourselves, We Are Both Right
Sure, the platypus is a duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed, egg-laying aquatic mammal. And then there’s the story of the deer who was a cow.
Driving around near Ola, Idaho, last week, I saw inside a big split rail corral about fifty cows and one big mule deer buck—crowned in a twelve-point rack.
Drivers were on their radios: Why this deer was hanging out with the cows?, one driver asked. What rancher wants that? Another said, Deer season. Said another: I’ve no effing idea. With that, a new voice came through. This cowboy says, Hey, this is my ranch, and that’s my deer. You pop a shot at him and you go down.
What the cows did, so did the buck.
When the cows went through the lane to take vaccines, he’d follow and get the shots too. Even during the rut, the buck approached the cows carefully, antlers high, flicking his tongue, debuting his bugle-moo.
To stroke the fur of truth is to halt all opposites: elephant/ant. Outside/in. Worker/king. After/before. Ask/tell: Nowhere, the world over.
Thought for Food (I)
She’d met a man in Horseshoe Bend, Idaho, who rents out egg-laying hens to people’s backyards as a way for folks to save money. Two hens lay about a dozen eggs a week, and four hens lay around two dozen eggs a week—give or take two or three or four, said Homestead Stan, who offers Rent The Chicken.
She took notes on everything: 2 Rent The Chicken Egg-Laying Hens; 1 Standard Chicken Coop to be easily moved; 100 pounds of non-GMO Chicken Feed; 1 Water dish; 1 red food tray. And: sometimes in spring a hen gets broody and you’ll need to stop the behaviour, be a broody breaker.
She notes the word brood embeds two free little eggs.
Thought for Food II
She felt it might work, in these difficult times, to try to work out a trade: a half dozen thoughts for a plate of blue eggs.
