Saturday Jots 09-05-2009

☼ We now have a small herd of chickens (4 to be exact.) Flock I think gives too much the sense of cohesiveness, of creatures banding together, the former the more accurate noun carrying the sense of having to corral the little darlings back into the gated community in which they live, and thence, into the small and secure wooden house where they go each night to practice good and frequent bowel hygiene and perhaps extrude a tiny egg or two. I figure so far the ratio of input to output is about $50 and 2 hours and a pound of cloacal content per egg. We’ve yet to let them out of the fence to “free range”, an occasion which holds exactly the opposite promise for the dog.

☼ The deer found the beans (again) growing on the perimeter fence of the Vegetable Containment Compound because the dog and I neglected to sufficiently and regularly mark the area as we had been faithful to do over the bean season. You can tell exactly the reach of their long lovely necks and that, thankfully, they were too lazy to stand on their hind legs as they are wont to do to reach the very topmost apple on your semidwarf tree the night before you intended to harvest your coveted crop.

☼ Interesting conversation yesterday with a visitor at the Country Store. We had talked for perhaps 15 minutes, introduced by the store acquisitions staff as a local writer, when the fellow, an Oklahoma native living in South Carolina, asked about the politics of Floyd. He assumed we were so out of the flow as to be indifferent. He was appalled to discover the county is about 50-50 red and blue (terms I had to explain, which led me to believe he might have more opinions than data on board.) He equated “liberals” with Nazi Germany. Our conversation on his part slid quickly towards concrete labels, black and white and it did not continue long thereafter.

☼ In mind of the degree to which the medium can influence the message as a writer, I’ve purchased a new writing tool. The second book largely happened because Devonthink Pro software made order appear out of the chaos of 120 different bits of writing over three years. But its chief strength was in ordering pieces already written. Future needs will be different. You know the old saying: If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I bought Scrivener yesterday and hope it is a welder or a joiner. I want to fasten all those shorter essays into a freestanding structure that will hold more weight. The tools we have available either limit or expand our native abilities, augment our thumbs, our vision, our language I hope. We’ll see. Scrivener also works well for blogging research if I fail at using it for anything more.

☼ THE IMAGE: from my cemetery ramble while killing time (poor choice of words perhaps) in town last week. I know there were names chiseled into the granite on the opposite side of these two stark and closely pressed headstones, probably man and wife. But the anonymous emptiness against the somber sky seemed a more expressive image in keeping with the mood of the moment.  Click to enlarge.