Mountains and Islands

Charlie the chicken.  I've taken to calling him Chuck instead.  Charlie rhymes with Harley, which is one of the cat's names.  Chuck rhymes with cluck which is what roosters do.  They also crow.  Roosters crow at dawn, of course.  They belt it out whenever they hear other roosters crowing from however far away.  They crow if a car speeds by or a bird sings in a nearby tree of a bee buzzes overhead or for whatever the hell reason and whenever they jolly well feel like it.  Ron finds this endearing.  He has already told me at least a dozen times not to get too attached. "They don't live very long, you know," he says. "He's a rooster," I say.  "I'm just sayin'," he says.  "I wouldn't get too attached." "He has a tiny head and an enormous body by comparison and he poops on the driveway and crows all damn day," I say. "He's a good boy," Ron says.  "He seems to like bananas." "He...

Home. I learned on the way from the airport yesterday that Ron has endeared himself to the new neighbor by firing off shotgun blasts.  His objective in making such a racket was not to kill anything (although if the neighbor insists on being pissy, that could change).  It was instead to scare off the pig family that has chosen a spot near our water tank to nest, or burrow, or whatever pigs do to set up house.  Apparently, new neighbor guy likes to sleep during the day. He told Ron that shooting to scare them would do no good.  He insisted, and we've heard this before, that you have to kill them to get rid of them. Well, they're gone, probably to someplace quieter.  We were told we couldn't grow zucchini here too, but that was hogwash, pun intended.   Speaking of noise, we have a new critter, another interloper that Ron has named and feeds and calls, "good boy."  Charlie the chicken.  More specifically, Charlie the rooster.  He's pretty, but annoying.  His favor...