Fog Rising

Mist fills the hollow, spills up over the ridge. Library called and they had a book for me, so I drove into town. Got a couple of other books, stopped at Kroger, some nice little thin-sliced veal remaindered. I'll stuff these with mushrooms and shallots and cook them on the grill, not today though, clouds building up, so I stopped for a shake at the dairy bar and beat it home. I hadn't gotten the Jeep unloaded when the rain started thundering down, violent, changing over to marble-sized hail. It got quite dark, the power flickered a few times, but I have oil lamps, candles, and my headlamp; and I've cooked some damn fine meals on a camp-stove. There were beautiful bunches of Dandelion greens at the store, so I bought a couple; one for a salad, with sliced sweet onions and cucumber, and another that I'll just cook like spinach, serve with butter, salt and pepper. Left-overs make mean omelets. Settles into a slow steady rain that finally puts me to sleep, and when I wake up, from a dream about chickens, it takes a few minutes to remember where I am. This ridge, this rainstorm, frogs, chirping through the rain. Mississippi John Hurt singing about Avalon, his home town. I bought some chickens, in Avalon, some promising small roosters, from a distant cousin, twice removed, trying to develop a free-range chicken that could live on hog droppings. Another of my failures, the pigs just ate the chickens. When pigs eat chickens there's nothing left; actually, when pigs eat anything there's nothing left. They're an extremely efficient disposal system. Every family in America could raise a pig on their household waste: like llamas, they like to shit in the same place, and they smell nice, if they can wallow in clean water. How did I get to pigs? Oh, right, the chickens, chickens from the dream. The dream was just a pastoral reminder. Chickens running about in the yard, maybe a dog, sleeping under the porch, a cat in the window; usually there are some herbs growing in pots on the window sill. Emily flits about, baking bread. She did most of the baking and made outlandish pastries out of left-over dough, almost pornographic. I love the image of wild sex, while Emily watches at the door.