2008_November

November 2008

November 1 (Saturday)

Not much going on today so far. It is still early morning on Saturday. All of the animals are present, healthy, and
accounted for, and that's about as good as I can hope for. Smokey decided to come inside for a visit, and he is
bothering me right now as I write. Smokey is the last surviving of the original cats I had, so he is special. He is a
loving kitty, so I don't mind him at all.

November 5 (Wednesday)

The time is just now after 4:00 am. As usual I awoke before the alarm did. I'll leave home about an hour from now,
and arrive home from work around 5:45 pm. This is the time of year when I leave in the dark and arrive home in
the dark. I don't like it, but there it is.

The animals all appear to be okay. Cougar has a cold, I believe, so I fixed him some chicken broth. I don't have
time to take him to the vet. The temperature outside is cool, and I am beginning to use the fireplace. I don't like
dark and cold weather, but I love using the fireplace.

Well, time to get read for work.

November 6 (Thursday)

I live a boring life. I awake each morning by 4:15. I drive 1.5 hours to work and 1.5 hours home. I arrive home
around 5:45 p.m. I am in bed by 8:00 each night. I do that five days a week. I do all of the chores around the
house: laundry; dishes; cleaning; animals. I don't have much in the way of free time. Since I began looking after
animals about eight years ago I have not spent a night away from home.

But I am not complaining. I can think of far more reasons for someone else to complain than I can for me to
complain.

November 8 (Saturday)

Jane Velez-Mitchell is a correspondent on Headline News, and I have just finished watching a debate on her show
about legalizing prostitution. Evidently, even though Jane was the moderator, she does favor legalizing
prostitution. Her argument is that since it is the oldest profession, and since you cannot eliminate prostitution, and
since it is always going to be with us, why not regulate it? If you can't get rid of prostitution at least you can ensure
that it is done the right way.

Hm ..., let's see how that idea would work elsewhere. It seems to me that you cannot eliminate lying and stealing,
so why not legalize those? We can regulate theft, and make sure that it is done the right way. And why stop
there? I doubt if bank robbery will ever cease, so why not regulate that too? We can legalize bank robbery and
ensure that bank robbers do that the right way.

And cheating. We can make cheating legal (cheating on tests; cheating on taxes), thus ensuring that cheaters do
that the right way. And why stop there? What about murder? It seems to me that murder is older than
prostitution, so why not legalize murder? We can regulate murder, and thereby ensure that murderers do that the
right way.

November 10 (Monday)

Well, we are into that time of year when it is dark outside when I leave home for work and dark when I arrive home
from work. I don't like it, but i like having a job. The poor dogs must go five days a week without having a chance
to see the sun. I keep them in kennels while I am at work, and their kennels are under my carport.

At least I get to use the fireplace, which I love. I am burning some nice oak and cedar as I write.

November 12 (Wednesday)

The weather is warmer, but it is still cool enough to use the fireplace. I have done some more work on my Historic
Corinth website. I wish I had time to take more pictures and to include more captions for those pictures that are
already on the site, but my schedule doesn't allow for much.

All animals are well and accounted for.

November 15 (Saturday)

The temperature is cooler, and I have cut some firewood this morning, although not nearly enough. There are a
lot of trees in the woods to be cut. There are enough dead trees to give me firewood probably into next year.
With sixteen acres, I have enough trees die each year to supply my firewood needs. My schedule, however,
makes chores like cutting firewood difficult.

Willow Oak is a great place. A three-bedroom, brick house; 16 acres; trees; a beautiful pond; rural setting; it is all
breathtaking and it's a shame to let it sit here and go to waste. I wish I were in a position to clean it up and provide
a safe haven for large animals that need a place. I have often thought that I would like to offer it as a place to
house horses and other large animals that are neglected and otherwise unwanted. Surely there is a need for such
a place. Right now that is out of the question. I am gone five days a week, 5:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., so I could not
care for any such animals. I already have enough to take care of, with the 11 dogs and 13 cats I have now.

November 16 (Sunday)

I first saw these two guys hanging around Willow Oak about a month ago. The red one is a rooster; the other I
don't know. I know nothing about poultry, but they have been hanging around for a few weeks. I am not prepared
to care for chickens -- I don't know anything about them, so even thought I have been throwing them some bread
and some cat food, I figure they haven't been having trouble finding stuff in the yard. There are grape vines and
fig trees, and blackberry vines all over the place, and I've seen chickens in the yard before -- the neighbors have
them. But these two seem to have taken up residence at Willow Oak.

At that is a shame, because already the dogs have gotten after them, and I'm afraid the red one has been done in.
The two chickens had been hanging out in the trees inside the fence, and I rescued the red one from the dogs
one morning about a week ago, and all I did was deliver him outside the fence. He was minus quite a few feathers,
and I haven't seen him since.

Now I rescued the black one from the dogs this morning, and he (she?) appears to be very disoriented. The poor
thing is missing feathers, but otherwise seems okay. I ensconced it into one of the smaller dog kennels and placed
it with some bread and water under the pavilion in back. I guess I'll check into chicken feed, but otherwise I am at a
loss as to what exactly I am going to do.

They are/were a couple of beautiful birds, and I can't help it, but I feel for their welfare.

November 17 (Monday)

Then black bird is eating. When I arrived home from work today, the bread that I had left was gone, and the bird
was perched on the edge of the box. I gave it some more bread and it gobbled it down eagerly. I also noticed that
it had recovered some of its tail feathers. I was going to turn it lose when I got home, but I decided that it appears
to be happy enough where it is that I shall leave it alone for a few more days and see how it gets along.

November 19 (Wednesday)

I let the black bird out of its cage. I'm calling it a hen, so I hope she does okay. She looks much better and started
pecking at the ground and scratching around as soon as I let her go. I threw her a slice of bread and she took
right to it.

The other "birds" are doing okay. I left work early today, and that allowed me to get home in time to let the dogs
out and enjoy a couple hours of sunshine. They surely enjoyed that.

One of my co-workers told me that he and his wife decided to left their newly adopted dog out of its nightly kennel.
He told me that the dog jumped right into bed with them, and they let him sleep there. When my co-worker awoke
this morning, there was the dog, lying on its back with its head perched on the pillow "just like a human." Uh, I
know the sight well, but I'm glad he shared the story and enjoyed the experience.

November 22 (Saturday) 6:00 am

Life. Learning to live it. I arrived home from work yesterday to find the neighbor's dog chewing on the black hen I
released a couple days ago. I took it to my bathroom, and left it with some bread and water. I contemplated
putting it out of its memory. I retrieved my rifle, and even went outside to scout a place to do the deed, but being
the "wuss" that I am could not go through with it.

Today I shall go to town and run some errands. Among them I intend to get the chain saw sharpened; get the oil
changed on the truck; buy some dog and cat food; and maybe pick up some chicken feed. I don't know what to do
with the hen, but for the time being she appears to be okay. Will she mend? Is it worth the effort? Am I nuts?
She is in bad shape -- at least she is not in good shape. The dog chewed on her pretty good, as you can see.

The neighbor's dog chewed on her pretty good.

I took a couple of pictures yesterday on my way home from work. I have been aware of these two structures for
years. I first saw the house at top when it was in better shape -- not good enough for most folks to live in, but at the
time when I first saw it, probably in good enough shape to have been repaired. No more. I can say the same for
the other house.

Ah, those vintage old homesteads ...

November 23 (Sunday) 6:00 am

Errands required about four hours yesterday, but when I arrived home there was the red rooster. He was walking
a bit crooked, but there he was strutting his stuff. I tried to catch him so that I could better accommodate him, but
he was having none of it. I saw Larry yesterday and he agreed to take the black hen off my hands. Larry raises
chickens, and his wife is handy at nursing injured and otherwise needy poultry, and she agreed to take the bird
and nurse it back to health. I had some firewood delivered to the house yesterday evening -- a friend of Larry's --
and he delivered the bird for me.

I guess the rooster will be all alone now, and hopefully he won't fall prey to the neighbor's dog like the hen did.
Even though I am concerned about the rooster, I am relieved about the poor black hen.

Zack Steen is the web administrator for the online edition of the Daily Corinthian. Zack posts one of my animals
stories on that site each Friday. Zack has his own blog, which features some of his photographs. He has some
interesting stuff there.

November 26 (Wednesday) 6:30 pm

I received a nice email from Larry's wife. It appears that the chicken is indeed a hen -- a "pullet" she called it. She
talked about how it was getting along, and she feels that it is going to be okay. That was good and welcome news.
It turns out that she has been collecting her own brood of animals -- mostly chickens and horses and such. I am
rescuing dogs and cats, and she is rescuing chickens and horses.

November 27 (Thursday) 7:00 am

I am thankful for second chances ...

November 30 (Sunday) 7:30 am

I found the red roster's carcass in the middle of the road near my house. It's too bad. I managed to rescue the
hen, but I could not do the same for the rooster. The two hanged around Willow Oak for a couple of months, and
they were a beautiful and welcome addition. I only wish I had known more about the care of poultry. To me death
is always sad, no matter the species. I do not differentiate between human and non-human, but I realize that we
live in the world in which we live, and things are they way they are. Life itself goes on.

Thanksgiving is over, and Christmas is coming. My diet has changed quite a bit since June, when I had my heart
attack, but I allowed myself some apple and some pecan pie over the past two weeks. Like most people I enjoy
this time of year, but I don't get caught up in all the shopping and spending of money. And I don't do a lot of
eating. I did all of that at a younger age, but I have changed as I have gotten older.

I have been using the fireplace a lot. I have enough wood cut and stacked to last maybe through January. To get
the maximum effect of the fireplace I need enough wood to last through February and into March. There are still
several dead trees about ready to be harvested for firewood. So if I can find the time, I shall have no problem with
having enough wood.

The online edition of the Daily Corinthian continues to post my stories each Friday. There are still enough stories
to last another seven months or so. I need to get busy or I shall run out of stuff to publish.