Poverty Is Not an Accident

Poverty Is Not an Accident
Nelson Mandela

Thursday, April 14, 2005

baby day?

You are reading http://livinginthehood.blogspot.com

Well, my order of chicks and ducks was, presumably, mailed out yesterday from a hatchery in Texas. They could be here as soon as this morning. I hope so. Two days without food & water is hard on babies. Whenever they come, I plan to take a water dish and some baby crumbles with me to the post office to pick them up. My postal carrier says he'll try to bring them here, if he can. The PO will call when they arrive. The latest they should be here is tomorrow.

I have a small "chicken shack" built already. The two ducklings and the chick are already in it. They're getting too big already. The duckies are half grown already. The chick already has flight feathers. They'll be moving out in a couple of weeks, I'm thinking.

Been working my tail off in both the front and back yards. I was out front, watering flowerbeds in the driveway, when a guy with a clip board came up to the fence yesterday. Seems the city has had a complaint about "trash, in both the front and back yards." He looked around at all my hard work and said, "but I don't see anything." I explained that I'm working on an animal kennel in the back yard and that there are tools, tarps and lumber back there, but that's only temporary. We finally decided the complaint must be about my container garden (all pots are disguised in tall baskets and I've planted in a wheel barrow and 2 zinc washtubs) and about my compost piles in the back. He was satisfied that I had done nothing wrong, so he made some notes, took down my name and phone number, apologized for troubling me, and started to leave. I thanked him and told him I'm grateful that he was so mellow about it all.

People can see me out there, every day, working all day. The yard's rototilled. I'm climbing ladders, shoveling, raking, hammering....all DAY in the sun! I mean, if there were old car parts or beer cans or fast food wrappers or tall stands of weeds, I could understand. But someone actually narced on me FOR WORKING IN MY YARD?!?!

No, I can't afford a gardener. And I don't have any able-bodied men to help me. And this is HARD work: man's work, I'm doing.

I'm so mad, I can't see straight!

If you see a decrepit, old lady, huffing and puffing in her yard all day, OFFER TO HELP HER! DON'T call the CITY on her! ...and I bet they think they're "christians!"

bite me!

So, my tarps came last night, via UPS. I can cover the chicken/duck house I've built out back. I can begin covering the roof over the back porch. I can line my pond, once I'm done digging it out (I'm pretty close, but it rained on the loose soil in the bottom, and I've been letting it dry before I try to haul it out of the hole.

I'm ready to plant the back garden now, soon's I have time.

Well, sun's up. I should be heading out there....

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