Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.—Gustav Mahler

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Ah, Life in the Sticks . . .

I come from a family that is, generationally speaking, not too far off the farm. Nevertheless, I'm a pure product of the suburb, as is my wife, who has lots of jungle missionaries in her recent family tree. A friend who chooses the "simple" life emailed me this interesting tale of his activities in the wee hours of last night:

Nisha and I were out in the yard at 1 a.m. this morning, Nisha up in the 2nd story level of a tree shaking the branches furiously to knock the roosting chickens off their perch. After they fell to the ground, I chased them around until I caught them, then whisked them away to the closed chicken coop where they could safely spend the night. The reason for this early morning insanity? An owl showed up last night and started picking them off one by one -- chicken screams sound very much like a young child being carrying away by a dragon. The neighbors woke up and were watching the fun -- we all started laughing as we tracked down the last rooster and caught him -- you would have thought we were stuffing cotton down his beak with all the hysterics he went through.

Ah, a night in the country.


This may be the cure for the terrible existential boredom of modern man!

1 comment:

S. T. Karnick said...

My solution would have been much quicker: shoot the owl. STK