NOTES IN A BOTTLE

A recent alteration of my perspective has led me to view my previous posts as the notes in a bottle written by a self-exiled, misanthropic hermit from his island of natural habitat written in hopes of influencing such finders as care to abandon their habitual nature-hating destruction of the body on whose health we are all dependent. It would seem my bottles got swept up in the mid-Pacific, Texas-sized island of non-biodegradable trash and the notes became diluted by the prolific propaganda politics pours into any issue of importance.

It struck me right between the eyes the other evening when I tuned in Rachel Maddow to find out the fate of the captain in the hands of the Somali pirates. In my concern about the Bush rape of the constitution I had slowly morphed from a rabid distruster of all things political to political observer to political critic all the way to VOTER!!! I’d become a fan of Keith Olbermann and her because they seemed to represent my feelings about the duplicity of the neocons and the solution of Obama. It was only when Rachel broke down the breaking news that sharpshooters had simultaneously killed three pirates into the two party’s opinions before even mentioning the ultimate fate of the captor that it occurred to me that I wasn’t getting the facts of the daily haps, but the massaged political ramifications of everything from genocidal wars to gay love. Just as every valid citizen concern about the government is emasculated by being taken under its wing as a new department, i.e. EPA, NRC, FDA etc., the media’s economic need for sensationalism has divided the national concerns into conservative and the liberal chefs to flavor the faux food with just right kind of hot sauce for their target demographic.

As often as I have sworn off of posting political out of the unremitting frustration of hoping the greed greased gears of western civilization would grind more slowly and reconsider its ravenous consumption, I feel safe in saying nevermore. Politics is the national procrastination practiced by individuals intending to avoid personal responsibility for their actions by hiding in crowds taking sides. While I’m at it, I hereby cease posting on religion as well, for precisely the same reason. I leave both artificial schisms to those who love to dice the golden rule up into infinite rules of law and plagiarize nature’s laws as intelligent design.

So saying, I am happy to report that the three original surviving chicks are one month old today and the epitome of ugly ducklings, with chick fuzz molting and real feathers protruding from weird places. Surely the art designer for Dark Crystal must have raised baby chicks. In respect of the demise of three of the original chicks I have foregone naming the three three-week-olds until they begin having more reliable characteristics than the momentary markings of babes. They have all learned to climb the ladder to the roost and retire themselves at dusk. I play with them and talk to them in hopes they will, as I have read, imprint on me and come when I call if I ever come to trust them to free range outside the chicken tractor with the dogs around.

I have decided to dedicate a couple of beds to permanent inhabitants,

Artichoke, should live at least five years and yield up to 20 blossoms each the second year

Asparagus, should last forever if I treat them properly for the first year before harvesting.

In six months, I may be eating artichoke omelet.

WHO, ME?

Pisces Iscariot has returned the recognition I showed him a couple of years ago when I tagged him with the Thinking Blogger award by presenting It Must Be The Vapors with the Noblesse Oblige award yesterday. The Noblesse Oblige award is intended to be presented to blogs that satisfy the following criteria:

1. The Blogger manifests exemplary attitude, respecting the nuances that pervades amongst different cultures and beliefs.
2. The Blog contents inspire; strives to encourage and offers solutions.
3. There is a clear purpose at the Blog; one that fosters a better understanding on Social, Political, Economic, the Arts, Culture and Sciences and Beliefs.
4. The Blog is refreshing and creative.
5. The Blogger promotes friendship and positive thinking.

Methinks he stretched the criteria quite a bit for me but, because I am grateful for his esteem considering his razor sharp intelligence and lethal wielding of words in poetry and prose that cut through the heart of the matter to the expose the spirit energizing that fleshy pump, I accept the the honor of this award.

It Must Be The Vapors began three years ago as a way to communicate with friends who moved to India and has developed into an alternative to the journal I have been keeping for the better part of forty years. The ostensible intent of the blog today is to record my progress in and thoughts about becoming self sustaining off the grid of modern civilization by learning to become more symbiotic with the nature of the planet our culture so abuses. I've often gotten sidetracked by my irritation with political malfeasance, religious zealots' condemnations and the general public blindness to ecological disaster, my tirades about which I suspect are the prime reason Pisces Iscariot tagged me because he loves it when I'm angry.

The following posts are representative of my more satisfying compositions:
The Dynamics of Quality, the evolution of Chance the Gardener
Schism, an exploration of Yin-Yang
Fools for Tools, the evolution of prosthetics brings the devolution of humans

I would like to present the Noblesse Oblige award to the following bloggers with even less adherence to the criteria than was followed in my receiving it:

Unremitting Failure, for gems such as "Life. People say enjoy it. What, are they crazy? Life is holding us hostage! It intends to kill us! Hence those people who say enjoy life have Stockholm Syndrome! They're out there right now, some of them, throwing the frisbee with their captor! Not us. We're keeping our wits about us. We're waiting for life to slip up, to get lazy, to let--even once--its guard down. When it does, we're out of here."

Driftglass, for the most searing indictment of our political system anywhere, Drifty skewers left and right alike when they're acting like shishkabob.

Thanks again, Pisces.

For those recipients who wish to pass this on, here are the rules:

1. Create a Post with a mention and link to the person who presented the Noblesse Oblige Award.
2. The Award Conditions must be displayed at the Post.
3. Write a short article about what the Blog has thus far achieved – preferably citing one or more older post to support.
4. The Blogger must present the Noblesse Oblige Award in concurrence with the Award conditions.
5. Blogger must display the Award at any location at the Blog.

LIFE IN THE LOCAL LANE

Ella & Shiva worship each other

Two Saterdays ago my neighbor, Donna, gave me a ride to the local chick gettin' place to purchase six baby chickens to launch my version of chicken farming. Since she has been the person responsible for honoring the landlord's wishes to see chickens pecking around the yard on his occasional respites from a whirled wind tour and I have benefitted and been encouraged to begin my own brood based on my observations during my three-day-per-week chicken feeding and watering and egg collecting over the last year, I felt it only fair that Donna share this beginning.

They were out — but would be getting in three-hundred new chicks the following Thursday at noon. My friend, Erica, offered, nay, insisted she drive me there come 11:30 on the appointed day assuring our being the second in line.

With six beautiful, week old Araucana chicks in a small cardboard box we returned to the Dawgranch to the delight of the throng Asenath, Finn, Timothy, David, Hank, Amelia, Ella, Erica, Priest and I formed for four entranced hours as they adventured o'er the 6'x4', chicken wire and bird net caged landscape of lush winter rye lawn and alfalfa straw discovering the feeder and sugar water.


Araucanas are originally a breed of chicken from South America made famous for their "Easter Eggs" of purple or blue eggs and although mixed pretty throughly in the Americanization process still retain their resemblance to game birds as adults. The variation in the markings of the chicks are so distinct that their adoring fans had given them all names within hours of their arrival — some of them were renamed multiply until settling on the names below.


Between the photographing of the pictures above and below lie the "times that try men's soul." At least mine. This morning I arose for the last time being fraught with the anxiety of having two of the babies torn out of their cage by the powerful jaws of Donna's oldest, most powerful dog and a third being mightily slimed by the time our periodic visits that first evening revealed the atrocity. Cheepmonk and Prairy Chicken were dead and Kiwi held out against her injuries until sometime before dawn this morning. After burying her I took this next photo of the vegetable and chicken gardens as the first official spring presentation of 2009 potential.


Now raised to the upper level of the coop, the survivors, Shiva, Black Jack and the Nameless One, grow wing feathers and work out code pecking at the floor as they become more like they're gonna be than they were before. This coming Thursday, Erica will drive me to the chick gettin' place once again and we will bring home three more, week younger chicks and hope for the best.

FOUR CHAIRS

Amidst a break while turning compost to add to the transplanting of six artichoke seedlings, I noticed the evolved arrangement of my seat and three others and recalled its progress the afternoon before.


The return of the namesake of Ella Falls to Piddle Pond occasioned a reunion with her family after they ODed on NYC after a few years which in turn meant her mistress, lesser known as Babyldorkgalactinerd, again graced the pondside of which she is the reigning priestess and algae redecorator — hail Eris! My joy runneth over.

A gathering of she and her court, Timothy Cleverporque and Henry DeVino caused a line of chairs to form along the path to the shed facing out into the property where I just happen to be procrastinating the swift completion of a projection I’ve entertained for over a year, my own chicken coop. When I took a break I sat in a fourth chair behind the row, and as conversation became more cerebral and less about events before them in the present, such as my carpentering ingenuity or Ella’s elegance in the sunlight, we turned the chairs around to face in a circle as is tradition in America when there’s a pipe to be passed or conversation to be had.

This morning, alone in the quiet breeze of a sunrise that has been occurring for the entire existence of Earth those four chairs represented the human race turning from symbiotically observing nature as a guide and a prime consideration in our behavior to form circles with their backs to nature’s distractions from plans to assert mastery over it, within and without. Civilization is nature designed by a committee.