Redneck Central

Farming gets into your blood pretty quickly, and when it does, it tends to dilute any pretensions you have about refinement. Maybe whatever refinement I ever thought I had was simply veneer anyway. Coming from a long line of hillbillies as I do, the farming blood probably attached itself to existing dirt-loving DNA and went wild, shattering that fake glossy patina I have so carefully cultivated in years past.

Sunday was a beautiful day, the kind of day that most people want to get out and do something fun, like bike riding or hiking or picnicking at the park. Mike and I spent the afternoon dumpster diving for used pallets so we can build a chicken coop. We want the chickens not only for the eggs, but mostly for the manure.  We need to build the coop out of salvaged materials because we spent all our money on gussying up a used doublewide that we have moved onto the property. 

I don’t think we embarrass our children any more—they’ve gotten used to it–but I do sort of feel sorry for our children-in-law. Fortunately, their parents live in different towns, so I hope there is no danger they will be driving by one day to see people attached to their families climbing up on the fender of a beat-up 1994 truck, hauling pallets out of a dumpster, excitedly talking about how good that chicken manure is going to be and wondering if we have to worry about coyotes hanging out under the porch of the doublewide.  It’s just too awful to contemplate.