Author Portrait: MaryJane

Unplug Billboard

Posted on August 29, 2011 by MaryJane

Loved this USFS (United States Forest Service) street sign I walked past on a recent visit to San Francisco. Clear Channel: boy on top tubing/boy on bottom watching fireflies. Clear Message.

Author Portrait: MaryJane

Birds of a Feather

Posted on August 25, 2011 by MaryJane

It’s no secret that I’m crazy about chickens. Been there, established that. But did you know that I also carry a torch for their free-flying cousins? Yep, birds of any feather tickle my fancy. Chickadees, woodpeckers, sparrows, even raptors and ravens inspire a kind of wide-eyed wonder in my heart, and I suppose that qualifies me as a birdwatcher. Throw in my trusty old pair of binoculars, and I might even be a bona fide “birder” (FYI: bird was first used as a verb in 1918).

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Author Portrait: MaryJane

Playing Possum

Posted on August 15, 2011 by MaryJane

When it comes to my chickens, I’m a mother hen who doesn’t mess around. My girls have the run of the place, and I don’t take kindly to predatory folk prowling around, plundering nests, and ruffling feathers.

But every “Head Hencho” knows there are as many ways of tending a flock as there are chicken poops under a roost. You have your movable pens, laser deterrents, traps, and high-voltage hot wire. Plenty of armed and able farmgirls shoot to kill without batting an eyelash.

And then there’s another approach, one you might not want to try at home.

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Author Portrait: MaryJane

Gone Fishin’

Posted on August 9, 2011 by MaryJane

You’ve seen ‘em—the “gone fishin’” bumper stickers:

>   hooked for life;

>   good things come to those who bait;

>   salmon—the other pink meat;

>   hook ‘em and cook ‘em;

>   be back dark thirty;

>   my other wife is the fishin’ life. (I made this last one up myself.)

Wherever fish are bountiful and bitin’, bumper-sticker philosophers keep themselves busy reeling us in.

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Author Portrait: MaryJane

Give the Dog a Broken Bone

Posted on August 8, 2011 by MaryJane

“Get out” is what I WON‘T be saying to my 104 pound, hair-shedding Great Pyrenees dog, one of two white (and often muddy) farm dogs that are supposed to be my OUTSIDE doggie-poohs. (I do love these girls. Pyrenees are sooooooooo gentle and stoical and kind and well-behaved.)

Well, one of my Pyrs (peers) pulled off an INSIDE job when she broke her foot. And because she’ll be in a cast for six weeks, I let the pampering begin.

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