I'm going to title this entry "Title". Yeah I am messing with you!

I am obsessed with chicken tractors now, and it's all Vicki Lane's fault. Mentioning the things on a public blog where anyone - even impressionable trailer park residents - can read it. Really! She actually did that!

You hear that, Vicki? That low roar of anguish and sorrow? Those are the legions of people feeling sorry for me right now. Those beeps you hear are call waiting. The legions of people feeling slightly perturbed on my behalf are on the other line. That's nothing to do with you, though - that's just because I made the damn fool mistake of downloading Napster. Yeah yeah yeah, you can tell me how stupid I was after the Better Business Bureau gets me my refund, okay?

Have a cookie everybody, because unfortunately sympathy's not going to help get me a chicken tractor, either. Even if they did allow chicken tractors in the trailer park, now would not be a good time to get one. Three cats and two dogs will be quite enough to get moved and resettled into city life. I don't need to be urbanizing poultry too. No, I don't have the option of having a chicken tractor.

That's why it's compulsory for my boyfriend to have one. He's my surrogate farmer. The other day we had twin calves! My boyfriend bought the cow and the bull and fed and pastured them and gave them water and all the necessary medical attentions and complied with all the necessary legal registrations and whatnot, and I named them. Well, I will name them. I don't want to rush it. I take my share of the responsibility for our calves very seriously. I'm wondering if perhaps it might be most helpful if I were to pick out the chicken names now, so that when my boyfriend realizes that he intends to buy some they'll be ready to go.

It all started with Potato Day, aka The Holiday That Wasn't.

The poor man worked his little heart out on his garden last year. Planted all kinds of wonders and delights. Nurtured it like a little orphaned kitten. An exceptionally cute one, even. Like, a pink one with thick black eyelashes or something. I know, a heart shaped kitten with pink fur and long black eyelashes! Wait, no. I'm scaring myself now. Anyway, you get the idea. The man poured his heart and soul into growing strong, healthy plants.

I hope the grasshoppers enjoyed them.

The only thing more bloody mindedly persistent than pestilence is an optimist, though, and that's how a seed potato found itself wintering indoors in a lovely big pot under a grow light. It was a happy potato. It was an enthusiastic potato. Day after day the little potato reached higher and higher until it was several feet tall. It was proclaimed that a day would be chosen to honor the potato - assuming that potatoes consider being eaten an honor, and I admit that I make that assumption. This day would be in February, and it would be a delicious day.

Then one day in January - although we know not which day - the little potato began to slowly collapse it's proud stalk down to the earth of it's pot. By February it lay fully prone in a perfect spiral. By Potato Day it's last green flush of life had faded to a sepia memory. There would be no potato day, for there was no potato.

The only thing more bloody mindedly persistent than an optimist is a frustrated optimist. Planning for the chicken moat commenced.

I'm pretty sure I'd suggested it last year too, but two potato failures in a row have won my idea new respect. The idea is to put a fence around the garden to keep the chickens out, and then put chickens inside a fence around the fence around the garden to keep the grasshoppers out. I call it the chicken moat, and apparently a full year with an unsatisfied craving for garden fresh potato makes it a very compelling idea. There's a very real chance this might happen, and from there the chicken tractor's as good as up and running.

Once that's in place I'm going to need a few coyotes to drop by, though. Apparently I still need to work on garnering support for my Ostrich Patrol Corps idea.

Anyway anyway anyway that's a job for another day. I have decidedly more important priorities just at present, thank you very much!

So is She-Ra as good name for a chicken as I think it is or what?