Author: Christopher K Wallace
BEAN BOSS
DAUGHTER DEALING
NUTS ABOUT…
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SUNDAY PRAYERS
LITTLE GIRLS (2June2020)
CONQUEST KIDS
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ESCAPE
ESCAPE
Monday to Friday, I get to make my children breakfast and see them off to school.
We wait at the end of the driveway for the big yellow schoolbus.
So happens the gal driving the bus is part of a big local farming family. Missus took prom photos for them some years back.
That’s what it’s like in the country. Circumstances delightfully “repurpose” inhabitants as needed.
She waves as she pulls away.
The kids waste no time waiting for the bus. They climb snow banks and barns.
Right until I spot yellow approaching a quarter mile up the street. Then they re-assemble, don backpacks, ready to embark.
But on this day, Charlie finds a wounded Cottontail recovering from what must have been a harrowing night.
There’s blood on the rabbit’s ear as it sits immobilized by an old stove. Coyotes are all around us, lurking, occasionally at any hour of the day.
We hear their yapping most nights, often just outside our bedroom window. They are big and healthy lately, perhaps bolstered by a peak rabbit year.
We find their scat all over, and sometimes what little is left of their kills in the mornings.
For this lucky bunny, last night was no kill, just scat.
This is the day…
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CONTRASTING BOYS & GIRLS a retrospective
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Sir Omelette
Last year the fox killed a dozen of our workers, including Little Dude.
As we gathered corpses and shored up defences, the boy found chicken tracks leading into the forest. The two children and I followed them through the brush, a little snow still on the ground helping us find our way.
The Ancient Forest beside us has numerous old structures left standing from previous tenants who had constructed a great paint ball battle ground. It was to these that little not-yet-named Sir Omelette had fled. Reaching the end of the tracks, the three of us puzzled at how they seemed to disappear, and we stopped and looked around. There, on a board nailed across two trees about four feet up, stood this little chicken, just a few inches high himself at the time, pacing back and forth, making worried sounds.
I grabbed him and handed him off to daughter, and she tucked him safely into the crook of her arm and jacket while cooing reassurances to the escapee.
Back in the chicken pen, he was released to grow up some more, ample food, protected, and that is what he did. By late spring, he looked increasingly like his old man, and crowed a hoarse rooster call each morning soon after.
Alas, while rebuilding the flock on behalf of the company, Sir Omelette sired two sons. One was a virtual twin, the other a mix with a red hen that daughter called Fire Feather. That she is reading the Warrior Cats series no doubt influenced her and equally without a doubt, Fire Feather is an entirely appropriate name.
The problem became three roosters. I have tried that before; it is too hard on the hens. I am convinced Granny, one of my favourite chickens over the years, was weakened by a pair of juvenile roosters After she died, I killed them both. I also culled Sir Omelette’s lookalike son last week, something that the children and I debated over breakfast for most of the month. Daughter has no loyalty to the Little Dude looks and prefers the fiery looking rust colours of Fire Feather.
The problem is soon after, Fire Feather and Sir Omelette suddenly became mortal enemies. Sir Omelette realized two of the younger hens were aligned with his son, and without his son’s brother there, it was the time to strike.
Only Fire Feather fought back. Both birds were covered in dirt and circled each other menacingly each time they got close. In just a day, Sir Omelette was blinded in one eye, blood visible on his little rooster face.
The boy suggested we quarantine Sir Omelette in his own yard, splitting the flock between the roosters. I asked him how that would work, who would build a box for him, that sort of thing. He reassured me, “I will dad, I’m a big boy now.” He had my ear. And there is a penned off area at the back where we sometimes had put a new chicken for a few days until the others get used to them. It has an old doghouse converted into chicken coop we use for such occasions.
I sent daughter out to let the chickens out by herself this morning. I could see through the window as she walked among them examining the results. She came back in and told me it looked like Sir Omelette was blind in both eyes. I suspected she was exaggerating but the problem was no less severe. She reported that Sir Omelette was likely beyond repair. “Do you mean I should put him down, Charlie?” I asked. She nodded, then suggested I find some sleeping medication and feed that to him until he just goes to sleep.
I put the kids on the school bus and Remington the dog and I went out to have a look. Sure enough, Sir Omelette was staggering around the pen, attempting to fight Fire Feather, mistaking hens for roosters while lurching to and fro. I snatched him up in my arms and he was gone in moments.
It’s not my favourite thing to do, that is for sure. I liked that rooster; I liked him a lot for the ordeal he had suffered and the bond we had in rescuing him.
Roosters are remarkable animals. Like adult human males, they contribute only a tiny amount of DNA to new chicks. While women are the burdened but precious creators of life, we men are the expendable males but powerful defenders of life. It is the rooster we hear when a fox or coyote comes near. I’ll know his alarm all the way to my office at the front of the house. It is the rooster whose loud calling brings attention to the Cooper’s Hawk who might be sitting in a tree overlooking the flock.
When I feed the birds, the rooster eats last. First, he will pick up pieces of bread and put them back down to show the hens where the food is, making a short “tuk-tuk-tuk” noise while he is at it. Once the hens have all had a chance at the treat, then he will take some himself.
There may be lessons learned in all of this. I am not sure. I had three crowing roosters a week ago, now I have one.
He was a fine bird, and I am hoping it gave his life purpose to serve here at Rooster Acres.
For a man, dying for a cause is honourable, while killing for a cause is sometimes necessary.
Goodbye Sir Omelette.
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COTTONTAIL QUITS
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3 BLESSINGS EXERCISE
Three Blessings Exercise
It is a recommendation of mine that we do an After-Action Review of the day’s activities each night so that we can learn from our experiences and determine how to do better the next day.
You are either driven in life by your past or pulled forward by a compelling future.
This tells us we don’t want to get stuck punishing ourselves when things don’t go as planned in an never-ending game of retrospective second-guessing.
If only I did this, what if I did that, I should have done this and how could I have missed that? This is not very useful, especially just before bed.
What I like to do is focus squarely on what went right instead of what went wrong. This is in none of our temperaments for most of us are biased towards negativity, some more than others.
The good news is the nervous system (including your brain) is trained by experience.
You might arrive with an inborn temperament which leans towards doom and gloom but with practice, you can retrain your brain to focus on more positive things and therefore, relieve suffering.
The exercise the positive psychologists recommend is this:
Tonight, and every night for the next week just before you go to sleep, think of three things that went well that day and WHY they went well.
Doesn’t have to be big things.
Could be that you were glad there was Greek yoghurt left in the fridge to which you could add a teaspoon of organic granola and enjoy an evening snack under 125 calories.
It might be that you took a short cut home and saw a beautiful tree or shaved 15 minutes off your commute.
It could even be something like larger like you stood up to someone or handled a personal interaction that had the potential to go off the rails with finesse instead.
Answer at least one of these questions.
– Why did this good thing happen?
– What does it mean to me?
– How can I have more of this in my life?
Try that for seven days and let us know how it goes. If it works out well for you, why not adopt it as an end of day ritual on a permanent basis.
I’ve been doing it more or less for a few years. I also find it helps me focus on what is important the next day.
(Greek yoghurt is an occasional treat and not a mainstay of my diet, for example)
This exercise is what lifted my depression a few years ago when I was stuck in a job and desperate to get out, while my obligations to family had me feeling trapped.
A simple daily nudge in the right direction made all the difference and soon my whole model of the world shifted from gloom to BOOM!
I had developed critical optimism.
I began to follow what made me happy rather than tolerate what made me sad.
And here we are.
Invictus! true and free…
Christopher K Wallace
advisortomen.com
Book here:
RIGHT WOMAN BDAY NEGOTIATION
A CLICK FOR HOLMES
I remember it was about fifteen years ago that Holmes bought me a birthday present. It was an odd occasion frankly, as this was the first time that had happened.
COLD IMMERSION
HOME SWEET HOME
DAD PRIVILEGE
DAD PRIVILEGE
As CEO (chicken executive officer) here at Rooster Acres, I am called upon to solve problems complex and mundane.
If exercising the brain promotes intellectual health, I won’t need any fancy pants training regimen—the usual: sleep, exercise, diet, plus trying to keep up with my children should do it.
The kids themselves are rabid learners. The way they take to anything new on their tablets reminds me of how the company head of security, Cocker Spaniel Remington Cabela, gobbles chicken tossed her way when I eat supper. You could say they set upon learning “like a dog on a bone,” as the old saying goes.
This morning, I converted game CDA music files to MP3 and loaded them onto a memory stick. I had skipped that lesson, so I did it on the fly. Now I have a desktop file just for the boy.
Last night, we loaded the files onto a stick but found out his chromebook wouldn’t play them.
The kid slept, holding the stick in his hands so as not to lose it. He has his own memory stick now: oh, the joy.
Before conducting this sensitive transfer, we stood in my office, him on my step stool, me beside him, and recited Invictus together.
I thank whatever Gods may be for my unconquerable soul…
This is the day…