Agitated

My psychopations are all over the cosmic map this morning. The fissures seem especially focused on the nearly dead wild apple tree where Huck Finn and I enjoyed my first summer of river ratting. Don't you DARE say, "Nigger Jim" in mean tones! ! ! My wild apple tree was too old to produce edible fruit, but she still provided an ample supply of projectiles for my defensive purposes. I does have the height advantage up here in her top branches! ! ! My beloved Nigger Jim is the adult who quieted my fears in the night. Fuck my daddy all you want, but don't you even think a sneer on my precious Nigger Jim. 

Gee? ? ? Is it mere cooncidence that I married a Jim? ? ? Sometimes the Jim I married can get over his collegiate trophy conditioning for long enough to explore a river bank with me, but we ain't made it out to the rapids yet. Where there is life, there is hope.

For now, here on this arid hill on the Southern Great Plains, I had to use a soaker hose on the perimeter of the proposed coop site. Even with the recent rains, the ground was too dry and packed to yeild easily to my senior pick axe swing. Don't make it more work than it has to be. There was too much chill in yesterday's high wind to make for comfortable work, anyhoo. The puddles on the packed soil were deep enough to leak over the soles of my lightweight shoes when I turned the soaker hoses off near sunset. By now the puddles should have broken the soil resistance to provide the easier yield my senior bones can handle. Dry enough to allow the moving of soil instead of mud is the next question. Mud isn't much of an improvement over dry, packed shale dirt.

Again I wish I had a name for the old trim carpenter who taught me to swing a hammer in the few days we worked together on a housing project remodel job. I amnae certain I ever learned his name. Our passing was in the lanes of contract day labor. Personal information is mostly irrelevant in those passing lanes. Just here for the pay check. . . In the puppet show in my head, I most often call him, "Catman" in honor of Scatman Crothers. There are quite allot of similarities. The most important similarity is the rich tenor voice with which he sung the cadence song by which I practiced his hammer lessons.

"Don't make it more work than it has to be

"Just let that hammer fall

"Add an ounce of gentle guidance while the gravity works

"And let that hammer fall"

I love cadence songs. They are my most important tool for settling my psycho hyper drives far enough that I can set a pace I can keep. Without the rhythmic pace setting, my nature is to spin off like Pecos Bill after a cyclone. The crashes arenae as devastating as the storm swaths I leave behind. At least the world gets a rest after I crash.

Catman's cadence song works dandy for a pick axe, too. The proposed coop site is still looking like a solid potential. I think. That's my prayer and I'm sticking to it. Just praying while I just let that pick axe fall.