The New Math

It seems like there are lots of things here on the farm that just don’t add up. I’m not talking about my taxes. Those are up to the accountant to figure out. I think all of the other puzzles around here are due to the new math (that‘s what everyone blamed everything on 25 years ago, wasn‘t it?). Another one today just brought a puzzled look to my face.

I am liking these days with a little more light when I get home. The chickens were actually still out in the yard when I got home from town today. Usually they have long since put themselves to bed. Last night I wandered into the coop after dark and gathered all of the eggs while the chickens snored around me. It was kind of strange - they didn’t even look twice at the man in the (new) rubber boots and large fluffy jacket. The egg count added up to the usual - no more, no less. Chickens are just neurotic enough to do something like that. Hello Rain Chicken.

Here’s where things get strange. I walked into the coop this morning to check the feed and noticed that there was one egg already sitting in a nesting box. I grabbed it and almost took it to the house before deciding that would be a pain. It was still piping hot from the chicken - I could feel it through my glove.  That seems kind of gross once you see it in writing.  Hmmm.

When I went in this evening there were more eggs in the chicken house than there are chickens to lay them! Either someone is hoarding them and decided to give up their stash, or they are kicking into overdrive to bring in more cash. I have no idea. I have NEVER heard of a chicken laying more than one a day, but I guess anything could happen. I know that I got them all, so I put off all of the questions to the chickens. It just doesn’t add up. Who knows. I will guarantee you that no stray chicken wandered in, deposited an egg, and then wandered back to their own home to piss off an owner waiting for breakfast.

The other night it was quite nippy on the farm. When I checked the thermometer at 9:15 it was 22 degrees. We’ve gotten in the habit of putting the cats in warm places for the night during the winter, and when Other went out to check on the kitties about 9:30 there was a little surprise waiting. There was a frozen snake on the walk! It wasn’t a huge one - probably 3-4 feet long, but puzzling nonetheless. I (of course) got called to put on my bibs and get rid of it. It was nearly frozen solid. How does a snake just appear on a night like that?

I honestly looked up to see if there was some sort of hawk circling above to pick up what it had just dropped on the concrete. I’ll bet he would have really been hacked after going to the trouble of flushing out a snake on a night like that only to loose it to a case of butter beak.

In the end, the best I could come up with was that it crawled out of the foundation of the house and got 10 feet or so before freezing to death. Wouldn’t you think it would turn around when it felt the cold air? I guess not. Oh, and yes, we do get snakes in the basement on the farm. I just found another little one down there last night. At only a foot long it would have been cute if it wasn’t a serpent. You just get used to the chance that you might see one when going to the deep freeze. You clean up your undershorts and go about your business. Now, if one appears on the living room floor I might have to be scraped off the ceiling and sedated.

If you mention a boot thief around here you might get a chuckle. I always use the same muck boots to chore. They are always on the porch by the door ready to slide into. With the large quantity of driveway gravel, mud, and chicken poop packed into the tread, they are not fit to wear into the house or anywhere else. I don’t think the folks at NAPA over in Baldwin City would be impressed with my boots if I wore them to get some new parts for the grain truck. They’d smell me coming, but that does not equal a quality impression. Or new friends.

Imagine my surprise when I stepped out one morning to find they were gone. I immediately smelled a rat (not literally - we better not have THOSE around here, too). I went back upstairs and gave Other the what-for as to what was done with my boots (as the day before had been a day off of work). The puzzled look I got told me that I wasn’t going to find them there. I finally gave up and wore other boots to do my chores.

I have NEVER found those boots. When I got home that night we looked in every building on the farm and all over the house to find them. They are gone. We even looked in buildings we haven’t look in since summer. I’m not sure why I thought said boots ended up there, but I can say I checked. I even looked in the dishwasher and clothes dryer. You know how you sometimes do things when you are on the phone and don’t know it? That’s what I was hoping for. Nothing. Other did say that even if they had been taken as a gag, they would have been returned long before we spent and entire evening walking the property. I even looked at the whole yard in case one of the cats dragged them out of the porch. The dog wasn’t in the house yard, but you just never know what that fat Gene might do. Alas, no boots.

I sound like some crazy anti-government loon when I swear that someone snuck onto the porch and stole them, but that’s all I can figure. Never mind that they didn’t take the gun that was sitting right there. Those boots were valuable, man.

This new math just has to be some sort of communist plot. Things just aren’t adding up around here.

TJR