Chicken coops and asparagus roots

Dad completed the chicken coop today, or will put on the finishing touches this weekend if it’s not done. We order chicks soon and will have many little peepers hopping about the place.

It’s been an almost insanely busy week, or at least it’s felt like it. Tuesday we ferried vehicles back and forth for oil changes and I made it to the library for new books. Writing has been a bit touch and go this week so it’s just as well Wednesday went to a trip to Toledo and back, dropping Gram off for an Easter visit with the family, before coming home to help shear sheep at the neighbors’. Today Dad and I cleaned both horses and horse stalls. I swear Sonny lost five pounds of hair. Why do white horses seem to shed more? Tomorrow won’t be quite as busy, but it’ll be full enough with phone calls and a trip to the grocery store for me.

I’m still exhausted this week. Have been for more than two weeks it seems like. I don’t like not bursting with energy like usual. Makes a strong case for drinking rather than sobriety. I seem to remember being more energetic when more beer was involved than has been the case lately.

I’ve been reading Jim Harrison this week. “True North.” It reminds me of a course I took in college that argued that certain books act as a kind of catharsis for the frustration of an event. There’s a certain something that comes with living in northern Michigan. There’s a certain something about world wars and colonialism. A bitterness? A lingering? I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it results in a certain malaise. When I lived up north I was as quick to point out that I was “an import” as people were to point out that I was born “down south.” I couldn’t take part in the certain disquiet that’s part of northern Michigan culture, but I could observe it. It’s different farther south. There isn’t that sense of place.

Anyway, ruminating on writing has made me maudlin. Tomorrow I’ll be back to practical holistic farm plans and the best time and place to plant asparagus roots.

P.S. It's National Poetry Month so...yeah. Write poetry. Read poetry. Understanding it asks a bit too much. Appreciate it if nothing else. Hug your poet (but only if they ok it first. No Stephen King novels here.)