Farm News 05-18-08

Sunday morning, after chores, 69

Weight: 206 lbs.

Barn News

Baby ducks! Saturday morning, when I went to the barn to do chores, I looked at a duck that was setting on eggs, and a little head popped out from under one of her wings! They're hatching! Saturday evening three little duckies were out from under mama, looking at the world.

Tuesday morning Sally's bunnies discovered they could hop out of the nest box and see all sorts of things. They are plump, healthy bunnies with great curiosity. They're all black, even though neither parent is black. On Monday they will be going to the library to learn about handling small children.

The three goslings are now running free with Beth and Albus. Albus is treating them better and they are enjoying life on the lawn. Bobby, the oldest gosling, seems to prefer Albus to Beth; when the adults go in different directions Bobby usually follows Albus.

Shotgun has some sort of disorder and is displaying strange symptoms. She seems be vertiginous, walks with her legs splayed out a bit, and her head twitches about some. She has become very noisy, yowling whenever she sees a human and demanding attention. She is continuing to feed her kittens, although she ignores them otherwise.

I asked Dr. S., our glamorous vet, if Shotgun could have rabies, but Dr. S. thought not, that once an animal starts showing signs of rabies they usually die soon. Shotgun has been this way for more than a week, becoming neither better nor worse during that time.

The Year of the Fairy

In Kansas City I entered the Year of the Fairy, 1969, by associating myself with the North American Council of Homophile Organizations, (acronym NACHO, but that was before nachos you eat, so it was pronounced nay ko, which means, in some forgotten language, 'a club of fairies'). The Ecstatic Umbrella took on the job of being a communication center for the national gay movement, and, as part of the deal, I was named 'Director of Communications' by NACHO. That was an honor that very few people had been trying to win, especially not a heterosexual man who frolicked in bed several times each day with his Jewish Butterfly. That my father-in-law forgave me is a testament to the basic decency of mankind.

A Director is a very important person and is expected to collect a wardrobe in keeping with his status. [Whoops! '. . .his/her' status]. I had black Italian shoes, pearl-gray bell-bottom trousers, snug across my ass, an indescribably floral gold, green, and scarlet shirt, a black, claw-hammer tail coat, a beaded sash, that crossed my chest from shoulder to waist, carrying a great medal, and a naval officer's hat with an outrageous drawing of male genitalia on the top, done with pink marker. By golly, I was splendiferous in that costume. Those fairies were licking their chops over getting me to direct their communications.

The big event of 1969 was the annual conference of NACHO, when lesbians, fairies, and transsexuals from all across the nation congregated and conjugated in Kansas City for a week of planning the struggle for gay rights. The discussions at the various meetings was usually sober and serious, but, conducted in a wash of sexual desire. It was strange to be in situations where everybody was horny but there was nobody who stimulated my desire.

One of the participants, an astronomy professor from an east coast university, was a T-room Cruiser. I had to ask what that meant. A T-room Cruiser is a man who likes to have casual sex with men he meets in public toilets. The professor was cruising the public toilets in a city park on a Friday night when he was intercepted by several large men carrying clubs. They beat him half to death and left him lying in the park. A second T-room Cruiser found the professor lying unconscious, ran to the nearest phone, and called the Ecstatic Umbrella.

I called for an ambulance and went to the park, arriving just before the ambulance. The professor was regaining consciousness and asked me to stay with him while the ambulance took him to the hospital. He was still alive when we arrived at the hospital, but he looked pretty rough, bleeding from the ears and nose. The hospital people whisked him away and I sat around reading old copies of Ladies Home Companion for about an hour.

Finally, a doc came out and asked me what had happened to him. I told the doc that someone had beat him up, which I thought was fairly obvious, as the man hadn't done all that to himself while shaving. The doc said that the only times he saw injuries like that they had been inflicted by the police. Again, that seemed fairly obvious, as the police were about the only people in Kansas City who would regularly beat up folks in public parks. I think the doc expected someone to do something about a professor of astronomy being beaten up by the police, I guess he hadn't lived in Kansas City very long.

The professor recovered and, a week later, returned to his home in the east. The cops continued to beat up people they didn't like, although they had not yet killed anyone I knew, that would come later. I became more committed to gay rights. Nothing really changed.

Books

Three westerns. The first was even more trite than the title and the other two were pretty good. Then I read a prize winner.

Gunsmoke Over Texas by Bradford Scott

Cowboys versus oilmen. Not a good book, but it was in large print.

Shotgun by Elmer Kelton

Kelton is a reliable writer. His books are always interesting enough to read all the way through.

Fort Hogan by Frank Bonham

This one was about cowboys running guns to Mexico and selling them to the Yaqui Indians. I liked it. I'll read more by Bonham.

The Known World by Edward P. Jones

A great book, one that will be around for a long while. I hope to read it again in a year or so, after the first reading has had time to settle in.