Highfalutin Fowl

My hens are eating high on the hog.  Cam called early in the morning (I answered on one of my new phones!).  Crab feeds are very popular fund raisers around here and Camille volunteers at those held at the local wineries.  She had participated the night before and had brought home a big bag of crab shells (plate scrapings) for her chickens and wanted to share some with mine.  I wasn't about to deprive my little girls and, of course, said yes.  Those hens dove into the mountain of crab like they were "to the manor born" and had dined on fresh crab all their lives.  Bess and I watched from outside the pen and salivated.  By nightfall, only a few shards of the hardest shells were left and the chickens waddled in to bed.  They'll probably expect Beef Wellington today.

I discovered that one of the features of the new phones is that each one of the five can be "named," the intent being that they can be replaced on their individual base.  I think it is quite nice to develop a personal relationship with one's appliances.  The one by my chair is just prosaic "living room," but the phone in my bathroom (isn't that just the height of luxury?) is named John and Julia is in the kitchen.  There are two unnamed wireless orphans waiting for homes.  I don't want to disorient the poor things by making a hasty decision about placement and having to move (and rename) them later.  There are three telephones downstairs already and two land-line phones upstairs and the two replacement phones I had just purchased.  Add in the five new phones and when a call comes in, it sounds like a three-alarm at the fire station; bells are going off everywhere!  Then the cell phone in my pocket chimes in.  Deb and I were struck by the same thought at the same time:  Steve would be in seventh heaven.  He's the one who put in so many phone lines in the first place and felt the same way about televisions.  At one time we had five TVs.  With two refrigerators and two full-size freezers, I used to call him the ultimate consumer.  Thirteen phones for one person; talk about highfalutin!!