The Theatah - The Dahnse!

Okay, I stole the title from a chapter in Betty MacDonald's book "The Egg And I."  Everything was going so well yesterday in the barn, it was like a choreographed dance with the girls coming and going in orderly fashion.  To steal another quote, "All the world's a stage," (Shakespeare, As You Like It).  Farview Farm is the stage for an ongoing play.  The resident animals are the stars, sharing the spotlight with cameo appearances by the wildlife.  The scenery and lighting change with the seasons.  There is a script, but the actors are big on improvisation.  Cues are missed, as when the goats do not come in as directed.  I never know from one day to the next whether the play will be a drama, a comedy, a thriller, a soap opera, or a mystery.  The actors in the repertory take self-assigned roles.  Ralph is a natural comedian, with Celeste playing straight man to his antics.  Bessie Anne has moved into the part of dowager queen after a long-running stint as an ingenue.  The chickens and turkeys are bit players.  Deer have walk-on roles with no dialogue.  Actors retire or sadly leave the stage forever, to be replaced by fresh talent.  Background music is provided by nature, wind and birds, sometimes with the basso profundo of thunder offstage, the tympany of woodpeckers at work, or the offstage chorus of coyotes.  Me?  I'm the hired help.  I clean the sets, run the commissary, act as wardrobe mistress, and am the head go-fer.  I'm sometimes allowed to direct, but any thought that I am in charge is purely an illusion, probably because I believed my own reviews.

There are villains in the current play.  Three days ago, this bent, bare stick was a 12-foot mulberry sapling in full leaf.  It was the only one of five such trees planted to thrive so well (two were completely dead and two are struggling).  I'd noticed a few leaves at the bottom had been stripped and blamed the goats.  Since this skeleton was found in the morning, it turns out that the bad actors in the bunch are deer.  They completely tore down the surrounding protective fencing to perform murder.  The deer were not satisfied with the leaves from the lilacs that they've systematically eaten as high as they can reach.

The curtain rose this morning, but I have no idea what play will be performed today before the sun goes down.