Battleground

Yesterday did not go quite as planned.   When do they ever, and why do I bother?  With the death of Senator John McCain, I ended up watching tributes to and the history of an American hero all day long.  The vacuum cleaner stands at the ready, furniture polish sits on the coffee table, and I sat glued to my chair.

I have my own memories of the tragedy that was Vietnam, selfishly grateful that my sons were too young to be involved.  I better remember the World War II years as I was growing up.  I had no brothers, but every male cousin was sent overseas, and my sister met her future husband while he was in the Navy then.  My father was a soldier during WW I, a Texas farm boy who was sent to France.  The Kids' dad did his tour of duty in Korea.  Dave was in the Navy on a ship off the Iranian coast while the hostages were being held there.  Once again, I am grateful that my boys are now past the age of being sent to the Middle East.  We don't seem to be able to learn from history.

I am waging a battle of my own here, and fear I'm losing.  Since I no longer have chickens and the goat chow is kept down at the goat barn, there is nothing in the feed shed for the resident rats and ground squirrels to eat.  Rather than moving on down the road to sponge off someone else, the boogers have started in on the alfalfa, burrowing into the bales and tearing apart the flakes, wasting food and making one helluva mess.  It's so easy to pull off a flake or two to toss to the girls, and extremely difficult to scoop up enough loose stuff to haul to the pen.  Alfalfa is expensive, almost twenty dollars a bale now, and to have it wasted like this is like sending money up in smoke.

Hold the good thought for Camille, who is in Houston preparing to undergo treatment to battle cancer.  Makes my troubles pretty picayune.

Dust rag in hand, once again I will take on the unending fight against the demon dust today.  Or not.