White Noise

"Mommy.  Mommy.  Mommymommymommy."  Parents learn to listen for intonation.  Nothing wrong?  Then that constant demand for attention gets tuned out and turned into white noise in the background.  That happens daily now with Nineteen.  He makes such a pest of himself if I let him out with the girls in the morning that he continues to get breakfast room service.  I know he's lonely since Tessie moved herself some time back into the big room with Cindy, Esther, and Inga.  He whines continually in his stall until I'm done milking and/or feeding all six of the girls.  He whines with his mouth full while he's eating.  I've watched him whining while he's looking out of his window.  He's just a whiner, and I really don't hear him anymore in the morning.

The weather this summer is just crazy.  Here it is, the middle of July, and the days are in the seventies and low eighties, with nights dipping into the fifties.  That's ever so pleasant, but unreal.  Last night it was downright cold.  Frank never moved off my feet and Bessie Anne was jammed full length up against my back, and I was darned glad to have them there.  At one-thirty, however, Bess woke up and barked.  The moon is full again and it was light enough to see a raccoon, not fazed in the least by the dog, going the length of the deck toward the recycling bag around by the kitchen door.  A week or so ago I found the bag opened and scratches on an empty mayonnaise jar.  I gave a passing thought to raccoons but figured it must have been the cats.  I haven't seen raccoons up here for several years.  They give home invasion a whole new meaning.  What do they do...cruise the neighborhood?  Any bottle or jar that goes into the bag is lidded and usually rinsed so there's no smell to draw an animal up to the house in the first place and then all the way around to the kitchen.  Checking this morning, it evidently found nothing to its liking; the bag wasn't even disturbed.  Am I supposed to feel bad now that we've been stamped "Reject" by the wildlife?

Once again I performed the nightly chicken roundup with a hen under my arm.  I'm pretty sure her name is Pick-Me-Up Peggy.  She runs to meet me at the gate, snuggles in my arm when I scoop her up, and we go on about the business of herding the others in.  I may be snubbed by the raccoon, but my chicken loves me.