FIRST OFF, I HAVE A QUESTION:
Have you heard of Kickstarter?
It is a funding site for small start-up businesses.
I put my book, The
Island, a journal there. Also on
Kickstarter, I am pledging an on-line Travel magazine entitled, Nowhere. Projects are pledged, but it the
applicant does not reach their goal, it doesn’t get funded, and Amazon does not
collect the money from the pledges.
Kickstarter’s lovely
people really really encourage applicants to make a video. Being the coward
that I am, and not wanting to make a video (fool) of myself, I opted for a
slide-show instead. It you want to see the pictures—of the people, animals, and
places that populate my book go to:
If you decide to watch the slide-show and only if you feel
inclined, I would appreciate if you would tell me if the slide-show is too
slow. It’s slow on my computer, but then, I have a slow computer. Its infernal
“spooling” drives me nuts. But I’m working on the internet speed, not
the nuts part--although maybe that's what I ought to work on.
Right now, regarding Kickstarter site, I feel like Mr.
Cellophane—“they can look right through me, and never know I’m there.”
LIFE ON THE FARM:
As I was feeding turkeys this morning, I noticed a young
turkey lying askew on the ground. “Dead,” I figured. It happens, especially with fowl. I
thought about the song that had been going through my head already, Mr. Cellophane, and how I felt
invisible. (From, the play/movie, Chicago) I wondered how many others feel
invisible too. I thought about people
and animals dying without notice. That doesn’t mean that their lives were
meaningless. It doesn't mean they are not important. We never know in the fabric of the
universe what thread holds everything together, or how many threads we need to
do it. All of us, I figure.
As I prepared to enter the enclosure and retrieve the turkey’s
dead body, another turkey came along and pecked her. She MOVED. Slowly, like an automaton a leg lifted and
fell.
Poor baby!
I took her to the garage—the hospital--where yesterday I placed a turkey with a broken leg
into a box, gave her food and water, and this morning found her sleeping in her
food dish. She appears to be thriving. The almost dead turkey now can now rest
comfortably (if that’s possible for her). She will be neither cold nor wet, nor
pecked at, and she will lie wrapped in a soft towel. I don’t think she will
recover.
On top of everything, yesterday, I found that three “silky”
(a breed) hens that the owner had put in a make-shift enclosure, were not
there. Gone. The rooster was still in the enclosure, strange. One of the
plastic crates the owner had used for a fence was scooted aside leaving a one
foot square hole. There was no evidence of struggle, just rooster there, hens
gone. White feathers were scattered about—evidence of foul-play.
