The Ratapocolypse

This morning, I was doing my normal farmish thing, feeding baby goats from huge re-purposed beer bottles while wearing my very teachery work clothes. Suddenly, I heard a large animal scurrying across the metal roof of the barn. From the sound of it, I was pretty sure it was pug-sized. My 6 am brain wasn't sure what to do when I realized that it was headed down a pole and possibly into my goat's pen.

Luckily, it wasn't an evil raccoon, like I'd feared. It was just a rat. Yes, I've become farmish enough that rats being remotely near me isn't that big of deal. On 16 acres with that much pasture and a very open airy barn, rats are going to happen. I expected the rat to see me and make a quick exit. I couldn't have been more wrong. Instead, the rat decided to run closer to me under the parked barn truck parked near me and jump up into the truck's mechanical bits.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any stranger, a second rat followed the first rat's exact footsteps. It turns out the two rats weren't friends. For the next several moments, all I heard were rat screams, metal clunking and scratches. It was so loud, Leda and Valencia even stopped eating to stare.

So that is a new experience I can add to my growing list of things I never thought would happen to me.

Music to My Ears

 a terrible snapshot of my wonderful snapshot

One of the least farmish things about me is my taste in music. I wouldn't really call it suburban either, but it sure isn't your typical farm fare.  I listen to a lot of hip-hop, and the occasional pop song, but my true love is Indie Rock. As I've said before, I try to be open minded and tolerant. One of the harder things in this world for me to tolerate is Country music. I was raised on it, but 99% of it drives me insane.
Indie Rock is open minded in itself. The range of musical types encompassed by this title is vast.
 
One of my favorite bands is The Decemberists. They are wonderful. When the deluxe box edition of their latest album The King is Dead came in the mail recently, I was excited to see how farmish the whole thing was. The music is folksy, the album art features horses and weedy fields. I love it. It is the perfect soundtrack to my life right now. One of the features included in the deluxe box edition, was a Polaroid photo taken during the making of the album. I'm not quite sure what my photo depicts, but I love it none the less.