One Couple's Junk is Another Woman's Treasure

This week Jo Ann and Don Psencik donated some used bricks that were perfect for making a cobblestone patio. The bricks were available because their cows kept violently disagreeing over whether they should be stacked and where. So instead of moving the bricks back every time the cows re-arranged them, they made a worthy donation. I purchased the wrought-iron peacock chairs last fall at the Warrenton Antique Show for just such an occasion.

In addition to bricks, the lovely couple had a ton of rotten fence posts just waiting to be burned. They will be much better served as my retainer walls on the terraced tank. Just goes to show - One man's junk... and I hope those cows are happy now.

Another less pleasant job this week was to repair a lot of damage done by wild hogs. They had left the land alone for over a year but they came back with a vengeance  I would have preferred they came back humbled, but it was not to be.  So I dutifully got my hard rake out and went to smothing out the huge gouges the little bastards made.

While I was out there the impulse to write poetry about it surfaced. Here's some samples:

I'll rub your noses in the sand.
Get your asses off my land.

Or how about:

Wandering Spirit Trails needs no pigs,

So take your tails, your snouts, your digs.

We'll be fine all by our selves.

We don't want your nasty smells.

Or a plea to the spirits that abound in the park:

Fire spirits, put a wandering fire in the belly of the hogs.
Land Gnomes, pound their feet off this land.
Water Sprites, wash them to the West.
Fairies, shoo them under the fence.
And to the Spirit of the Hogs,
I don't mind if you walk, drink or reproduce here,
just don't dig.

There were a dozen more poems/pleas since I had lots of time while I was raking hundreds of square feet. I just can't remember them. I do remember that they were brilliant, though.