The sunrise is still two hours off from cresting the ridgetop as I peer out my window. The roosters in the coop are lobbing verbal artillery into the dark, answered by another who has taken up residence in the haybarn with his harem and the ram lambs. Save for myself and the chickens, all life on the farm is wringing out a few more winks of sleep.
a Saxony drake
In the other room on the table is the dinner debris, an archeological record of a fully enjoyed Saturday evening, when a small group of friends joined us for duck gumbo and a salad created from the first lettuce of the season. (Or was it the last of last season?) Planted back in the fall in a covered raised bed near the back door, it germinated, then stalled its growth until the past few weeks. Regardless, Cindy made it sparkle with a splash of citrus vinaigrette. The salad, the gumbo, and a nice baguette, accompanied by a plateful of assorted homemade cookies, a couple of bottles of wine, good conversation, and we chalked up a satisfying end to another busy day.
The duck used in the gumbo was one of the excess Saxony drakes we purchased last year and I butchered last Sunday. I spent most of Friday evening cooking the dish, for a gumbo aged a day is far superior to one made fresh. Just before bedtime I carried the cast iron pot outside to cool overnight.
We spent the day in varied tasks before our dinner guests arrived. I hauled away the garbage, we did some work on the sheep, and we cleaned. The new kid stayed busy ridding the forsythia along the driveway of privet, then doing the same with the muscadines. I resealed the back deck and topped up the raised beds with composted soil. Cindy spent part of the morning in the workshop, making a maple-topped vanity for the upstairs bathroom.
Early afternoon, the kid was sent on his way and we retired to the bedroom for a nap before preparing for dinner and our guests.
Later, Cindy checked in on Facebook, where we have listed for sale a small breeding flock of the Saxonys. In that digital sphere, my friends, exists a world of fractured and diminishing English skills apparent to even the most casual eye. Long past are the days when we labored over paper with pen, carefully composing before sending. Today, even the most public of missives reveal a level of sophistication now lost. (I too am guilty of written mistakes, though not, I pray, as many or as egregious as some.)
Minutes before our guests came up the gravel drive, and with more than a little amusement and exasperation in her voice, Cindy called me upstairs to read a post on a livestock exchange. The poster was looking, we could only surmise, to purchase some bantam chickens and Blue Swedish ducks.
And now you are privy to what lay behind the title of this post.
It’s sad. It’s exasperating. It’s confusing. It’s also good for a laugh when you finally translate the nonsense into something resembling English. Cindy is lucky, at least that is more-or-less phonetically guessable. 🙂
Thanks, it was good for a chuckle.
I recently discovered your blog. I took a temporary job in a city far away from my farm and your writing has made me miss the land even more than previously. I will be back there in June. In the meantime, several of my children are keeping things going. By the way, concerning one of your earlier posts about age and farming- that even after 60 my back may not be so good, my children do at least admit that my brain can still be of some use. They recently went as far as to say they needed back as soon as possible. Thanks again for your words of inspiration.
Jim,
Thanks for the comments. I think most of us have a bad back after doing farm work. My suggestion was that no one begin farming after 60, not continue farming. But I like that your kids value your brainpower!
Cheers,
Here lies the dynamic behind the drift of language over time. Old English became Middle English became Modern English with all its myriad dialects and lingo originating from within narrow regional usage. That so much of it is borne out of misuse and clumsy spelling may be the object of scorn to some who believe that fixed forms demand fealty is a mistake; it’s never in the past any different. So at the same time that we can tut-tut the foolish rubes who doan’ no no better, give it a graceful pass. I appreciate the humor, though.
There is in our language the inevitable change, innovation, creative slang, and the rare Shakespeare that shakes things up (unlike the French trying to deep freeze that natural evolution). In that realm there is plenty of room for the casual non-grammatical indulgences, scattering of commas, or misspellings and malapropisms, and general change. I am firmly in that camp.
Then there is the general malaise of the just plain illiterate and ignorant.
Just sayin’.
As always, Brutus, thanks for the comments. And, yep, I have been entertaining my inner scold a bit this year.