Bob the Bird Lives in the Tall Small House

“Shriek, shriek” , pause “shriek, shriek” an unknown (to Fabiola) creature began a series of loud and getting louder – noises in the background of one of Fabiola’s conversation with Sister J.

Fabiola wondered if it was some sort of new proximity alarm at the Tall Small House, perhaps one to warn of rampaging chickens. So she asked Sister J.

Bob the Bird was the answer. Who? Bob the Bird, a cockatiel.

Why on earth was it shrieking Fabiola wondered aloud?

Bob the Bird was shrieking because the dog left the room. Apparently Bob the Bird is much attached to Henry the dog, and when Henry leaves the room Bob the Bird becomes very distressed and shrieks until dog comes back.

Fabiola believes that is a beautiful expression of concern between animal species, but astonishingly annoying all the same.

Say hello to Bob the Bird!

Happy Thoughts - Wealth

The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth,

so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together

the rich and poor in harmonious relationship.

~Andrew Carnegie

Wild Cows and Other Interesting Things ...

Pointing back to an entry that Mary posted in February of 2005 on her first "blog".  On second thought, I, Fabiola, will just re post the whole thing here.  Why is Fabiola doing this?  She has been contemplating cows, free milk, the second law of thermodynamics and economics.  Not that Fabiola wastes time on such things.



Anywho:



The Wild Cow of Alvada ~AND~ Dancing in the Dark





Ohio steers don't often jump fences and make a run for it, mostly because steers in Ohio (I imagine) have enough sense to realize that reaching steer "it" would require a ticket on a jet headed west and an awkward transition through airport security. "Is that fertilizer that we detect on your hooves?" Talk about having some 'splainin to do.



Farm life. Once last spring a steer did jump a fence on a neighboring farm and managed to both stay loose for more than a week and work the men folk into a frenzy. There were men in pickups and on 3 and 4 wheelers running up and down roads, lanes and into every patch of woods for miles around. Steers are dangerous and one on the loose with plans to head west, maybe by jumping a freight train, have to be found. It was quite exciting, at least for the fellas. Maybe not so much for the steer because it was found it was in a clearing in a woods eating grass, without evidence of any further travel plans.



Farm Life. Farm folk don't get out much. A person has to be good at being alone if they are going to be happy out here. I am better at alone than anybody I know. Still, I miss dancing. My solution? Every night after the fella has fallen asleep, I creep into the basement, CD player and headphones in hand, in the dark I dance.



Dancing alone in the dark is similar to singing really loud while driving down the freeway. Liberating and joy full and blessedly without an audience. I love to dance, always have. That I have always been completely uncoordinated and have now reached an age when random body parts fail with no warning whatsoever that will not stop me. If I can manage to negotiate the grocery aisles wondering if my knees are going to lock or my elbows suddenly refuse to bend or maybe just a finger or two spontaneously sticking out at random angles, I can dance in the basement in the dark. It aint wild cow chasing, but it will do.

Happy Thoughts - Purple Cow

I neve saw a purple cow,

I never hope to see one;

But I can tell you anyhow,

I'd rather see than be one.

~ Gelett Burgess

Happy Thoughts - Houses

A little house - a house of my own -

Out of the wind's and the rain's way.

~ Padraic Colum

Tall Small House?

Last entry – I, Fantastic Fabiola, mentioned Sister J. Now, Fabiola realizes that you, Darlings and Sister J have not been properly introduced. Of course you know that she lives near Austin, Texas and that she lives in the Tall, Small House (that sounds like an interesting place, now doesn’t it?).

Sister J, like Fabiola, is very beautiful and very tall only taller. Sister J is the one with chickens running loose on the patio. From time to time darlings! Sister J also has kids. Apparently, combine children and chickens and you get great stories and chickens running loose on the patio, when the armadillo or the rattlesnake aren’t there. (The rattlesnake wasn’t there very long – we won’t go into it, the rattlesnake lost.) Regardless, Sister J, is ever so slightly younger than Fabiola, and wonderful and fun and …

Where was Fabiola? Oh, the Tall Small House! When Sister J and her husband bought the place it was just a tiny house out in the wilds of Texas. Everything was normal height, but as the house was under renovation, it wasn’t much to move everything up several inches. Counters, cupboards, and stairs were set taller by a few inches than is standard. Everything was taller than standard because the gals in Fabiola’s family are just not standard issue. ::Fabiola sighs dramatically:: Of course Darlings, you can’t help it, Fabiola doesn’t hold it against you. Tall Small House, children, chickens there is so much more but one can’t put it all in one post. So for now,


Darlings, meet Sister J – Sister J, meet everyone.

From the Red Queen

"Now! Now!" cried the Queen.  "Faster! Faster"

~ Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Occasional posts, occasional wind, occasional barns

I, Fantastic Fabiola have been away for quite a while. Fabiola gets that way sometimes, don’t cha know? I suspect that you darlings also have days (weeks, months) when the world starts spinning faster and faster and you do all that you can do just to keep up. Lewis Caroll wrote about just such an event in Alice Through the Looking Glass ,the Red Queen, Fabiola believes is the expert on running as fast as you can just to keep up. Fabiola loved that book. Well, she did.

Regardless, this is the part of the post where Fabiola appologises and promises to mend her ways and post more, but you know darlings, that while she will and does apologize she won’t change her whirlwind ways. Fabiola has tried, but a whirlwind will run its own course even if you put a barn in front to try to stop it. Not that Fabiola is in the habit of tossing barns from here to there, but whirlwinds …

Speaking of wind – Fabiola’s world experienced a doozie a couple of weeks ago. The strangest thing happened – Fabiola’s Sister J, who lives in the Tall Small House just north-west of Austin, (Texas of course darlings, but you knew that) and fully expected to deal with tropical storm winds from hurricane Ike, got nothing while Fabiola who lives way up north had to deal with oh, say, 70-80 mile per hour winds for a few hours. It was the strangest thing.

Happily, Fantastic Fabiola’s house suffered no damage. Fabiola’s part of the world has tornados from time to time, so the house was built with straps holding down each and every single truss on the roof and outer walls encased in oriented strand board that was both glued AND nailed before the house wrap then siding was put on. That helped, that and living in the middle of no-where where there isn’t anything for the wind to pick-up and toss except the occasional barn. (occasional barns are like occasional tables in that they are mostly placed for looks rather than functionality.)But Fabiola was talking about wind. Fabiola is overly cautious about excess windiness, she is getting to be that age.

For the moment (or longer) that is all that Fantastic Fabiola has to say.

Hillbillys, Rednecks, and White Trash ...

Hillbilly, Redneck, White Trash, funny how folk seem to be tossing those words round and round into the air today. Even funnier is how at least two of them are invariably used together. Why? Well, Fabiola supposes that if a person were re-mixing Rub-A-Dub-Dub (the poem, Darlings, not whatever you were thinking), but Fabiola is at a loss as to a rhyme for White Trash.

Regardless. Fantastic Fabiola knows a little sumpin-sumpin about all three and claims to be two of them skatin her way down to the third. More on that as time and internet connections allow. As Fabiola explained in comments in the previous entry, Fabiola is having connectivity problems.