The End of The Year of the Windmill

At long last I have completed the windmill project.  A lot of hard work, sweat and tears went into this.  When I sit in the swing and watch it spin, it was well worth it.

Redneck Cock Fight

You know chickens have it pretty good until time to feed the family. Someone feeds them, gives water and shelter to them and all they have to do is keep their head down when it is raining. Roosters on the other hand have to impress all the chicks, fight off younger roosters and keep the neighborhood children in check. Such was the case of the rooster sitting on the gate across the dirt road from grannie's house. It was a sweltering dog day afternoon in early August and Benny and I were playing outside after our nap. Normally I did not pay much attention to chickens and roosters other than to watch my step. But for some reason that day I walked across the road(you could do that in the old days because if a car was coming it was moving at about 15 miles per hour) stuck my thumbs under my armpits, flapped my elbows, and crowed at that red-headed rooster. Even if I would have had a shirt on, I don't think it would have helped. By the time he sailed down off that gate, struck me on my white bony chest and tattooed me for about an hour(10 seconds max.), Benny was hollering shoo, shoo. Shoo hell, get a gun and kill this crazy fowl. By the time I was able to pick myself up out of the sand and assess the damage Benny was rolling in the dirt, laughing, and ignorant to the fact that he was rolling in the blood that I had lost from the lacerations on my chest. Here comes grannie running from the house, all hollering and screaming. When she saw that I was all right, damned if she didn't start laughing. That was the first time I can remember having fried chicken during the middle of the week.