Annie visited a friend in Dixie (Washington) yesterday. She raises these little guys. This is Artie. He’s four years old and he’s learning to pull a regular-sized adult in a cart. Cute, huh?

We have lots of different plants growing at the farm. Due to abundant spring rains and warmer temperatures, most everything is growing vigorously—trying to put out seed before summer heat forces dormancy (or I get ‘em with the mower).

Sitting on our porch, I can identify any number of grasses and broadleaf plants now—plants I couldn’t have identified just a few years ago. I’ve learned a lot, and way more than I wanted to know about weeds.

Those plants we don’t like we call “weeds.” Some plants we don’t like because other folks tell us we shouldn’t like them. We tend to accept and adopt their views on the matter without question. Some plants we don’t like because they’re in places where we’d prefer to see other plants or no plants at all. Some we don’t like because their seedheads cling to our farm animals and make them uncomfortable. Some plants are downright dangerous to the animals.

At first, we were out to get all the weeds. We’ll eradicate them, we thought. The neighbors watched our twelve-pronged attack on all things weedy and were greatly amused.

Next, we decided we’d just go after certain weeds and get the rest later. We tried hand-pulling, mowing, and selective spraying—more of a three-pronged attack. Again, we provided free entertainment for our neighbors.

Now, we’re after the dangerous weeds and those that make animal lives uncomfortable. By dinghies, we’re going to get everyone of the bastards. As you might imagine, the neighbors mostly smile and shake their heads.

At this pace, I figure we’ll be able to relax and enjoy nature’s bounty within a couple of years. I’m looking forward to it.

Here’s our newest arrival—a baby alpaca named Captain. Within 15 minutes after he was born, he was wandering the barnyard, checking out his new world.

It’s been quite a spring. We have a new puppy (BIG), 15 baby chickens, one rescued Western Kingbird chick (released this past Sunday), four Say’s Phoebe chicks, Double (Annie’s new filly), and now Captain.

How easily I forget…

Our friend, Shirley, discovered a Western Kingbird chick that fell out of its nest—from way up in a tree. The baby bird appeared unhurt, so she took it in, made trips to the Worm Ranch to buy night crawlers, and hand-fed the baby bird for about a week. She named “him” Crash. When I asked how she knew the bird was a boy, she said she just assumed it because he’d been so careless.

By week’s end, Crash was making short flights to Shirley’s finger at feeding time. He liked to sit on her shoulder while she did her chores around the house. But Shirley was going away for the long Memorial Day Weekend and had no sitter for Crash, so she called Annie. Would Annie like to take over Crash’s upbringing?

Shirley delivered Crash day before yesterday. Annie promptly lost him. “I didn’t think he could get out of the [new] chicken coop,” she said. But Crash had escaped and was hiding somewhere behind the hay bales in the pole barn when I arrived. “Shirley’s on her way back out here,” Annie said.

The three of us surrounded the pole barn. Crash flew right past me into the horse pasture beyond the barn. Now he was free on 40 acres. Surrounding him was becoming more challenging.

“He’s flying,” I said. “And he’s pecking around in the grass, exhibiting birdlike behavior. Maybe we should just let him go,” I suggested.

Both Shirley and Annie stared at me like I was an idiot.

“No, we’ve got to catch him. He’s not ready to go. He needs more time to develop. His tail feathers haven’t filled out. He can’t defend himself. He…”

“Okay, okay,” I said.

For the next hour we chased that poor little bird all over hell’s 40 acres until he flew about 20 feet up into a tree. We got the ladder and Shirley climbed it and brought Crash down. We fixed the coop so he couldn’t get out. Got him a blanket to nest on. Got him a pan of water. Scattered some worms around in the coop to simulate an Easter egg hunt. Cracked the window so he could get some air. Adjusted the window again to make sure he couldn’t get out. Then closed the window because it’d get too cold at night and he might be uncomfortable. Annie collected some sticks and piled them in a corner so the place would feel more forest-like.

Crash is living the life now. Annie hand-feeds him every hour, changes his water, scatters some more worms, and fluffs up his stick pile.

“He doesn’t look like he wants to learn to fend for himself,” Annie says.

“And you’re surprised?” I ask.

Annie and her friends, Carol and Mary, went in together to buy chickens. We built a nice chicken coop and put in comfy nesting boxes so they’d lay copious numbers of eggs to devil. The company over in Idaho reserved us 15 poulets, what we thought were two-month old chickens ready to start laying this summer.

Turns out the definiton of “poulet” is kinda broad. Here are our “poulets.” So when would you guess we’ll have eggs to devil? Annie is hoping for a handful before Christmas…

The view from our porch would make a post card most days. Snow-topped mountains on the horizon turning Indigo blue at dusk. Magestic white pelicans in bomber formation silently cruising the river’s surface. Mud-caked heifers knee-deep in the irrigation ditch on sauna-like, sun-filled afternoons.

It’s like watching a tamer version of Wild Kingdom on a big-screen TV with your 3-D glasses on, except the chair’s not cushy and the flies can be a nuisance if there’s no breeze.

That’s the way it goes on the porch most days.

Last Sunday was a little different. We’d planned to go to church. We really had. But the early morning was chilly. Fog blanketed our little corner of the prairie. The coffee was hot. Willy Nelson was on the radio. And Annie had made biscuits.

“Maybe it’d be better to sit on the porch and commune with nature,” I suggested. “Maybe fry up a little country ham. Eat a couple of country ham biscuits, drink another cup of coffee, and wait for the fog to lift.”

Annie shook her head and muttered something about pot-holes in the pavement on the road to perdition.

“Lordy, Lordy. Lordy,” she said. “You’re going to hell in a hand-basket and dragging me along behind you.”

“Good,” I said. “I’ll fry up the ham.”

By late morning, it was a glorious, sunny day—a nice day for sitting on the porch. Yoda, our low-slung Corgi with the giganto ears, took up his position by my chair and we settled in. Annie said she was going to work with her horses in the round pen behind the barn.

“Break an arm,” I said. “Oops, sorry, you already did that, didn’t you?”

Annie, left arm still in a sling, didn’t think the joke was all that funny.

Right after Annie left, I heard water running. Sounded like water gurgling through a pipe and spilling on the ground somewhere underneath the wood slats below my chair. The world smelled kinda funky all of a sudden. Yoda wrinkled up his nose and covered his head with his paws. Then he got up, tiptoed off the deck, and headed for the far corner of the yard.

“Oh, *&%#,” I said to nobody in particular. “Why do these things always happen on Sunday?”

Eddie (not Joe) the Plumber diagnosed the problem. One of the underground lines to the septic tank was clogged, causing you-know-what to back up in the pipe all the way back to the house where excessive pressure had caused a pipe connection to burst, spilling you-know-what on the ground under the porch deck.

No wonder the place smelled.

Next thing I knew, Eddie and I were taking turns looking through a viewfinder to see a live picture of a mess in the septic line. (Amazing what they can do with miniature cameras these days.) Eddie said the clog was about 25 feet from where we stood. It looked bad. And it looked expensive.

“Double my hourly rate on Sunday,” Eddie said.

“So, what do you think clogged the pipe,” I asked.

Eddie looked at me like I was some kind of dunce. “What would you guess?” he said.

Two hours and 14 minutes later—I was watching the clock—Eddie pronounced our problem solved. He said it probably wouldn’t happen again, but we should flush the system every six months or so, and we needed a thing-a-ma-diggy to attach to the end of a garden hose, to shove down into the pipe…

That’s when Annie showed up. She’s the farm boss. I suggested that Eddie show Annie how to flush the system and tell her all about thing-a-ma-diggies since she’s the boss and is in charge of such things.

“Plus,” I said. “This is making me gag.”

Annie rolled her eyes and let loose a great sigh.

“Shoulda gone to church,” she said.

BIG, our 4-month-old Great Pyrenees puppy, is getting BIGGER by the day. In honor of his 4-month birthday, we gave him his first rabies shot.

We told him it was no BIG deal, that all puppies get ‘em and it wouldn’t hurt a bit. But BIG didn’t like getting a shot and is now wary of humans bearing gifts. The crinkling of plastic sends him to the far corner of the yard. He won’t come close unless we empty our pockets and show him open palms. And he won’t eat dinner until I back well away from his bowl.

I told Big he was being a BIG baby.

He looked at me as if to say, “Better a BIG BABY than a BIG SHOT.”

Several of you have asked for a replay on my mother’s deviled egg recipe. I’ve also learned something recently about boiling eggs…

BOILING EGGS

I like deviled eggs. Even though they’re simple and old-fashioned, they are incredible crowd pleasers—everybody talking about how much they like them and how Aunt Beulah made hers and why everybody liked Aunt Beulah’s deviled eggs better than Aunt Myrtle’s. They’re delicious and as much as any other food I can think of, just full of the history that makes food meaningful beyond good taste.

Now, before I make my deviled eggs, I have to boil the eggs. And that’s not as straightforward as it sounds. I used to drop a few eggs into boiling water and leave them boiling until I was sure they were cooked, say 25 or 30 minutes. The possibility of overcooking never occurred to me, but should have. The eggs cracked in the boiling water and egg white oozed through the cracks. Then they were hard to peel. And the yolks were green, not yellow, and smelled like a sewer.

It doesn’t have to be that way. When I read about boiling eggs in Shirley O. Corriher’s “Cookwise,” several light bulbs went off. I now do it mostly her way and it works.

Use eggs that are a week or more old. They peel easier than fresh eggs.

Place eggs in a single layer in a large saucepan. Cover the eggs with cold water at least an inch deep. Place over medium high heat and bring to a simmer, not a roiling boil. Then turn off the heat and allow the eggs to steep in the hot water for 15 minutes. Pour off the hot water. Fill the pan with cold water and a few handfuls of ice. Let the eggs stand in the cold water for 5 minutes. Roll each egg on a hard surface pressing hard enough to crack the shell all over as you roll. Peel.

Easy peeling, beautiful yolks, and no bad smells. You’re ready to devil.

Here’s my mother’s recipe. These are the best!

DEVILED EGGS
Makes 12 egg halves

Ingredients

8 hard-boiled eggs, sliced in half lengthwise
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 teaspoons sweet pickle relish
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon dry mustard

Remove hardened egg yolks from the sliced eggs and put in a shallow bowl. Using the tines of a fork, mash the egg yolks. Add remaining ingredients and mix well.

Spoon prepared egg yolk mixture back into egg whites. You will have enough of the mixture to fill 12 of the egg whites, and maybe one or two more - just depends on how generous you are. Chill and serve.

I just spent the last two hours watching videos on YouTube and touring a website:PlayingForChange.com

This is not something I normally do.

I was mesmerized.

If you’re interested in being mesmerized, go to the YouTube website and search for: Playing for Change Stand By Me. You’ll find a terrific video of street musicians around the world singing “Stand By Me.” It’s fabulous.