Gin from the Cat Dish

My new favorite people watching place is the dog park. It's a true panoply of dog people. People with little dogs, big dogs, giant dogs, and medium dogs. There are beautiful dogs and weirdo dogs. Full breed dogs and inventive mixes. Reggie is a medium, beautiful, full bred English Cocker Spaniel. And we as the dog owners, size each other up and make certain assumptions about each other based on our dogs. For example: "Is she a Golden Retriever Dachshund mix?" --Nope. Actually he's just English Cocker Spaniel." "Oh!" "What kind of dog is yours--seems like such a sweetheart." "Oh she is. She's a rescue so you know, we don't really know. But we just love her! She had a lot of abuse so she was so skittish at first." From this exchange I know that she thinks I should have made the morally superior choice and rescued a dog instead of buying him from a puppy mill. That I just don't care about all those poor dogs needing ...

The other day I went outside to the let the dog out, when I noticed two extra chickens in our coop. We started out with 8 chickens last spring. In early January, Shaughn butchered one of them. She was the runt, not laying eggs, and at the very bottom of the pecking order. I mean we practically did her a favor. And a month later Shaughn butchered a second one. She was laying, but she was always getting out of her fenced in area, picking on everyone, and being a terrible influence on the other chickens. Honestly, she had it coming. So then, it was a great surprise when I came out and we had 8 chickens again. Oh shit, Ghosts Chickens! No wait, that's not a thing. I enlisted Shaughn's help to sort out what was going on. He was just as perplexed but suggested we check out the house kitty corner behind us. We knocked and peeked in the window. But the house was empty except for a shop vac and a stereo as if someone had been cleaning and listening to their favorite jams. A neighbor...