Pete and I left the house this morning, determined to buy little plants at the farm, and to find the feed store out in scenic Hillsborough. Neither of us knows that town well, so we interrupted a young police officer, who seemed convinced that directing traffic around a serious accident on a narrow canal road was more important than pointing codgers to tractor supplies. This worked out okay, but he looked us over and I saw something in his eye that said if I hadn’t been crocheting, he might’ve given directions including a sharp right into the canal.

Portrait of the Artist As A Person Puzzled By Cloudy Cuba Last January

Turns out, we weren’t going to that store. We were going to a different store I had never heard of at the other end of the same rolling avenue. There, I had this conversation with a person who walked around Pete to talk to me:

Crazy-Looking Employee Who Approached Me Because I Look Crazy: Are you finding everything you’re looking for?
Tata: We’re looking for better methods to give our chickens water.
CLEWAMBILC: What method are you currently using?
Tata: A bowl.

Every problem you have ever had has been solved by a million people and at least some of them were really smart. Also: some of them were not smart enough to reach for duct tape. We found that other people trying to hydrate chicken had found plastic bottles, ceramic bowls and metal water silos. Then we found unusual seeds, apt fencing and went home to ask ourselves what had just happened, but now with better ways to give chickens fresh water.

I hope those accident victims were okay.