Half the readers of this blog almost had heart attacks when they read the July 11 post about my Burnsie’s drowning and resurrection. I heard from many urging caution and watchfulness … and I’ve made Burnsie read every cautionary email aloud three times at bedtime since that episode on July 6.

One of my self-imposed strategies to keep Mr. Holy Roller Baptizer out of the deep irrigation ditch and alive, has been to introduce Burnsie to a certain vigorous frog who lives in the shallow-pools at the Asian Corner inside our compound wall at our house. The pools of water, upper and lower, are not as deep as Burnsie’s top back line so he can splash, jump, leap, gargle, sputter all he wants with no real danger of drowning. Nor is there much threat to Mr. Frog who appears to view his new Nemesis as something of a game–an act calling for froggie’s instantaneous disappearance.

The Hey-Burnsie-Sick-Em trick with reference to Mr. Frog in the Asian Corner shallow ponds has worked–Burnsie now lives to leap into the shallow pools hoping to surprise the leapster. And Burnsie is a true Baptist, too. None of this sprinkling water drops will suffice for his righteous duty. No, sir. It’s total immersion.

Now total immersion is not easy when water is relatively shallow; it takes some effort to get all of you under, all at the same time. Reminds me of a true story back in the day when as a boy preacher in a fundamentalist sect that practiced strict all-the-way-under immersion, my worst nightmare came to me at the end of my sermon wanting to be baptized. I say ‘worst nightmare’ because I was a skinny kid of 16 and the candidate for baptism was a large man weighing over 350 pounds. Now, when you’re doing a river baptizing in rural Missouri at night under parked car headlights, getting your footing on the slippery bottom of the river and shooing away water snakes attracted to the headlights are not your biggest worries. A bigger test is getting a man under the water whose girth when horizontal is about as high as his height when standing up! Then, of course, there is the buoyancy factor: big fat guys float. Every time I got half of that big guy under, the other half popped up. I began to think the whole congregation could mount that man and float the river on him like a raft!

Well, you get the drift: getting all of you under the water when there’s more of you than there is of the water is a test of determination. Burnsie passed the test. This boy can shower in a tea cup, bathe in a drinking bowl, and he can sure as the world ‘baptize’ in the Asian Corner pools, shallow as they are. He drenches himself, splutters, and spits, and frolics like he just invented water.

I watched him the other day, standing in the lower pool, with water up to his withers, as he closed in on the pond pump filter casing and cover. He could smell Mr. Frog hiding inside. I watched him sniff and pry, trying to get the cover lid raised. He finally gave up and stuck his face below water to see what he could see while snorkeling. He blew bubbles, gurgled, and spewed invectives at the frog … and thoroughly enjoyed his impersonation of Jacques Cousteau.

I think my diversion strategy has worked. His Holy Roller Baptizer’s career is now limited to inside our compound wall, in the shallow Asian Corner pools. He shows no signs of deprivation.

But I hope Mr. Frog has fair warning: Burnsie is a Diehard and when he sets his mind to a task, he’s going to get ‘er done!

So I fully expect, one of these days, to witness a for real baptism in one of those pools, likely followed by a funeral. Mr. Frog better be singing “Rescue the Perishing”, cause Mr. B is going to baptize him proper and send him to glory.

Joseph Harvill, publisher Great Scots Magazine

I refer to them as “The Girls” and life at Las Golondrinas just wouldn’t be the same without them. I’m talking about my flock of laying hens: two Buff Orpingtons, two Rhode Island Reds, and two Plymouth Barred Rocks.

Now, The Girls are supplying me with more fresh, brown eggs than I can eat so I bag ‘em up and give them away. It’s not wine or flowers in my hands when I’m invited for a meal at a friend’s house; I take a brown bag full of fresh eggs.

To blog readers out of touch with life outside of supermarket shelves, my Girls’ real eggs make the commercial store versions pale and plastic by comparison. In fact, to break and eat my real eggs is to see store eggs as ‘virtual’ eggs at best, mere simulations of the real thing.

For one thing, you need a three pound ballpene hammer to break the shell. And the brown, outside shell is just the beginning. Inside the strong shell is Nature’s own strong membrane protecting the prize inside. That prize is the yolk in my Girls’ eggs. They stand up like elementary school show-offs, tall and orange, not pallid yellow, a natural world away from the pasty, washed-out wanna-be color you see in store-bought eggs!

There’s a simple reason why my Girls’ eggs are so rich and wholesome: they lead wholesome lives, eating well and roaming over two acres, getting lots of exercise and activity and stimulation, lots of sunshine … and all the bugs they can scratch up! Contrast that to cramped, caged-lives of commercial poultry where a chicken’s lifespan is without exercise or natural sunlight and you see why my all-natural eggs are food of a different order.

But there’s one daily ritual I share with The Girls that never fails to bring a smile and chuckle. It’s the ‘Henpecked Olympics’ at evening feeding time. Now, anyone who’s been around chickens much knows they’re not Nature’s astrophysicists. That’s not to say they’re dumber than dirt, but let’s just say it’s other body parts they associate with ‘egg,’ NOT ‘egghead.’ Brain synapses may be limited but they’ve got one neural-connection that is simply amazing: it’s the Running-For-Dinner hot wire connection between brain, stomach, and feet.

That’s where the ‘Henpecked Olympics’ come in. They’re ’special olympics’ of a poultry kind. What I mean is, watching a chicken’s unbalanced running, their side-to-side almost-out-of-control lunging they call running, is simply a wonderment to behold. You see, every evening when I go to the Chicken Palace carrying my baking pan full of fresh lettuce, tomato, corn kernels, and wheat bread crumbs, I pause at the bridge going across the irrigation ditch, and in a loud, high-pitched voice I call, “CHICK, CHICK, CHICK … CHICK-EN!” The Girls are always at the far end of my property, having scratched and scavenged their way to the north fence throughout the day staying together as a flock.

At the sound of my voice calling them, heads go high in the air, brain synapse starts firing, and quickly my Girls are doing their side-splittingly funny impression of a Road Runner, heading straight for me down the ditch bank path, making me giggle watching their Henpecked Olympics.

Life at Las Golondrinas wouldn’t be the same without them. They’re feathered comedians funnier than canned laughter on TV. My Girls are showing me when I re-connect with Nature and the cycle of life I connect with what is simple and basic and real. They’re showing me how satisfying authentic reality can be.

Joseph Harvill, publisher Great Scots Magazine