0140

Make a call from the pay phone to ascertain that my new Araucana chicks have arrived. So I drive into town to pick them up. I'll buy some fencing, too, as the bigger chicks already show a definite delight in scratching up newly seeded garden plots.

My carefully composed letter to the assessor prompted only a cold form response denying my request, so I decide to stop at the assessor's office while I'm in town. But the whole place is locked up, on a Friday, no one there, no way to even leave a note. Figures.

Well, at least the chicks are a delight. Six eager and hungry little hatchlings, cheeping noisily. I stop at Lenore's to show her, and to mow her grass and share in a quick lunch. A couple quick errands at the library and grocery, then back home with my new charges. These will be a bit more work; they'll require warmth and general vigilance until they're feathered.

Back home, I set up a box for the Araucanas in the house, start installing some of the new fencing around the southeast corner, and spend the evening composing another letter to the assessor, appealing to common sense and democratic principles. This exhausts me more than working, and I'm too tired to even take a bath before bed.