Author: David Jacobi

I am a writer, photographer and artist. This blog will be a running commentary on country living, gardening, cooking, history, people, folklore, writing, reading, art, flora and fauna, photography, music, movies, traveling and whatever else I might be pondering off the back porch.

The Roundup

Encounters: Overheard at a convenience store in a small town recently a man telling two other people about a baby that died and was buried by mistake in a pet cemetery. All three men men looked intent and serious, as if the story was true and not some morbid joke.

Read: My nephew loaned me The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit, By Michael Finkel. An interesting read that includes some pondering about what living alone does to humans.

Observed: A recent night storm passing over our acreage that produced some rain and little thunder. The lightning show was incredible, however, and lasted over an hour. Some of the lightning seemed to crawl in half loops under the dark clouds (sort of like this: uuuuuu).

Website: Hermitary

Recipe: Once again it it summer and that means tuna salad time in our house. If desired you can try our recipe here.

Peace With Rabbits, Tom Cat And Attacking Grackles

Tom Cat

While visiting with a local farmer during early spring he told me farmers can not start planting until April 10 for insurance reasons.

After over five years of war with rabbits on our acreage I realized there was no way for me to win. They propagate so quickly (females can go into heat the day after delivering a litter) that I can’t shoot the adults fast enough to make much of a difference in their population around here. It drops to a few rabbits, and I think I am winning, when our place is overwhelmed again. This year our flowerpots are all up off the ground and various veggies are either in raised beds or surrounded with chicken wire. The population of rabbits has seemed to have reached a pretty steady level and there is peace on the acreage, for now.

We have a feral cat living on the acreage with us currently, named Tom Cat by me. We have not seen it close enough during the day to determine if it is a male or female, and the other night I heard the crazy, loud sounds of cats mating, so if it is a Tam Cat instead there could be some kittens meowing around soon. It gets lazy if fed every night so Shelly has decided to feed it cat food only every other night, to supplement the mice and chipmunks it is killing.

We have been sprucing up the place outdoors with pottery, pinwheels, flowers, plants, chimes, old farm wheels, etc. We have had to cut back some of the milkweed for the butterflies because it was taking over our whole rock garden.

Our inventory of birds this year includes woodpeckers, mourning doves, finches, hummingbirds, robins, blue jays, orioles, sparrows, and nuthatches. Finally, there are the grackles, who will dive bomb any squirrel they find feeding on the ground around the bird feeders. They become so obsessed with attacking squirrels they forget to eat.

Wild West End

Stepping out to Angelucci’s
For my coffee beans
Checking out the movies and the magazines
Waitress she watches me
Crossing from the Barocco Bar
I get a pickup for my steel guitar
I saw you walking out Shaftesbury Avenue
Excuse me for talking, I wanna marry you
This is the seventh heaven street to me
Don’t you seem so proud
You’re just another angel
In the crowd, and I’m-

Walking in the wild west end
Walking in the wild west end
Walking with your wild best friend

Now my conductress on the number 19
She was a honey (she was a honey)
Pink toenails and hands all dirty with the money
Greasy, greasy, greasy hair, easy smile
She made me feel 19 for a while
I went down to Chinatown
In the backroom it’s a man’s world, all the money go down
Duck inside the doorway, duck to eat
Just ain’t no way
You and me, we can’t beat

Walking in the wild west end
Walking in the wild west end
Walking with your wild best friend

Darling, a gogo dancing girl
Yes, I saw her
The DJ he say, “Here’s Mandy for ya”, ha
I feel alright, saying now, do that stuff
She’s dancing high, I move on by
The close-ups can get rough, when you’re

Walking in the wild west end
Walking, walking, walking in the wild west end
Walking with your wild best friend

Walking, walking in the-