Jack’s Wednesday guest post is a day early – or more likely a week late – – –

Wendy reminds me often about our marriage vows. She has a much better memory than me so can remember them in much more detail. I can only remember that I’m supposed to keep her happy and comfortable.

Last week she reminded me of one that involves checking on our chickens and making sure that they have food and water. I hadn’t remembered that one.

I should explain that we currently have four chickens in a wire mesh pen at the far end of our backyard. To get to it you navigate a narrow flagstone path between two vegetable gardens and then across a grass area littered with fallen black walnuts strewn around. You know, the ones the size of baseballs.

So it’s a long walk across a bit of an obstacle course anyway, made more difficult when carrying a pan of water and a tub of mixed grains for the feathered darlings.

I set off gingerly and successfully arrived at the gate to the pen. It is wire mesh and held in place by two elastic cords with metal hooks on each end. I opened the gate and delivered the water and food, then exited and closed the gate, I fastened the bottom cord in place and then started to the top one. The hook slipped out of place, the cord sprung back and the metal hook hit me full in the face!

Having explained to the chickens that this was all normal and intentional (they were immediately concerned about the supply chain effects, you see) I retraced my steps down the narrow path and towards the end tripped over a raspberry cane lying across the flagstones in wait for me. Reaching out my hand to keep my balance I fell on my back but not before stubbing all my fingers on a concrete slab!

I wish now I had kept at least one copy of those marriage vows just for future reference and to be sure Wendy didn’t make the chicken feeding part up. See, I don’t think we had chickens when we first got married. I understand her insistence that taking care of the litter boxes is in the vows; we did have a pre-marriage cat. But the chickens? That would have been very prescient of her….

Oh – and another one seems to have been to get her large diet cokes with light ice – – –