Suppose there were some sort of super force of intelligent spirit. Disembodied if you wish. Cloaked in goo if you like. Primal by nature. At one with the whole shmegeggles. Basking in the ever present glory of being witness to perfection unfolding and flowering in every moment, every thought, every word, every deed. Call it Carl. No deep philosophical meaning to ferret out. No worldly treasure measuring up. No afterlife to get bent out of shape about. More like playing great golf on a perfect day with sunset views, naked food cart girls and endless energy. Normally I wouldn't go for a sports analogy, but I've been playing out of my mind lately. For Carl, time has lost all meaning, swallowed up in the greater code, the next more complex encryption. "See, it was an illusion all along." So what's a Carl to do with this new found wellspring?  This consummate placement in a spiraling scheme so grand that our pea brains can barely scratch the surface without exploding. Carl can Tinker. You see, Carl knows that sooner or later any code can be broken, and so why not create mysteries which when unraveled give birth to this sublime apprehension. If you know where all paths converge, it's easy to leave clues. Feeling that all this swirling mentation and erupting emotion is just Carl tinkering gives me some hope. Hope in the fact that clues are strewn, embedded in the fabric of day to day life. Flashing out numbers and letters, sounds and sights. Giving the opportunity to, at any moment put the puzzle together and cry Bingo, bingo, oh my god, bingo me now. And if Carl can tinker, so can I, if only in my spluttering and pathetic ways. I've been planting trees for thirty some odd years now and Still put them too close together. Baby steps, good. Beating head with stick, bad. So I resolve, in this year still fresh, that my one and only pursuit will be to seek Carl in everything. I will see him in the folds of steaming chow fun noodles. I will smell him in the dampness of my work socks. I will taste him in the glaze of a sticky bun. I will touch him in the place where fun meets fear. I will hear him in the clockwork waiting to chime. Glad I got that out of the way. Any more old business to discuss? No. O.k. then, on to new business. We've been trying to negotiate a truce with the Leghorns, who have been forced by the invoking of eminent domain to vacate their current paddock and move to what we like to think of as the Golan Heights. Yes, the terrain is steeper and pocked with treacherous pitfalls, and yes, they get all verklempt when you disrupt their forage and laying patterns, but relocate they must. Reason being that they have scratched out their current enclosure down to the molten iron surrounding the earths core and we're tired of collecting eggs that have already been cooked. I had a sit down with the beta female yesterday. The conversation went something like this. "You have to understand, the ground is just too hot here. You must move to higher ground." "Bkk,bk." "But there's plenty of food and fresh water. New coops and greenery everywhere." "Bkk, bk, bkgock." "Well you don't have to get nasty." "Bk kk." "Tell you what, whoever follows the food gets to stay and the rest of you will be hunted down by new wwoof Matt who stalks chickens like a hungry puma on a plump prairie dog. "Bbaaawwwwk bggok, bkk, bk." "I'm not bluffing beeotch. Get your troops organized and I'll see you at feeding time." She demures, turns away and goes over to huddle up with the other girls, one of whom is rubbing her feet against a piece of bluestone as if to sharpen her claws. Good thing those new Kevlar chicken suits arrived. That may be a bit of an exaggeration. Really just one more step in the process of creating binary systems that allow the feathered nincompoops to forage fields of fowl friendly plantings, thus reducing the need for feed, putting a sparkle in their eyes and a proper flop to their combs. The Americaunas went back into their primary paddock a few weeks ago and have taken a serious bite out of the poultry pasture plants we had seeded in during the time of McGuire. Methinks that denser coverage of the fallow paddocks will help. Have to figure out how to get the cycle synced up so that what they eat is matched by fully mature greenery in the fallow paddock. This involves growing times of the various plant material and volume of consumption by the birds going through said plant material, all of which varies according to season and weather patterns. I bought a copy of calculus for dummy's and a slide rule the other day. I'm hoping one of these college edumacated interns will figure it all out and slap together a slick power point presentation which we'll turn into a dvd, distribute worldwide, make oodles of money and be able to retire to the south of France where we'll bask in the sun by day, frolic and gambol by night and get medical and dental for free. The guard has changed with the departure of wwoofer Supremicus and all around Sweetness, Natalie. After investing a year of her time in our little warp, she has flown off to adventure her way through Asia. I imagine her scaling the heights of Kinabalu, bungy jumping in Phuket, stalking sacred temple sites, milking pit vipers for their venom and snorkeling the cool clear waters of the south china sea. We had a moment of trauma prior to her departure. Natty wasn't sure whether or not to travel with her wooby. She still has her baby blanket and has never really traveled without it. Now I can almost feel the collective Aawwwwww resonating with those of you who understand the nature of the wooby. And lets face it, we all go there. Think about that article of clothing that's always the first thing you reach for when in relaxzo mode and which you'll wear until so decompsed that its remains can only be used as kitty litter. So, during the two week packing protocol which all women go through prior to a long journey, she decided against taking it in spite of the obvious anxiety created by the thought of leaving it behind. I said, "why not just cut off a piece and take it with". She snarled ever so slightly while looking directly at my crotch. I got the message. Well, after a few more days and a small measure of agonizing, she lovingly deposited and vacuum sealed it in a plastic bag filled with Nitrogen gas, placed it on a shelf in the closet, looked at me and said, "I think it's time I let go. You can do whatever you want with it. I don't care if its here when I return." Her eyes welled up a bit as she turned to leave the room and I grabbed her hand, looked into her soul and said, "are you sure, babe?" She could only give me a trembling little nod. Sooo, I listed it on Ebay with a little historical blurb and got $15,632 from some transsexual pedophile in Trenton. Praise Carl. The more you show, the more we'll grow. Safe travels my love, Jp