#theorypractice — Public Fediverse posts

The End of an Era

Well friends, we reached the end of an era on Monday night with the death of Mrs. Dashwood, last of the Dashwood flock.

After nine and half years it started to seem like she would just keep going and going and going even though she had clearly slowed down considerably from her younger days. But Monday night when James went out to close the chickens up in the coop, Mrs. Dashwood was sitting in the run. She didn’t get up when James went in, didn’t protest when he pet her, didn’t complain when he picked her up and put her inside the coop. She didn’t appear to be in pain, just slowly fading. 

In the morning she was dead, lying where James had placed her the night before. 

I was already at work and James was on his way to work, so he put her body in a big bucket, secured the top, and put the bucket in the garden shed to keep her safe until the evening. We buried her with gratitude and kind words beneath the elderberry tree in the chicken garden with all the other dead chickens—and I wonder why the elderberry is such a vigorous tree! 

Ethel and Sia were in the run and had a clear view of everything going on. With only the two of them now, Sia has pretty much stopped picking on Ethel. Instead of sleeping on opposite ends of the roost at night, they now sit side-by-side. Instead of Ethel waiting for everyone else to leave the coop in the morning so she doesn’t get pecked, she is first to jump down and walk out the coop door.

Was Sia’s big adventure of a week ago too much for Mrs. Dashwood’s old heart? There is no telling. But I miss her happy coos and her crooked foot and her magnificently fluffy butt. 

The two Nuggets are four-years-old. They will likely be with us for a few years yet if all goes well. Yesterday we covered over the collards and cabbage and opened the main garden gate much to their great delight. When I let them out of their run, Sia was screeching her complaints that it was the middle of the afternoon and how dare we keep them from being able to wander their garden? But as soon as I called them to follow me through the gate to the big garden, Sia’s complaints turned into happy coos. Not quite like Mrs. Dashwood coos, but she did make me smile because I’ve never heard such sweet calls from her before. It is unfortunate that Mrs. Dashwood didn’t live long enough to have one more wander in the big garden. It was gorgeous yesterday and she would have loved it.

Why did the Nuggets have to stay confined to the run until the afternoon yesterday? Because we can’t trust that Sia won’t go adventuring if unsupervised. James and I attended a No Kings rally on the other side of the lake near our house. 

We had been trying to figure out how to fit in all of our errands early and get to the huge rally in downtown Minneapolis. But then I learned there was a rally within walking distance in my very own neighborhood! Problem solved. 

We walked over and stayed for around an hour and half. My neighborhood turned out! People lined both sides of the busiest street in the area for about 5 or 6 blocks. It wasn’t the thousands who turned out downtown, but we had a couple hundred. Signs and flags, blow up costumes—unicorn, T-rex, giraffe, shark—and someone wearing a fleece frog costume with others wearing frog hats or carrying frog stuffies. People in the cars driving by honked, waved, and stuck their own flags and signs out of car windows since they were clearly on their way to the rally downtown. 

One guy drove by with his arm out the window, hand high and flipping us off. We just cheered louder. He couldn’t ruin the day or the party atmosphere. 

The day was jubilant and uplifting and everyone was excited to be taking part. When James and I decided it was time to walk home, the rally was still going on. We could hear if from our front porch 2 miles away! It felt great to take part. And while protests alone won’t change anything, it is encouraging to know there are so many people in my city, state, and country who are not okay with our president and what he is doing. I have to trust that they, like me, are doing what they can to resist authoritarianism. 

• It was windy!
• James keeping the message simple
• Not quite Todd the frog, but the spirit is there

I know last week I said I’d tell you about some of the really good books I’ve read recently, but with all the things I am pushing it off again. I will give you a great quote from one of the books that I just finished reading this afternoon, Theory & Practice by Michelle de Krester.

The story is told from the point of view of a woman who is writing her master’s thesis on Virginia Woolf. It takes place in the mid to late 1980s when theory was taking over English departments everywhere. I remember those days well since that is precisely when I was in college studying English and eventually writing my own master’s thesis. It’s a fantastic book that marvelously pokes holes in academia and in theory, because, of course, theory is not practice. Real life often doesn’t match abstract theory, and theory can be used to turn “texts” into something they are not and never intended to be. Highly recommend the book.

And now the quote. Paula is our narrator’s thesis advisor, the feminist in the English department. 

Paula had chestnut ringlets like a character from Jane Austen and big blue ponds for eyes. Nature had designed these things to deflect male attention from her bloody teeth. She feasted on raw patriarchal stupidity.

Heh. I love a good feast on patriarchal stupidity.

Take care, keep well, find joy, and resist fascism like it’s 1939.

#MichelleDeKrester #MrsDashwood #NoKings #Nuggets #patriarchalStupidity #TheoryPractice