www.bonnysamerica.com - Welcome to Bonny's America! www.bonnysamerica.comhosted by the reasonably congenialBonny Belgum

Monday, May 18, 2009

My next book, Fear of Fear of Flying, is expected out early 2010. It was going to be a high-road how-to for getting over fear of flying by learning to pilot a single-engine plane. But my incurable honesty has inserted itself sufficiently into the tex that now it's a book about how I worry how to promote this book if it means flying anywhere. And the grants I apply for to get funding for a "green" promotion tour, which just means I can stay home. I HAVE, no matter what else is the truth, logged 21 HOURS in a Cessna 150, in the left seat. Where the pilot sits, you get what I'm sayin' here? So while the fear and nerves and messiness of my progress are real, even MORE real is that log book, signed on each line by a certified flight instructor. So I really can help people with this book. But I'm gonna tell the part about the nerves too, because the book was really stalling out without the flavor of neurosis, of which I can supply plenty.

I really want a swimming pool so Sonny can claim his birthright. I shop for accessories for him:

Bonny's America could be a sparkling aqua jewel of delicious delight but for just one mightly windfall.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Bonny's America: Cut the Woman Some Slacks! is now on iPhone. What that means I haven't a clue. But there it is.

Now to what I do understand: that Andrée Tracey is one of the great delights to happen to my life and work in ages. Yes, she has struck again, illustrating another chapter of Somewhere in These Days of Morning, "She used to own a hotel called Rapid Deterioration." The full chapter text follows:

She used to own a hotel called Rapid Deterioration,

and before that she lived in it. The whole place was done up in tasteful pumpkin. She had to move out to bring the total available rooms to 117, the correct number for any hotel on a large secondary street.

©2009 Excerpt from Somewhere in these Days of Morning by Bonny Belgum (author) and Andrée Tracey (illustrator)

Andrée's site has these fabulous close-ups of the detail - go see!

Hazel is whispering something into baby Bonny Belgum Double Junior's ear. You'd have to look close to determine whether they are literally adjoined. I mean, all the time, not just right now. And the piggies are sleeping lined up, snout to tail.

A podcast recorded before a livestock audience will be available as soon as my husband does whatever it is you do to make it show up somewhere. Let's just say the performance was not without vigorous audience participation.

Bonny's America is full of coffee and cookie dough.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Still haven't identified the kittens' mama. Last I peeked between the boards that comprise the shed door, they were no longer alone - they were cloaked by a calico and an orange tabby. A year or two ago the mamas - and some daddies - started the kibbutz style, and it's really caught on. The babies are warm - they don't care how that happened. Why do I?

Bonny's America is about 30 percent lip-sync'd, as a quality control measure.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

All nestled in the charcoal dust in the storage shed - black lung at two days old?!

Bonny's America welcomes our first kittens of the season, just a bone and taupe and putty knot of heat.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

It's important to understand - although we never really can possibly come close - how strange the world is and how little bitty of it we actually even can pretend to know. Case in point, the Frogfish Psychedelica, a newly discovered member of the likely vast bouncing fish club:

Where do you suppose HE works?

Bonny's America is an ice rink topped with a rich mud frosting. Yum!

Thursday, March 12, 2009

It is not mean here under my blankie. It is not mean under the sun. But it is mean in the wind. I think we say "it" to allow a syntactic way to complain without insulting nature's towering forces, or making them at all dyspeptic. It's hard enough as it is. (That's a different "it.")

Aren't you tired of reading these? Probably you're not reading them at all, so the answer is a resounding no trees falling in the woods. I bought a counter-thing but can't figure out to install it. It doesn't matter. I exist in part by means of typing, so all is not for naught. Speaking of, "not for naught" is apparently the British way of saying "not for nothing," a current popular phrase I've picked up and occasionally set down. We've taken to listening to such insider British series that we can't understand two-thirds of the dialogue, but it's kind of like brushing up on your French - you gotta keep your expectations low. Have you seen The Lemurs Must Be Crazy? They found an empty raisin box and their worlds (and the box) turned upside down:

Bonny's America is warmed by Sonny's ever-bolder and encouraged advances toward his anything-but-a-cat friend.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

I had forgotten, since I somehow missed a year and went to the eye doctor two years later, that he has the EXACT SAME prescription I do, which is a feat in and of itself.

He and I even share the same enlarged cup size - that is, the same dimple - that is, the oval space that funnels ... everything into the optic nerve. It is one of three signs of glaucoma, but my biennial return confirmed that I haven't gained a cup size (big shocker for me - not!), so it's just how I am. And exactly how he is. I do believe he took some pleasure in using that term and, not wanting to be obvious and also painfully shy about such references, I let that one pass, drawing a rare straight face.

photo by Bonny Belgum

I don't think he ever had wandering eye - wait, that could be misinterpreted - lazy eye, so I can cling to that distinction, but still! I picked the wrong guy from whom to demand an admission that I can't see.

It was only today that I realized a hugely salient feature of our exchange: Our hopes and dreams, even though we truly share a vision, are in utter conflict. All I wanted, as shouted about below, was for him to admit I can't see. But the light, however fuzzy and dim, just came on that all HE wanted was for ME to admit that I CAN see. What must it be like for him to hear about the little (literally) things that I can't see anymore when he desperately wants acknowledgment, from a patient and for himself, that for the most part I CAN see, and because of what he has done for me. It's a thankless job he has.

I pride myself on being a cheerful and robust client, patient, customer, always seeing (as well as can be expected) the delight in every encounter. And this visit was no exception. Unless you consider that all the quips and observations that bubbled forth from me might have, in his eyes, gladly been replaced by - you know what? By "Thank you."

Bonny's America is, on rare occasion, home to an insight, as well as to a cat who wants to be anything but a cat and has found a begrudging admirer in Sonny, who likes anything but a cat.

Friday, January 30, 2009

I don't pretend to understand connecting on the internet, but I'm beginning to see it's like not understanding the telephone versus the telegram - it's not going away. Besides, I'm not sure I need to understand for you all to heed the call to a new hep site, BUZZAROONIE! It's where cool authors talk about what they're reading and cool readers talk about what they're writing. You'll figure it out when you get there, and you can join up so you don't miss anything and Buzzaroonie doesn't miss out on that about which you itch to squawk, bookwise.

I am heading off to the eye doctor, with great glee and hopes that may or may not be dashed. The part where they say you're corrected to 20/20 I've learned to ignore, after the surge of anger at their LIES subsides. But the part where I take off all gradation of glasses and find myself trying to pull the bridge of my nose off my face so I can see what has the ever-verboten grapefruit in it is the last straw. What's next, a spy glass? Okay, I already bought one. But do I stalk around my own house like an inspector, taking exaggeratedly large knee-bent strides so as not to wake the 4-point type? I'm not averse to being sent to an institute for the blind for vision aides, but just somebody admit I CAN'T SEE. In this time of newfound transparency, for the love of God, admit it!!! That's all I'm asking. I gave up functional vision in about the second grade; ever since, it's been all about the LIES.

Bonny's America is hosting a bunny, by evidence revealed with aid of a spyglass, very near the piggy house. The burning question is, does bunny snuggle in under the heat lamp? Just how broad are those short piggy arms of love?

Saturday, January 17, 2009

I just typed 3009 for the year and almost blew my own mind. Would have scarcely noticed.

The mysterious girl from Estonia is moving to a theater near me after a 15-year hiatus. She brings with her a delightful boy whose half-birthday is mere days away. Welcome home, happy half.

The illustrious Andrée has struck again - and again! Her town shares the initials of my husband's credentials. No wonder we met over Keith Richards. Anyway, please see below and blow your own mind! From Somewhere in These Days of Morning:

She likes to play the stockbrokers.

You know, give them inside information. Inside her own head, that is, but there is a lot inside her head, and they listen to what they think is inside another's head, the head of a mover and shaker. But how do you suppose information gets in their heads? There's no magic about that. Sources, resources. Resources are just the retelling of sources when it comes to money, and they listen. Because she knows, and they are desperate at all times.

She plays stockbrokers off each other too so they don't know when the other guy is bluffing to gain an edge, and none of them knows that all of them are bluffing, but then aren't they always. She's not doing anything new, and she does have her sources, inside and out of her head, inside and out of the boardrooms. She doesn't put any of her money in it, though, because the horses are a safer bet. Heck, they're a guarantee, especially when you own all the horses. All the horses. Granted, there's no fun in that, unless you make it fun.

And serious fun can be made.

and...

She has two pairs of prescription eyeglasses.

One makes things blurry, and the other makes things fuzzy. Because she does not need glasses and bought these at a pawn shop. She often needs to seek the assistance of others to read menus, street signs, the denomination of a bill from her wallet, because she cannot see. With either pair of glasses. So she is not lying when she requests assistance.

No one has ever suggested removing the glasses to correct her eyesight. If they would just say so, she would gladly do it. And thank them for the tip. But people go right on reading things to her without any effort to solve the bigger problem. That's the way people are. They'd rather feel helpful than be of any real help. And nothing boosts a person's confidence like knowing what street they're on when another does not, and being chosen to impart that information. Puff, puff, puff, even she can see them bursting, and she can't see much. Not on the glasses days, which come at random. Those are tough days.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Let us set aside this day for the worship of the tiny Pink Fairy Armadillo.

Bonny's America is filled with sounds best left uninvestigated.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

I try to perform a proper Bunny dip when serving lattes for Hot Club every morning. Even if it's just to the chair, due to my husband's pants-hopping or at least the simple fact that when I serve myself coffee I am doing the Bunny dipping and therefore cannot receive same from the vantage point of the favorite chair. Anyway, the other day I ended up one foot off in my whole routine. Ever do that? Instead of a knees-together Bunny dip, my right foot extended and the bend, with right arm also customarily extended and left foot necessarily lunged behind me. I felt a sudden silver hat on my head and realized this was the FTD Florist serving the empty chairs. Another effect altogether.

Bonny's America features two grey squirrels sandwiching a black squirrel, all in such a bunched chase as to cause my husband to exclaim, "Look! A snow monkey! We have a snow monkey!"

Friday, December 5, 2008

Very cold, but not too cold. Clouds, but way high up. Winds, but not too strong. A healthy instructor. A healthy student. A credit card. There was simply no elegant way out of my rescheduled flying lesson. So I did what the facts culminated in: I flew. Then I landed. I daresay my new flight instructor had a fair amount to do with all of the above (and, geographically and aerodynamically, below). Nonetheless. A plane went up, a plane came down. In between, we went in circles and squares, up and down (not all at the same time, at least in theory - occasionally in practice).

Then I drove to Osceola to buy a celebratory Coke out of a machine (another way to avoid human contact) and stopped in at the bank to pick up a just-in-case loan application for our narrowing land search and asked if they had an extra copy of the Osceola Sun. They had one copy, to remain in the lobby until next week's edition, but yes I could look to see if the profile Buz Swerkstrom wrote about me and my book had appeared as scheduled in the December 3rd issue. On the last inside page of the second section of two, the sports section, a glimpse of my Obama t-shirt confirmed its presence. The bank promised to save me the copy. My husband brought one home from work, though, and I let it cool in the car overnight and read it this morning. I think there's no reason to pursue further reviews/interviews. Buz did such a good job that the buck stops here (I'm not positive what that means, but I mean it to mean that no one could top his work). Never mind me or the book, it's a great read to see how it's done by the naturals, how someone can paint a stranger so well that said stranger (ostensibly not to herself, but we all know how that goes...) learns about herself. Buz is the star here, and he has a book coming out on fascinating places to go in Polk County, Wisconsin. I can only imagine what a delight it will be and I'll be sure to let you know when it's out.

So many journalists take the easy road, quoting from the book's back cover blurbs, picking out bits of the interview that underscore those quotes, and even borrowing from the last guy's review. But Buz wrote a great piece of creative nonfiction, and I only wish I had his talent. Thank you, Buz.

Bonny's America was filled with terrified and terrifying screams this morning as the piggies' teeth and nails endured spa treatment with instruments of seeming torture (albeit in the expert and loving hands of Dr. Bruce Oscarson - the tall one, not the goat) that in fact impact only, well, teeth and nails. What we suffer for beauty. Our proud piggies are eating and sleeping it off, while Sonny and I have only recently steadied our heartbeats with peanut butter and time.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

My first flying lesson in two years was canceled yesterday - what a thrilling event! There is little more uplifting (npi) in the world than a canceled anything, especially a flight! Remember, to have flown is glorious. To anticipate flight... well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. It is, as our baby girl goat Bonny Belgum Double Junior would say, "pretty good." I get total credit for being ready and willing to show up, though. Alas, it's already been rescheduled for two days from now, but there's always that unpredictable weather. The point is that I don't cancel. If I actually fly, so very much the better, or so I will say after the fact.

Andree and I finally have the actual - not working - title for our collaboration. The working title, "That's the kind of person she is.," is hereby replaced with the real and lasting title, Somewhere in These Days of Morning. Andree's recent show saw two prints from Somewhere go out the door, so we have already garnered a stack of receipts, albeit a slender one. We're for real!

I'm so tired of not doing more public speaking. Invite me to charge up your crowd for the next interminable training seminar! Let's wake these people up! They can go back to sleep when the PowerPoint comes on.

Bonny's America responds to the slightest inconvenience with her husband's gorgeously simple phrase, "Well, call the Hilton!"

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

I snooze, I lose. I almost missed my first customer review on Amazon.com. I was determined to do absolutely nothing to cause one to appear. No favors were called in. This lovely person is a total stranger in a strange land indeed: Santa Cruz, California. Almost two weeks ago. What a lovely little world, with people like her who are moved to share a bit of enthusiasm for something. I'll pay forward her kindness with this thought, for those of us decidedly not in California: Winter is a beautiful, exciting, shocking, dangerous, thrilling event. Let's give it a real big welcome this year. And let's share some of our coolness and ice with our struggling friends in the heat of fire. Together, we'll all get the temperature just right.

Bonny's America needs new brakes but is trying to hit all the right notes on the decidedly circuitous way to the shop.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

A review in the U of Minn. alumni magazine almost literally indicates that you can, in fact, beat City Hall. For those of us who frequented the joint in the late '70s, early '80s, the U is a place where things tangle up and slip away unaccountably. Not a place that receives and acts upon mail from an alum's publisher. It is a strange new world indeed. Today is the hairless dog of alma maters.

Bonny's America is in a ditch and out of gas. Cheer up, I only mean it literally.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

I'm still holding Obama's victory close to my heart. By all means, talk amongst yourselves. On Huffington Post, in the mix of celebration photos from all over the world, arms in the air, crying, cheering, was this from Afghanistan:

Bonny's America may be a pacifistic country, but it is not without mercy for these weary, wary onlookers to their own fate.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Why are you reading this?! Go dream about our future with Obama, says the utterly converted Bonny. Death to cynicsm? Is this possible? Let's decide it is.

It's been a long, cold, lonely winter.

Bonny's America dares to dream. That statistically proves anyone can.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

I have agreed to use headphones tonight if the debate is too jittery for my husband. Last debate, we thought it was the choppy uploading of the screen, so he lay on the floor behind the computer to listen in darkness. And it had just as jangling an effect. Apparently their words were uploading into their brains and outputting in just as jolting a manner. He couldn't stem his brain's line hits, as we used to call them, for hours into bedtime. Come to think of it, neither could I. Can't wait to do it again. Can't wait for it all to be over either. Combine one couch, one broken foot, and one laptop (okay, three) and you get one "news" junkie. I gotta go cold turkey after this.

And then there is mercy:

Bonny's America feels like this. Advises our good friend, "Never leave home."

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Greetings, one and all! I don't have the heart to force the flies back out into the cold. 70 degrees, you say! Pah! We have our own tiny ecosystem in these hills and valleys. Every single forecast: Wind! Brrrr. But why should you care, for heaven's sake? My apologies. You must have felt like you were listening to a debate for a second there.

All I want to do is look at pictures of the strangest rare endangered species and read about their talents. I mean ever, not just right now. I can't see my way clear to justifying any other course of action for the rest of my life. Once you've read that the blind "human fish" olm eats

only every ten YEARS, or that there are only 200 one-inch bats LEFT... And this purple frog you're seeing spends most of its life 13 feet underground - frankly, a very appealing idea. These are the most amazing, inventive, gorgeous creatures imaginable - no, strike that. There is no WAY to imagine what I am seeing. Don't get me started on evolution. Nothing makes me angrier (although most everything makes me angry, by way of disclaimer) than hearing the blah blah about evolution LEADING to humans. I'm fine with the evolution theory, but we are a disgusting, miserable example of what it means to progress. Does it LOOK like we're progressing? Evolving? NO! We are devolving ever more, taking everyone and everything with us, and in that hideous process have taken way too much attention - and means of sustenance - from living beings who really are brilliant, resourceful, kind, patient, creative, cooperative, and utterly beautiful. *@*!# the thumb! If that's what it means to evolve - to render a creature that eats only every ten years extinct - then I guess we win a big shiny prize.

Bonny's America - anyone's America - is unworthy of the dudong!

Thursday, October 2, 2008

See you in Wayzata tonight! My fervent prayer is that it will be warmer there than it is here, because we have a new rule that we can't turn on the heat, we can only build a fire. But I can't get to the woodpile, and a two-hour bath didn't do the trick. I am prepared to pour my latte over my head right before the reading so I don't overshiver the words like in "Crimson and Clover." Anything for the cause.

For all my various nerves, the only moment that caused me to reel from a rush of anxiety yesterday was the Huffington Post headline that maybe Palin would do well in the debate. This must be what it feels like to have a gun to your head. PLEASE don't let her be fake-articulate! I saw something about an Alaska debate where she used the word "discourse." Noooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bonny's America's shivers are timbered indeed!

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

This is amazing! This new thing, Google Book Search, will take you right to the cover page of Bonny's America: Cut the Woman Some Slacks! and lets you look anywhere you want through the whole book! Then, if you like it, links to buy it are right there. Talk about a Look Inside feature! Way more extensive than amazon.com's. How can this work? Easy: They don't let you copy or print it, and they hope your eyes get tired. I know I don't like to buy stuff I can't preview, and I seldom get to a bookstore from up here. Now it comes to you! They have loaded lots and lots of books, including the whole KenArnoldBooks catalog. Make it a night: Browse with brews!

Bonny's America is now an open book.

Monday, September 29, 2008

The mighty Belgum/Tracey duo has struck again. Come meet the magical Andrée Tracey at my Wayzata reading on Thursday!

For the hard-of seeing (remember, this is simply a small image of a wonderland collage):

Flags are flying, people are marching in a row.

It's a business army, storming a high-rise, expertly trained in death of the spirit. Orders: Shoot to kill. There is a massacre every day, and these living dead sense nothing except fear of reprisal. They fall in step. She knows the tree frog sees this and peps in horror. She loves the tree frog for pepping. His pep can melt a building. So it should.

Suitable for a Monday morning, no?

Bonny's America peps with the tree frog. May we all pep with the tree frog.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

The eighth chicken has come home, it's an ideal day for mushrooms, I've been up for two whole hours and, after two lattes, am calling it. Time to go back to bed and start over. It happens.

photo by Bonny Belgum

There is a surging hope in me, though, about Obama - that he might be a human being. I saw a clip of him on Letterman, deconstructing the pig lipstick metaphor. He both used the word "connote" and flashed a huge smile. He was amused, he was having fun. He was actually kinda cute. In the style of Clooney, the smile is doled out sparingly, with a big payoff. Speaking of, you know winter is coming when our goats sprout their underside Clooneys. They're coming in thick and dark this year.

Bonny's America has substituted the amazon.com Hot New Releases list for the stockmarket charts, but apparently the addiction is as strong. I don't think I could even say I can quit anytime.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

I am crestfallen. I have realized suddenly that Newt is short for Newton. That's all. Dreams die hard.

Bonny's America is comforted by a newcomer, a green flincher whose haunches each replicate a blade of grass. I don't want to know his name. I know that he's perfect.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Andree Tracey has rolled out the welcomest of mats on her site, inviting one and all to join her in attending my Amazon Bookstore reading. She spoils me. I think this thing's gonna be quite the party! Crutches optional.

Bonny's America apparently features a diagnostically insane foot. Come one, come all, peer at the phenomenon Thursday at 7!

Thursday, September 18, 2008

This guy calling in to Wisconsin Public Radio just got called on to be next and he hit a button on his phone, so his first comment was a beep, which reminds me of that bag of popcorn in the snack trailer at the movies - the one that pops the popcorn into the air in a puff of joy at the touch of, I believe, Ms. Diet Pepsi. Wait, now the guy has an off-the-hook beep piping into the Afghanistan expert's longwinded response. Why am I thinking of frog calls? Sonny is fond of saying, "Yeah, thanks for the call, Jim. I'll hang up and not listen." I think he got that from his second wife, the St. Bernard, who was a bit of a comedian. Although I really don't think she was bluffing when she acted like she thought she was upstairs when in fact the back third of her was still on the stairs. She'd stand there waiting for me to proceed, and I'd stand there waiting for her to fully upload her body so she could shift it into the kitchen and out of the landing so that I could leave the corner behind the door to the basement, where I would typically need to wait. I loved that. Wait, the Afghanistan guy just said Kumbayah! I am totally not kidding. Properly, I totally am not kidding. Or, I am not totally kidding, which changes the meaning utterly. The Germans have it figured out - the little identifiers they stick in front of and behind their words lets you spill the whole Scrabble game and put everything back where it was, if you're honest.

Bonny's America has sprung two Estonian tulip-poppies this morning, in the form of reading attendees - I won't be alone!

Monday, September 15, 2008 (urgent update)

You won't believe this. The birthday girl - okay, my magical sister! - couldn't stand it anymore so she looked up Estonia. As tulip-shaped poppies are our witnesses, look what came up:

Bonny's America is most beholden to the visions of Nanny the seer.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Happy birthday to a delightful young lady whose view of Estonia couldn't be further from mine. I picture their packages are wrapped with six thick slates and then a wooden club is taped to the top. She sprang forth almost autonomically, "Oh, no, Estonia is ALL red and orange!" She sees big poppies everywhere with tulip edges, all red and orange. A happy place. A CURRENT place. (Maybe it will bump New Zealand off her #1 spot?) I'm certain she's right - it flowed right through her. Just one way she's always a surprise, and another reason I'm glad to call her my best friend and, often, personal savior - even though we've never been formally introduced.

Now, then. I think we can all agree that ... September is a mossy protrusion:

We are a rock. We are an island. She could be looking to Estonia.

Speaking of a rock (me) on an island (the couch), Week Six has begun with no relief in sight. I may be ROLLING into those readings, at this rate, but I shall be there.

I have been humbled by the dark side of my hermit life. I have asked, what do other people do, who don't have a husband to help them, before and after work? And what do I do, when he is at work? I can't move without the white hot stone of pain lighting up, but yet Sonny still has to pee, and on rare occasions so do I. Plus there's my fierce caffeine addiction. I've made coffee twice during this sojourn and had to rest up the rest of the day. Do you have any IDEA how many steps there are, literally and figuratively? Well, I mean just literally, but some are foot-steps and some are procedure-steps, and many require both. It ought to give you some idea how it's going that I don't even think it's worth it. I'm back to strictly what I can reach from my island.

The point is, though, people's response to exactly what one can do in such a helpless state goes like this: Friends, family, neighbors, church, community. I've made it my mission not to have or serve as any of those, and now who's laughing? It's almost embarrassing if it weren't so sad if it weren't so funny that I didn't see this coming. But my rules include a determination to help others first before I'm qualified to ask, and I can't do that from the COUCH! Besides, I have done some things for some people sometimes, but as it happens those people are presently in need or in demand themselves. I managed to eke out the words "I need help" but my timing was all wrong. And "neighbor" out here - if you say can you walk half a mile to take my dog to pee, then you gotta be ready for when they go to St. Maarten for a month and leave behind a pack of wolverines. See where I'm going with this? It's not just watering plants and taking in mail out here, it's serious stuff, and all us (we?) neighbors know it.

And to pray to a Christian God so that someone will print me a sheet of labels? Doesn't seem worth it - seems more like I'm writing my own ticket straight to hell, should there indeed BE a Christian God who finds out I want a page of labels printed. And community - we don't even know which one we LIVE in. We have to find out when/if we vote. That leaves family. Nobody nearby, and we have all had an unspoken policy thus far to offer hearty greetings when the occasion serves, but we are all islands ourselves. Islands that split off the mainland and floated off and anchored hard. We don't ask favors. We don't accept favors. We're sort of shy, in an arrogant, gnomish sort of way. Which leaves me here on the couch knowing Sonny's gonna have to pee within the hour and it's only Monday. What did he do to deserve reduced service? He's dignified and composed and not a snuggler, but he IS "friends with all the groups," as popular kids describe their high school experience.

Bonny's America is an island with food and water, although the sound of Sonny drinking water strikes fear to its shores.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008 (later)

Wait, I gotta tell you this before it's already outdated: Near as I can figure out, amazon.com has listed Bonny's America as #34 on its Hot New Releases list for essay books. I'm not kidding: http://yp.amazon.com/gp/new-releases/books/4464?ie=UTF8&pg=2.

Quick, go look, before they change their minds!

Bonny's America might be funnier when ordered from Estonia. As our friend once said, "Truly we live in a postmodern world."

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

What I've always known as the St. Paul Pioneer Press has included Bonny's America: Cut the Woman Some Slacks! in its list of 37 page-turners (thank you, Mary Ann Grossmann!), properly showing its publication date as October 2008. All y'all have been getting the sneak preview. :) And today is the day Andree and I shall decide on a proper title for our collaboration. We're almost ready to start shopping around the pitch!

Bonny's America awaits the hay truck and the chimneysweep.

Monday, September 8, 2008 (afternoon)

Musings from Couch Month (four weeks down, two to go):

I am fighting to stay afloat here.

I follow cyberlinks about the potential first ladies, and before I know what’s happening I’m reading a quote Woody Allen gave to Pop Tarts about how Scarlett Johansson is not his muse. I try to get back to Cindy and Michelle, and it’s all how Michelle’s sundress on “The View” subsequently sold out all the Nordstrom stores and how Cindy wears yellow and leather. And how one of them has a business, but she can’t talk about it.

Fine, on to their husbands. I click on the Google homepage link to what Senators Obama and McCain are reading: The Drudge Report, The Huffington Post—I can’t tell heads from tails on either site. They’re both feverish tabloid mosaics followed by single-spaced lists of most every news source in America and abroad, including Perez Hilton. Is that a person or a place? If a person, is he or she real? If so, why? Inside my head roll waves of bewilderment, pulsing to a strobe-light rhythm.

photo by Bonny Belgum

Biden is announced as Obama’s running mate, and his main asset is he’ll be a great president. Aren’t we skipping a step here? Are they going to take turns in the big chair depending on whether the problem du jour occurs here or in Rest of World? Does Obama like change that much?

As for McCain’s pick, She Who Must Not Be Named, let’s just call her She Who Will Be Out Before the VP Debates.

Bonny's America is all clouds and Minute Rice and pillows.

Monday, September 8, 2008 (morning)

I have given an interview to my alma mater, The Minnesota Women's Press. When the piece is printed on September 17th, we'll find out together what-all I said... It was a lovely time. Editor Michele St. Martin is clever and in tune. Sonny kept a watch over our flock by day so I could hear her over the bellering billygoats.

Bonny's America is a mounting cacophony of caprine hormones the likes of which you'd have to hear to believe ... actually, go right ahead: Rocky's link is to your left.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Andrée's struck again, pairing up with my chapter, "She has never had no thought in her head." She's getting requests for the publication date for our tentatively titled That's the kind of person she is. Good thing we're on a roll! Here's the latest chapter, deliciously woven into the collage itself:

Bonny's America has donuts in the air, donuts in the couch cooler, donuts in her cluttered head ... and hot coffee.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Just a quick challenge: Try watching the Palin speech withOUT thinking of the Teletubbies. Do not picture her with Mickey Mouse ears. Let me know how it goes.

Bonny's America respects the dangers of unchecked merriment and knows when to decline the advent of laughter without a chaperone.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Another project I'm working on is Fear of Fear of Flying, a humorous self-help book for those afraid of Fear of Flying class. I believe there are thousands among us. Ultimately, it will be a whole workshop, with course materials and the book and maybe some footage from the vantage point of a Cessna 152. See, the idea is, learning to fly is the only safe, secure way to get over fear of flying.

But don't think about that just yet. First, there's reading, then ground school, and always choice, always an out. It's all good. Here's a rough draft of the first couple chapters, "The Fear" and "The Flight."

Bonny's America would look dreamy from the sky today and would make a suitable impromptu landing strip - remember, all planes are gliders.

Monday, September 1, 2008

The magical Andrée Tracey strikes again! Here is the latest chapter of our collage/text creation, featuring an unbearably delicately bold visual gift:

She hears all the bird's songs, from all over the world, at once.
The voices from the jungle sound the most familiar. She may have lived there from before time. The birds where she stands, the birds she can see with our human eyes, are the most muted in the chorus. The jungle birds, the loudest, like to improvise. This is strange for a bird. You must trust your call as you trust your wings. The jungle birds don't care if no one answers, don't care if they crash down out of the sky. The jungle bed is thick and comfortable and never lonely.
The muted birds seem happiest on bare twigs, where you can see through the tree. They dread the coming of spring and new life. It plunges them into confusion until far away when the leaves fall and they regain control.

Clearly Andrée and I were destined to meet. I was thrilled just to share coffee and chatter, but I got so much more. I'm spoiled rotten by what she can do for my prose. Look for future collages incorporating the words into the art as they are drawn and spun like candy into her vision.

Bonny's America will be conveyed somehow to The Minnesota Women's Press by couch phone.

Friday, August 29, 2008

My husband would like to point out (see August 20 post) that the real Popeye Doyle's pursuit of the guy who's "wrong" resulted in a drug arrest, so it's even more exciting. Likewise, based on yesterday's xrays, I'm sentenced to the full 6 weeks, no time off for good behavior, of which there was apparently an insufficient sum. So, guilt or no guilt, Zsa Zsa Gabor it is. I need five more pillows.

Thanks to the wonderful Andree Tracey, I now have an image to include even though I can no longer reach my camera (by way of excuse for the dry tomes of late). This intolerably delightful collage goes with another chapter of my fanciful narrative (to follow):

Cooking takes up most of her time
because she only uses her left hand, and she is right-handed. This handedness does not change after years in the kitchen, because she does everything else right-handed. The food tastes better, though. Considerably so. The left hand has a far greater appetite, inspiring subtle influences of spice and heat for which the right hand has no patience.
- excerpted from Somewhere in These Days of Morning by Bonny Belgum/Andrée Tracey, copyright 2008

Bonny's America was full of cows and baby bulls and calves and more sheep last night that aren't there this morning.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

During mishaps, I land on the "bad" foot and electronic springs are activated and radiate upward and outward and hit the upper bound of my foot and reverberate up and down until I trade swearing and sweating for pillows and ice. This thing doesn't miss an opportunity. But I've actually been reading books, so there's a switch. The experience might better prepare me for giving readings, because maybe I'll have some insight into why people read. I have seldom been to a reading, because I overidentify with the author's likely humiliation at the size of the crowd (eight = to the rafters, from what I've seen from my vantage point, skulking behind the Current Affairs aisle at Barnes & Noble). It's too painful.

I may well not reach eight because I'm using the seat-filler routine very sparingly (like my husband has to drive me if my foot is still broken, so he may as well sit there as anywhere). But the point is I will share with the four or five honored guests the recent experience of having read something that isn't a textbook. In fact, these are popular, currently featured books. Maybe we've even read the same books. Maybe we can talk about those instead. Please, let's do. Because if you write like you talk, and I do, it seems like backtracking (my husband's worst fear) to turn around and read them aloud again. I wrote them aloud - they'll sound silly read aloud. I'm slowly realizing that what I've been preparing during Couch Month is actually much more akin to a stand-up routine. I hadn't really planned to read from this book. But the publishers say that's what's expected, so I'll have to fit that in somewhere. With any luck, I'll have forgotten my material and will be obedient after all and we all can walk/hobble/roll away relatively unchanged by the experience, which is all you can really ask of most things.

I tried to watch the DNC (which it turns out is not a surgical procedure) last night, but all I got was this game show. It said DNC, but I've heard they've reprised The Price Is Right, and it sounded more like that? It felt good to laugh that hard. One of the funniest things I've ever seen. I was laughing so hard by the sign-off that I hobbled straight off to bed, forgot to ice my foot, and was in pain all night. I'm not sure I won anything on that show after all, when you tally it all up.

Bonny's America needs a small cow.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

It has since been confirmed that I did indeed break my foot. My husband's favorite story about "French Connection" is a behind-the-scenes moment. Popeye, played by Gene Hackman, is a real cop, and that real cop served as consultant on the film. During the course of his consulting during the high-pressure, high-budget filming of a scene, the real Popeye's eyes darted across the street and tracked a man walking down the sidewalk. He stated simply, "That guy's wrong," and left the set to pursue the suspect on foot (no pun intended). So it was with my foot. I delivered to the on-call doctor the following subjective finding: "This foot's wrong." And so it is.

I have been sentenced to 4-6 weeks lengthwise on the couch. As I began to consider the ramifications of this arrangement, I became confused. How will the ensuing weeks differ from my daily routine? Certainly my husband won't notice any difference. Will I? Is it possible to get up even less than I have for years, whether due to laziness, mild depression, or the worship of nap as one of God's most merciful gifts upon us? "Sleep, that knits up the 'raveled sleeve of care." I think that's Shakespeare, but you'd have to ask my husband, who knows that stuff. He taught it to me when my father died, and it really does help. It really is true.

So in the ensuing weeks I will discover and report just how to do even less than I already do. A sneak preview: My foot's preliminary report, based on yesterday's activity, even with a Velcro ski boot, is that utter inaction is harder to achieve than your wildest dreams.

Bonny's America is a sweaty place with pockets (one) of ice.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Porquay's gotta run two bills, and I inadvertently placed my suddenly shoeless right foot where he next planned to step. Plus his left front leg has reverse arthritis, so he has to keep weight off it in the summer, so his right front foot takes the weight, as did my ill-placed foot. Porquay was a good sport about the inconvenience. While he doesn't walk us to the pig house door after a late-night visit like Notorious P.I.G. does (Porquay's a sound sleeper), he is sweet and gracious by nature. My right foot's anger is quelled by ice, but my heart has felt only an outpouring of love and concern for Porquay. I ensured his proper feeding, which was in progress and thus the hubbub (feeding one pig and then the other with as much as a second in between is a recipe for disaster), while doing what I usually do when I'm really injured: Speak quietly to myself, "This will require first aid. I will apply ice as soon as I go inside, which must be right away." If I swore and yelled, it would mean I just stubbed my toe. Things have to turn black before I start the calm narration. Or they have to start on fire.

Anyway, it's been confirmed that my foot was not actually broken, and I'm kind of disappointed. I was, as is so often the case, craving mercy, and it's harder to come by with a hidden black foot. But airing the foot for mercy's sake would be flirting with disaster and often the law. So I will suffer silently as my heart swells for Porquay. My mangled foot is a fond souvenir of the reality of pigs on the premises, and who could wish for more. Certainly all the goats agree - Rocky's whole group now sleeps in the pig house, and this morning, before he had time to scamper off and act nonchalant, I caught our biggest sheep, Shrimp, sharing an outside wall with the piggies' inner wall. I'm sure they all felt the added warmth. My foot's freezing.

Bonny's America is going to be a cozy lovefest this winter.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

This striking, dreamy, sophisticated, wild, and humble photo montage by aforementioned genius Andree Tracey (see left, or jump desperately quickly to her blog/collage gallery, http://www.andreescollages.com/) is the first of many in our fanciful new collaboration. Andree is illustrating - and thus making whole - my novel-in-progress, That's the kind of person she is. The chapter illustrated below follows, in its entirety.

Decoding is a state of mind.
Slippery iron or chromium tubes are not carriers. Decoding is a parched landscape brimming with age, cracking all the world’s history into tiny laugh lines. If you can’t see in it the best jokes ever thought but not spoken, all the math in the collective wisdom vaults can’t help you. She and the Dalai Lama laugh so hard you can almost hear if you know where to look. Tornadoes spin them up to a little white wrought-iron tea table, where they eat lemon cakes and enjoy the brittle view.
She had an idea once, and for that she is sorry.

Bonny's America is full of delightful creatures - some of them human!

Monday, August 4, 2008

I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. I figured this book would either die quietly, which it seemed to be doing well so far, or at the other extreme (I can only think in extremes) catch the attention of some intimidating literati and make me want to crawl under the bed, which I'd desperately want to do, but ours lies flat on the floor and the only things that fit under there are dog hair and old Kleenex. But instead, what should happen but an expression of interest from the tv and radio station in Lewisburg, TN (Tennessee is my natural homeland), home of ... I can't possibly prepare you for this ... the Goats, Music, and More Festival. If I'd ever dreamed a book could bring me to such excitement I would have... well, done the same thing - written it and looked for a publisher for 15 years. Anyway, the point is that they also had a small news item written by my potential reviewer, and it was about how the hit and run damage to two cars was really caused by a pig! I'm SO homesick for Lewisburg, Tennessee, but at least I learned to stream their radio station. Why couldn't I have done that before? It wouldn't have occurred to me. The festival includes a 5K Goat Walk. But with Tennessee Fainting Goats, they'll never get anywhere! The first pebble on the gravel road and everybody's down. I need to be there. I've GOT to be there. I also might get reviewed in this fancy magazine in Atlanta and in Fitness Magazine and some other stuff, but I can't even remember, I'm so excited. I need to LIVE where goats and pigs are part of the regular news and events. It's URGENT.

Bonny's America might hold its own Goats, Music, and More Festival, without the Music or More - they're too high-strung, and this is their party, after all.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Today a promising architect and fascinating human being turns eleven years old. Happy birthday. Eleven is the year that forms you. In the best way, you will always be eleven. Keep riding that pig!

Bonny's America - everyone's America - is a better place because of July 26, 1997.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

I have met the most amazing illustrator. She is a painter, photographer, collage artist. She sketches, she designs, she does it all. You would be mightily rewarded by a visit to www.andreetracey.com, where you can also go to her blog for a peek at her latest collage inspirations. Her collection of paintings about Suburbia (a place more bizarre than Hollywood or growing up on a miniature golf course) are suitably alarming - either under water or on fire, as one might imagine. She brings Chagall into the 1950s. Her work is a pure delight. Here (with Andree's permission) is one of my favorites among her collages, "She took off her mask":

Bonny's America is a wonderland of sugarplums.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Remember how Holly Hunter in "Broadcast News" scheduled 10 minutes a day to cry? She'd check her watch, which she wore with the large man's face on the inside of her wrist, and I believe she even took it off for the duration. And she'd sit on the edge of the hotel room bed or the dock or wherever she found herself and cry. It's bound to happen, why not take control of it? I've always admired her for that, and am convinced that she gave her character that affectation. Maybe it takes practice - I can't really get it going on command. Maybe it's because curmudgeons don't cry. And if I learned how, what would become of my curmudgeon identity? Losing that would give me something to cry about, but who'd know the difference if I'm already crying? If you miss a dose, do you wait until the next scheduled dose? If you accidentally cry twice, do you call the nurseline? I'm about ready to cry right now, just sorting out all the specifications.

Bonny's America is so beautiful - the cloud is inside her own head.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

My husband ordered the first copy of my essay collection last night, on lucky 7/11, for his mother. She has been such a sweet, encouraging cheerleader for me. Just the night before it came out, she left a message that she knows it's going to be something really special. Well, I know SHE is. So sales couldn't be going better, even if they stop at one. :) We can't afford to order any more - I'm already in the hole for promotional copies, but I think I'm supposed to grouse about that - makes me a more official book author. Truth is, it's the cheapest art form out there. No materials! Just your own miserable, knotted, snarled, angry brain resisting every step of the way. But we're supposed to say that too. So far, so good. Is there any cliche I'm leaving out?

Anyway, on to other excitement. The sheep are mingling - I dare use that term - with the goats and piggies and almost Sonny. And the occasional kitten and chicken wander through, as surprised as anyone to be there.

And the eighth chicken returned tonight, a very merciful gift, although her return was not for my benefit. It's just that life has a way of going on even when you have exciting things like a new book. So I was in a bit of a dark cloud over some trivial incursion into my happy bubble and then my eighth chicken shows up! There's a really GOOD thing that happened over which I had little control. So it all balances out. Repeat three times.

And Sonny, who's been a bit of a cool customer lately - possibly literally, as he's been sleeping only on tile or marble - has again taken to panting on wood surfaces closer to us, and we're touched and honored and pleased.

photo by Bonny Belgum

EB Double J, our infamous little billygoat, is all excited over the invention of the bag bra, something he can wear to protect his endowment even in the midst of brambles and tight squeezes through fences. The piggies have offered to market it, and his tag line is a cheerful, "Thanks, Bag Bra!" Like, "I used to get pinched in the fence, but not anymore. Thanks, Bag Bra!" The whole farm is convinced it's going to be a huge success. We have yet to work out the details, but it's a very entrepreneurial group.

We're also going to pitch to the local used car lot that they start a side business as a rental car agency, because there isn't one to be had for 25 miles, by which distance I'd already be where I need to get. We want to sell the truck and just rely on the little good-mileage Subaru, for obvious reasons. At over $100 a tank, plus insurance, plus monthly payment, plus the obscenity of it all, this would be a good plan. I mean, to quote this one crotchety old witness in a vintage "Law & Order," when they asked if he was sure he was home on Tuesday night, the 14th of August, at 9:00 in the evening, "Where would I go?"

Bonny's America is now a multifarious reference.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

I've really been trying to ease up on writing about the animals all the time, because not everyone can relate and all that, but you know what happened? I just sat there staring at "July 1, 2008" for an hour and took a nap with no further progress. I woke up resolved to pour my heart into mud, as I had such a strong inkling to do, and I feel much better. This is my world, what's outside my windows and inside my house (including the occasional billygoat, piggy, infant kitten, what have you). This is all I care about.

I stopped writing for a long time when we moved up here because I didn't want to write about anything else, but the animals didn't want me writing about them. They'd insert themselves into the piece with things like, "Happy now? Now that you've aired our most private painful and joyous experiences with total strangers who may actually believe that pigs wallow in [not mud]?" Even the birds and the caterpillars were sounding off, and I was just frozen, so I clammed up altogether (not literally, God knows - my husband thinks he wants that until it happens, at which point he's mortified) and stopped writing. So. Creatures of the earth likely have universal appeal, but even if they don't I only know my own world, as is true for each of us. That said, it is amazing to give a blind kitten sight through the use of a sharp fingernail and a tube of guck.

And the first thing they see is me, which scares them to death and they push off of me into the air about 12 kitten-lengths from the ground and take their chances. I'm not messing with pre-sight kittens. These are barn kittens who could see until too much paste caked their eyes shut and the inner meat swelled until there's no visible eyeball (npi). But eyes are popping open all over town (well, mainly in the woodpile), and some have even found the food dish, further blocking the hens from stealing a crumb or two or 20. Eye clinic is a very satisfying job. I hold it twice a day.

Bonny's America is full of egg-sucking raccoons and bitter chocolate.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Here's a recipe: At 88 degrees Fahrenheit, combine two piggies with two one-gallon bowls of water. Go back inside for twenty to twenty-five minutes. Return. Top off with hose.

photo by Bonny Belgum

Believe me, "wallowing" is a glorious pastime. You knew that already, but have you embraced it? You gotta really get ino that self-pity mud with all four hooves, wiggle around until you're comfortable, and settle in for a while. Pigs, being much more highly evolved, skip the downside altogether. Porquay took the most luxurious soak yesterday, after crafting a smooth, cool jowl-ramp upon which to rest his head. I'd show you, but I couldn't bring myself to invade his privacy. Maybe next time.

Bonny's America is a fact of life, and life is just energy.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Our blueberries are turning the faintest tinge of blue. If ever there was a miracle, it is our ability to produce blueberries. We can coast happily from here. Even if the Misery Index says blueberries can't make us happy.

photo by Bonny Belgum

Bonny's America is turning misty blue.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Do you ever forget not to do something? One of my husband's favorite jokes, from a comedian we can't recall, is the guy who looks at his huge garish tattoo and says, "I forgot not to do that!" It's a micro/macro thing with me - I get so caught up in the minutiae of my task that I neglect to consider its worth. Sort of like when you keep looking for something you already found because you forgot the point of the search? That is actually less intelligent than being surprised you found something in the last place you looked. Anyway, God knows I love these Valentines but my $6.00 a month profit is, I now realize, offset by about a $200/month cost, when you add up all the little crap eating away at your forlorn little checking account from 5 directions. What was I thinking? Well, in the beginning people were buying them up at an ever-increasing rate. But now those henless folks have to spend more for eggs and they probably still drink milk and maybe they even drive to a store to get these things, using up gas that costs the same per gallon as a postcard you could probably survive without (how, I don't understand, though, frankly).

Speaking of gas, I have to say I "pulled a Dad" - one of his more minor infractions, to be sure - today and tried to get to Stillwater, 25 miles south, with the little orange gas tank lit up two miles into the trip. I always figured his theory was that gas would either become unnecessary (it might!) or be offered free of charge before his tank ran out. My reason was I didn't want to be late for brunch - and the last time we tried to have brunch there they had stopped it early with no warning, no plausible explanation - I was determined to offer my friend the experience she deserved this time, and the whimsical cut-off was looming. (My dad was always late too, so that may have been a second reason - but he was REALLY late, not a few minutes late. Anyway.) But when you live where I do, you either head the wrong way early on to get gas or commit to the last 20 miles with fingers crossed. I pulled a Thelma and Louise a la Seinfeld, although I had no hand to hold. At least I wasn't driving the truck!

photo by Bonny Belgum

After brunch, though, my friend (now that's a true friend) volunteered to shadow me to the gas station. I couldn't figure out, as fumes wafted, which way to turn in the heavy tourist traffic to get to the only gas station. Time was running out. I hopped out of the car and ran back to ask her and she didn't know - why should she? This is supposed to be my neck - well, at least elbow - of the woods. I ran across to another car holding in it a Suburban Woman in Large Sunglasses, and tried to ask her. She shouted over me in a monotone, "I'm sorry, I'm driving right now." Clearly a unilateral decision she had made some time back. And for once I looked rather quite presentable, not like I was threatening to wash her windshield. People like her give Stillwater a bad name. Stillwater would have to shut down without people like her.

I ran back to my friend's car window and said all I know is it's next to the hardware store. She pointed to the hardware store and I committed to turning right. After I gave her the thumbs-up that I'd made it, I remember thinking I should probably not tell my husband it came to 13.875 gallons and our car only holds 14. That's a quarter-gallon I had left, and that Suburban Woman in Large Sunglasses probably ate another quarter before that. I tried to consider that she may have had a traumatic experience in the past with an approaching pedestrian and she made this resultant policy. Like the time we wanted to dump our realtor and didn't know how and the new realtor said, No matter what she says, respond: "Our plans are unclear." We use that to this day. The less appropriate this response is, the more power it has. Fascinating. I still couldn't bring myself to rule in favor of this woman.

Anyway, I gotta admit that was close. Brunch was delicious.

photo by Bonny Belgum

Bonny's America is a splish-spash of fuchsia and gold.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

If you happen to run across the actual newsprint copy of the Tuesday, June 17, 2008 Star Tribune, there is a fantastic artist's rendering of Keith Richards' face accompanying the "SYMPATHY FOR..." commentary. The all-caps title befits the power and glory of the Rolling Stones. They just are not lower-case rockers, never will be. Made my day - that's the benefit of being continually surprised when good things happen. Like when Notorious P.I.G. briefly tried out the new pig house! And later, separately, so did Porquay!

photo by Bonny Belgum

Of course, come bedtime (about 7:00 for them) they really pitched in together to recreate a semblance of their former bed out of soft dirt and bits of worn straw (never mind the surrounding structure is utterly absent) and snuggled down al fresco, bathing in the moonlight.

photo by Bonny Belgum

Home at last, after a foray into God knows what THAT thing was.

photo by Bonny Belgum

Were you drifting off just there, all cozy with the piggies? Okay, how 'bout this good-night story: abI tabaught maby habusbaband abab labanguabage labast nabight. Habe abactabuaballaby gabiggabled!! abEspabeciaballaby abat maby sabayabing "Babobbaby Kabennabedaby"! Traby abit - abit's habilabarabiabous!

Babonnaby's abAmaberabicaba abis pabosabitabivelaby gabiddaby thabis mabornabing!

Monday, June 16, 2008

My thoughts on Keith Richards' face expressed in today's Minneapolis Star Tribune: Sympathy for...

Bonny's America is a happy place tonight.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Hey, I just realized it's Friday the 13th! Victorian postcards are so into Halloween, I wonder if they ever celebrated these Fridays. I wonder how old this tradition is. I wonder why I don't find out instead of wondering (not) aloud. Okay, hang on. I looked it up. It's called paraskavedekatriaphobia and it was first mentioned in English in 1869, although it appears to have much older roots. Wikipedia, ladies and gentlemen. This is what they mean by Information Superhighway. But I gotta tell ya, I don't feel a bit better having provided this information. In fact, I feel like I kinda ruined all the fun we were having. Let's start again:

Hey, it's Friday the 13th! We don't have any black cats around the place right now, but one used to show up to charm the heated felines. There are ladders strewn about, to be sure. 'Nuff said.

photoshopped by Erik Belgum

I feel like I'm going crazy, but I could swear I just heard on the radio that Canada apologized to its aboriginal people. And that a Kansas legislator is trying to get the U.S. to do the same. What's the holdup? Well, he explained, it's really, really hard for people to admit they're wrong. And he's a Republican! Maybe it's more April Fool's Day than Friday the 13th. Or else there really IS a Santa Claus!

Bonny's America is blanketed in a hushed symbolic snow right now.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Well, I'd like to formally document that today is a rainy day and NOT a Monday. That's a first. Is it unreasonable to be embarrassed that it's NOT storming and tornadoing if you canceled a visitor as a precaution? I was trying to be thoughtful, but now I feel a little silly. Anyway. Okay, I'm shaking it off. For what it's worth, we saw our first tornado a few days ago and the clouds looked exactly like they do right now. You could stack books on them. The sullen sky looks the opposite of this:

I search for some kind of meaning in relentless gray clouds, grateful that at least they're moving; they're accomplishing something. Although they say movement does not equal progress... No, I'm not searching - I'm beseeching. Just to be clear. To no avail.

Bonny's America is without answers this afternoon.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

The piggies are lumbering back into their pen for a snooze after a long morning of grazing five feet into Sonny's area. We have built their new house, but they don't much like it. Nothing to wreck. Now, about Obama. Somebody help me get excited about this. I spent all yesterday afternoon listening to his speeches after it was determined over the last few days that Mike Gravel is not the frontrunner after all, and I'm disgusted with Ralph Nader this year for being so selfish with his late entry into the race, so I'm not even watching his stats. (We just happened to have sold the truck with the Nader bumper sticker before this recent look-at-me crap.) Hillary Clinton, fine. Learn from Kerry - be yourself before the end of the race, not after. I'll never forget Kerry's concession speech. It made me furious. Here was a real human being, after all those months of failing to register a single authentic cell I could cling to. Where was he??!! Same with her. i might not like the "real Hillary," but at least there might be someone to react to. As for Obama, I'm not sure there's any basis for an opinion. He seems like he'd be a great lawyer if I needed one. He's got a clear head. He presents well, seems well-raised, polite. But I'm not sure if he's hiding himself or if there's just nobody in there. As George Lakoff was saying on the radio yesterday, it's impossible to make rational decisions without emotion because you won't know what to want. Tony Robbins says this too. Couldn't say who got there first. The point is, then, does Obama want what some printout says he wants? What motivates him? There's no denying his selfless choices following Harvard graduation - although a more cynical person (if there is one, I want to meet her STAT) might say that that choice is serving him awfully well now. Because there's no love coming out of him, just the right words. Not motivating words, not charismatic words, just the proper words. But not so proper. What's a pacifist to do? He says we're "on the wrong battlefield," and of course there is no right battlefield. It's too freakin' obvious to even mention, but apparently it bears repeating. Anyway. Sounds to me like he wants to move from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Granted, if you're going to fight over terrorism and New York, that makes more sense. Except of course if you fight a country because a few of its citizens do something criminal, then don't we have to fight ourselves over Timothy McVeigh? Why don't I just punch myself in the face right now? Can a pacifist do that? You know, finally, something I haven't thought about yet. I'll go do that right now. (Do what, punch or think?)

Bonny's America is filing for secession if it hasn't already been kicked out before the ink dries.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Thought I'd let Rocky express his enthusiasm for spring - and rutting season - in his own words: Rocky's Lament of Joy.

Bonny's America is otherworldly.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Well, my rural ineptitude has been chronicled in the Minneapolis StarTribune. Feel free to check it out and mock me: Some Things Just Can't Be Transplanted. As for today, Rocky (billygoat and daddy to nine little horned fireballs) is so insanely deep into rutting season -see, I DO know what that is - it's when Rocky is so obsessed with the ladies (the only available qualifiers are unfortunately wife and daughter, who are safely on the other side of a strong fence) that he can't eat, he can't sleep.

photo by Bonny Belgum

He can't stop spitting (it's like pillow talk) or peeing in his own face (it's like cologne) or sticking his head through the fence so much that he has pools of blood where his horns were (no, they didn't get rubbed off on the fence - he was "debudded," as they call it, by some unspeakable human creature before we brought our boy home) and I keep coming out with corn starch, which really works, but also covers his beautiful black Al Pacino face with white powder, which always reminds me of Billy Jack, at which time I start incanting that my intentions are good so it's totally different. He is pictured above looking innocent in a rare moment with our little Saint Bernard, Little Bonny, whose urine we often had to collect due to her heartbreaking kidney condition. Anyway, I'm only mentioning that because we had to bring in a jar of warm pee to the vet all the time labeled "Bonny Belgum urine: collected 8:34am." Sometimes my husband admits he named her after me just for such anticipated instances. She was, I admit, a bit of a surprise to him when we appeared at the front door and rang the bell, and he needed a way to bond with her fast while getting back at me. The two of them are appealingly docile here (always up for a photo op), but they are/were WILD when they weren't sleeping, which is/was thankfully most of the time.

Bonny's America is a sleepy, warm place this morning.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

The thread of forward progress is so, ever so thin. The slightest thing can send me down the chute after a few steps up the ladder. I wonder if half of you even remember that game. Anyway. They say it's all about flexibility, that you don't give up on your ideas and goals and plans, just be prepared to be flexible. Meaning if nothing works and you pick some random new pursuit, that's tantamount to progress, not snowballing failure. Before I start sounding like I did right before I hibernated for the winter, I will state with pride and a seemingly permanently ammonia-stung nose that I cleaned out the chicken coop. This is not a pursuit for the faint of heart. But my goal of increasing my fitness in case of urgent strenuous chores has officially been met. It took three and a half hours with a long-handled pitchfork in a small, dusty (take a moment, if you like, to identify the source of the dust) chicken coop to make the place habitable again. I measured the raised floor, as I choose to refer to the build-up, as just shy of my knee. And the top layer is like concrete. A cross-section would reveal layers including the aforementioned earth's crust, then organic avian contribution, then rocks, then straw, then a pungent layer of urine-derived ammonia, then some unearthly pungent composted ... matter, then mud-caked straw laced with buoys of rotten eggs at the bottom before the merciful untarnished dirt.

photo by Bonny Belgum

Let me assure you that you have almost certainly never smelled an actual rotten egg, or you wouldn't have the will or eyesight to surf the net. You know that smell they say they put into natural gas and propane to alert you to a leak? That "rotten egg" smell? That level of rot I would still eat! The real thing, the REAL thing, as in "Last one in's a rotten egg," which surely comes from one who knows, is so acrid I haven't the words and couldn't speak them if I did because my nostrils are stuffed with t-shirt to increase the chances of my survival until escape is possible. (I apparently speak through my nose, by this logic...) It is the smell of flesh in a state of advanced decay. Face it, it's a rotting baby chick carcass. Unlike humans, baby chicks might start out being sat on until the hen loses interest in brooding or gets distracted by an interesting bug and then returns to a different nest box an hour later for the next month. I cracked one open on purpose once because I was curious. You can tell the ones because they are weightless. Anyway, what happens is some sort of poorly-stirred but characteristically thin green Arista paint splats out in an explosion all over your arm, your husband shouts to get it away from the house, and it absorbs into your skin for several weeks. You are in a natural quarantine because no one will come near you, feast or fowl. Or whatever the term. Anyway, the picture above is our chickens in their run but not in their pen. Chickens ARE smart.

Bonny's America positively stinks today.

Friday, May 9, 2008

I used to get this funny feeling about certain dates, that they were significant but I couldn't - and need to - remember why. But now every date sounds this way to me, just as every name I hear sounds familiar. About half of my quotidian speech is, "What is it about the 18th..." and "Seems like I've at least heard that name..." So of course the question is begged (by whom I'm not yet certain): Did everything become significant, or did everything become insignificant? Or does the first invariably lead to the second, as hierarchy is lost?

You know, it's starting to come together even as we speak. Dates and people. How significant dates connect to other significant dates, people connect to people. Like my husband and my lovely Auntie share a birthday. Of course, the first half of my life I didn't know that. And actually the death of Elvis bisected the Auntie-only era of that date. Then my genius father-in-law, it turns out, was born the same day my alcoholic uncle died (at my present age, but I don't drink), only 69 years earlier. And sometimes a date's signficance finds a welcome replacement. To wit, the lovely picture below: Barry Manilow was born the same day as my father. I no longer dread my father's birthday because why would I pray to float past June 17th in a stupor when it's one of the most important days ever - the day a source of joy and inspiration was born?

It helps, of course, to have a Barry Manilow calendar. Instead of going from having "Dad's birthday" written on that square to leaving that square ominously blank in the years ensuing my conscious evolution, now "Barry's birthday" comes pre-printed in that self-same square. Is this karma? I submit that it might just be. I even allow a little scope creep and let this fact take the sting out of the obviously also dreaded and very proximate Father's Day. Because I don't celebrate it, and Barry, like us, has no children, I feel that I can find some solidarity in my hero's life decisions. This may be stretching things a bit, but desperate times... I am getting ahead of myself. There's still Mother's Day to get through first, but all God's bolstering surprises are not doled out of a piece, now, are they?

Bonny's America smells of goat droppings this morning, and the primary source is Sonny's breath. Sonny will tell you it is a good day on the farm.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

I hear flying frogs, near as I can figure out.

It is a gorgeous, wonderful day here in Bonny's America. I have a huge bruise from separating Porquay and Double Jr. (horn-related), which is a nice conversation-starter, should one be needed. My husband went in to work at his rural county job and rolled up his sleeves to reveal what looks like a long battle with over a dozen kittens. He said, Guess - and before he got any further, a confident chorus shot back, Cleaned out the raspberry patch! Soon speech will go the way of all things antiquated. Speaking of, if you want to see pretty postcards, I can offer a ton to look at in my eBay store: http://stores.ebay.com/Victorian-Era-Valentines. [EDITOR'S NOTE: Due to the economic crisis, store closed 10/22/08] Lots and lots of delights, but use your subcategories. This one just does me in:

Bonny's America looks a lot like this picture.

Friday, May 2, 2008

Guten morgen! I woke up with a sore throat and all the hopes and dreams of dropping out of society pinned thereto. Sadly, it has faded with time (an hour) and some coffee, which should have made it worse. Now it's just a rainy Friday morning, and all my mildly auspicious plans face me unblinkingly. But first, my blankie and my Humpty hat (a story for another day) and some time with y'all.

To nip the potential for splitting in the bud, I will now admit to my double life - I have become a Victorian postcard enthusiast, and I mention this here to end the lie that all I do is ... I don't know. Kvetch and fret and feed animals. I kvetch and fret about postcards too - I try to sell a few to feed my habit (and of course, and more truthfully, to become wildly wealthy at the rate of $4.99 a week gross) but my OCD makes writing descriptions nearly crippling and cuts the profit further into the obviously already deep red. Anyway, I think they're charming and I like to pretend that the world at the turn of the last century, when my grandma was in early grade school, was a gracious place where all was beautiful. The writing on the back of these brilliant, often romantic, works of art is surprisingly pedestrian and often utterly inappropriate, but I now realize that this was their phone, this was their email, this was their picket fence over which they talked to distant farmer neighbors. And that they were picking up cards to write on like scraps of paper, not something you spent an hour at Hallmark choosing.

Holiday cards were sent at the right times of year, and often contained the short and appropriate message "From Grandma," but any general greeting card, however lugubrious in its splendor, was fair game for penciling that Roger has felt poorly and the strawberries were good this week. Because postcards were delivered several times a day, you could even say things like, Please bring me three balls of yarn when you come up for dinner tonight.

They're so boring they're transporting. Like Black Elk Speaks. I thought that was numbingly boring but I couldn't begin to try to describe it to my husband without crying. There's something to this but, like Rocky's lip fungus in "Christmas Vacation," it's something "they ain't identified yet."

Bonny's America is a quiet place this morning, although quiet often means only - but certainly - cacophonous birds.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Greetings, and good gracious hello!

The wind, the wind is howling, bringing in more rain, and you know what that leads to - sure. Snow. Hey, it's only May. We live on top of a hill, and the wind truly whistles. Screen doors actually bang. The freezer really makes that clunk! noise like we have an icemaker, which we don't. I'm willing to entertain theories that the clunk! is not wind-related, but it would take a fair amount to convince me. My brain is what my mother-in-law calls a logic-tight compartment. She wasn't referring to me in particular, but she once was a psychiatric social worker, so draw your own conclusions. It means, of course, that you only let in what fits your theory. How this differs from any political or otherwise irrationally but fiercely-held belief, I don't know. But I was told yesterday - and it was directed at me - that I know, of course, that I tend to compartmentalize. Did I know what that meant? Because I can never somehow say no to that question, I've compromised with, Yes, but keep going. So what I meant was that I know what a compartment is. I don't know if I entirely understood that my mother, for instance, is a compartment. Anyway. A compartment appears below: Little Bonny, our Saint Bernard, doing an imitation of a soccer ball in her wire crate. She is not here anymore - actually, that's not true -she's in a box in my pajama drawer - but I have compartmentalized that whole experience.

photo by Bonny Belgum

On a happy note (although she will always be a happy note, so this is another happy note): Today is a VERY special day because my illustrious husband, who does not want to be referred to by name for reasons I can't imagine - he's all over the internet, for pete's sake, but thinks we'll somehow get a peeping tom? a leaping gnome? Anyway, his fabulous piece, a hearing test conducted on the city of Toronto, airs in half an hour on CKLN radio http://www.ckln.fm/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=150&Itemid=205 . Actually, now it's more like 10 minutes, and you'll probably miss it but you can maybe download it. It's called City Battery. The Chicago hearing test was one of the most suspenseful and hilarious things I've ever heard.

Speaking of compartments, our billygoat is trying his best to gain entry into a wire dog crate that we recently used as a burn bin to destroy much evidence of my childhood. Any poignancy (a word I use once a decade or less) was squelched by the stench of toxic plastic, which snuck in there somewhere. I apparently reentered our home with the distinct look of Kramer when he had that smoking club and said, "Jerry, look at me! I'm hideous!"

Bonny's America is a blustery, windlorn place today, but Sonny and I are in the compartment, so we're OK.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Good thing I had time to welcome you to spring yesterday because tomorrow we may well wake up to snow! Someone in San Diego and another in South Carolina already have expressed jealousy at our predicament. So. Welcome back to winter, to Minnesota in its truest form, Minnesota where we eagerly await the verdict on whether the groundhog sees his breath. Today I tried to find out what a "blog" is and how you can let anyone know it's out there, and all I saw were things like, "How I would market my blog if I didn't already have a profile." So that leads to what's a "profile" and I've already given up. If you find your way here, bless you and, again and again, welcome.

photo by Bonny Belgum

The goats are sneezing. They have hay fever. And so does my husband. And so does the vet. If any given one of them has runny eyes, you can bet all of them will. A whole farm full of animals at varying stages of evolution, all thinking that everyone but them is crabby that day.

Bonny's America is a misty, muddy place tonight.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Welcome to spring! I did hibernate after all, and have just squinted my way out of the cave to greet you all. Through a few clever tweaks in the fence, we have managed to comingle the sheep, piggies, Newfoundland, and both sets of goats. As with any prison, there are protective barriers where indicated, but some contact is still possible. It's a glorious mix. Kitties and chickens pop up along the perimeter. A tiny kitten was mewing incessantly and I found her in the shed stuck to a window screen. This is the sort of image they make postcards out of, but I didn't. I unstuck her and, while I was at it, removed the other kitten and their mama from the bucket they have apparently been living in - I try to keep away so as to avoid tainting the babies and thus making them repellent to their own mother, which happens easily enough in human life as it is. Anyway, where was I? The bucket was too deep for the baby to climb out of, and I wondered just how long she'd been in there. I even had the good sense to tip the bucket so they could still hang out in there. I actually took up most of the extension cords that wind along the fences all winter to reach water bowls. Last year they stayed up all summer. This time we've got it together! The piggies - Porquay, mostly - have pushed almost all of the straw out of their house, thus widening the already oblique angle to the point where it's basically now just an overhang. Let's face it, they're sleeping al fresco inside their own home. Strangely, though, piggies really do know what they're doing. If they need shelter they make it. I still try to put something up during storms where they tore down their back wall altogether. You can stand over their house and just watch them sleeping, sun shining on them.

photo by Bonny Belgum

Not during a storm, but I'm not standing over their house during a storm. I'm indoors, giving Sonny, our Newfoundland, peanut-slathered bones to help him associate thunder with delectability, which he has long since accomplished but is loathe to admit, given the fortunate situation in which he finds himself.

Bonny's America is a good place to live this morning.

Thursday, December 6, 2007

I try to avoid that whole winter-is-hard soliloquy, but I just can't withstand the internal pressure anymore. You know what? Winter is hard. Winter is hard in December in Minnesota. It's hard in ways you couldn't imagine. Things freeze you never even thought of. I should show, not tell, but I'm too tired because winter's too hard. Just try to picture living on the surface of the moon or being stuck in an ice rink when it's poured the way people get buried in cement. There is no escape, there is no reprieve, and there is no way to sit this one out. Survival, at its most basic level, depends on pressing on despite an indescribably intense pull to remain intert under 50 pounds of blankets, shirts, anything you can find the provides weight and the potential for warmth it brings. Baths, hot baths, are not enough. You can't get warm. The thermostat setting gets a head start on the actual temperature and the gap is never closed throughout the long, miserable race. Hands are cracked and bleeding, legs are bruised from falls, faces are burned bright, giving off a false image of cheer. It's not excitement or happiness, it's frostbite. And you can't hibernate unless every aspect of your life and the lives of all creatures around you can do the same. We have to help each other stay alive, although we can't remember what for. We can't see the spring. In the summer, I pray for this cold, because I can't tolerate heat.

Bonny's America is bitter place, mainly because of Bonny.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

They say necessity is the mother of invention. Or something like that. I am now somewhat reluctantly convinced of the veracity of that statement. I had erstwhile preferred "Laziness is the mother of invention." This is also true, but it should perhaps be relegated to a subset of necessity. Like because you're lazy it's necessary to think of things you can do with minimal effort. But my point here is that repeated minimal effort starts adding up to more work than the straight-out one-time necessity effort. If you can think of it. The story is, the kitty bowl only sort of stays heated. It's a two-gallon plastic bucket with an enclosed heating unit. But when you plug it in it just freezes not quite solid instead of totally solid. The thing doesn't work. But they're expensive and, more to the point, the store is not in our front yard, so I can't exactly buy another one very easily. So what I do is come out there with a jar of boiling hot water and melt, essentially, a fishing hole in the middle of the frozen lake bucket. The more enterprising of the 16 barn cats, give or take, will climb onto the cement block and lean into the middle for a big reward. If they act fast and can figure it out. Neither of which happens very often. It's far to lean and it freezes over in a few minutes. I've come to believe - with a somewhat reliable experiment to back it up - that the heating unit in fact works not at all. Anyway, the frozen water expands and threatens to burst the plastic bucket open. So it gets to the point where I pour water over the frozen muffin top and it just pours off and forms an ice rink in a two-foot ring around the bucket. With each new bad idea I have, the nearest working water bowl, the piggies', routinely empties four times a day instead of once. The kitties have fanned out.

photo by Bonny Belgum

So my brilliant idea, as with most, came from an accidental discovery. I was pointlessly bathing the muffin top when I bumped the bucket and it moved. A flash of insight: It moved. Therefore it can be lifted. If I unplug it. That was not quite a dealbreaker, although it's a pain to get plugs out of those industrial three-way extension cords. But I did it. I carried the frozen water bucket the two feet into the house and the further 20 feet to the bathtub. Soon I had inverted the bucket and thunk! the 50-pound ice block clunked out rather unceremoniously. I refilled the bowl, NOT to the top, with hot water and set it back outside, NOT plugged in. It stayed open for hours - much longer than when it is plugged in - go figure. No kitty would touch it. They've come to trust the ice fishing and didn't know what this was supposed to be.

To give some idea of just how cold Minnesota is, that clunk of ice block crashed into the tub at 8 a.m. At 10 p.m. it had not yet melted. This is inside our HOME. The water outside in the subzero weather stayed free - until I plugged it in. But as long as I add only a jar of hot water at a time - and a heavy axe, the ice fishing may continue. In another couple weeks I might bring it indoors again.

Bonny's America is a relentless place to live.

Monday, November 26, 2007

On the first bitterly cold day a stab of fear goes through me that there's no way these animals (me included) can make it through a Minnesota winter. Especially the piggies, who historically hail from Vietnam, for pete's sake. (It's bad enough that the eleven goats are African pygmies.) They're covered with scarcely enough hair to make a hairbrush, after a summer of scratching against any possible skritchy surface. The first thing to know about all farm animals is that they itch all the time and scratch even more. So does my husband, come to think of it. But he has better sense about when to quit. No, he doesn't. Anyway, he's not my responsibility. Yes he is. ANYWAY. The point is supposed to be that these piggies, Porquay and Notorious P.I.G., were not built for 50 below.

photo by Bonny Belgum

They burrow into their wooden pig tent, way in the back, and wriggle vigorously back and forth to get comfortable. As they grow, their tent groans further and further outward so that it is now basically an oblique roof held up by their tough piggy bodies. (Farm and Ranch offers no returns for pig products "due to the destructive nature of swine." Even though we didn't personally earn this reputation, we're somehow proud of it.)

I may never commit this to emotional memory, but I do KNOW, somewhere within, that I have never thrown myself to the ground before them to find other than steam heat blasting out the mouth of that tent.

Bonny's America is frozen solid.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

It's tough growing up. Here is our baby billygoat - whom my husband spontaneously, on sight, dubbed the Once and Future King - with his doting mama and twin sister, before his nature forced their untimely separation. His sister, BB Double Jr., was and remains a helium flea to whom all fences are porous. When the separation became urgent - definition being the veterinarian's estimate of when EB Double Jr.'s repeated violation of his sister would likely turn potent and before he grew King enough to turn his talents on his mother - we rigged up the fence with a lining of chicken wire to keep the flea in and the King out. As we have seen below, "out" for our baby billy is not in the least restricted to the pen of the exiled (we prefer to call its inmates Our Boys Overseas). He can, in theory, squeeze into and out of the piggy pen, Sonny (our Newfoundland)'s pen, the sheep pen, and out into Rest of World. This passport is not without a price, as the pastry squeezer into which he is stuffed has become increasingly stretched.

photo by Bonny Belgum

We had quite a scare this morning. He was fighting his big brother, Dr. Bruce, through the cattle panel and chicken wire, all while exhibiting the glory of his penchant (enough of that for now). We could see an interruption in the bold black stripe along his spine, followed by a dark mass that flapped back and eerily resembled the missing stripe. Armed with rubbing alcohol, a t-shirt, and corn starch, we raced down the stairs to save his life. First - and this is clear evidence I'm going straight to hell - I now (and even did then, to be brutally honest) realize that I first got my warm jacket and covered my coffee with a coaster to keep it warm during surgery. Actually, before any of that, upon first catching sight of a potentially fatal bloody flap, we took turns at the binoculars before my husband bravely declared, "I'm going out there." And I realized he was right. We do a lot of binocular husbandry. I also considered bringing the camera to catch him stuck in the fence so you could see what I mean. This is truly sick. But we can admit all this now because it turns out the dark mass was just a big snarl of burs from the piggy pen. The break in the stripe was indeed from fur rubbed off in the fence, but that's to be expected. His ears, however, had fresh scars and bits missing, so we were able to use the alcohol and corn starch (stops the bleeding) after all, but not the t-shirt. All in all, we were pretty proud of ourselves. My coffee did not stay as warm as I had hoped.

Stay tuned to Bonny's America for a twisted-minded picture of EB Double J stuck in the fence.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Welcome to Bonny's America.

Well, today EB Double Jr. finally got stuck in the honey pot. Our baby billygoat has been filling up on pig food and squeezing back home through the cattle panel fence, dislocating his left shoulder to accomplish the job. But today that wasn't enough. He's too husky, too spectacular, too perfect a specimen and - well, as of today, too fat. He's a fable in the making living in a pastry squeezer.

Stay tuned to Bonny's America for the stunning conclusion to this predicament.

Welcome to Bonny's America! www.bonnysamerica.comhosted by the reasonably congenialBonny Belgum writer PODCASTER-ELECT public speaker writing instructor comedian grantwriter keynote Contact me at bonny[at sign] bonnysamerica.com

Welcome to

Bonny's America!

www.bonnysamerica.com
hosted by the reasonably congenial
Bonny Belgum

writer PODCASTER-ELECT public speaker writing instructor comedian grantwriter keynote

Contact me at bonny[at sign] bonnysamerica.com