My barn is coming along

Thanks mostly to FarmHusband and FarmGrandpa, the latter of whom came to visit this weekend, I've got a barn with eight new posts, two new gates, nine new rafters, and a roof.

As for siding, my littlest human wants red painted wood with white trim. My FarmWife says we'll start with some brown metal that we have lying around and then do whatever's cheapest for the other sides. I say we need a bold statement, in the Rock City tradition:

FENWAY BARTHOLOMULE
WWW.BRAYSOFOURLIVES.COM

FarmWife says that the problem with a big statement here in Wickersham is that only nine people would ever see it: V, B, B, and M from across the way, J, R, and A from next door, and J and G from down the lane. The point of billboards, she says, is to reach the public. I do a better job of that, she says, with my bold daily braying.

My barn will be beautiful, anyway. I promise you that much.

Who is willing to be my literary advisor?

I need help. FarmWife, you see, is writing a book about Bent Barrow Farm and its residents. She has informed me that there is room for roughly 40 pages of my mulish insight, to be strategically interspersed to lighten the tedium of her human ramblings. Can you please let me know which blog entries are your favorite? Which stories warmed your heart or tickled your funnybone? Which tales I've told well or which deserve retelling?

If any of you want to spend an hour trolling Brays of Our Lives and Puddle Run for must-read gems, I'd be grateful.


Ears,
FenBar

An Avian Interstate

You probably remember that Bent Barrow Farm abuts the Samish Headwaters where a budding river-to-be forms out of converging creeks and seasonal marshland. It's a terribly romantic place to live, especially this time of year. Innis Creek Road is taken over, at least seasonally, by Ennis Creek (no, I'm not wrong—they're spelled differently. This is due, I'd guess, to the inattention of some paper-pusher). The eagles come home, roosting by the dozens in our tallest snags. Salmon, fighting their way upstream to spawn and die, attract opportunistic herons and hawks while snow geese merely pass through, their wings humming like an intense electrical current. The redwinged blackbirds whirr and chirrup, the beavers slap, and the peregrine falcons keen and wail.

The other good news: these teeming birds of prey are so completely satisfied by the river's abundant frogs and fish that they leave our cats, chickens, and itty-bitty dog well alone. We've not yet lost a resident to eagle attack.

While I, Fenway Bartholomule, am known for the drama and the volume of my singing voice, I admit today to having been upstaged. In January, this marsh is louder than a mule.

Ears,
FenBar

The trials and tribulations of authorship

I'm ready to write a book about me, Fenway Bartholomule, and my life here at Bent Barrow Farm. FarmWife, however, says the world isn't ready for another four-legged narration so close on the heels of The Art of Racing in the Rain. She says it had better be a book about HER, and what SHE thinks of me. She says it is likely to have a winder audience if the narrator is human.

I think that's preposterous. Any human who isn't willing to read 350 pages of wit, wisdom, and insight from a mule's perspective doesn't deserve our book, anyway.

What's your vote?

FenBar