Well, truth be told — he didn’t. He started to but then he got distracted by the chicken going the opposite direction and they decided to spend some quality time together.

My neighbor calls a little while ago and asks “Is Tom home yet?”.
Me: “No, but he’s on his way. What’s up?”.
Neighbor: “You should call him and tell him if he’s not careful, the chicken police will come after him?”
Me: “The what?”.
Neighbor: “The chicken police. There are two chickens nesting in the middle of the road and with all the snow, you can barely see them.”
Me: “Uh, ok. They’re just sitting there?”.
Neighbor: “Yup.”
Me: “For how long?”
Neighbor: “All day.”
Me: “But it’s freezing out.”.
Neighbor: “Which reminds me… what are you guys doing for dinner tomorrow? By morning, we might have some frozen poultry that needs pluckin’.”

Don’t believe me? I’ll explain…

In the late 1870’s, Hawaii had more than it’s fair share of rats. So in 1872, a farmer — without thinking through the consequences — decided to import a few mongoose (4 males and 5 females, to be exact). Not only did the mongoose take care of a few rats, they also eliminated the snakes, lizards, crabs, toads and grubs. Despite warnings from experts, they imported more in 1883 and spread them to the other islands — without thinking through the consequences. The end result: the mongoose will eat just about anything and is more active during the day. So instead of preying on the nocturnal rat, they rid Hawaii of many of its native species and devastated the ecosystem.

Between 1979 and 1982, the U.S. Department of Agriculture introduced the multicolored Asian ladybug to selected areas of the midwest — without thinking through the consequences — to combat a pest problem. The end result: ladybugs won’t stay where you put them. They quickly multiply and migrate across long distances. In the spring and fall, my house is infested with them — it’s not uncommon to vacuum a thousand of these pesky creatures off a bay window on a sunny day.

Here in New Hampshire, we relied on the fisher-cat — without thinking through the consequences — to control the porcupine population. The end result: we still have porcupines, but the fishers have taken quite a liking to birds, small mammals, chickens, small pets, bobcats, coyotes and moose or deer from time to time.

Predators are by their very nature, opportunistic. Why should a fisher spend 30 minutes killing a porcupine when it can easily feast on poultry?

I think we’re going to learn all too late that the same will be true of the public option. Why would employers continue to provide health care benefits for its employees when it will be more cost effective to just pay the fines, forcing people into a so-called option they don’t want and making it much harder for private insurance companies to compete, resulting is higher costs for customers who are lucky enough to keep the insurance they’re happy with?

Our elected representatives have been given warning after warning, yet they’re determined to drive this thing home without thinking of the consequences. If they’re allowed to succeed, I believe this will be the single event that does the most damage to our economic ecosystem in this decade.

So we’re coming home from the grocery store, turn the corner onto French Road and almost hit a horse. Just wandering down the road as if a lone horse out for an evening stroll was perfectly normal.

I have no idea who it belongs to. Tried to call Mike and Zoe — they used to have a horse, but I haven’t seen it in ages. I was going to leave it be, but then I started thinking… what if the rider is laying in a ditch somewhere. Worse yet, what if he’s laying in the woods with the fox, coyotes and bears we have around here.

So I called the Henniker Police Department. Do you know how stupid it feels to tell some cop there’s a horse roaming around the neighborhood? So much so that I felt it necessary to start the conversation with “please don’t laugh, but…”. I think she may have thought I was a little crazy.

Tom and I knew that New Hampshire was a nice place before we moved here in 1998. When I say “nice”, I’m not talking about pretty or clean — although the state is all of those things and more. I’m talking about people. The people who live here are just nice… and when I tend to not think about it, there’s always someone waiting to remind me.

When we put in the pool last summer, we had to cut down a bunch of trees. We barely got them sectioned and stacked before winter settled in and we’re just now getting rid of them. I finally managed to convince Tom he just didn’t need 40 years worth of firewood, so I posted to craigslist and the phone calls started pouring in.

One day I got a call from a guy who makes himself 4 or 5 gallons of maple syrup every spring. He came and picked up a small load… then came back a few days later and brought us a pint of syrup.

This morning, I got a visit from a husband and wife woodworking team and they brought me a TUIT (see below if you don’t know what a TUIT is). As if that wasn’t enough, when they came back to pick up their tractor they brought me two of the most beautiful maple bowl (New Hampshire maple, of course).

All told, trucks have been in and out almost every day for the past week and other than the fact that the wood piles are a lot smaller, you can’t even tell they’ve been here.

New Hampshire folks may have equals, but there are none better!

References:
Time-Honored Designs
Wikipedia

It’s really easy to pick out Mount Washington — just look for the cloud!