I has feets

Yesterday I slammed my bare toes into a piece of plywood in the fruit cellar (I don't know how it got there).  I'm fairly certain I fractured something, forcing me to use my left foot only gingerly - quite a pain when your job is to walk up and down corn fields all day.

This afternoon we had to put 7 foot-tall sprinklers in place.  Francis drove the tractor that pulled a trailer full of aluminum sprinkler poles and the bases that keep them upright, and I walked alongside the trailer, pulling out sprinkler parts and dropping them at regular intervals.  I started having trouble keeping up.  I struggled to get the bases out, which where all in a jumble.  I thought to myself, "after I do a few more, I've got to ask him to slow down or I'm going to kill myself."  That's when the trailer wheel squashed my right foot.  I yelled, and dropped to my knees.  As I pulled off my shoe to do a damage report, I saw Francis continue down the field another 50 meters.  He hadn't heard me.

The good news: my left toes don't hurt anymore.  The bad news: I'm going to have to amputate something to get my right foot to stop hurting.

God-dam

An extract from Le Mariage de Figaro, written by Beaumarchais in 1778:

Le Comte : (...) oui, j'avais quelque envie de t'emmener à Londres, courrier de dépêches...mais toutes réflexions faites...
Figaro : Monseigneur a changé d'avis?
Le Comte : Premièrement, tu ne sais pas l'anglais.
Figaro : Je sais God-dam.
Le Comte : Hé bien ?
Figaro : Diable! C'est une belle langue que l'anglais! Il en faut peu pour aller loin. Avec God-dam, en Angleterre, on ne manque de rien nulle part. -Voulez-vous tâter d'un bon poulet gras: entrez dans une taverne, et faites seeulement ce geste au garçon (il tourne la broche), God-dam! on vous apporte un pied de boeuf sans pain. C'est admirable! Aimez-vous à boire un coup d'excellent bourgogne ou de clairet, rien que celui-ci (il débouche une bouteille): God-dam! on vous sert un pot de bière, en bel étain, la mousse aux bords. Quelle satisfaction! Rencontrez-vous une de ces jolies personnes qui vont trottant menu, les yeux baissés, coudes en arrière, et tortillant un peu des hanches: mettez mignardement tous les doigts unis sur la bouche. Ah! God-dam! elle vous sangle un soufflet de crocheteur: preuve qu'elle entend. Les Anglais, à la vérité, ajoutent par-ci par-là quelques autres mots en conversant; mais il est bien aisé de voir que God-dam est le fond de la langue; et si Monseigneur n'a pas d'autre motif de me laisser en Espagne...

Good to see that the French have been making the same jokes about English culture for over 200 years.

Fun Farm Fact #2156

Though typically depicted in the mass media as crowing primarily at sunrise, roosters crow whenever they goddam please in fact.

Published at 3:30 AM GMT.

Aren't mortgages sort of like serfdom?  Much of banks business is land rents.

I want a jib.  And a camera.

RIP DD

Over the past few weeks me and the rest of the Michel family has been cartin' around a foul-smelling trailer-dweller for a very honorable reason: her husband is dying.  This couple of means by no means had met Jean-Marc Michel because he worked on some lands adjacent to where they lived.  They were friendly.  They helped.  When he needed them to shut off some valves, they were there.  But then, the landlord booted them off.  The parcel was too valuable to have their kind soiling it.  So later, this month, Dédé, the man, falls ill.  Something's wrong with his stomach.  "The doctors don't feed him!" wails Christiane, his woman.  "I  don't think you can eat with stomach cancer," I offer.  So thus it is our job, to bring Christiane to the hospital once a day to visit Dédé.  She has few teeth.  She smells of cheap beer and cigarette juice.  She complains and wants us to do errands for her.  Dédé can't be convinced that the oxygen tube is a good thing for him, so she plans to tie his hands so he can't pull the tube out.  Today he is dead.

Selles-Sur-Cher and Vinsobres

At noon I ate Selle-Sur-Cher (sounds like "over-expensive feces") and drank Vinsobres (sounds like "sober wine").