yes, we have no pictures today

Jon, the creator and sustainer of this pinpoint in webular space, is a very busy man. As such, he has been unable to get this thing fixed so I can once again add pictures to my posts. This makes for some embarassment, since this is ostensibly a site dedicated to my artwork. Do I complain, though? Of course not, I make lemonade.

So instead of adding a picture, I am going to describe for you an image for which I wish I had had a camera ready. Then you can imagine it, and it will be almost like there is nothing at all wrong with this site.

I have a dog. He's a quarter border collie, but the only sign that he's not completely black lab is his tail, which is feathered and curls up over his rump in pompadourical panache. He has a big, black, stupid-looking lab face, a bark that rattles your teeth, and the nicest disposition you could want in a dog. His name is Edgar Phillpots Barkey the First.

Edgar likes to follow me around, because I'm his boyee. So when I'm out in the barn watering the chickens and shovelling horse turds, he is padding along right behind: nosing things, eating anything fecal, and trying to convince the horses they should play with him. The horses don't mind, and only occasionally have a go at playfully trotting after Edgar, trying to step on his head.

The chickens mostly ignore him, but if he comes bounding through the barn at full gallop (as he likes to do at random times, and for no apparent reason), the two roosters who live in the hallway because they're too cantankerous to get along with their brethren and sistren act offended by giving a bit of a hop-squawk. The most indignant of these two roosters is Chauntecleer. He's a beautiful bird, black and yellow and red, with a few pompous plumes poking out of his hind end - very dignified and pretentious.

So here is the image: today, as I was pitchforking out the gunky hay from a chicken pen, I happened to look down and see Chantecleer strutting his way in, looking for hens to violate. The panoply of pretty little chicks that bobbed around before his beady little eyes appeared to have distracted him, because he was not even flinching at Edgar, who chose that moment to stick his naughty little nose directly into the delectable stench factory that was Chauntecleer's butthole.

Can you picture it - the black nose of the dark, hunched dog disappearing into the flouncing tail feathers of the pompous looking rooster with his pink comb flopped dashingly to one side like some dilettantish beret?

Such a moment. Hopefully you went there with me. If, however, your imagination is a bit rusty from a few too many television shows, I suppose you can pop on over to a collection of pictures I've put on the internet of the trip I took to Peru back at the end of 2005. It goes from our trip to Huaraz to our time in the Jungle, including nature, Pucallpa, and what remains of the missionary center where I grew up.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61634777@N00/

Oh, and there are a lot of pictures there of Peruvian people that I have posted without getting any kind of model release form (hey, national geographic does it). Please respect their dignity and value as individuals by not doing anything you shouldn't with the pics.