Jealous feelings

"Feed Store" by Tina Bohlman

Monday is the day when FarmWife goes to the big city. On a typical Monday, she works and she sometimes visits the feed store and Costco. This is what she comes back with:

Salmon kibble (for the dogs)
Chicken kibble (for the cats)
Layer pellets (for the chickens)
Rabbit chow (for the rabbits)
Sweet feed (for the goats)
Alfalfa pellets (also for the goats)
Oats (also for the goats)
Black oil sunflower seeds (also for the goats)
Fly spray (for me)

Can you believe it? This is an atrocity! Everyone gets delicious things (OK, so salmon and chicken kibbles are not very delicious, but still) and I get a nasty bottle of pesticides.

"You grow fat on air, Fenway Bartholomule," she tells me. "You have your herbs, you have your fresh water, you have your salt block, and you have your local hay from Friendly Farmer Russ. You will thrive," she tells me.

Then she goes out to the car and grabs yet another feed sack for—you guessed it—the goats. "Don't be jealous," she tells me. "After all, the goats do not get fly spray."

That is because the goats stink. Even to a fly they stink. I keep this to myself, thinking that if one can't say something nice then one oughtn't say anything at all.

Fenway Bartholomule