Folly Fork, NC

If you happen to be slogging your way cross country, bushwhack style and you happen to come across an old barn, filled with 40 chickens, a cat and a coonhound...

I took a small detour north to visit the lit kids at Washington College. There I filled my belly on tasty treats from Hodson Hall before turning south again. Ahead of me stretched the lower portion of the great Chesapeake Bay and the 20 mile bridge-tunnel, that carries the main north-south highway on Virginia's Eastern Shore, and provides the only direct link between there and south Hampton Roads, Virginia. I’m all about direct, so I needed a plan to cross.

I hooked up with a middle-aged fisherman wearing the biggest boots I've ever seen. He was head across the bridge with the intent to land some Big Ones from Sea Gull Pier, which extends from the southernmost of the four man-made islands in the bay. A kindly chap, and he knew I wanted more than just a ride. While he provided a lift, he expected me to work for it so I spent the night chasing sea gulls away from his bait bucket. It was an assignment more appropriate for a Golden Retriever, but it earned me good standing and fish entrails.

Exhausted, I spent the next day sleeping under a couple of smelly tarps in the bed of his pickup until two young pups came exploring. Well rested and fed, I leapt for solid ground in a suburban neighborhood on the west side of Virginia Beach.

It was time to move inland if I am to make for my original stomping grounds in Greeneville, Tennessee. Unfortunately, the foulest of winter weather caught me in the middle of the dreariest of landscapes, Dismal Swamp. I slogged through the dead thickets and thistles accumulating muck on my once shiny coat. When I thought it couldn’t get any worse, winter reminded me that groundhogs have yet to forecast spring. I swear, I never left New York. Snow up to my...chin.

The elements got the best of me. I needed shelter. That’s when I found the barn. Since I was almost in tobacco country, I guessed that a sweet aroma of dried tobacco would linger in the rafters. What a mouth watering delight to find chickens instead.

I shipped one fat bird to MedusaJ in the UK, hoping customs won’t be an issue. It was a special request from my Twitter friend. I plucked a few feathers off another, when an old coonhound moseyed in to see what the commotion was. Stupid chickens couldn’t keep their beaks shut.

Tonight, I’m dry, semi-warm and have a chicken pinned under one paw as I sit in the rafters of an old barn in nowhere North Carolina waiting for the dog to disappear.