Lessons learned from chickens

[timmgirvan]

Originally Posted by Downthestretch55

How I've spent Christmas Eve for the past five years.

Now that the "holiday season" is heavy on us all, and more so on those pieces of plastic that we carry around in our pockets and hope others don't gain access to, and all the plastic Santas are carefully placed on rooftops with the blinking icicle lights underneath, I just thought I'd share a special place that I've been going to for the past five Chrismas Eves.
It's quiet there, and it smells bad to those that aren't used to it. There's hay all around and the smell of manure, as always.
I usually just walk up and go in through a side door, so that the wind doesn't blow snow inside as it would if I opened the big doors.
Somehow, this place connects something special to me that I wish I could share with others. Too many people would disturb the serenity of it, but if you're ever out my way on Christmas Eve, I certainly be pleased to take you.
Anyway, after I enter through the side door and stamp the snow off my boots. The sun is showing orange as it sets outside and it makes beautiful purple shadows on the snow as it fades. It takes a few minutes for my eyes to adjust to the dimness inside.
The horses all poke their heads from their stalls to see who's coming. They must think I'm going to toss them a flake of hay or a scoop of grain, but that's not why I'm there. I'm there for me this time...so I can connect with something that helps me connect with two people that might have found a similar place so long ago. One was very pregnant, young, scared, rejected.
The other was older, shamed by not being the father of the one she carried, but loving her deeply, so much so, that he wanted to find her a place to deliver her baby, yet was turned away many times in his quest.
I'm guessing that all he wanted to do was pay his taxes, just like the rest of us, play by the rules.
As I walk down the shedrow each Christmas Eve, just the horses nickering, the chickens roosted, I can only imagine what it must have been like so long ago. The cold, the smells, the quiet, and the hope.
Sometimes I spend hours just sitting on a bale of hay thinking about it.
Then, after my silent prayer in the darkness of the barn, I realize that it's time to leave and let the horses have their home again.
So I open the side door and walk out into the snowy cold.
Is that a bright star that I see in the western sky?
Can it show the way again?
I sure hope so.
And to all that have taken the time to read this, I wish you PEACE! JOY! and the HOPE! of the promise of that in which you believe.
I'd love to share a Christmas Eve with just you, the horses, and me someday...but I trust this will suffice.
Merry Christmas!

Dts: nice story and sentiment! Back atcha! Timm

[Downthestretch55]

Originally Posted by timmgirvan

Dts: nice story and sentiment! Back atcha! Timm

Thanks Timm,
It's true.
Merry Christmas.

[Downthestretch55]

So, you want to start a worm farm?

I must confess that I did want to have a worm farm. It was when I was first getting started in organic gardening, and in all honesty, I had no clue as to what was going on.
So I bought a subscription to Organic Gardening (Rodale Press), signed up for their book club, and read everything I could get my hands on.
It really didn't matter that I wasn't playing in the dirt and getting my hands all messy. At that point in time, I was looking to stay clean. Reading would do.
The second book that the book club sent me was "The Complete Book of Composting". I still have it after all these years. It's a huge book with many formulas.
Anyway, one of the first things I found in it was that to make good compost, I needed help. Only worms could do it. Red wigglers...to be specific.
So with dreams of free fertilizer for my garden, and plenty of bait to go fishing with...I embarked on my quest to find those wiggly things that would reduce all the garbage and make it into something useful.
In the "classifieds" at the back of Organic Gardening were a lot of ads, all competing to sell me the critters I desired. "Red wigglers", $7.50 a hundred, s+h extra. How could I resist? I was sold!
Since my hands weren't yet dirty, I wrote a check and mailed it out.
A few weeks later, they arrived by UPS.
I read the instructions, built a box for the "farm", and saved every carrot peel, broccoli scrap, banana skin, and coffee ground that came my way.
Visions of a beautiful garden danced through my head before I dozed off each night.
The plan was that they'd double in number each month. Heck, at that rate, there was no use even coming up with names for the wiggly guys, cause I knew I'd run out after the third month.
Happy to say, they did better than I thought they would.
Yes, I sacrificed Ol' Red, Squirmy, and a few more of their brothers and sisters on some trout fishing trips that spring. Hey, what's a few lives expended if you have higher hopes, right?
The trout they bought with their little lives were certainly appreciated.
Now, many years later, their great grandchildren live outside in my garden, and some in a box in my basement.
Deep under the soil. I still give them a big dose of manure (rotted) each spring, right before I bring out the roto-tiller. Sad if it chops a few up, but, they're expendable if it's for a good cause.
The lettuce will grow, maybe thank them for it. Green, green!
Today, as I tore up the morning newspaper and soaked some water on it to place on top of their box where they live in the corner of my basement, I noticed the headline, "Eleven More Dead".
For sure the worms will appreciate it, along with all the other garbage and manure.

[Downthestretch55]

Blood

Anyone that's ever spent time on a farm knows that there's a time when there's going to be blood. Sometimes, it's not very nice.
One of my first memories was about some pigs that came to live behind the hen house. There were four of them, and I was warned not to name them.
They were so cute when they first showed up, skampering around in their pen, roooting in the mud.
They grew quickly on all the corn, table scraps, and everything that was thrown in to their "room".
By fall, I was picking up wind fallen apples from beneath the apple trees in the orchard and giving them a bushel basket full each day. They sure loved those apples.
Came the day in early November when, despite my pleadings to let them live, a "hog scalding" had been arranged. For those that have never attended one, it starts with a fire under a 55 gallon drum filled with water. When it gets close to boiling, the hogs are brought near. A 22 to the forehead and a quick thrust to nick both juglars ends their earthly existance with out suffering. Then they are "gutted" and dipped in the 55 gallon drum to losen their hair so they can be scraped. Then the "cutting up", and then the smokehouse.
My job was as a "gutter". Not an especially nice job, but soon the thought of having blood up beyond your elbows goes away, to be replaced by the thought of "let's just get this done with".
When it was finished, the blood washed off, and all that remained was a lot of meat, and the memory...that I just shared.

Today, the Pentagon released the names of thirty-three military that had been killed in Iraq this past week. May they rest in peace, and may their families find comfort. May all of us pay hommage to the sacrifice they've made.
And may those that put them in that situation also note that their valiant blood is beyond their own elbows, and no amount of washing will ever remove it.

[Downthestretch55]

Lambs

I really like lambs.
Yes, they are very needy and love to follow, but they are indeed cute.
If you have chapped hands, just rub your fingers through their wool and the lanolin will make you feel a lot better.
Mom used to make some great sweaters from their shearings. Her ability with the knitting needles turned ivory yarn into Irish fisherman masterpieces for the whole family...matching caps as well.
In Luke 2:8-9 it says that "And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified."
Some might not realize that the lambs that they camped in the fields to protect were destined to become blood sacrifices on the altar of the great temple in Jerusalem. Yes, Bethlehem was where the lambs came from.
Also the place where the "Lamb of God" came from, aka "the good shepherd".

Lambs have been very important for quite a while. Do you know what kind of blood was put on the doorposts with hysop so the Hebrew people would have the angel of death pass over their houses and spare their firstborns?

Anyway, enough of the history lesson and back to the story.
One day my brother showed up with four fleecy critters in the back of his van.
He had picked up the little Dorsets from Cornell on his way back from visiting his girlfriend at Alfred State.
They were cute beyond words. They bounced all over the place. Barbed wire had no effect as they bounced off of it. Woven wire, though expensive was the only way to contain them. So we worked hard to build them a nice pasture.
It was very nice to walk around with the little flock. They'd follow you anywhere, bah,bah, bah.
I'm not going to say much about what happened to them. I'll just say that they didn't find an altar, but they did go well with garlic and mint jelly.

So at this time when the shepherds were protecting, camping out in the fields and getting themselves terrified, I'd just like to tell you, if you're a lamb, be careful of the shepherd you follow.
One will lead you to overwhelming joy, while others will lead you to untold sacrifice and slaughter. Be careful, lambs.
"Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people." Luke 2:10

[Downthestretch55]

The Bull

This is not a little story about a "bull in a china shop" or pottery barn where the sign says, "You broke it, you own it."
This is a true story that includes my brother, Gary, two mountain farmers, and the hope of a veal calf.
The farmers, Calvin and Edsel called one day and said that one of their heifers had given birth to a calf in a high meadow, and if Gary and I could get there to catch it, we could have it.
Calvin and Edsel didn't mention how their father had been killed, trampled by a Jersey bull (we didn't find out until much later), sadly, they cried when they shared how he'd been stomped beyond recognition. RIP their dad.
Nor did Calvin nor Edsel mention that they had turned the heifer out in the high meadow with a Jersey bull to sevice any cows that hadn't been caught via AI. Nor did they mention that the calf was four days old.
Did you ever try to run down a deer?
For sure they got a good laugh at Gary's and my efforts. They were rolling on the floor when I told them that when I heard the bull bellow, instead of trying to become an olympic track star running down a very scared vealer, I headed for the six strands of barbed wire as fast as my worn out legs could get me there. To this day, I don't know how I made it over the barbed wire.
I didn't have a scratch. Could it have been a new high jump record?
I'll never know.
The Jersey bull almost came through it right after me, but by then, I was way high up in a tree.
Calvin and Edsel..."HA, HA, HA!!"
Afterwards, I met up with Gary. The bull had gone back to his "girlfriends" and I finally caught my breath.
Luckily, I didn't even have anything clinging to the bottom of my sneakers.
Plenty of that was to be found in that meadow. Luck is luck.
Well, Gary still wanted a calf. On the way back home we stopped at another farm. Sure enough, one of the old farmer's cows had "freshened" that day,
and since that's what cows have to do so the baby can be taken from the mommy for her to continue her lactation (that's how milk is gotten), and her milk would be given to the milking machine and the bulk truck hauler, the calf was something that wasn't needed anymore.
So, the old farmer said we could have it...free!
We thanked him very much and brought the little guy home. Being as it was July 4th, we named the bull calf "Independence".
We both took turns feeding him milk replacer, mucking his little pen, and making sure he had the finest life we could give him.
Well, about ten weeks later, he was made to be what he was meant to be.
As we sat at the dining room table when he was served up, Dad asked, "What do you think of Independence?"
No kidding...at the same time, Gary and I said with food still in our mouths,
"He's delicious!"
Anyway, be careful of the bulls. Watch where you step. And always remember, eat them before they trample you. Bulls want you to die.
Get them first!

The veal recipe is in the DT Cookbook. Enjoy!

[Downthestretch55]

Where the heck did all these rabbits come from?

For those that haven't tried rabbit, I'll just tell you that it's really pretty good "eats". I have a cottontail in my fridge that I intend to stew up in wine for tomorrow night's supper. No, it wasn't a "road kill" (though I've gained a few that way). My friend, Ken, dropped it off as it somehow stumbled into one of his beaver sets. No beaver (shucks), but a bunny is fine.

The rabbit story is about my brother, Gary. Somehow he got the great idea that he could make his fortune with rabbits. He must've read about it in the classifieds of "Boy's Life" when the Boy Scouts gave him a subscription.
He definitely took his business venture seriously.
Gary did lots of research to find the best breed, and settled on New Zealand whites. Let me tell you, those bunnies are beautiful, big, and...fertile.
So he somehow did a deal for two does and then found a buck from a different place, so as to avoid "inbreeding".
We worked together to build a nice hutch with a hardware-cloth bottom, water bowls, and nest boxes for the moms-to-be.
Before too long, there was a need to build a couple of more six room hutches for the does. This, despite all the rabbits the family could eat twice a week, different recipes, he was now up to fourteen does and the buck.
I'm not too sure he knew what he'd gotten himself into. The hay and rabbit pellets were looking to consume all of his available funds, so he did his best to find a market for the bouncy whites. Frantic phone calls to restaurants near and far, and selling them "ready to cook" for a very narrow "profit margin" gave him something to take up his time long enough for still more bunnies to show up. He supplied restaurants all along route 28 between Kingston and Arkville, some in New York City, people that came to the house, and still there were more rabbits.
I was getting tired of helping him build hutches, so we decided to buy mesh fencing and wall off a big circle in the middle of the barn.
The bouncy things filled that up too.
I'm telling you, it was becoming a "WAR on RABBITS".
They just kept coming despite everything we could do to get rid of them, kill them, eat them. Feeding them was bankrupting Gary.
Well, the story ends when he finally decided to fill the freezer with everything he'd invested, besides those that didn't fit that he gave away (about 100), and all those that had "escaped" to the apple orchard where Bugs, Peter, and their girlfriends lived on for two more years.
Well, many years later, we still get together and laugh about his "business venture". And we still both enjoy a nice rabbit dinner, though we should be sick of eating them by now.
So when he invited me over to his place for supper last week, and I pulled into his driveway, guess what was bouncing in the headlights...
Yup, two giant white long eared critters.
I laughed so hard that tears were coming down my face, He must have seen me sitting there trying to gain my "composure". He came out on to the porch and said, "Come on in!"
I said, "What are they?"
He said, "My new bucks, Sadr and Al Queda."..."I have four does in the shed too."
Shaking my head, I went inside his kitchen door.
Some people just never learn, especially where all these rabbits come from.
You'll never guess what we had for supper.