Lessons learned from chickens

[Downthestretch55]

Manure

Seems to me that wherever there are animals roaming aroung, lots of manure gets spread.
All farms have a time of the day devoted to dealing with it.
Some days, there's more of it than others.
Actually, manure can be quite helpful. If put back on the fields, the crops grow nicely. But if it builds up, it makes a huge mess that needs special attention.
One spring I was working on a black angus farm. The cows and heifers had been cooped up all winter inside the barn, and the guy that was supposed to deal with it just let it build up. By the time I showed up for my first day on the job, those poor critters were deep into it. It was close to the top of my barn boots, and frankly, I didn't have the strength to do much more than turn them out and go back to the farmhouse and call a friend that had a bull dozer.
He came that afternoon and pushed it all out into a great big pile.
His bill was almost as huge as the pile.
Now don't get me wrong. Manure can be good. There's all kinds.
Chicken is nasty. Hog's isn't much better. Sheep's is hot. Rabbit's is ok but tends to take on ammonia smells if it's left too long.
Horse's is a lot easier to handle than cows.
Heck, there always seems to be more than enough manure. It's best to not let it build up. Watch where you step. And at all times, consider the source.
It's all different. Though somehow it tells my sniffer that it pretty much smells the same.

[Downthestretch55]

More Manure Musings

I must admit that I've long held a fascination with manure, and since I made an agreement with someone that I wouldn't post anything in response to threads of his creation, I find that this might be an appropriate place to recount where my fecal fascination originated.
It began with a "TEACHER"!
This one come into my fifth grade class with an amazing piece of rock. He placed it squarely on the table in front of me and asked the class to guess what it was. Many of my classmates made guesses...like "igneous", "metamorphic" or "sedimentary"...all wrong.
After a while, I timidly raised my hand. When I was called on, I stated that it looked like "dung".
The teacher's eyes lit up and told me I was correct. He went on to explain that it is called a coprolite, the petrified fecal matter from a dinosaur!
Then he GAVE it to me! I was launched as a paleontologist.
I've since passed it on to my son, who is now a PHD in genetic research, but he also started as a paleontologist. Now, he's a "mouse farmer", but that's another story. Suffice to say that coprolite has been used to launch interest in many scientists that came through my classroom.
So, now back to the musings about manure.
It always amazed me that similar herbivores could eat exactly the same food, but produce different forms of manure. After eating hay, a horse produces something that looks like a big chunk of tootsie roll, a cow makes a mushy pie, and a deer makes pellets that look like peanut M+M's. Fascinating fecal stuff.
Birds are even more amazing. Take the wild turkey for example. Gobblers and jakes make something that always comes in a "J" or backwards "J" shape while hens make something that looks like a hersy's kiss.
Of course I haven't mentiond humans yet, and you all probably have been waiting with baited breath (or held noses). Of course, behind the house we had a litle place called an "outhouse" (privy). Our's was a three holer, so of course I got to see plenty. There was no flushing at all.
Everyone's was different!
One day, a porcupine found it's way inside and after munching all around the openings, for the residual salt, it left some of its own, kind of like brown pencil pieces.
Then, in the kitchen I discovered little black rice like things. Yes, if you guessed mice, correct! Knowing when to set traps (and when to avoid them) taught me a lot. I could go on and on, and probably will at a future time.
To think it all started with a teacher and a coprolite, a hundred million year old chunk of dinosaur poop.
I end with a short tale about one of my first days at the track. Another guy, a teacher of sorts, told me that he heard something from the "horses mouth".
So, I bet on the horse, big time. The horse finished last.
My guess the guy that gave me the tip was listening to the wrong end of that horse. Some folks never learn, nor do they know which part is doing the speaking, yet they're quite eager for you to appreciate what they say. Just remember which end is talking.
Watch your step, but enjoy fecal matter for exactly what it is. You might learn something.

[Downthestretch55]

I saw Mike's Christmas poem, and the request for poetry, so I'll share this one.
It was written by a friend and myself. He had been going through a difficult time. He wrote the first part. I had just bought my first two horses and was looking at things a bit differently. Maybe those that are participating in the DT partnership will find something in this.

"Green and Gold"

Are all the farmers dead now?
Dead, dying, or waiting to die?

Subdivisions all around,
All brightly lit and empty
Stand where cows once fatted
Feasting on lush red clover, so pink and sweet.

Are there new farmers now?
Those with calloused hands and light minds,
Are they really gone?
Or are there others?
Those with light hands and heavy minds?

Those who knew not cow trodden toe
Nor long sun drenched days
Nor seeing fields just sown
Through sweat of their own,
Hoping for growth.
So long ago their toil.

Yet sons and daughters of farmers old
For reasons they do not know
Take long afternoon rides
Past fields of green and gold,
Under mountains of pink and skies of azure blue.

Do new farmers know of rain drenched days?
Or drought?
Or doubt?
Of planting with a horse drawn plow?
Of harvests? Births? Deaths?
Or waiting for the promise of a golden sunrise?

Yes!
There are new farmers now!
Those with thoroughbreds.
And clean fingernails and heavy minds.

High in these green hills,
See? As always...
Another golden sunrise!

See them ride through fields of green and gold,
Under an azure sky.

[Downthestretch55]

I'll stay with the poetry for a while.
Sometimes it says more with less.
I don't know the person that wrote this, but it spoke to me.
I know something about planting seeds and reaping the harvest.
Living in abundance requires work, and also sharing it, so that others may also feast, see, and then share. That's how it grows. That's exactly how it grows.
Enjoy this one. I did.
If I might add...sometimes poetry needs to be read twice. Once silently, and then again out loud, so you can hear the rhythm of the words. Each one counts.

"Where Can We See Him?"

His face was painted on cathedral domes.
It graced the gilded chapels of kings.
Each age portrayed it differently
On tapestries and glowing glass,
As pious, precious offerings.
Chanting monks proclaimed His glory.
Symphonies rang forth.
Ancient texts and learned tomes
Were writ to tell His story.
And yet I ponder in my heart
About this gentle man,
Who never owned an ermine robe
Nor smallest piece of land.
He spoke of love and tolerance.
He lived amongst the poor.
He fought no wars. He offered peace.
His message has endured.
Millions claim to follow Him,
With eyes that cannot see,
Unless they seek His face anew
In suffering humanity.

Peace,
Larkrise


Thank you Larkrise... your message of peace has been spread. Let it grow.
DTS

[Downthestretch55]

Rats

Most everyone knows about rats. Seems that once they find where the grain bin is, or the garbage pile, or the chickens, there's no getting rid of them.
Believe me, I've tried.
So have many in previous days. Pied Piper comes to mind. Heck, that was in the days of the "black death"...boubonic plague.
Rats come. There's no rid.

So, one winter afternoon on there came a soft knock on the side door off the kitchen. It was not easy to hear the first time it came, as the "mud room", the place we took off our muddy boots and hung our smelly jackets was between the kitchen and the knocking.
I heard it the second time and left my coffee to answer.
There stood a little old lady, wrinkled and grey.
It was too cold to hold the door open, so I invited her in.
She took off her tattered coat and black scarf and was invited to sit at the table with us, warm by the stove.
She told us that she was our neighbor, had the place about a thousand feet up the road from our place, and that her property bordered ours, divided by the stream we shared. We could look at the deed.
Dad told her there was no need to. It was just nice to meet our neighbor.
Well, she relaxed as she got warmer and told us about herself.
Her accent was thick, eastern European, and she lit one cirgarette off the next. The smoke hung thick. By the second cup of coffee, she had revealed her name and a bit of her history.
Her name was Betty Ludwig. She was 82 years old. Her husband had died 15 years before, and she had sold her candy store in Brooklyn to buy the place where she decided to "retire", have a garden, tend her chickens, feed her rabbits.
She asked if we'd had any problems with rats as she had lost a few of her chickens during the past week.
We assured her that we hadn't, but we'd be on the look out. Thanks for the warning, Betty.
By now, she was feeling comfortable, maybe a bit warm. As she reached for her Lucky Strikes to light up the 10th or 11th, she pushed up the sleeves of the old holey sweater she wore. Right past the elbows.
It was then that I saw the numbers tatooed on the inside of her forearms.
My guess is that Betty knew far more about rats than I ever will.
Thanks for the warning, Betty. You were a friend to our family from that day until the day you died five years later. May you rest in peace.
I'll never forget you, your warnings, and the baby chicks you gave me.
The rats never got them. I never liked rats either.

[Downthestretch55]

Andrew: The Imaginary Soldier Marching on the Historic Road to Battle

I've traveled many historic roads. One leads along the southern edge of Lake Champlain through a place called Whitehall. It was on this road that General Burgoyne marched his British troops down in September of 1777 to their anticipated victory against the insurgents. The Battle of Saratoga, which in reality was the battle of Stillwater (10 miles south), resulted in Burgoyne's surrender to General Gates at Saratoga in October. Maybe history textbooks should be revised to tell about the "surrender at Saratoga" and the "Battle of Stillwater". Too costly, methinks.
And I grew up near the River Road, that hugs the eastern shore of the Hackensack River, where Continentals marched past von Stueben's house at New Bridge to reinforce Washington's forces as he chased the British from Philadelphia, and his General Lee caught up with them at a place in Freehold.
When he was outflanked and retreated, Washington sent him to the rear and lead the forces himself, attacking twice during those hot June days, to bring the turning point so necessary in 1778. No matter that there was no clear victor in the Battle of Monmouth, and that both sides lost as many men to heatstroke as from the fighting. We gained a legendary lady that showed great courage when she replaced her husband who had fallen, putting down her water jugs and manning the cannon in his stead. But her name really wasn't Molly Pitcher, heck, let's not rewrite the legend.
So then there was Andrew one day, marching up and down the historic ridge road near North Settlement, a spur of the famous Susquehannah Turnpike that linked Catskill to Utica for the westward moving pioneers.
Andrew lived with his aged mother in a run down house that lacked indoor plumbing. He and his mom lived far from the prying eyes, scrutiny, and flapping lips of townfolk. Their nearest neighbors were a half mile away in either direction. Their isolation might have been for a reason.
Andrew was mentally retarded.
Oh, there were kids that would drive past him and hurl insults from their bicycle seats, though I don't think Andrew gave them much notice.
Andrew liked to march. He could always be seen, through hot summer sun, or cold winter snow, marching up county route 10 to the corner, then back down to the Sutton Hollow. Andrew always carried a stick. He frequently chewed its end with greenish-yellow teeth, but he'd hold it at "present arms" for any passing car that would slow down on the vacant road so he could go to the side.
One day, my friend gave Andrew some records and an old record player that he'd picked up at a flea market. All of the 45's were German marching music,
patriotic parade tunes. Andrew seemed to love his "chermin mar muse", as he marched back and forth near the blasting sounds coming from the porch of his ramshackled fortress. Back and forth, back and forth, present arms, march again, chew a bit. Onward to the battle of his imagination, to the victory he'd never know, nor a surrender sufferred...marching on the historic
road. Marching. Marching. Marching. Imagining. Marching....

[Downthestretch55]

Death and funerals

I must say, I don't like death. Nor do I relish the funerals.
Those of heros, those of lessers.
I thought to title this rant with "hanging", though I don't like that either unless it's a buck upside down on its way to becoming steaks and stew.

Two "heros" that come to mind are one held dear by the Sunnis (theirs, not mine), and one named Hunk-es-ni, also reviled. Both had counted many coup in their times. Hunk-es-ni was seen as an enemy by those that wished to take his lands. He was a great Sioux chief.
He had made many enemies, including the Crows. He earned his membership into the warrior's society, the Strong Hearts, when he allowed his Crow opponent to take the first shot, and it ripped through his buffalo hide shield to lodge in his left foot. Hunk-es-ni's shot found its mark, a heart, though he walked with a limp for the rest of his days.
And though he was held as a prisoner of war at Fort Randall for two years, upon his release in 1883,he never gave up the hopes of freedom for his people, nor his desire to return to Grand River.
After years of wise rule, his little cabin was surrounded by 38 "policemen" commanded by Lieutenant Henry Bull Head, at daybreak on December 15, 1890. When awakened from his slumber, he said twice that he was not going.
So, he was shot then and there. Hunk-es-ni, rider of the gray horse, leader of his people died. He has come to be know by the name the whitemen gave him, Sitting Bull. His memory remains within the hearts of those that hold to his courage and sacrifice. His people remember.

Today, I watched the funeral of an ex-president. His funeral reminded me of my father's. They both were alike in many ways.
Both were World War II veterans, both Episcopalians. The same prayers were said, "...and give him peace, through Jesus Christ our Lord. amen".
Both men went to their burials in black hearses, flags flying on the front bumpers. Though the ones on my dad's flew off on the way from the church to the cemetary, and Mac (who had been Eisenhower's driver in Europe) had to stop the procession to put them back in place, cussing while we laughed. Dad would have loved it.
The church's names were different, one was Grace, one was Trinity.
One of them will have an aircraft carrier named for him, with all the expected missions of war. The other will only have his spirit of honesty, truth, and freedom endure, as his message was about peace.
One had handsome soldiers provide a 21 gun salute. The other had two little grandsons fire their bb guns beside his grave in tribute. Each will get one of his purple hearts. Tri folded flags.
Oh the funerals, those of heros and those of lessers.
Funny in a way that they all end at the same place. As my dad once told me, it's over when the last mourner grabs the final handful of dirt, tosses it in the hole and walks away saying, "What a nice guy! What a nice guy!"

Heros and lessers..."and give them peace, and give them peace!" amen