January 6, 2013

I guess the holidays are over. I will spend the day taking down the outside lights. We hadn’t done lights outside in years; living so far back from the road there’s not much point. But I was in the mood this year and I did it more for myself rather than the cars that speed by 200 yards away on the highway. Those guys are traveling so fast they don’t have any time to look around enough to notice a fainted light display anyway. Even so, the delivery guy from Giuseppe’s appreciated the extra light when he came to the door.

So today I will be taking the lights down.

We already have the Christmas tree down. We have a little tradition with our Christmas tree….While all the neighbors drag their tree out to the curb for pick up, we drag ours out to the backyard. We tie it up to a tree near the bird feeder so that the song birds can take cover from the weather and from the Coopers hawk that hunts them there. We also tie it up in reach of Snoopie, who will snack on it until spring, stripping it of the needles and bark. When she’s done, there’s usually very little left – a few twigs on the trunk.

I have considered salvaging trees from the curb for the birds and Snoopie and the other goats, but I have always stopped short of this because I can’t be sure if they haven’t been treated with sprays to keep them fresh and green, or to make them fire retardant. I just don’t want to take a chance of possibly poisoning the goats. That’s just the thing – one never knows what’s on any things theses days. So if I don’t have to gamble, I don’t.

Today is not a bad day to be outside as its pretty warm for a day in January. It’s warm enough that the bee hives are active today. On warm winter days like today, the bees do housekeeping – they clean the hive of dead bees and whatever, get some fresh air, and stretch their wings so to speak. When it gets cold again they will ball up in the hive to conserve energy and heat. For now though, I know that all the colonies have made it this far through the winter.

The horses are doing a bit different today too- taking time to lay down and stretch out to capture as much sun on their bodies as they can. It’s no different than what we call sun bathing.

Later today I will be taking Patrick for a ride. I have been working with him almost every day, now that I have time since the growing season is over. I have been doing my best to work on his spooking – things that scare him. Being prey animals, it is an instinct for a horse to spook – it is a defensive mechanism that keeps a horse alive. Problem is, a horse that spooks can get out of control and either the horse or rider or both can get hurt. The trick is to teach the horse to trust the rider so that the horse stays under the riders control….even when he spooks. Trust takes a lot of time.

I guess I am keeping busy even if it is winter. Soon I will be ordering seeds and onions and leeks and potatoes and then before I realize it, I will be back in the field again digging and tilling and hoeing and weeding and planting and worrying if anything will come up! And hopefully, I will be ready when that time comes!

December 10, 2012

There are no bookstores in my area. They are all gone.

The last bookstore I was in was during a visit to State College last November. My sister took me to one in a cellar somewhere near the Penn State campus. My bearings are not what they used to be. It may have been on Beaver Street.

Stepping down the concrete stairway, the smell of dust and musty paper brought me home. It was a used book store; a maze of unfinished pine board book cases that faced all directions and could make anyone claustrophobic. On them were squeezed together a few zillion paperbacks about anything you can think of. Worn, faded, stained and dog-eared.  Novels, classics, kids stories, history, sports, religion, lgbt, literature, politics, poetry, documentary, and on and on.  Someone’s trash, someone’s treasure.  This place was a gold mine.

My sister and I were looking for “Slaughterhouse -5”. My sister had never read it, or any of Kurt Vonnegut’s books for that matter. We thumbed and searched through the first few book shelves of paperbacks that we saw, and not seeing it, we asked a woman there stacking books if she knew if there might be a copy somewhere. “No, we did, we have…anything we get in by Kurt Vonnegut goes out fast. People must really like him.” So it goes. People still like Billy Pilgrim.

In the hidden spaces between shelves were uneven legged tables that rocked when leaned on. Like the books, they were the kinds that are salvaged from the curb on garbage day. At one of the tables four people sat talking and knitting. I could just tell that this was where they often met, maybe to rest from the forced pace of life that went on up the stairs we had just come down.  Three women and one man. Simply knitting. They had no cell phones or ipods or laptops out on the table. They reminded me of some Quakers I know. I couldn’t stop thinking that this was a place that Quakers would go.

Near the table I was standing on a short step ladder looking at books about world war one that were on a top shelf. I read a lot about the Great War. It’s not the military aspect of the world war years that I am interested in, but the social aspects of the time, and how cultures were changed. Anyhow, I saw a familiar title…“Over the Top” by Arthur Guy Empery. Actually I had never read the “book”. I have read the digital copy on my Kindle, maybe three times now. I had never thought of it as a book, with pages and binding….Even though I have missed being in book stores and being around books, I realized that I hadn’t been a book person for some time. I had changed. I read on a Kindle, not paper. This really sunk in, especially that now I was standing in a book store that was as much as that as it was an antique store.

And I got to thinking too, that even though I had Slaughterhouse- 5, I couldn’t lend it to my sister…it was on my Kindle and couldn’t be passed around, handed down, or put on a shelf where it could have a new life 10 or 20 or 50 years from now. My version would always be data, but never a book. Never would it be dog-eared, worn, stained, or faded….

So much has changed and is changing.

I don’t know whether change is good or bad or if it even needs judging. But I know that I am old enough to miss some things, like bookstores when it was just as much about gathering with friends as it was about the books on the shelves and those we could share and pass around. I do miss going though shelves and stacks looking at and for books, discovering something new, or old. The closest I get to that now is scrolling on Amazon. Amazon’s got more subjects and books than I could find almost anywhere else, but it’s not the same. I don’t expect it to be. I accept that everything changes, but I hope some things, like books, don’t change so much that they are only downloads. That would be too much change. And at least for me, I don’t think it’d be a very good one.

November 3, 2012

I have been thinking about how lucky we were at the farm during Hurricane Sandy. Overall we had no real damage to speak of. We had spent a lot of time in preparation bringing things in, boarding up the stables, tying down bee hives, and cleaning field drains, which I think was a big help. We had extra feed for the animals, and stored about 200 gallons of water for them in case the electricity went out, but luckily that didn’t come to being.

About the only thing I had to attend to was ‘ol Lou who became lame with a hoof abscess (cleared up now). The goats didn’t mind the wind but as all goats go, they didn’t like getting wet so stayed in their shelter for the duration with a bale of hay to eat. After the storm they were so full of hay they turned up their noses at the grain! The chickens were protected from the wind by their shed, and most of them stayed out in the tempest sucking down worms, etc – the chickens just didn’t care at all, and even laid a few eggs which did surprise me...I thought the storm would stress ‘em out and shut them down but it didn’t. And then the ducks - to them all the rain and wind amounted to a great surprise party! They were almost too happy.

Water did come up a bit toward the back of the property were it slopes off to the lowland forest, but not enough to concern me. And we lost a few branches from a tree or two, but again, nothing unordinary.

It was a bad storm. I watched the wind bend our trees over and it rained sideways for hours and hours. At times it was down right scary. I know a lot of people who lost their cars and homes to flooding, roads are still closed from damage and debris, many are still waiting for the electric to come back on...and that’s why I say I we were lucky at the farm, and to be honest, I am not taking this blessing for granted. I am grateful, and I am having a hard time putting it into words.

October 7, 2012

Allen caught this four foot black snake that was raiding the chicken nests for eggs. I think the snake has been here awhile as we have been finding very few eggs for the last month or so. Last week, I saw it in a nest with an egg in its throat, but before Allen got out to the barn, it had gone. I don’t like picking up snakes – one of those things, along with a good fear of heights. So if I see one I either get Kath or Allen to grab it. I will hold the bag as either of them lowers it in but that’s as best as I can do.

This time, Allen came out in enough time, and I pointed to the nest which was a hollow between some hay bales in the hay barn. The snake had an egg in its mouth but hadn’t yet started the swallowing process. Allen reached in and grabbed the snake midway, then grabbed it behind its head with his free hand. The guy dropped the egg, so we got that one back.

After a few pics we put him in a bag and Allen took him to a new home a few miles away, where we hope he will be ok and grow longer.

Snakes are a bit ying and yang here. I see them in the garden in the summer and leave them alone as they are mouse and insect hunters and keep these garden pests in check so that they don’t cause too much loss. In that way they are very helpful and I can appreciate them. On the other hand they have a penchant for eggs – not just chicken eggs, but any bird egg. Over the years I have observed them raiding bird nests, and once 20 foot high raiding the purple martin houses. I have since added snake guards to deter them from the bird nests.

There is not too much I can do to keep them from the chickens as there is no method to block them from the nests. All we can do is catch one in a nest and relocate it, knowing that sooner or later another snake will come along and takes its place. In a normal year, we relocate at least two or three. This time we were lucky that we caught this one. A four foot snake can down three or four eggs at a time.

Its hard enough this time of year to have eggs – most of our gals are older so they don’t lay often as it is, some are molting and that shuts down their production even further, and with shorter day length they lay even fewer eggs naturally. (Egg farmers harvest their chickens after a year, and keep them under artificial light to keep up egg production.) Add a snake to all this and it almost forces us to the grocery store to buy eggs. I think it’s been close to ten years since I have bought a store egg, and I hope to never buy one again. Hopefully, now that our egg thief has been caught, any thought of Acme eggs can be dropped .

September 23, 2012

falling off on my writing, i picked up my camera and walked outside....

August 27, 2012

The problem with roosters…

…is what to do with them.

For years we have had chickens and that means invariably, we have ended up now and then, by a mistake of sorting sexes at the hatchery, with a rooster. There are a lot of reasons that we don’t need a rooster- two are that they don’t lay eggs and the hens don’t need them to lay eggs.

There are also reasons we don’t want a rooster- they rip up the hens in an endless passion for mating, they crow all day and all night (no, they don’t only crow at daybreak!), but worst of all, they attack almost everything that moves, including us farmers.

And roosters have no ethics or mercy when it comes to attacking. They need no reason except that they see you. There are no rules of engagement. They don’t give you a warning, or a chance to move away. Roosters don’t negotiate. They lack a Quaker gene.

And then it is how they attack. They wait till your head is turned. You can be ten feet away, or a hundred feet away –but if your head is turned, or worse yet if your back is turned, they seize the opportunity of surprise. With wings flapping they jump up from the ground, lean back in the air, and strike with the sharp, hooked spurs that have grown out long from the back of their legs. The spurs cut like knives. A really aggressive rooster can send its victim to the emergency room for stitches.

Over the years we have dealt with the problems of having a rooster in different ways.

For a time there was a young man who we were put in touch with who used the roosters for breeding (at least that’s what he said he did with them). Whenever we needed to unburden ourselves of a rooster, we’d get in touch with this young man through a series of contacts and he would pull up in his car and somehow catch the rooster and take it with him. At some point, the web of shadowy contacts dissipated and we never able to get word to him again.

At that point, we turned to Craigslist  to advertise that we had a rooster to give away, free to a good home. We would get replies from Craigslist from all kinds of persons, but then no one ever showed up to claim their feathered bargain.

A few years ago a friend of a friend had a friend who wanted one of our roosters because they liked to hear them crow. We asked if they knew what a rooster was all about and word came back to us that “yes they did” and this was not their first rooster. So we gave our rooster to our friend who passed it to the friend who passed it to their friend – transaction complete. Just recently we were told that the rooster met its end. Apparently the rooster became so increasingly aggressive that the people were scared to leave their house, so in a moment of bravery fueled by frustration they literally shot their way out…

Last year, I bought a small, chain link dog kennel and that is where we keep our current rooster. In this way, he has his own space and he can’t get to us or to anyone else. Once a week we allow him conjugal visits with the hens. It’s not a bad life. I also got an incubator so that I could breed him and hatch chicks. I assumed that my chances of getting another rooster this way were probably the same as if I bought sexed chicks. So far, of the five chicks that I’ve hatched, two have turned out to be roosters.

I can’t put these two with the current rooster as they will fight, and so now I am back to the original problem of what to do with the roosters.

Can’t re-home them, Craigslist doesn’t work, and we can’t keep them…

… so this time we are setting the oven to 375.

August 3, 2012

Maybe this isn’t such a bad deal. He doesn’t ride me too much which is good cause I ache in my joints. If you listen, you can hear me creak as I walk. I remember all those days I was at some camp and was saddled and bridled for the entire day.  See my nose? The hair is permanently rubbed off from wearing a tight bridle for so long. It never came off. This aint the worst it could be.

But anyhow, being the bigger horse at these camps I had to carry the bigger people. Then I was leased to a fat kids camp. One of those camps where they say they give rich fat kids exercise and healthy food – I was the one who got the exercise while some Big Mac sucking kid bounced his blubber on my back, and then as for food….well, I was lucky to get any grain – mostly I just got some moldy hay.

That was when I was getting older, and my knees began to hurt. Sometimes I hurt so much I couldn’t lift my feet high enough and I would trip, falling to my knees and the kid on me would panic and yell. If I could have, I’d a bucked him off just to get a bit of relief, but I didn’t have it in my back legs either.

I coulda been a race horse. I just wasn’t as fast as my dad, Whitey’s Fella. Dad was fast. He won a lot of money in his time.  (He also had a lot of kids, which I cant, cuse I got my nuts whacked off.) I was compared to him, but I just wasn’t as fast. I was fast, but a few tenths of a second behind meant I was slow. Its amazing that a matter of one or maybe two tenths of a second determined my fate. Most people don’t even think in seconds. I was judged by them. I was judged by tenths of a second. But I was fast. Still am. Even at 25 years old and with arthritis in my knees I am faster than Zipps and Patrick – hell, I was faster than that dork Jake who used to live here and torment me - a thoroughbred that bullied me to no end. He liked to come up on my blind side – yes I am blind in my left eye – and bite my butt and try to chase me. I could out run that dork even if I was trottin’! I’d be waitin at the other end of the field waiting for him to get there. He too, was supposed to be a racehorse. Whatta slow putz. He couldn’t out run one a the chickens round here. But that’s not important. Ya see, being fast isn’t fast enough in the racing biz. I got auctioned off. I never saw Saratoga again.

Instead I saw trails. I don’t even know where I was, or where I’ve been.  I don’t really remember. But I saw a lot of miles of trails. Being a trail horse wasn’t so bad – people were nice, and at the end of the ride most people would sneak me a treat – a carrot or peppermint. Some people were jerks though. They had seen too many westerns and would yank the reins and kick me thinking that’s want horses needed. Dumb farts. Sometimes I’d get so mad! Then I would – and I am not sayin I am proud of myself for it – veer a bit off the trail and walk under a low branch…that knocked the John Wayne right out of em. Hell, all us trail horses did it.

One time, I forget where I was, but I was in a paddock, a man came and shouted at us. None of us knew what he wanted. Then he’d hit us, and I mean hit us. I still shudder about being hit. If I only knew what he wanted I‘d done it – so would have the others. To this day I still get flashbacks of those beatings and even sometimes I snap at people – I can’t help it. It’s a reaction I can’t always control. It just comes over me. Sometimes I snap at people who are good to me. It’s like a defense mechanism…I can’t shake what that man did to us. Its not like I can go to a shrink. They don’t have shrinks for horses – there’s this lady named Temple Gradin, but I just gotta deal with it. At least I don’t snap as much theses days. No one hits me here so I don’t have that trigger. But sometimes I just snap. It’s a tick in my brain, like an instinct I shouldn’t have. I can’t help it. We all have our ghosts. This man is mine. I wish that’d never happened.

I oughta get back to what I was sayin. My knees would just give sometimes. Or I would trip. Trails aren’t smooth – there’s all kinda things in the way . Like logs, rocks, puddles, and whatever. Things that the fat kid on my back couldn’t walk over. But I had to. And lets face it, I wasn’t getting any younger. I couldn’t keep up as well. My eye was losing sight, and my breathing was getting a bit shallower…my nasal passage had collapsed a bit. I was just getting older, that’s all. Couldn’t help that. No one can.

I guess I wasn’t worth much after that. No one wanted me. So I went to auction. Its not the kind you are thinking of, where people are bidding and fighting over the horses. That was the kind of auction I had been at when I was young. But this was different. These people were haggling to get the price lower. Ya see, it costs the buyer all kinds of money to truck a guy like me – and about twenty others at a time – way down to Mexico. Something about profit margins. Its also why they like guys like me. I’m sorta big, and in Mexico they pay by the pound…so I was worth the cost, cause I would bring a profit at the plant.

But some lady took me. She had a petting farm, more or less, and thought I could pull a cart and look cute or something like that. She also thought if she didn’t buy me, I’d go to Mexico. She didn’t want horses to go to Mexico. She didn’t know about my knees or my brain snaps – how could she? But she bought me and took me to her farm. It wasn’t a very pretty place, but she was nice enough to me. She fed me. She put me together with a little horse named Hershey who didn’t tease me. But in the end, I wasn’t what she wanted. She fed me, but didn’t take the best care of me. She figured she’d sell me and let that person pay a vet. She sold me.

And now I am here. Like said it aint such a bad deal for an old guy like me. They fixed me as best they could – got rid of my infections, my feet problems, even got my teeth looked at. They give me stuff for my knees, and asprin when I get stiff ! All that stuff. They don’t ride me all day either. Just every now and then. In fact they sorta let me roam around. I free range like those dumb chickens that are always in my way! Friggin chickens! Do you know how hard it is for me not to step on those pecking feather dusters? They are always under my feet, catching grasshoppers and stuff. I gotta side step every where! Its like walking on eggs! Get it? Chickens! walking on eggs! That’s a good one! (I still got my sense of humor!) But if that’s the worst thing I gotta worry about then its ok. I am kinda fond of those damn birds though, which is why I dont step on em.

I mean I get my own field where Pat and Zip cant sneak up on my blind side and bite me. And I get to wander in and out of the stable as I please. Sometimes they leave the hay out and I nose thru it- I get the good stuff and then Pat and Zip get the stuff I don’t like! I can deal with that! And then I get itched almost anytime I want. I just walk up to those guys cleanin the stables – yeah, I get room service- I just bump em a bit, and they get my brush and start massaging my hot spots. I make these funny faces and they like that! So I make more funny faces and since that entertains them they keep brushing me. I got em wrapped around my hoof. These people are so easy to train. Ya know, I got em so well trained that if I sorta gurgle at them, they go get me a treat! imagine that! and I get Gatorade when its hot, a blanket when its cold, and then I get this rock that I can lick for salt. And my own feed bowl. I never had my own feed bowl before.

I can be happy here for a long, long, time. Sometimes I hear them say I am retired. Sometimes I hear them say I am spoiled. Oh well, here they come, I gotta gurgle a bit…I hope they got peppermint today. Or one of those orange gumdrop slices, or ginger snaps… think I will walk over and see what they got….