Farm News 07-31-05

Farm News
Sunday morning, after chores, 72°

Heat Wave Blamed for Multiple Deaths in Rabbitry

The heat wave has hit the rabbitry hard. The ugly old buck from Calvin's herd died first, followed by all but two of Ayte's little bunnies. Then Nyn died. Ayte's bunnies are just opening their eyes and I think the two survivors will be okay. The bunnies she lost all died in the nest box, which I have removed from the cage. Nyn's bunnies were due to be weaned next week and they are all fine.

The cages are all equipped with 'lick' type water bottles. Although the rabbits probably get enough to drink from them, sometimes they will be waiting in line at the water bottle, so they are going to get crocks of water in each cage, also.

In another year or two the yellow trumpet vine (Campsis radicans 'Flava')will cover the south side of the rabbitry, keeping it cooler in there. It has tripled its size so far this year.

Has Anyone Seen Calvin?

Calvin was last seen two weeks ago departing on a horse trading trip with his gay jack and ungelded hinny. That's a whole truckload of useless testosterone. It's possible that Calvin has been shot or something because his gay jackass made a pass at the wrong man's stallion, I suppose, but, generally, it's been more peaceful than that in Kansas over the last 150 years. Of course, he might have gone on down to Oklahoma or Texas, in which case he might have been subjected to violence of some sort just because he's a teenager traveling with a gay jackass and a horny hinny.

Pond Goes Dry

The pond raised a few inches last week but still had over four feet to go. The water had cleared enough that the bottom was clearly visible. Frogs are collecting already and a Black Crowned Night Heron has been hanging around. By the end of this week the creek had stopped running and the pond was down to a shallow spot in the middle of the mud.

The Arrowhead (Sagittaria latifolia) is thriving with the changing water levels. They should start flowering soon, I think. For Native Americans of the northeast the roots were a staple but I've never tried them.

One aquatic native plant that I have tried is cattails. Cattail pollen is good stuff. It is a nice golden yellow in color and it adds an egg yolk like taste to things without adding cholesterol. Collecting cattail pollen is easy and a nice opportunity to look at a marsh area up close. Use an insect repellent.


Red Tide Reaches Midwest

The Red Tide, a seasonal phenomenon produced by the ripening of millions of tomatoes, has reached Kansas. This week Paula brought a barrow loaded with tomatoes from the garden to the house. (The type of barrow noted for having a wheel on the front end; not the kind of barrow noted for not having testicles on the back end.)

The Tomato (Lycopersicum esculentum var. commune), like it's relatives tobacco and potato, were domesticated in the Americas thousands of years ago. Tomatoes come in more varieties than you can count adapted to all sorts of environments and producing all sorts of fruits, but the ideal environment seems to be the suburban back yard. When you purchase tomato plants you will often find that the label will have something like “(vfn)” after the name. The 'v' and 'f' mean that the plant is resistant to two common kinds of wilt disease. An 'n' means the plant produces tomatoes until frost, whereas 'd' means that it bears one large crop and dies.

'Roma' type tomatoes are usually sort of pear-shaped and are usually 'd' types, which stands for 'determinate' and means that they bear one crop and then die. I like them for slicing into sandwiches; they aren't nearly as juicy as the big red round types, so they don't drip on your lap. They are generally used for sauces because they aren't as juicy and boil down to a thick sauce more quickly.

The big round juicy types are usually 'n', for non-determinate, which means that they will continue to bloom and set new fruit until frost. Also, they keep growing until frost, so they need cages or something to help hold them up. These are the plants that are the stars of suburban competitive tomato growing.

Finally, there are the cherry tomatoes, which might be a different species. They are usually small, round, red, and flavorful; which is all I know about them.

Tomatoes need sun, heat, water, rich soil, almost daily care, and a small amount of good luck.


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Farm News 07-24-05

Farm News
Sunday morning, after chores, hot

A Reader Writes About Geese

What a hoot! I love your dissertation on geese! I don't have any - and don't want any - but have had a couple of funny times with geese.

We did have two - Gus and Angel (both turned out to be ganders). They were kept in the horse pen after they got big - they were aggressive and my kids were still pretty small.

I started noticing a mark on my fillies' flanks - kind of an abraded mark. Then one of them got infected and I was in a quandary as to what it was or where it came from - till I saw the geese "goose" the horses.

The geese had learned that you could pinch the horses while they had a mouthful of feed and the horses would drop the feed. The horses soon learned to simply feed the geese first - even though we no longer have geese, to this day my mares put their nose in the feed bucket and scoop out a big bunch on the ground before they start eating!

The geese got to be more and more of a bother to the horses. The day I looked out and saw my gorgeous black arab mare running frantically in the pasture with Angel the gander holding on to her tail, flogging her and enjoying the ride as he skied along, I thought "the geese have GOT TO GO!"

They went to a friend with a nice big pond - and no horses!

:)julie

As I said last week, adolescent geese tend to be rowdy. They settle down a bit after five or six years. The geese that live here, by the way, never go to the pond. The goslings like to swim, but the adults never go down to the pond on their own.

Cardiologist

The Cardiologist I see, speaking about rising health care costs, “If you fall from an airplane without a parachute, at what altitude does it become a crisis?” As I have mentioned before, he is prone to Delphic Utterances.

I didn't manage to write anything this week. I'll start working on next week.


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Farm News 07-17-05

Sunday morning, after chores

Geese Hold Watermelon Celebration

There are few things that geese like better than watermelon, and the watermelon season is finally here, again. Monday evening I took out the first slice of melon (after having eaten the heart) to the geese. Curious, as usual, they came running up to see what I was going to do. When still about twenty feet away, Beth recognized what it was and let out the most godawful screech I have ever heard a goose produce and covered the remaining distance in about three steps. When the others caught up, there was nothing but a nice loud murmur of happy goose sounds.

Most domestic geese tend to be loud. African and Chinese geese, the ones with the knobs at the base of their beaks, are the loudest. They have a call that sounds a lot like a steam whistle. Chinese are generally considered the best 'weeder' and guard geese, although I've never found them good for much of anything except amusement or holiday meals.

Doorbell was a Chinese gander with a tremendous voice who occupied my yard for a year. Like most good domestic animals, he liked dog biscuits, and had learned to poke around in my pocket where I commonly carried them to find the broken pieces. Whenever a car came into the driveway, or an airplane or hawk flew overhead, or too many leaves fluttered on a tree, Doorbell would sound the alarm, a sound similar to that produced by a calliope with only three functioning pipes, all out of tune with anything else in the world.

Doorbell knew his business, which was to attack anything different. He would not allow people to exit from their vehicle; he would peck on the doors of the cars, honk, flap his wings, and generally raise hell until the car left or I came to the rescue. Once I left a box sitting in the yard and went into the house. When I came back Doorbell was dealing with that box, with his wings and neck extended full out, he would step in, peck hard, and hop back.

The reason Doorbell didn't last long was that I was the only person he tolerated. I was his friend, everybody else was his enemy, with one exception, the male Collie. Doorbell was more interested in tactical maneuvers than diplomacy. Basically, he had four modes: Sleep, Eat, Patrol, and Attack. I was his boss, the Collie was a helpful self-propelled intruder alarm, and everything else that moved was the enemy.

Toulouse geese, the big gray geese, are not nearly as noisy or obnoxious, generally. Two Toulouse ganders live here: Butch, a fine looking gander; and Sarge, who isn't so fine looking but was raised by humans, knows his name and generally comes when called. There doesn't seem to be any dominance competition between them, although they will engage in occasional battles during breeding season.

If I had the choice to make again, I think I might have chosen Pilgrim geese. They are a slightly smaller goose, less inclined to hysterics, and can be sexed by standing back and looking at them. The ganders are white and the females are gray with a white band across their breasts.

There are four reasons I like to keep geese and their names are Beth, Sarge, Bebe, and Butch, the four geese who live here. Domestic geese often live twenty to thirty years. They do not like change, ever, for any reason, at any time, in any way, whatever. Introducing change into a gaggle is about as easy as controlling the clothing choices of fourteen year olds. Nature itself is providing all of the challenges that can be handled. Once you decide to keep geese you cannot count on attrition to get you out of the bargain.

Geeks could delight in the mesh security network that exists on this place. A mesh network is a wireless network, with lots of redundancy (magic word), that passes data around. The ganders are an important node in the mesh. Their alarm calls are recognized not only by the dogs, the guardians, but also by the other poultry, mostly prey.

Two ganders means that one of them is alert most of the time, but you can't count on them to always be alert. Two dogs means that there is more alert time each day, but it still doesn't add up to twenty four hours. Two dogs plus two ganders, however, add up to a lot of time during which something will raise a ruckus if anything changes suddenly. Both the dogs and geese listen to the sounds of the wild animals and sound the alarm if they hear a mouse being killed in the pasture. They also listen to each other for alarms.

From February through April geese can be very defensive and quite obnoxious, especially if they have goslings. The goslings are delightful but, if there are very many of them, become quite rowdy before they attain maturity. A year ago a gang of young geese destroyed, uprooted, and scattered a nice big clump of Gayfeather (Liatris). They look and act like a movie teen hoodlum gang.

Geese need to be fenced into a pasture with goats or a donkey. Geese eat grass and goats eat brush; between them they can clean up a brushy area quite nicely. The fencing that will hold geese and goats is also sufficient to protect them from wandering predators. When planning your fencing, remember that keeping the predators out is a major function of fences.

I hope we can keep the four geese we now have for the rest of their lives. After I have lived with them for ten years I might wish to redefine the relationship, but, for now, at the four year point, I'm happy with them, even though they are mostly a nuisance.

Ayte Does It, Again

Thursday morning Ayte had a nest box full of fur with something wiggling under it. I haven't counted them, yet, but I hope she has fewer than the twelve she had last time. Ayte is a good mother but raising twelve bunnies taxed her. She will have these bunnies with her for six weeks, then the bunnies will go to a rearing cage. A day or two after the bunnies are weaned she will visit the buck for breeding. About four weeks and four days after breeding she will have bunnies, again.

Thanksgiving Disappears, Reappears

Early this week Thanksgiving, the Blue Slate turkey hen, failed to appear for evening feeding. I looked for her but couldn't find either her or a pile of blue feathers. She didn't appear the next morning, nor that evening. By the next morning, I had given up hope. Then, at evening chores, I heard the chirping of a hen turkey. Sure enough, there she was, raiding the chicken house feeder.

Somewhere, she has established a new nest and is now incubating the eggs. If she has a good location, then we might expect baby turkeys in four weeks and a few days. This clutch will be the last of those sired by Christmas, posthumous progeny. Female birds have various interesting methods for storing semen, enabling a recently deceased to still be the sire of fertile eggs.


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Farm News 07-10-05

Sunday morning, after chores,

Pond Refilling

After three or more years of being empty, the pond is refilling. Thursday, we placed the new overflow pipes, over five feet above the current level, and the pond slowly started filling. By Friday morning it had risen about four inches. A good rain will fill it in a day.

No, I don't intend to stock it. It's more fun to watch natural processes happen. First, there will be an explosion of Bullfrog tadpoles. By October, 2007, there will probably be lots of five inch long fish. There is a well stocked pond upstream of this pond, and enough young fish swim downstream to rapidly build populations.


Mea culpa

Last week I made a reference to geezers sitting on the creek bank ogling the butts of young minnow huggers. I wish to make it clear that I would not sell tickets for such an activity, but I would publish a satirical cartoon of geezers ogling young minnow huggers. Given that bit of explanation, I apologize for any discomfort my choice of images may have caused young or female readers.

Thomas, a long-time friend and moral philosopher, and I were, one day, sitting on the porch, concealed by honeysuckle and wisteria, sipping whiskey in memory of a third friend some years deceased, when a pair of very pretty teen age girls walked past on a path visible from the porch. We both looked them over, of course. “Ah,” I said, “Don died too early. He never had the chance to see such delights to the eye.”

Thomas agreed, and we watched the girls stroll out of sight. Were we being lustful? Hardly, they were our nieces and we had both occasionally changed their diapers what seemed only a few years earlier. It is extremely rare to feel lust for someone for whom you have cared as an infant, I think.

Why, then, do men frequently look at a woman in what appears to be a purely sexual manner, when they have no real sexual interest in the woman? Thomas suggested, and I agreed, that visual observation of the physical characteristics indicating nubility triggers a pleasure reaction in an adult male brain. With that brilliant observation behind us, we sipped some more whiskey, Thomas thinking about Rubens and me thinking about tool company calendars.

Male Animals

A new buck has joined the rabbitry, an as yet unnamed Californian from Calvin's herd. I think I'll name him after some movie star, maybe Gene Autry. Gene, if that turns out to be his name, might make a handsome warthog but as a rabbit he is downright ugly. Calvin swears that, if Gene is a good sire, the does will have excellent bunnies. What a warranty!

Speaking of Calvin, he has been busy breaking his hinny. In case you don't know, a hinny is a cross between a stallion and a jenny; much the same as a mule, which is a cross between a jack and a mare. Calvin's hinny resulted from breeding a miniature stallion to a small jenny. The hinny is small enough that Calvin can touch the ground with his feet when riding it. It's a cute little critter.

Hinnies, like mules, are sterile. Calvin's hinny has never been gelded. My opinion is that the expression, “Useless as tits on a boar,” doesn't even come close to this situation. Calvin's hinny displays all of the behaviors one would expect from a stallion or jack, but to no purpose. He will cheerfully mate with females, but he was born with a genetic vasectomy.

Calvin's jack, on the other hand, which was supposed to mate with his mares to produce mules, has presented Calvin with a problem of another sort. The jack seems to be gay. Poor Calvin is at a low point in his life, his truck still isn't running and his jackass is a queer. I'd feel sorry for him if it wasn't so funny; however, when I offered to buy the jack for $50, Calvin immediately asked for $150, saying the jack was a good kid animal.

That's horse-trader nonsense, of course. An uncut jack is not anything you want to give to kids, regardless of the sexual orientation of any of the participants. Calvin is too involved in late adolescent testicularity to go about blithely castrating animals. I checked with a couple of gay friends, asking them if they would be interested in a pet gay jackass, but there were no responses that could have been characterized as positive in any way. You'd think they would show some interest in the fortunes and future of a fellow homosexual, but they were immune to the appeal.

If we could find another gay equine, (donkey, horse, zebra, etc.), we could put the two of them together and video the meeting. It might provide a video that we could sell on the gay porn market, but I doubt it. If gay men don't care about the future of a gay jackass, why would they be interested in his probably totally frustrating attempts to find gratification with a swishy gay zebra?

Calvin has one nice thing going: he purchased a day old male pygmy goat, the runt of triplets. Calvin has it started successfully, as he usually does. The goat has taken up residence with a loving foster mother, Calvin's young coon hound bitch. At night they sleep together in the dog's house, and spend most of their days together. I have a feeling this is going to lead to some interesting interludes.

Bunnies

Nyn's bunnies are growing nicely and becoming quite tame. Two of my beautiful nieces (I'm blessed with a large number of nieces, ranging in age from two to forty) came to visit and spent some time with Nyn's bunnies. Alicia established that, at least for some bunnies, turning them on their backs and rubbing their tummies puts them into a trance-like state. What you do with an entranced bunny, I don't know.


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Farm News 07-03-05

Sunday morning, after chores, 72°

Environmental Education Group Experiences Holism

The Kaw Valley Heritage Alliance has an office in Lawrence. That should give you most of the information you need. This is a bunch of minnow huggers. Now, I don't have anything against tree huggers, but I think I like minnow huggers better. Like all those huggers, a lot of them are young women. Which would you like better (if you are a heterosexual geezer), a young cutie hugging a tree or a young cutie bent over in the middle of a stream trying to hug a minnow? I'll bet if those young women would advertise where they are going to be hugging minnows then a lot of old men would be able to spend a lot of happy hours watching them bend over and hug those minnows. Frogs like jumpin'; fish like swimmin'; older men like watchin' younger women.

Only something as involved in the unlikely as the divine urge could have caused a geyser to appear beneath the floor of the office of a bunch of minnow huggers. Alas, it was not the sort of geyser that would form a stream suitable for minnow, it was the sort of geyser that emits a dark liquid with a noxious odor, one commonly referred to as 'sewer smell'. Numerous consultations with a plumber and various non-experts finally convinced the owner of the building, a nincompoop, that there was a problem down there with the sewer line, and that the only solution was to dig down there and repair it.

For reasons that had nothing to do with minnow huggers, regardless of their posture, I was privy to these discussions; to wit, I served as one of the non-experts and discussed the problem with several others. Being on the spot and having the opportunity, I mentioned to the owner that Calvin was a good man with a shovel and available at a reasonable price. The owner, who had seen Calvin work, jumped at the opportunity, giving me an opportunity to gouge a higher hourly rate out of him than he expected.

Calvin owns a fine old truck that used to bear permanent stains of chicken poop. For some reason, probably related to hormones, he didn't appreciate the decorative properties of chicken poop and repainted the truck black. He did a nice job painting it, but the truck has never been reliable since losing it's stains. The day before Calvin was supposed to start digging in Lawrence, his truck refused to start, and has refused to start ever since.

Having negotiated the job for Calvin, I felt somewhat responsible for seeing that he could get there, so I drove him to work in Lawrence. Once there, the responsibilities of Geezerhood demanded of me that I supervise the process. So, I ended up supervising two teenagers, Calvin and Charles, the owners son, as they dug a hole under the floor.

First we had to cut a hole in the floor to give us access to the area where we wanted to dig. Then we dug. We dug through wet, black, smelly mud with numerous rocks and pieces of concrete scattered through it until, late in the day, we found the sewer pipe.

Once we found the pipe we had to start digging along it until we found the break. We cut a second hole in the floor and continued to dig. Then we found the end of the pipe. Not a break, the pipe just ended. Now, this was a real problem, and, considering the stuff we had on our hands we couldn't really engage in any head-scratching. It was then that the nincompoop owner told us, “Oh, yes, I remember someone saying that there were two pipes, one of them disconnected.” We continued to dig.

Late the second day we found a second pipe. We started clearing around it, searching for the break. We dug for a third day, following the pipe and searching for the break. Late in the fourth day, we found the break, a place where the soil had evidently settled suddenly after a half century or more, and separated the sewer line. We called the plumber. At this point the hole was about ten feet long, two to three feet wide, and four to five feet deep. Every bit of mud and rock had been loaded into a bucket and then carried out and dumped in the back yard as we dug. Calvin and Charles had performed admirably. Only young men would do that kind of stuff. Somehow, I think that one of the great underpinnings of society is the young male's capacity for stupid perseverance.

Each day Calvin and Charles accumulated a great deal of muck upon their persons. Charles, who has an active social life, attracted several pretty, clean, high school girls to come visit him at his job. They looked at Charles smeared with muck, sniffed the odor, and left giggling internally; being seniors, they were too dignified to giggle externally. Nice girls, and cute, too. I was pleased to notice that Charles has become sufficiently mature to recognize that all publicity is good publicity.

While Calvin and Charles toiled I spent the days supervising, which meant occasionally reassuring them that they were doing the right thing. The rest of the time I enjoyed the office. These folks are professionals and have a fine collection of tools and toys along with a pleasant atmosphere of dedication. Among other projects, they are working on a coloring book about minnow hugging.

After five days of digging, the plumber came and replaced the broken pipe. The next step is to start filling buckets with muck from the pile in the back yard, carry them inside, and dump it back into the hole. Although it has rained on the muck in the back yard, I don't think that it has washed out the smell, so another source of fill might be needed.

It's been a fun project. Supervising two teenage boys in a job which results in them being coated head to toe in black, smelly muck is a dream job for a geezer.


Turkey Poults Attempt Mass Suicide

We have all heard those stories about how stupid turkeys can be. “Turkeys will stand in the rain with their beaks pointed up and drown.” The turkey poults didn't do anything that stupid, but it was almost as bad. While there was a gentle rain going on in Lawrence, where I was supervising hole digging, slightly over three inches of rain crashed down upon the turkey poults.

Turkeys do not like to go into buildings. It's just one of their idiosyncrasies. The poults have a nice, new house with an attached yard. Instead of going inside when the rain hit, they stayed in the yard. When I came home five of the seven poults were unconscious and near death. Two of them recovered, so there are now four turkey poults instead of seven.

Anyone who has kept turkeys will be impressed by how quickly they learn, generally. There are just some things that they don't learn, like to go in out of the rain.

Worm and Other Problems

Last week my computer came down with a virus known as worm.Kalel.B@mm, not a nice thing. It is now repaired and full service is restored. Some mail and last week's blog posting might have been missing, but all is now back to wonderful, I hope. This note is being written on Saturday night, a few hours after I was finally able to remove the worm.

The worm entered my computer because I opened an attachment to an email that I thought was from the system administrator. I was being stupid, he lives only a half mile north of here, I could have called him before opening the attachment.

That same system administrator, bless his pointed head, had the FarmNews@GeezerNet.com mailbox pointed somewhere strange, so that I wasn't receiving mail from readers. That, also, is now repaired.




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Farm News 06-26-05

Sunday morning, after chores

Thanksgiving Quits at Seven

After incubating the remaining eggs for an extra week, Thanksgiving decided it was time to start eating regularly again. She went back to her nest a few times, but after a couple of days abandoned it. I might put her on a high protein feed and see if she will start laying again, but seven little turkeys is probably enough for one year.

The poults are doing fine, eating and growing. Thanksgiving seems to have lost interest in them, which is fine with me. I'm a better mother than she is, unless the electricity goes off. We had a two hour outage on Tuesday but the temperature was in the 90's so the poults didn't chill.

Their wing feathers are growing out but I still can't tell what colors they are. Half of them should be Blue Slates, one fourth pale blue, and one fourth bronze, according to what I have read. Thanksgiving's poults don't look like they are going to turn out that way. Two of them look like they will be black and two look white, the remaining three are blue.

They are starting to come out of their house, now, and explore their run. Hyperactive Trusty watches them closely, wagging his tail and barking occasionally, which tends to make them think they should stay inside. They'll realize soon enough that he's harmless.

Mockingbirds

Mockingbirds are sort of sparse around here. Driving down the road, I see a Mockingbird about once every five miles. Each winter a single Mockingbird, a hen I suspect, winters at our feeder, which features a year-round water supply. I suppose I could raise a box of meal worms every year, freeze them, and then feed them in the winter, which might make her happy, but I doubt if it would induce her to sing for her supper.

The Web, which is able to cater to every bizarre taste imaginable, is home to a Yahoo! Group called Turkchatter. This group is primarily composed of old hippies who now raise heritage breeds of turkeys. One member, Julie, now practices animal rescue and has nursed and released a great many wild animals, according to her dispatches to Turkchatter. From Turkchatter, I plagiarized and distorted the following message from Julie, subject 'In celebration of my birthday...':

Some folks blow out candles, I release birds....

This morning, before I came to work I turned the Three Stooges (my fostered mockingbirds) loose for their first day of freedom. I've had these little monsters since they were blind and featherless, so successfully raising all three through to release was a great thing.

The boldest one of the group flew out to the trees over my chicken pens and called his siblings. He came back and forth for "just one more bite of breakfast worms" several times.

The two more timid hopped up on top of their cage and promptly turned around and gaped for food from me. It's been more than two months since these birds have been hand-fed, but they never miss a chance to beg. The twosome were still hopping around on top of the cage, investigating the wisteria and going back into the cage for a snack when I left.

Their cage will stand open with food in it as long as they keep coming back. If they return there to roost, I'll close it at night to protect them from predators.

An adult mockingbird called to them from her roost. As I pulled out of the driveway, the bold one was sitting on top of our house antenna alongside the adult mockingbird, begging to be fed. The adult promptly punted her off her roost.

I got some pics - I'll post later today....

:)julie

Turkey Poult Has Adventure

Thursday evening there were only six poults in the brooder house. I looked carefully and, sure enough, there was a little low spot where an agile small bird could squirm under the edge to freedom. One of the poults, now named 'Squirm', had escaped confinement and was free in the barnyard.

Squirm is one of two poults with jet black bodies and bright yellow heads, just like the Yellow Headed Blackbird. I don't know what they will look like as adults, but it seems they will be black. The Blue Slate color is the result of the influence of several genes, perhaps four, but the exact genetics of the color is still a matter of further research. It is interesting that docility, a behavioral component, is so closely associated with the color. Anyway, none of the stuff I have read about Blue Slate genetics predicted black poults from a Blue Slate x Blue Slate breeding.

Calvin and I searched all over, with much non-help from Trusty, but found no trace of the poult. The sun went down and we finally gave up our search. We were both a bit sad as I took Calvin home.

Friday morning, while doing chores, I saw a black streak flash across the barnyard. Squirm had survived the night! Squirm is just the size to be able to run straight through a 2”x4” welded wire fence without breaking stride, an ability which can help make a young poult very difficult to catch in an area fenced and cross fenced with such wire. Squirm went through, I went around; Squirm showed no signs of docility.

Another Woman Writes

'M', D.V.M., my heart surgeon, has felt the urge to write again, also. My heart surgeon is a D.V.M. because when I last had heart surgery the M.D. did it with his new backhoe. Vets are more concerned with reducing patient stress than are M.D. surgeons. Good vets are gentle and wouldn't think of doing surgery with a backhoe.

When 'M' was a first year vet student I contacted her and asked her if she would do any future heart surgery I might require. She graciously (and naively) agreed and has been studying hard ever since. I thought this was all pretty clever of me, a little flattery and I get a good heart surgeon for a hell of a lot less than an M.D. would cost.

Like a good student vet, 'M' has been attending the local livestock sale, in this case in Athens, Georgia.

The Sale Barn

“Engine engine number nine, coming down the Chicago line. If the train goes off its track, do you want your money back?”

This cadence from Roger Miller is the base for the auctioneer’s call. Start slowly, then pick up speed, then insert a syllable or doubletime for each word. Then add cattle, cattlemen, money, and chewing tobacco and you have yourself an auction.

All types of animals are sold at livestock auctions, the local one here in Athens runs on Wednesdays. The day starts with small livestock like goats and chickens in the morning and progresses to cows in the afternoon. The building itself is built like an amphitheater with spectator looking down on the animal in the pen in front.

The pen where the animals are shown has an entrance chute to a small ring where the animal runs, and then an exit chute. The animal is weighed while it queues to enter the ring, with the weight broadcast on TV’s above the ring. There are workers auctioning the chute and harassing the cattle to keep moving so buyers may check gait. The animal is released into the ring, and then runs around a bit while she’s auctioned. If it is a cow/calf pair, the cow will be auctioned first, and then the calf will come into the ring and the two will be auctioned together to see if they bring a higher price. If not, the calf is sold separately and weaned from his mother that day, thus giving him the appellation “bucket calf”.

Weaning is the most stressful time in calf’s life, with transport and mixing at a sale barn close behind. So, take a group of calves, most of whom have not been vaccinated, put them in a truck on a hot day, bring to sale barn and put them in a holding pen with one hundred other calves with an unknown history and sell. Wait 7 to 10 days and voila! Drooling, coughing, honking calves. For those of us without children, this rather sounds like what happens in schools and daycare.

Now here is a good reason to quit spending so much money on education. Schools are distribution centers for disease organisms so shutting them down would be good for the public health.



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