Farm News 06-25-06

Sunday morning, after chores, 66°

Ducks

There are three groups of ducks, currently. This winter they will merge into one, but for now they are divided by age. The oldest group has three drakes and used to have three hens, but I haven't seen all three of them for some time. Tuesday, Trusty, the enthusiastic dog, showed up with a dead baby duck, but he couldn't tell me where he found it. I'm guessing that one of the missing ducks has hatched a clutch of eggs somewhere, but where, I don't know.

When ducks are allowed to run loose with newly hatched babies they immediately lead them into the tall grass and weeds, where only hawks, cats, dogs, coyotes, opossums, and raccoons can find them. Notice that mother ducks are not in the list of animals that can find the babies. The fatality rate is usually around 50% in the first 24 hours.

If there is a pond nearby the babies will often go swimming. As adults the runner type ducks I keep don't care to swim, but the babies like to play in the water. In Kansas, most ponds have a resident snapping turtle or two who love to grab baby ducks by their little feet and take them home for lunch.

Ting Chronicles: Another Shot at Motherhood


During her last attempt at becoming a mother Ting arranged her eggs in a long line. The egg at the east end of the line was difficult to reach and I never put it on the compost pile. After Ting grew tired of setting on eggs a duck came along and left one egg close to the same place. I've been looking at those two eggs and thinking I needed to get them out of there before they became smelly.

Ting has decided that those two eggs offer her another chance at motherhood. The chicken egg is certainly rotten and the duck egg is probably not much better, but Ting is going to exercise her maternal instincts on them. One might suspect that Ting has simply found an excuse to sit around doing nothing, but Ting has never needed an excuse to be lazy in the past.

Polish Crested hens, like Ting, have what looks a lot like big hair. Drakes, male ducks, have very free-wheeling attitudes about sex, modeling much of their behavior in the style of cave men. So it happened that I had the good fortune to observe a drake grab Ting by her big hair, pull her off her nest, and then launch a sexual attack upon her right in the middle of the barn. Those drakes have some real testosterone.

Ting was, of course, extremely indignant and expressed her feelings by repeatedly pecking my shoes and ankles.

Immigration Ignorance Sweeps the Nation

Maria's son, Juan, is a legal immigrant and now is a citizen. When Maria was 68 she came to the US on a tourist visa to visit her son and grandchildren, all US citizens. Juan and his wife were very worried about Maria's health and asked her to stay in the US and live with them. Maria is now 73 and has been an illegal immigrant for five years. Should we label Maria a felon and send her to prison?

Sam's parents illegally entered the US when Sam was two years old. They are still here and Sam will graduate from high school next year. Is Sam a felon because his mother carried him across the border when he was two? Will that prevent him from enlisting in the Marines when he graduates?

Anna came to the US as an exchange student when she was 17 and then graduated from a US high school. She fell in love while here and married a US citizen shortly after graduation. She now has a daughter who was born in the US. What is Anna's status?

Illegal immigrants are just like other people: about 95% of them are decent, hard working, nice people. The other 5% are jerks of one sort or another. Most of the “get tough” talk about stopping illegal immigration assumes that those percentages are reversed, that 95% are jerks and 5% are decent.

We could build a 20 foot high wall along our southern border and it would slow down the illegal crossings. Or, we could put heavy pressure on the Mexican government to end corruption and stimulate small entrepreneurs and probably reduce illegal crossings by the same amount or more. The world is flat, and we can not rely on tight border controls to preserve our way of life; instead we must recognize that opening the borders to trade, capital, and workers is a better strategy for the 21st century.

Sunday morning, after chores, 67°, 0.7” rain last night



The Importance of Mulch

Chickens are wonderful mulch makers. A dozen hens can reduce a big round bale of hay to fluff in two months. As they scratch in it they tear long stems into short pieces that are easy to move and stay fluffy in the garden. I seldom eat eggs any more but I keep chickens anyway so they can prepare mulch.

Not very many weeds can come up through a six inch deep layer of mulch. It collects rain and releases the water slowly into the soil. It moderates soil temperature swings, keeping it cool in the daytime and warm at night. As it is broken down by soil micro-organisms it adds nutrients and organic matter to the soil. Mulch is good stuff.

This year the chickens have worked over three big round bales and Paula has moved all the resulting mulch to the garden. The bales weighed about 800 pounds each when we gave them to the chickens and I have no way to estimate what the weight was when the chickens finished. Paula moved a lot of cartloads.


Dr. M. is Learning to be a Soldier

Dr. M. has survived the first week of Officer Basic and is learning how to be a soldier. She sent this note with lessons she has learned in the first week.

Lessons:

Always carry water with you

Drink juice with electrolytes not just sugar, and have you ever seen a bright blue fruit? No, didn’t think so, so don’t drink it

Stand at attention when the company commander, the brigade commander, and the battalion commander walk in. Sound off like you have an idea what’s going on. Sit when they tell you and look like you are mesmerized when they tell you to drink water.

Salute your superiors and ask your sergeant what’s the true deal when they leave.

Take your hair out of your bun as soon as you can at night, this allows it to dry from your morning shower.

Officers with 2 days in the Army should not speak to Privates past “Good Morning”. It confuses both parties as the Private generally has much more Army experience yet is probably 18.

When the Colonel offers you cake, even if you are on the “Healthy Choice” plan, take it.

Assume that when you are put in a leadership position in a training situation, they are never going to give you all the information you need. Develop psychic power to figure out what your superiors are really asking.

Never, but NEVER, form up facing the General’s building. You might never stop saluting.

Find the sergeant who likes young officers and listen to him. He’ll never lead you wrong.

Computers

I have been working all week on a computer that belongs to a nice little old lady. Actually, she's younger than I am and she's normal sized. Her computer has been a nightmare.

You know, there are some people who think it is clever to walk down the street scratching the paint on the cars along the way. Vandals. Well, computers are equal opportunity tools for all kinds of vandals, and the internet gives them global scope for their destructive tricks. The malicious software that attacks a computer in Jefferson County, Kansas, might have originated in Morocco.

If we instituted the death penalty for all acts of vandalism, we might be able to weed out the genes that code for vandals in 10,000 years or so. Most vandalism seems to be done by young people, so we might just put all the young people in jail and keep them there until they are middle-aged. Of course, we're trying that in this country with young black men and, so far, we haven't even been able to teach them to pull their pants up and put their hats on forward.

Vandalism is one of those problems that doesn't seem to respond to law enforcement solutions. We want to kick their butts around the courthouse square but that won't make them stop, it will just make them more secretive. Like domestic violence, prostitution, pornography, gambling, and drug abuse, preventive measures for reducing the amount of vandalism in a society are most likely to be found using the public health tools of the epidemiologists.

Farm News 06-11-06

Sunday morning, after chores, 69°



Flowers

A volunteer Shasta Daisy, Chrysanthemum x. superbum, is blooming in the oak grove. The original two clumps died out last year and this is the first volunteer to appear. It's a bit leggy but, still, a cheerful white daisy growing under a Buckeye, Aeschylus glabra.

The Ozark Sundrops, Oenothera missouriensis, are looking great. All the original plantings have died out but their offspring are doing fine. The volunteer seedlings are all in the gravel walk around the west side of the house. When you see them in the wild they are usually growing on a south facing highway cut, bright yellow flowers bursting out of the rocks and gravel.

Plains Coreopsis, Coreopsis tinctoria, is a common native plant with nice yellow daisy-like flowers. There are quite a few named varieties available in colors ranging from pale yellow to brown. They self-sow and come up reliably every year. If the winter isn't too severe they will winter over, also. I've never tried to count them, but there are hundreds of Coreopsis plants now blooming on the place. The flower heads can be used to make a yellow dye.

A nice plant sometimes known as Althea zebrina or Alcia zebrina, with no common name I know, is blooming. The plants are about three feet tall and the flowers are one or two inch pink Hollyhock types. Whatever it is, it's nice, reseeds freely, but isn't fragrant.

The Bown-eyed Susans, Rudbeckia hirta, are starting to bloom. There have always been a lot of them native on the place, but we also have planted some of named varieties most years. The fancy ones cross-pollinate with the wild ones and we end up with a nice wildflower display.

The Sarvis berries, Amelanchier canadensis, are ripe and delicious. Why don't more people grow them, I wonder? The flowers are nice, the foliage okay, the fruit is excellent, and they are hardy and disease free.

The mulberries, Morus rubra, are starting to ripen. So far they are small and not very sweet, except for one tree on which they are very small and exceptionally sweet. Usually, the best are the white ones that grow on a tree by Fort Pedroja, but the squirrels steal most of those. Rodents are all thieves.

There are three species of mulberries, commonly called black, red, and white. The red species can have either purple or white fruits or maybe red, also. The black and white are both asian species. The black is not dependably hardy in our winters and has black fruit. The white can have white, pink, or purple fruit. Some mulberries are males and have no fruit, some are both male and female and self-pollinating, and some are female. The weeping mulberry is a clone of a white male, usually grafted onto the top of a white seedling.


Dr. M. Becomes a Soldier

A new Captain’s first Memorial Day Parade

It started when my next door neighbor asked if I would carry the Army flag as part of the color guard in the town’s Memorial Day parade

Your left, your left, your left right left

I showed up, in uniform, on Monday morning and met the local National Guard Unit, also marching.

Your left, your left, your left right left

I helped the Coast Guard Petty Officer put on his strap to hold his flag. I put on mine. The Petty Officer and I reported to the Color Guard Sergeant.

Your left, your left, your left right left

We greeted each other. Marine Sergeants who had fought in Vietnam, an Air Force Sergeant Major on the brink of retirement, a Navy Petty Officer who had fought in the Gulf of Tonkin, and me, the new Captain.

The Marine color sergeant accepted command from the ranking sergeant in the parade and called us to order.

Here is where we depart from real parade. In a real parade (though I’ve yet to be in one) I think that the sergeant has us all step off together. Then, we march together. This isn’t quite what happened at this parade.

“Right shoulder arms, Right shoulder arms!!!!” Well, ok, that didn’t mean anything to me until AFTER the parade when I read the parade and dress manual given to me upon my commissioning. So, my bad, we were not right shoulder to right shoulder.

But, then, we passed the judges stand. And we kept marching

Your left, your left, your left, right left

And before me was the color guard of every Army Unit. The Colors have marched everywhere the Army has been. In Iraq, in the Gulf, in Panama, in Vietnam, in Korea, in France, in the Philippines, all the way back, through all of our wars. Through sergeants that fell to German guns, to English shot. And still we march.

Your left, your left, your left right left

Purple Poop Season

With the ripening of the mulberries we enter the Time of Purple Duck Poop. Ducks like mulberries, eat a lot of them, and leave the traces everywhere. There are purple splotches all over the lawn and the barn yard. When not eating mulberries, they like to play in the water, so the area surrounding the duck watering pans is almost solid purple.

When a hen duck goes broody, starts setting on eggs, she become seriously anal retentive in both figurative and literal senses. Once or twice a day she will leave her nest to eat and drink. She will tidy up the nest area, move off the nest, and then drop some bedding and such over the eggs to cover them. Then she walks away. At about three feet from the nest she sets up an incessant quacking which continues for another ten feet or so.

That is generally about when she defecates. She has been sitting there for twelve or more hours, during which time her unpooped poop has been accumulating and becoming stronger and stronger in aroma. When she cuts loose she ejects a stream of poop that jets out three or four feet and spreads an aroma you can smell a considerable distance upwind.

At this time of the year, when mulberries ripen and fall from the trees to where the ducks can find them, that long jet of smelly duck poop is deep purple in color. The total sensory impact is of such strength that it could overwhelm someone of delicate sensitivities. Of course, people with delicate sensitivities seldom consort with ducks.

Captain Wichita, an infamous resident of Wichita, Kansas, known mostly for being caught in compromising sexual congress with a duck in a city park, would undoubtedly have changed his choice of partners if he had ever encountered a broody hen duck during mulberry season. As it was, he was arrested for damaging city property (the duck) and sentenced to the maximum term for that offense, during which time his romantic opportunities were presumably more limited.


Book Review

Telegraph Days by Larry McMurtry

Liar's Moon by Phillip Kimball

Telegraph Days is an fine example of McMurtry's style: earthy and fun. The story is told from the viewpoint of Nellie Courtright, a woman who likes to kiss and copulate with cowboys. The book follows her adventures from being the telegrapher in Rita Blanca to her later years when she is rich and famous. The book will probably sell millions of copies.

Liar's Moon, on the other hand, will probably never sell a million copies, but I think it is a much better book. McMurtry's books make you chuckle as you read them. Kimball's books make you chuckle for years after you read them.

Both books describe the first moments after very dangerous events. In Telegraph Days, “We weren't dead—none of us—and yet death had come so close that it took a while for us to accept that we were still alive. Even Beau Wheless was silenced for a time. How could it be that we were really spared?”

In Liar's Moon, “The other side of danger, an exuberant, awful certainty: the world, a complex contraption, operates not to slake human desire but from immaculate necessity, and our small consciousness a wondrous but transitory and superfluous attribute of its unspinning. I remember once attempting to preach a sermon to that effect anyway back in Tonganoxie. The congregation took it into their heads to run me out of town on a rail.”

Do you see what I mean?


Let Us All Protect Marriage

As we all should know by now, activist judges are threatening the institution of marriage by allowing queers to marry each other. This is dangerous to the flag and all it stands for, not to mention what it sits and lies down for. It is time to call upon our leaders to protect marriage from these activist judges.

Activist judges are responsible for children of different races being forced to attend the same schools and eat in the cafeterias together. Activist judges are responsible for allowing inferior people to vote. Activist judges have taken the Ten Commandments out of the classroom. And now, activist judges are threatening the sacred institution of marriage.

We need to protect our families and our nation from these activist judges. We need a constitutional amendment.

First, as the President has said, we need to prevent people of the same sex from marrying. Marriage should take place only between a man and a woman. The best way to assure that some sort of sneaky cross dressing is not used to dupe the clergy conducting a wedding, nude weddings should be encouraged.

But what about the people who marry five or six times with members of any sex. To stop this debasement of marriage we should prevent any two people whose pictures have appeared in People magazine from marrying. Those people in People are almost always without morals or appreciation for the sanctity of marriage. They are slaves to their lusts and without any redeeming social value. Some of them have been married as many as seven times, repeatedly satisfying their base desires under the holy sacrament of marriage. By relying on People to identify those whose musical bed games threaten the institution of marriage, we privatize a task that the government bureaucrats should not be trusted to carry out.

All of us have observed the benefits of the “three strikes and out” laws. Criminals are being removed from the streets and prison guards are gaining lifetime employment. The same rule should apply to marriage: a person should be allowed to marry no more than three times.

Our nation is in danger! Pat Robertson, a noted representative of God, has told us that God will cause hurricanes and tornadoes which will kill 7.4 children for every queer couple that marries, and 3.6 children for every marriage in which one partner has been involved in three or more previous marriages. Do you realize Elizabeth Taylor is therefore responsible for 13.4 children's deaths? And, don't forget, four queers becoming two married couples could cause 14.8 child deaths. We cannot allow this to happen. If you are ready to help save marriage, click on God Hates Fags.


Vacation

I'm hoping to take a vacation in July. The plan is to drive to Portland, Oregon, pick up my grandson, and drive back home with him. I'll take the most direct route to Portland, but the return trip will be more circuitous, following some of the Lewis and Clark path through Idaho and Montana.

Farm News will not be published while we are on the road, the last half of July.


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Farm News 06-04-06

Sunday morning, after chores, 65°


Turkeys

Tuesday I sold Blue, my only remaining turkey hen. Blue is a nice turkey, friendly and with a sober disposition, but I have decided to give up on turkeys. The problem is coyotes, Canis Latrans. Coyotes know all about turkeys: they know the scent, they recognize the shape of a turkey, and they like to eat them. Coyotes ate Christmas and Thanksgiving, my first two turkeys, and they ate Blue's sisters, Blanche and Little Blue.

Guy Noir, the tom turkey, is one of the most annoying animals I have ever kept and he is sterile, making him useless for his only function. I hope to put him in the freezer soon, ending the turkey flock.

Some Days

Some days the words won't move from fingertips to screen. This has been a week of those days. The bunnies are doing fine, the baby goats are playing in the pasture, the ducks are growing. More news next week.