Farm News 12-31-06

Sunday morning, after chores, 41°


Too Many Rabbits

Christmas morning when I went out to do chores, the five young rabbits in the rearing pen were all chasing each other around and around in the pen. This was typical behavior for sexually maturing mammals confined in small spaces with more than one individual of each sex. There was a slight glow of rabbit hormones surrounding the cage. It was time to do something about that. Left confined like that, there would surely be injured rabbits within a few weeks. Calvin came to the rescue and butchered three of them.

Brownie presented a special problem. I had kept Brownie and raised her to adulthood in the desire to use her as a brood doe. Alas, she shows no desire whatever to mate with Buck, and remains a barren virgin. According to people who care about such things, barren virgins make the best kind of martyrs, so she can go into the freezer knowing that she is in the company of martyrs. It would be nice to think that male suicide bombers go to paradise and receive the reward of 24 virgin rabbits.

More Humans

One of the interesting things that can happen to 70 year old men is that they might find occasion to say, “My daughter is pregnant.” Seventeen years ago I could have said the same of my son's wife. What a terrible moral dilemma this situation poses. I strongly desire grandchildren, yes, but I also complain constantly about there being entirely too many humans on the planet. So, I grumbled when my daughter waited until the age of __ (left blank in the interest of self protection) to provide me with a new grandchild, and I grumble that all the new neighbors have pole lights that make it more difficult to see the stars. There are too many people and not enough of them are my grandchildren, that is the problem.

Ad Astra

When I look up at the sky at night the first thing I think of (after sex in space, of course) is how much man-made stuff is whirling around up there. According to NASA, there are tens of millions of pieces smaller than 1 cm., and about 100,000 between 1 cm. and 10 cm. Everything bigger than 10 cm., about 8,000 objects, is tracked by the Space Surveillance Network. How reassuring.

What is the use of having all that stuff wandering around up there? There should be some plan for gathering it up in junk piles. It cost billions of dollars to get that stuff up there, about $8,000 per pound, I think, and we should think seriously about how to recycle it in space instead of letting it slowly drift down into the atmosphere. If the price of aluminum on earth went to $8,000 per pound you sure wouldn't see empty pop cans littering the roadsides.

If humans are going to explore space, then many of the explorers will have to be the sort of people who can dive into a junk pile and come back out with the parts to make a thing-a-ma-jig that will save the mission. Engineers are supposed to foresee and forestall unexpected needs for a thing-a-ma-jig to save the mission, but, if the Intelligent Designer didn't foresee and forestall genetic errors like Muscular Dystrophy, then how could we expect mere mortal engineers to do foresee and forestall all of the various possible situations which might require the need of a thing-a-ma-jig to save the mission?

The motto of the state of Kansas is Ad Astra per Aspera, which very roughly translates to, “After you plow this field with a horse you will have walked far enough to get to the stars.” There is a statue of an Indian with bow and arrow, the arrow pointing up to someplace southeast of Polaris, standing atop the dome of the Kansas Capital building. The statue is named Ad Astra, appropriately enough, and is the result of close to a century of arguing about what should be up there. All of which shows that one can plow many fields with a horse in less time than it takes the Legislature to agree to hoist a bronze Indian to the top of the Capital building.

Farm News 12-24-06

Sunday morning, after chores, 29°


Bah! Humbug!

If Christians were truly kind and considerate people they wouldn't assault our ears with such annoyances as Little Drummer Boy, rum-ti-tum-tum. I don't care how much rum I put in my tum, Little Drummer Boy remains annoying. And how are we supposed to fill our hearts with joy and love when Alvin and the Chipmunks are squeaking about love and joy? Someone should feed those damned chipmunks to the cat, kick the drummer boy down the stairs, and fill the drum with rum.


Reaching the Summit: Texaco Hill

At 1,647 feet high, the summit of Texaco Hill rolls up and above the surrounding valleys, draws, and gullies in the Flint Hills of Kansas. Fortunately, the climbing routes are not difficult to find, and there have not been any climbers lost on the hill in recent memory. The link to Texaco Hill, by the way, leads to a photograph by John Charlton, a reader. John did the photography for Roadside Kansas, a book I usually carry with me when traveling Kansas highways.

Jeannette and I eschewed climbing gear and used nothing more than a Honda Accord to reach the summit. When we finally reached the top we stood there, breathing hard in the thin air, while the Honda's radiator started boiling. I roundly cursed it, but it still boiled, and I could hear it saying, “If Janet Jackson could survive a wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl, you can survive a radiator malfunction on top of Texaco Hill.”

Texaco Hill is home to one of the many small oil fields dotting the Flint Hills. There are maybe 10 oil wells in sight, a pair of storage tanks, and 10 or more old building foundations. My guess is that there used to be an oil town up there, much like the mining camps found in south-east Kansas. The foundations are all that is left, but several of those foundations will probably last for centuries, especially the two we found that included tornado shelters.

The wells, topped with 'nodding donkeys', walking beam pump heads, were all powered by newer versions of the old hit-or-miss pump engines. The engines are dominated by a pair of flywheels, one on each side. First made in the early 1900s, they would run on kerosene, diesel fuel, or just about anything else that is liquid and will burn. Many of the ones in use in oil fields ran on what is called 'casing head gas', an oil well by-product that somewhat resembles gasoline. When I was 15 years old my 1929 Model 'A' Ford ran most of the time on casing head gas because it was free. All I had to do was drive to the nearest crude oil storage tank and drain off some, I carried a small bucket for the purpose, and then pour it into the Ford's tank. A Honda would probably curl up and die if you tried to feed it casing head gas.

There were no cattle in sight. A great deal of the Flint Hills is used only for summer pasture. In the Spring cattle trucks haul in skinny calves from Texas and in the fall the cattle trucks haul out grass-fat steers. Most of the migrating birds had already passed through, so there were no animals in the view, only plants, mostly grasses.

They're called the Flint Hills, but these aren't mounds that were pushed up, they are the remains of a flat sea bottom etched and eroded by waterways. The horizon isn't a series of bumps, it is a series of horizontal lines. Rachel Sudlow, an artist in Lawrence, has done a series of photographs of the Flint hills taken looking over the backs of cows. The variations in the two horizons, the back of the cow and the edge of the hills, help make some interesting pictures.

After the radiator had cooled a bit we restarted the not-trusty Honda and went on our way, finally coming out of the hills and rolling into Olpe (pronounced Ol-pee). After putting a little more than a gallon of water into the Honda's radiator, the cooling system functioned properly for the rest of the trip.


Theme for the Year

When I reached the age of 69 I decided to call it my 'queer year' and to spend the year ranting about discrimination based on sexual preferences. Now that I'm 70 I need to decide on a new theme. It isn't that any great progress has been made on discrimination against homosexuals, people who like to loudly proclaim themselves to be Christians, Muslims, or Jews are still trying to tell us that if two women marry each other then traditional man-woman (or is it woman-man?) marriages will be destroyed. Those self-anointed ones aren't just wrong-headed, they are liars, and preaching at them won't make them any more honest, nor does their preaching make same-sex marriages a threat to society.

Why am I concerned with gay rights? I am a 70 year old heterosexual male with iatrogenic Bob Dole Disease, happily married to a woman, so how do gay rights issues affect me? Well, many Americans don't think so, but the fact is that we are each individually morally responsible for the acts of our government. That's the nature of a democracy. We either agree to go along with the government or we enter into rebellion. Although I am not quite ready to enter into open rebellion, I am outraged that the people of Kansas followed such trash as Fred Phelps and Terry Fox and passed a constitutional amendment that is both ugly and discriminatory.

However, it is time to put my outrage aside and follow a new theme. At the birthday open house on Sunday, my 93 year old aunt, the oldest person bearing the same surname as I, gave me a night sky calendar. I took it as an imperative from the occult to choose the stars as the next theme. Should I devote a year to learning the names of constellations and the stars forming them? I hope, of course, that I will continue to explore Kansas for many more years.

Farm News 12-17-06

Sunday morning, after chores, 46°

Sally and the Geese

Sally is a nice young goat, Lucy's daughter, born late last winter. She is what horse people call a 'bay', dark mahogany brown body with black stockings, black tail, and a black strip down her neck. What differentiates her from a bay horse is that she has long, floppy, silver ears. She is currently about three months pregnant, which, her being a goat, means she has about two months left before she kids. Currently she is very round, sleek, and as pretty as a young goat can be.

When Sally was still a tiny baby her mother used to park her near the nest of Beth, the oldest of the female geese. Beth is quite congenial for a goose and didn't seem to object to baby sitting. Now that she is almost grown, Sally still likes geese, likes them a lot, in fact.

The pasture is chewed down to almost nothing. The goats have plenty of hay, and geese will eat a little hay, but geese mostly want green grass. So, I decided to turn the geese out during the day and let them graze on the lawn, where there is still plenty of nice green grass.

Sally decided to join them. That blasted goat has figured out that it is safe to go through an electric fence as long as no foot touches the ground. She picks her spot and then leaps between the wires, often brushing the top wire with her back, and receiving no shock because she isn't grounded. Once out, she joins her goose friends and they all have a merry time eating grass. At least the geese eat grass; Sally is currently in the process of eating all the catkins on the Contorted Filbert, my favorite small tree.

It appears that the only way to keep Sally in the pasture is to improve the fence. The standard farmer joke is that pigs require water-tight fencing and for goats it must be air-tight as well. Ordinary field fencing, the kind that has six inch or so squares, doesn't work well for goats because they stick their heads through the fence; like all grazers they think the grass on the other side is greener and, like most horned animals, once they stick their heads through they can't get them out again. The solution is to use field fencing and two hot wires. The upper hot wire runs about ten inches above the top of the field fencing and the other is mounted on stand-offs about a foot above the ground and six inches into the pasture from the field fence. The upper wire discourages them from jumping and the lower one discourages them from sticking their heads through the field fencing.

Electric fences also discourage dogs. Most dogs, in fact, having once been bit, will never again approach an electric fence. Goats, on the other hand, will be escaping within two weeks after a fence is turned off. Sally has now taken the next step, she is 'fence-smart'; she knows more about how to deal with a fence than a goat should.

It is time to take the first step in building the new fence: hire a teenager to do the work.

Bunnies

Suzette's bunnies began coming out of the nest box on Thursday. They don't seem to be too good at getting back in the nest box, yet, but that will quickly improve.

A Reader Writes


The weirdo who always uses red print centered on the line has written again, this time on Zeno's paradox.

In discussing Zeno's paradox in a math

class, our math professor mentioned that

while, in Theory, the athlete would never cross

the finish line, he would be close enough "for all

practical purposes," and as another example of the

concept, asked the students to imagine that all the boys

in class would line up against one wall, and the girls against

the opposite wall, and at each signal, the girls and boys would

half the distance between them; and while, theoretically, they would

never actually 'meet,' within a relatively few number of moves, they would

be "close enough for all practical purposes."

Blogger doesn't let me retain the centering and red print. Too bad.

To subscribe, unsubscribe, contribute stories, complain or send a gift subscription, send an email to FarmNews@GeezerNet.com . The editor reserves the right to steal ideas submitted, rewrite submissions, and sign false names to them whenever it strikes his fancy to do so.

Farm News 12-10-06

Sunday morning, after chores, 42°


A Reader Writes

From my beloved spouse:

The Geezer will be observing his 70th birthday on December 19th. In honor of the great event, I would like to invite everyone to come by on Sunday, the 17th, from 2-4:00 pm.


Bring a good story if you can remember one! There will be soup, bread, and cake 'til it runs out. It's also a chance to play with the newest baby bunnies.


Paula.

Isn't that nice? Cake and baby bunnies. Alcoholic beverages of all sorts will be gladly accepted as tokens of respect for my age and wisdom. Please don't bring pets.

The address is 12233 K-92 Hwy. The little green '9' mile marker is on the south side of the road, about 50' east of the drive. K-92 begins 9 miles west of here, where it comes off K-4.

US-59 north from Lawrence will take you to Oskaloosa, eventually, where you turn west on K-92, (try to stop and purchase something is Oskaloosa, please) drive through historic downtown Oskaloosa, past Paula's Library, and about three miles west on K-92. Our drive is the first drive west of Marion Road on K-92 on the south side.

Bunnies


As noted above, there are baby bunnies in the rabbitry. Suzette's nine did not yet have round eyes by Saturday, but they did have well-arched slits of eye showing. I don't think they can see a thing. They are in the nest box, covered in fur, except when I pull one out to look it over and tell it a story or something. Their visual environment is either a white glow or no glow, depending on time of day. Why should they be able to see? They will need experience in looking at things before they can see. It looks like an infinite regression problem, like the chicken and egg.

Zeno's paradox is an example of an infinite regression problem. Some poor Greek athlete, running without a jock strap, is trying to win the 2 kilometer race. He runs a kilometer. Then he runs a half a kilometer. Then he runs half of the distance which he had just run. And, he is in an infinite regression. He will never reach 2 kilometers this way.

Nowadays, we have some mathematical magic called differential calculus that solves the problem neatly, allows the Greek athlete to win the race, but does nothing for the pain he suffered from not having a jock strap. So, I think that the bunnies will continue to approach the perfectly round eye, but never quite reach it. A thousand generations of breeding might greatly increase the 'roundness' of the eye, but it will never perfect it. Zeno also wins, because evolutionary races have no finish line.

Saying Sooth


Wikipedia defines soothsayer as one who says sooth, i.e. the truth. Back in the previous millenium, when I was a student of Philosophy, I was discussing with a friend, a fellow student of Philosophy, our chances of finding jobs upon graduation. We had already considered being revivalists and discarded that notion, it being repugnant to our sterling characters; had investigated the possibility of teaching in the public parks, and decided that a fate worse than Socrates's awaited those who would attempt such things in Kansas in the 1950's; and thought about smuggling meso-american art, but realized that would require too much capital up front.


What were we to do? Graduation was looming slightly over a year away and there was no demand for philosophers; a great need, yes, but no demand. We went on a creative retreat, fueling our thought processes with Southern Comfort and reefer for two days, but no solution presented itself. Changing majors was not possible: we were dedicated philosophers and could not change for mere monetary gain. We were seeking education for its own sake, desiring to enrich our futures with knowledge, not dollars.

Seeing no environment except grad school in which we could continue as philosophers, we decided to become itinerant soothsayers, instead. We walked about on campus, occasionally saying, “Sooooth,” gently, in a sweet voice. When we met somewhere, we greeted each other with, “Sooooth.” It never did catch on as a clever undergraduate thing to do, not even among our fellow students of Philosophy. At that time not many people had noticed that something was seriously wrong with American reality.

Nonetheless, we persisted. A future spent virtually unemployable loomed before us, with visions of stews cooked in cans over campfires as we traveled America, searching for a community in need of a soothsayer. They could have two for the price of one. We were marching forward in our Hush Puppies, remaining true to our ideals, saying, “Sooooth” to a meaningless world.

None of that future came to be in that manner, of course; the way it happened didn't make any difference, though; philosophers know stuff like that. We graduated and saw less and less of each other. We still greeted each other with, “Sooooth,” but slowly stopped saying it at random moments. Then my friend died when his sports car rolled over, an unusual demise for an itinerant soothsayer, and I didn't say, “Sooooth” for many years.

A few years ago I was sitting alone by the fire out in Fort Pedroja, my hangout under a large Osage Orange tree, on a cold, full moon night, drinking cheap red wine from the bottle and listening to an owl hooting down the creek. A perfect moment came along, and I said, “Sooooth.” Fifty years later, it was still pointless, silly, and soothing.

Farm News 12-03-06

Sunday morning, after chores, 21°


Suzette's Nine


The temperature has to go a long way below 20° before baby bunnies start shivering. The nest box is made of lumber and is covered with an opening in the top half of one end. It is nice and warm in there above the fur nest. Down in their nest, the little bunnies are quite cozy.

At one week old they are looking more like rabbits. Their ears are still flat down the backs of their heads and their heads still look overly large for their bodies. But, they're growing and doing well. By Tuesday they will be moving around more in the box, even, if the day is warm, adventuring out. They should have their eyes open by Thursday. Next weekend they will be cute, playful little bunnies.

Suzette is doing well. She is slightly grumpy, which is normal for her, and as round and plump as ever. She doesn't show pregnancy to any extent, and she looks about the same the day before she has bunnies as she looks the day after.

On Wednesday I'll put Brownie, a young doe who has never had babies, in with Buck to see if they will mate. If they do, then Brownie will be due around January 6, the day Suzette's are to be weaned.

Domestic rabbits seem to be superbly suited for their place in the world. Their feed is easy to store and easy to handle. They are generally calm, placid, and docile, characteristics which make caring for them quite simple. And, they produce hordes of cute little round bunnies.

Eating the surplus is a good way to recover part of the cost of raising them. Rabbit, even that raised at home, is not an inexpensive meat. I can sell them, usually for $4 or more each, at the auction center in Perry. Calvin has a friend who simply turns them loose in the fenced-in back yard. They look real cute in the yard, but they don't do well there at all.

A few bunnies can be given away to become pets in someone's house. Rabbits make fine house pets, usually. They have been domesticated for at least 2,000 generations, and probably longer, and most of their capacity for anti-social behavior has long ago been bred out. Most rabbits learn quickly where to find the litter box, and use it faithfully. They do like to chew on exposed electrical cords, though, and occasional pieces of furniture.

Anyway, if anyone would like a pet bunny, Suzette's nine will be ready to wean in four more weeks.


Tapioca!

Wednesday afternoon it cooled down considerably and we had what a neighbor called tapioca weather: showers of little pellets of ice. Thursday morning the temperature was 20° and the ground had a thin tapioca coating.

Thursday was cold compared to what we've been experiencing. The Lawrence paper had a front page photo of two postal delivery persons, one on Wednesday in shorts and the other on Thursday in fur-lined hat. It would have been another dull, boring day, except that the water lines in the barn froze, presenting an interesting set of problems. Also, Tessie found another possum in the barn, this one hiding behind the freezer where it might be hazardous to shooting.

At 8:00 pm I went out to the barn, as is usual on cold nights, to feed the stove and help keep part of the place above freezing. Mostly, the fire is pandering to the cats. Tessie started growling and barking in the northeast corner of the barn, the location of the freezer and refrigerator, so I went over to see what was bothering her. It was, as I suspected, another possum.

Is pandering to cats somehow improper or craven? I doubt it. The cats expect pandering, it seems. Pandering to cats does not seem to change their opinions or their behaviors; a cat is a cat is a cat. I once asked Dumb Brother, an older and wiser tom cat, if he really enjoyed sex, with all the screaming, screeching, and growling. He answered, “Yes, 'but I can't get no satisfaction.'” So? A cat is a cat is a human, too.

Meanwhile, back in the barn, the possum is resting safely, it may think, under the refrigerator. The refrigerator is an ordinary thing in harvest brown and probably manufactured between 1950 and 1970. It does a good job of storing cold drinks in the summer and colostrum year-round. I could tip the refrigerator partially to one side, Tessie could dart in and grab the possum, pull it out, and I could stand the refrigerator upright again. Right? Probably not.

Tessie is old; she won't drag that possum out, she'll stand there and growl at it as soon as it quits trying to escape or fight back. That would leave me standing in the barn on a cold night, holding a refrigerator at a 45° angle, hoping that the dog will get out of the way soon so I can stand the refrigerator back at the vertical and go to bed. No, that didn't seem like a good way to spend the evening.

I did not tilt the refrigerator. Instead, I told Tessie that the main battle had been postponed by headquarters, went back to a warm spot by the stove, and thought. Tessie, carrying the honor of Terriers upon her small shoulders, barked a few more times and then joined me.

The temperature dropped even more that night and the cold north wind blew. When I went out to do chores Friday morning I found that the water faucet in the barn was frozen, as was the hydrant in the back yard, near the barn. Grumbling and growling, I went to the house with two buckets and brought back to the barn enough water to give everyone a good morning drink. Then I started to begin to set about planning to repair the plumbing.

When repairing plumbing, an important early step is to hire someone to do all the work. I will be 70 years old in a few weeks, definitely past the age of active plumbing. Jeannette is in her 50's but she is a lot more ambitious than me and is still in good shape, so I hired her to do the work.

It turns out that a rat had tried to set up housekeeping under the floor of the milking area. As part of it's household duties it had chewed out a foot long piece of the heat tape that kept the barn water pipe from freezing. When you take a foot out of the middle of a heat tape both ends quit working, also. Then, when the temperature drops into the teens and the wind blows, the water pipe freezes.

Jeannette and I spent almost all day Friday trying to repair the frozen pipe. We thawed it out and couldn't find any breaks, but it did leak at two fittings. Five times we tried to re-solder those fittings, and five times they leaked. We finally capped the pipe and vowed to return another day.