Farm News 02-03-08

Sunday morning, after chores, 38°
Weight 211 lbs., off to a terrible start, I gained three pounds

Barn News

It was a computer error, that's all, but I've still been bombarded with comments:

I am astonished that you only weigh 118 -- I would have guessed that you were more like 138! More power to you! I am envious.

You've lost way too much, way too fast.

You weigh 118 pounds? Not possible! did you mismatch a number ... 811? no 181? Too much..??

I'll join your diet group and have started a couple days ago with an assist from the stomach flu. Already lost 2 pounds!

How tall are you ? As I recall, I’d put you at about 5’10.” If that’s anywhere NEAR correct, I’d say you need to GAIN some weight, not lose it ! Of course you don’t want to just gain FAT, but mostly muscle – more a matter of TONE, probably, but it sounds like you get enough activity to be in reasonable ‘tone.’ We can’t keep someone alive by just making them thinner and thinner, or ALL the “supermodels” would still be around. But then, I’m not a physician, just a physicians assistant. Best of luck !

Okay, okay, the number should have been 208.

Dr. M. was the only one who was reassuring:

Well, if your MD doesn't make it for another 43 years to keep you alive, I'll step in!

When I reach 110 a DVM would probably be a better choice for health care than an MD. By the way, for those of you who have been wondering what happened to Dr. M.'s occasional commentaries, she's pregnant. You'd think a Vet would know what causes that, but maybe she likes being that way.

Nothing of interest is happening in the barn. I borrowed a buck goat to breed Lucy, but I think I was too late. Lucy is showing no signs of coming into standing heat, it's too late in the year.

Several strange tomcats have been hanging around, so we might be preparing to start a new crop of kittens.

There are only five hens in the chicken house, but they are laying five eggs most days. What excellent chickens!

Tripping to Chicago – part 3

Illinois Beach State Park is an almost 3,000 acre strip along the west side of Lake Michigan running south from the Wisconsin border, bounded on the west by the city of Zion. We stopped there to rest after we fled from Chicago. Zion was founded in 1901 as a utopian community built around the Zion Tabernacle of the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church. After Chicago, a garbage dump would have felt utopian, but Illinois Beach State Park and Zion were both quite pleasant without being compared to their noisome neighbor.

The only thing we lacked was pot. How can you be good hippies on a road trip without pot? We all put flowers in our hair (I had hair, then), smiled a lot, and, sure enough, a nice young man with long hair showed up and offered to share a joint with us. Peace, Love, and Brotherhood meant something real in those days.

Peter, the nice young man, was the younger son of an Israeli mother and a Palestinian father who had fled from the Middle East to find peace in Zion. He was a senior in high school, very mellow, and an altogether delightful person. He invited us to his home, where we met John, his older brother, who was a student at Shimer College, very mellow, and a delightful person. John was the author of a wonderful book, Edifying Tautologies, which occupied twenty or so four inch square pages. I don't remember a single word of it, but I distinctly remember the effect it produced, especially when one smoked a good joint before reading it.

Shimer College was, and is, an excellent Liberal Arts college. Their students graduate with degrees in Liberal Arts, there are no majors or electives. Shimer had another characteristic, the student body consisted of people who were seeking both academic and spiritual growth. In the yearbooks of that time there are no pictures of a football team, but there are many pictures of students sitting outside on the lawn, smiling at each other, and discussing the meaning of Peace, Love, and Brotherhood.

Peter and John had created a great little trip room in their house. Their bedrooms were in the attic, with vertical walls about four feet high on the sides. The trip room was in the little triangular space left under the roof outside the bedroom sidewall. It had oriental rugs on the floor and the ceiling and walls were covered with India prints. It was cozy, comfortable, and an excellent environment for getting high.

Our second day at Illinois Beach we decided to express our disdain for Chicago by attacking the city from the air. We went to Zion and purchased some colored tissue wrapping paper, a small bottle of Elmer's glue, and we scrounged up a few feet of wire from somewhere. We glued eight sheets of the tissue together to form a square tube, about two feet on each side and six feet high. We cut triangular pieces to make a peaked top to the tube, and another set to make a peaked bottom, but we left the center of the bottom unglued. With the wire, we made a ring about eighteen inches in diameter, with a few spokes radiating toward the center. The ring of wire was then glued to the bottom peak to form a round opening. We tore a strip of old tee shirt about two inches wide and two feet long, soaked it in melted candle wax and then rolled it into a tight cylinder. Using the spokes of wire, we secured the cylinder of waxed fabric in the center of the wire circle.

That evening there was no moon, and a very gentle breeze blowing toward Chicago. Two people held the tissue paper balloon, for that is what it was, upright, while another lit the wax wick. The flaming wick quickly filled the balloon with hot air, and, after a few minutes, we released it. It floated into the air and out over the lake, glowing in different colors as it turned. It was a beautiful thing, and it slowly drifted away toward Chicago. It finally drifted out of sight. If the power had gone off in Chicago that multicolored thing in the sky probably would have created a panic. The power didn't go off, but we were happy, for we had expressed our feelings in an appropriate manner for hippies who believed in Peace, Love, and Brotherhood.

Book: Touchstone by Laurie R. King

The 1920's were not one of my favorite eras. That is the decade in which gangsters became a part of the society, thanks to prohibition. The people who wanted to force us to follow their standard of morality ended up producing something even worse. The whole decade seemed to be shallow and without ideals. Then Laurie King writes a book about idealists in the 1920's.

Her idealists are the union sympathizers, socialists, communists, anarchists, and similar weirdos, whose ideals lead them to throwing bombs (actually, the bomber hides them in various places). On the other side is an American FBI agent who both hates and sympathizes with them. And, the whole thing takes place in the English countryside.

Once, in Kansas City, I received an anonymous phone call, and the caller said, “Be sitting outside at around 7:00 pm.” I forgot to go outside, so I missed hearing the bomb go off, but I did understand why he set off the bomb. Touchstone reminded me of those days. It's far from being her best book, but it's worth reading.

Music

Have you heard Daft Punk's Technologic? It's interesting, but the video is creepy.

Farm News 01-27-08

Sunday morning, after chores, 42°
Weight 118 lbs

Barn News

Notice that I have added a new measurement to the heading. I try to remember to check the temperature each Sunday morning as I come in from morning chores, somewhere between 8:00 and 9:00, usually. Now, when I come in from Sunday morning chores, I will also check my weight and record it in the heading of Farm News. Sharing the progress of my diet project with the rest of the world might help me remember to restrain myself when faced with Paula's chocolate chip cookies.

Paula makes cookies and I make Birdie Burger. A batch of Birdie Burger starts with two to five pounds of lard warmed to room temperature. To that I add, for each pound of lard, about a half pound of 17% protein poultry mash, a half pound of sunflower seeds, a half pound of poultry mixed scratch grains, some cheap peanut butter, and a quarter pound of Elderberries. All that stuff is then mixed together by hand, a process which gives me purple fingers from the Elderberries. I then make it into patties that will fit into the woodpecker feeders, wrap each patty in waxed paper, and store in the freezer.

We seem to be out of the polar weather for a while. Perhaps the birds will begin finding their natural feed more. I am feeding sunflower seed and Birdie Burger. The birds here are eating a lot sunflower seeds and going through the Birdie Burger at a record rate. Jeannette, a friend who lives about ten miles away, has fed a hundred pounds of sunflower seed this month, a quantity that usually would have lasted all winter at her feeders.

At my feeders are Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, Nuthatches, Cardinals, a few Blue Jays, and a few Starlings. The same mix is visiting Jeannette's feeders, along with a great many Gold Finches and Purple Finches. Jeannette has White Breasted Nuthatches but no Red Breasted Nuthatches. We both have Downy and Red Breasted Woodpeckers. The Woodpeckers, Starlings, and Red Breasted Nuthatches feed most heavily on the Birdie Burger. On Thursday a flock of House Finches showed up and then disappeared again on Friday.

Tripping to Chicago – part 2

The Aztec Ambulance had plenty of room for two people. Carrying six people required four of them to ride in the back. When all six of us piled into the back we resembled a litter of oversize puppies in a small nest, crowded but perfectly happy.
We left Lawrence in the morning, successfully navigated through Kansas City, and started across Missouri on US 24. Kansas was uptight, but Missouri was uptight and trashy. The highway was poorly maintained, the roadsides were weedy, and there were derelict automobiles littering the landscape. Missouri is a state best crossed at night.

Before we came to the Mississippi we turned north and followed the river to Davenport, Iowa, where my parents were living, arriving in time for my mother to provide us with a good, home cooked dinner. We spent the night on my parent's living room floor and had a hearty breakfast before we left on the next leg of our journey.

Somewhere in this part of the trip we discovered Road Songs. Road Songs are similar to Zen koans, inspired by roadside billboards, and delivered to a Country-Western sounding tune. They also have the quality of being impossible to remember, so I can't repeat any, especially this many years later. I do remember that some of them were about the Marlboro Man's pants smoking after he dropped his cigarette. A little bit of pot made them sound terrifically witty. What the Road Songs probably indicated was that we had already run out of anything interesting to say to each other, so we rode to Chicago on silly songs.

We stopped at the outskirts of Chicago and smoked the last of our pot. We had heard that we wouldn't enjoy being put in a Chicago jail, so we burned the evidence and had a good time doing it. Then, high and happy, we headed for the heart of the city. We found a place to park, stepped out the truck, and were stretching out the kinks in our backs when a long-haired guy rode up on a bicycle. “Just get here?” he asked.

He said he had an apartment near by and invited us to spend the night with him. That sounded good to us, and we put his bike in the back, along with five hippies, he got in the passenger seat, and we drove to his place. He even had off-street parking where we could put the Aztec Ambulance. So, we all settled down in his apartment, he put on some brown rice to cook, and the only thing we lacked was pot. Our host said his dealer would probably be by later.

About the time the brown rice was ready there was loud bang on the door, and then the door crashed open, and a half a dozen cops came barging into the apartment, all with their guns in one hand and night sticks in the other. Shit! It was a raid, a raid without the niceties of a search warrant. Somebody had reported a bunch of hippies going into the building and, in Chicago, that was sufficient grounds for a raid.

Those cops weren't interested in enforcing any laws, they simply wanted an opportunity to kill us.

When I'm facing a bunch of people with guns who want to kill me, I prefer to be armed with more than beads, bells, and brown rice. I was angry and scared.

The cops finally left after pushing us around a bit and making various sorts of threatening growls. We thanked our host for an enlightening evening, went back out to the Aztec Ambulance, and left Chicago, heading north along the west side of Lake Michigan.

A Reader Responds

The physician who has promised to keep me alive to 114 responded to this paragraph:
I saw the physician last week for an annual checkup. The appointment was scheduled so that I would have baby bunnies of just the right age to act as attack rabbits.

Unfortunately, Suzette lost her last litter, so I had no bunnies. The physician took advantage of my lack of defense-bunnies to tell me I had to go on a diet and lose weight. I haven't noticed him losing any weight, but I kept my mouth shut and accepted his orders.

His response was: I'll work on it too.

I'm glad to know that he is taking care of his own health because he needs to stay alive and active for another 43 years if he is going to keep me alive to 114. Running around outside doing chores in cold weather has taken two pounds off my oversize waistline in the past week.

Farm News 01-20-08

Sunday morning, after chores, 17° with a cool breeze

Barn News

Jesse, who works for me occasionally, asked if he could keep a rabbit or two in my rabbitry until he made a set of hutches for himself. I happily agreed, and last week he showed up with a very pretty Red Satin doe. He hadn't named her, so I called her Sally, after a pretty red-haired reader. He hopes to purchase a buck soon, and then breed Sally. I'm delighted, and he can keep them here as long as he wishes, for baby bunnies attract children, who amuse me.

I saw the physician last week for an annual checkup. The appointment was scheduled so that I would have baby bunnies of just the right age to act as attack rabbits. Unfortunately, Suzette lost her last litter, so I had no bunnies. The physician took advantage of my lack of defense-bunnies to tell me I had to go on a diet and lose weight. I haven't noticed him losing any weight, but I kept my mouth shut and accepted his orders.

It's COLD. Saturday morning it was 4° when I did chores, and the thermometer I checked is on the porch, where it generally reads four or five degrees high in the winter. That means that all the water containers were full of ice. Water doesn't cool below 32°, below that it turns into ice. Ice, however, can be as cold as the air temperature. If you put 55° water into a bucket that has ice in it, the ice rapidly cools the water and the bucket freezes over again quickly. So, it is best to break the ice on top, pour out any water under it, and then knock out as much of the ice as you can without breaking the bucket. All the time you are doing that you are shivering and have, if you aren't careful, wet gloves. Where is global warming when we need a little bit of it?

Finally, Something from Our Asian Correspondent

The following dispatch has been edited to improve intelligibility:

I'm going to Vietnam and China for a visit. My base remains here in Sihanoukville. I'll be traveling for a month. I will be mainly in Hanoi. I guess I'll have to buy a Ho Chi Minh t-shirt. I want one with a big hammer and sickle on it.

Gonna check out Shanghai, China. At last! All the Chinese food I want and then some.

No bad guys here. Only poor and very desperate people. I was leery of cops when I got here, but they don't bother me at all. I buzz right by the cops on my rented 250 cc Honda: no helmet, no license, no insurance, no problem. The 250 cc bikes are incredibly powerful and fast. Today is my fourth day on it and only 25 years since I last rode a motorcycle. It ain't no motorbike, it's a kickass motorcycle. I am getting the hang of traffic around here. It is treacherous and terrifying, but I'm catching on. So far I've skinned my thumb and ankle (but I only dropped the bike once), and burned the inside of my ankle on the hot engine. I just picked that bad boy up off the ground and rode on with a cop looking on. No problem, this is Cambodia. You gotta love it.

Tripping to Chicago

Early in 1968 I decided I needed an automobile, not just any auto, but one that suited my station in life as an Acid Priest. What I found was a 1940 Chevrolet Panel Delivery truck. It was shaped like a station wagon, but there were no side windows behind the front seat, nor were there any seats behind the front seat. It had two doors at the rear that opened to either side and met in the middle.

When I purchased it, the body showed neither dents nor rust, but the blue paint was faded and discolored. A few hours with a couple of cans of paint and brushes, and I had a panel truck with a white body and black fenders. On each side, where the side windows would have been if it had any, Dixie, an artist, painted rows of small pictographs in various colors. Bingo! It became the Aztec Ambulance, a vehicle fit to carry an Acid Priest on his appointed rounds.

I found a mattress that would fit in the back, and then covered the interior with a an excellent hippie collage of flowers, peace signs, butterflies, and album covers. I installed an incense holder, an essential accessory for pot smokers; rigged up a couple of small interior lights; tossed in an assortment of pillows, cushions, and quilts; added a picnic cooler; and the Aztec Ambulance was ready to rock and roll.

It was spring, I had a fine vehicle, so the only sensible thing to do was to take a road trip. Road trips are more fun with companions, so I mentioned to a few friends that I was ready for a road trip. Marilyn and Becky quickly said, “Yes, and we have a friend, Julie, who will want to go.” Fred and Tom looked at Marilyn and Becky and immediately said they wanted to go.

Many hippies feel that making plans denigrates The Force which leads all of us to where we need to be. I'm of the opinion that The Force can guide planning as well as it can guide us at highway intersections. I wanted to choose a destination and study a map to determine the best way to reach that destination, 'best way' meaning the most interesting path, not necessarily the most direct.

The six of us piled into the back of the Aztec Ambulance, lit a stick of incense, fired up a joint, and started discussing a destination. Fred and I had recently made a trip to the West Coast, none of us were interested in the south, north of Kansas there is a lot of road but not much else, so we decided on east. The Democratic National Convention was to be held that summer in Chicago, which is to the east, and Abby Hoffman was calling on hippies to attend, so we set Chicago as our destination. Yippee!

Before on departs on an important journey that is supposed to be both spiritual and spatial, it is wise to have a religious service. The six of us all retreated to a nice old stone farm house where friends lived and, early one morning, sat down together, smoked a joint, and took a hit of LSD. For the next six hours or so we sat and laid around, occasionally saying, “Wow,” or “Ruuushh.” It was pretty decent acid.
The next morning we all piled into the Aztec Ambulance and headed into the rising sun.

Velvet Underground

A reader writes:

The first Velvet Underground and Nico album is now widely considered the most influential rock album in history, even though it was never conceived as a rock album. The Velvet's didn't give a damn what anyone thought of it and that's the only way it could ever have been made. Any young band musician now is familiar with the entire Velvet Underground oeuvre, even if they may or may not be familiar with anything by Elvis or the Beatles.

I used to listen to it while injecting heroin as a teen. You could time it perfectly to get off during the crescendo. Some real artistry there. Most junk heads just preferred soft blues background sounds. There was a later VU album for that too just called The Velvet Underground. I listened to all four VU albums on an iPod driving across Kansas a couple of years ago. Got me all the way across the State with no stops, and still sounds as cool as ever.

He seems to be saying that listening to the Velvet Underground will increase bladder capacity. Amazing.

The Kansas Legislature

Waiting for debate is a resolution condemning 'Gangsta Rap'. You will never convince me that a majority of the legislators have listened to, and been able to understand, any kind of rap, but, nevertheless, some legislators think it needs to be condemned. Their action will, I'm sure, have a great influence on the music to which young people listen.

There has never been a recorded instance of an undocumented immigrant trying to vote in Kansas, but we are almost certainly going to have a law against it, if the governor signs the bill once it passes. If the legislature makes enough noise about fixing non-existent problems they hope we won't notice they have done nothing about fixing real problems.