All Hail Octavia!!!

I got such acclaim for posting the last video, I decided to post another. It's been a while since I've visited "The Onion", but now I remember why it used to be one of my favorite sites...it counteracts the ridiculousness of our regular news networks. Right now I kind of need a few laughs.

All hail Octavia!!!

Nascar

Interesting video showing a pretty cool eye-opening inside look at the great sport of NASCAR racing, enjoyed not only by millions, but also myself and many friends and family.

Ash vs. Possum, Round II

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know I have a flock of laying hens. I've learned a lot from keeping chickens, including the facts that 1) I now consider store-bought eggs to be no more than tasteless goo, 2) keeping chickens is addictive and hopefully wherever I go in life a few chickens will follow, and 3) that sometimes chickens just keel over and die for no apparent reason, so it's best not to become emotionally attached. Also, 4) chickens are incredibly dumb so that helps with the emotionally attached part.

Lately I've been having chicken troubles. In the past couple of months, I've lost 3 - two just seemed to have laid down and given up the good fight, and one snatched in the dark of night by some mysterious predator. One night a couple of weeks ago while checking the coop I came face-to-face with one of these predators - a possum. (I guess the correct name is "Opossum", but we're in the Ozarks and I've never in my life heard them called anything but a possum except on TV.) This particular possum was pretty laid back as possums tend to be, despite the fact that I was pretty angry that he was in my coop. I found a stick and whacked and poked him until he decided maybe it would behoove him to leave, and he slunk out of the coop and under the so-called "predator proof" electric fence. I called Lucy, who back in her younger years was a possum-killing fool, to take care of the problem. After giving the possum's butt a good sniff, Lucy ambled over to see what I wanted. Some guard dog. The possum scooted off to the woods.

After securing the chickens for the night in the coop, the next day I re-checked the fence, mowed the chicken yard, and was confident things were secure. And they were, until a few nights ago.

I had gotten in late that evening and rushed around doing my evening chores, and I was a bit distracted by keeping one eye on the sky for the meteor shower predicted for that night. I shut the chickens in the coop and went indoors to watch a movie until the shower was supposed to be brightest. At midnight I meandered outside to watch the sky, but my attention was drawn to the chicken coop where I heard frantic scratchings coming from the "upstairs" enclosed area. I ran to the coop with my flashlight, counted the chickens piled up in the "downstairs", and when all were accounted for opened the egg-access door - to meet the same possum. At least it looked the same. I had inadvertently shut him in the coop WITH the chickens. Doh! Lucky for me (and the chickens) he was too frantic trying to get out to have a chicken snack, but he had made short work of the eggs I hadn't gathered.

Once again, I poked and whacked him with a stick. This time instead of leaving the coop he jammed himself up in the far corner. I left the coop to see if he'd come out. He didn't. At this point I was SO tired, and pretty darn irritated at the possum. I figured I had to shoot him because this was a repeating problem, but I didn't want to shoot him in the coop and make a mess. I had to get him out of the coop. What I needed was a lasso. I scoured the barn and came up with a 50' piece of rope, tied my slipknot, and went to work trying to lasso the possum. After 15 minutes and with the help of my trusty stick, I got the loop over his head and dragged a VERY irate possum out, taking full advantage of the 50' of rope. After I got him out of the chicken yard and over the "predator-proof" fence I wasn't sure what to do. The shotgun was in the house, and I was standing in the yard with a possum on a rope in the middle of the night. For the sake of my chickens, I couldn't just let him go. I did what any logical person would do - tied him to the big yard light pole while I retrieved the gun.

*I think hubby would appreciate me noting that he was NOT home at the time of these shennanigans.

By the time I returned with the loaded 12 gauge, the possum was sitting calmly at the end of his rope. I reminded myself of my hen's safety and walked up to the possum and aimed right between his eyes. His beady little eyes. Looking right at me. Crap. He was only a young possum doing what possums do...and to think of all the baby possums I've raised. Crap.

I couldn't do it. I can dispatch a deer with no problem, help hubby dress it, and grind the meat myself. I can shoot a turkey in the face and do a victory dance, then fry up his breast with a side of green beans feeling no remorse. I can even process my own meat chickens. But I can't dispose of an egg-sucking, probable chicken-killing possum.

Now what? I couldn't let him go. Well, I couldn't let him go HERE. I untied the rope and led the possum to the truck. And, you guessed it, got him up in the bed and tied the other end to a support post. Good thing he was a possum...a raccoon would've eaten my face back at the coop with the stick-poking. This possum by now was either on Valium, stunned into complete shock, or resigned to his fate. Indeed, he seemed to be undecided as to whether now was an appropriate time for the "playing possum" act. I hopped into the truck and tried to think of where to drop him. I didn't want to plague some other hapless chicken-owner with my problem possum, so I decided to go out to the Wildlife Management Area about 5 miles away.

Then it occurred to me...what if I got pulled over? Here I was, 1:30 a.m., in my pajamas, no license, in an old Ford truck with a possum tied to a support post in the bed. Just another night in Arkansas. That's probably the best explanation I could give to a cop at that point.

I successfully reached the WMA, worked the rope off with my stick, and the possum scooted off into the woods to take his chances around less-crazy beings. I returned home at 2 a.m. and fell into bed.

If that possum turns up again, I AM shooting him. I think. By the way, my husband thinks I'm certifiable. I'm not sure he's wrong.

Healthcare Reform Bill Link

I've had several people ask me if I knew where to find the actual Healthcare Bill currently being proposed so they can read it, so it's posted at the end of this blog.

And if you know me, you know I just can't keep my mouth shut or my keyboard quiet. Lately I've been absolutely APPALLED by the assault on our first amendment rights by the media and the current administration. It's constantly being suggested that anyone opposing this bill are "nutjobs" and "unruly mobs" and that they just need to shut up and let this thing pass. Um...excuse me, but don't the politicians work for US? Since when can we not question them??? And I'm sorry, but according to current polls, over 50% of Americans think this is a bad idea.

Rasmussen poll page: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

So...how are the protests not representing a significant portion, if not a majority, of American's concerns? As far as "angry mobs", I've seen none. I've seen angry American citizens conducting themselves in an appropriate manner, and with the exception of a few people shouting at politicians (which is not appropriate, but could hardly be called "mobish"), citizens have conducted these debates much more orderly than say...the left when amnesty was being discussed. I seem to remember seeing flaming trash cans, vandalized property, and yes...truly angry, yelling mobs.

Here's the complete bill. Read it, and be informed.

http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090714/aahca.pdf

Food for Thought - Part I

In a previous post I mentioned I'd just read Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - A Year of Food Life." I have to admit, it's a book I've been putting off for a while because it's non-fiction, and I must confess that sometimes for me reading non-fiction is a struggle unless the book is something I'm truly interested in, like pirates, American history, or political commentary. And even with subjects I'm very interested in, I've waded through some writing as dull as watching paint dry.

And as most fiction-lovers, I've had to put up with so many of those rude, snobby comments from non-fiction readers about how fiction-readers are intellectually inferior, keeping my mouth discreetly shut while longing to make a retaliatory comment about lack of imagination and variety.

However, I finally beat down the NONFICTION monster and delved into Kingsolver's book. Had I not already been a huge fan of Kingsolver's fiction, I likely would've never picked up this book - and that's hard to imagine. From the first pages I never felt a need to lean on the crutch of a fiction book. I took my time, forcing myself to go chapter by chapter, stopping frequently to check out facts and web pages she's listed, and pausing to make notes in my garden journal.

This book is about Kingsolver and her family embarking on a year-long quest to eat foods only gown locally, either from their own farm or purchased from area farmers. She mixes in her reasons for taking on this challenge, and presents many facts and truths about our current mainstream food situation.

She really hit hard on some issues that have been rattling around in my brain for a while now: 1) our fragile food distribution system and the waste it causes, 2) our MEGA loss of vegetable varieties, and 3) the widening gulf between us and our food - not just that it comes from far off, but in the short span of about 50 years we've lost most of the knowledge about growing food that our grandparents just knew. Thousands of years of food-growing knowledge, now gone from our common collective in the blink of an eye. In addition, she touches on the very scary reality of lab engineered hybrid plants - some now being spliced with animal genes. Makes you think twice before diving into that plate of hybrid corn-on-the-cob.

I've mentioned before when talking of gardening that it bothers me greatly that so much of our food is imported. There is a massive gulf between a great majority of us and our food - not only in physical distance, but in the knowledge of where it comes from and how it's grown. It doesn't seem right that we can go to the grocery store in January and buy a puny-looking watermelon. It goes against my ingrained sense that watermelons are to be consumed when the temperature is at least in the 90's and you eat it while standing outside leaning over so the juice doesn't get on your bare feet and make them sticky. And if you actually buy one of these in January, you quickly find that it wasn't worth a cent of what you paid.

What I didn't know is exactly HOW FAR removed we've come from our food supply - so far that kids now don't have a clue what "out of season" means, unless they are one of the dwindling farm kids or in the small minority of gardening families. They don't realize that milk really does come out of a cow, that carrots grow underground, or that peas were in a pod before a can. In addition to our disturbing lack of knowledge, having so much of our food shipped in from parts unknown causes a pretty precarious food supply chain. If that chain were to break, what would we do? A great majority would be running around like headless chickens, with no clue how to produce any food, let alone preserve it for later. Then there's the recent salmonella outbreaks - by the time a problem is realized with the spinach from California, it's made it's way to all points of the country.

I myself know that an apple, no matter how beautiful it appears, isn't supposed to taste like mealy cardboard. A tomato is supposed to be RED (if it indeed is a red variety), juicy, and very tasty - not grainy and hard. I wonder, how many people so far removed from food production really know WHY apples taste so much better in the fall and tomatos all of a sudden gain color and taste in the summer? (Not to mention go down in price). Do they care?

Where I disagreed with Kingsolver was where she seemed to take blame for this trend completely out of the hands of the consumers and put it squarely on "evil" capitalism. It's plain where she stands politically, and she's got every right and decent arguments to that way of looking at things. I just simiply disagree. You're not going to convince me that capitalism isn't the best way to do things - it's what made our country great in the first place. However, it does come with some undesirable side-effects, such as Walmart and lazy consumers. I put the great majority of the blame on the consumer. Capitalism will supply what the consumer demands, and if the consumer demands peaches in December, by golly someone will try to make money getting them into consumer's hands. And the lazy consumer will think this is great, forgetting that peaches are supposed to be eaten in the summer when they are (here we go again), in season, not only tasting good but benefiting local growers.

In addition, Kingsolver really truly believes in global warming caused by greenhouse gasses caused by us, the evil fossil fuel-user, and therefore we shouldn't buy imported foods because of how much fossil fuel it takes to get it from one place to another. I may not agree with the reasoning - I'm not so sold on human-caused global warming as to think we're destroying the planet by eating out-of-season foods, but I do agree it's a tremendous waste, to think of the amount of fuel and resources used to get a tasteless out-of-season apple from California to New York.

I REALLY hate waste. My husband refers to me as the "Water Nazi", and also gets irked that our Tupperware cabinet is full of used butter and cottage cheese containers. Hey, why buy Gladware when you buy it already? Who cares if it says "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter"?

And that's one of my points - I believe we can be much healthier, improve the economy, and "save the planet" just through old-school common sense rather than radically changing the fundamentals of our American way of life. How many rich actors screaming about environmentalism save their butter containers and re-use water bottles?

Even if you disagree with the above sentiment, wouldn't it be at least a little better if everyone were more aware of where their food comes from? If everyone were to make a little effort at buying local food and helping the local economy? If we took a step back and re-learned a bit of the knowledge that was so common just 50 years ago? I just happened to drive by the farmer's market last week, and there were plenty of delicious-looking organic produce, at VERY reasonable prices. Yep, even though I'm going to be covered in tomatos in the next few weeks (I got mine in late), I bought some. Along with a very delicious watermelon. And yes, my first step toward heirloom gardening was saving the seeds.

I'm not at all sure I'm ready to take the year-long challenge as Kingsolver did, though I may think about it. Of course, Marden would also have to be on board. And when you think about what that REALLY means, it's a daunting proposition. But, I feel we're on the right track.

I'm sure I'll have much more on this later, lest my rambling thoughts continue to carry on in different disjointed tangents for pages. For now, just some "food for thought."

Me, Mom, Chiggers, and Granolas

There was a little chigger,

that wasn’t any bigger,

Than the point of a teeny-tiny pin.

But the lump that it made,

just itches like the blaze,

And that’s where the rub comes in.
Comes in, comes in, and that’s where the rub comes in.

Yes, the lump that it made just itches like the blaze,

And that’s where the rub comes in.

I came across this little ditty while doing some Internet research to see if there are ANY chigger remedies out there I haven't tried. There aren't.

Last week was pretty awesome - Mom came to visit, and for once during a visit of hers we didn't have anything to do but enjoy ourselves. Of course, you also begin to realize how boring your life is when you are attempting to entertain someone...made especially difficult when you're going sans-TV. We ended up reading a lot. A LOT. I gulped down 1 1/2 books, and I think she got in a whole two.

We got in some more active activities, too. Since I've lived in the area, I've been meaning to take in some of the local trails - and I haven't. As much as I enjoy hiking, sometimes I tend to overlook trails right in our own area. Heck, Marden and I hiked the heck out of Colorado and Tennessee, but have virtually ignored great trails right here in our back yard. So, Mom and I took off for the Buffalo River, meaning to hike Indian Rockhouse Trail. Once we FINALLY found the trail (Buffalo Point Park, which is NPS, should really consider a labeled MAP), it was definitely worth our while. Indian Rockhouse was an awesome trail, mildly strenuous (I hate trails that feel as if you're walking through a cow pasture), scenic, and with lots of stuff to see along the way. Not to mention the actual rock house, which goes beyond description. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to show because I seem to have lost the cord I need to download pictures. Maybe by next post. And this is where we were viciously attacked by chiggers.

I HATE chiggers. Not that I know anyone who likes them, but I sure seem to be a target more than most. I must taste like chigger candy. I love summer, but I DREAD the inevitable - having my feet/ankles/lower legs look like they've been chewed and on FIRE with itch. And chigger bites aren't only uncomfortable (to put it mildly), but extremely unattractive to the point of looking like the poor afflicted is carrying some kind of disease, only compounded by dried calamine lotion. Ick. This summer I'd been lucky, but of course my luck had to run out. I'm afflicted.

Another highlight during Mom's visit was a trip up to Mansfield, MO to Bakersville, home of Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. Here's a link if you want to check them out. You can also sign up for a catalog: http://rareseeds.com/

I've been meaning to get up there to take a look for a while, but I've recently read a book which really made me jump onto the heirloom bandwagon full-throttle.

I've been reading Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle", and it's really woken me up to a lot of issues concerning our food...issues which have been banging around in my head for some time, and this book really brought them into focus. More on that later, lest this post turn into something resembling the Internet version of "War and Peace." But in a nutshell, I've gone from being pretty unconcerned as to whether the stuff I planted in my garden was hybrid or heirloom to now being pretty darn convinced that I should be not only planting ONLY heirlooms, but saving the seeds as well. But like I said, likely MUCH more thoughts on that later, as this was kind of one of those life-altering reads. (Hey, I SAW you roll your eyes...)

Mom and I trekked up to Bakersville bright and not-so-early for their monthly garden festival and summer seed sale. Overall, the place was pretty cool. Not worth the 1hr+ drive if you're not after seeds, but still pretty cool. They had a pioneer village, poultry on display, a farmer's market, and folk music. I could've done without the folk music. Not that I just hate folk music - I did grow up hearing a couple of Peter, Paul, and Mary albums mixed in with copious amounts of John Denver. I guess that music just seemed to have a time and place, and this modern folk music makes me want to toss my cookies. It's like the people are pretending way to hard to be all "folky" and one with Mother Earth and all that jazz. It just doesn't seem to fly in 2009. I would much rather have heard some good bluegrass, but the closest anyone got was some dude yodeling. Gack. Bakersville really draws the modern-day hippies, or as my brother calls them (and therefore I cobbed onto the term too), "Granolas." Granolas were out in force this day. Guys wearing tye-dye shirts with rolled-up or crazily cut-off overalls, girls also sporting overalls, but some opting for the "I-weave-my-own-fabric-from-organic-cat-hair-while-singing If I Had a Hammer" skirts. Rope sandals, earrings on guys, and my favorite - very large American Indian necklaces on obviously white people - were also pretty common. Mom bought a plant from an oldish guy wearing overalls and six earrings in his ear. I even spotted a flyer advertising Cindy Sheehan's anti-war cause stuck in a display case among antique gardening flyers. Silly Granolas...

Still, there were "normal folk" at this thing, too...I guess as normal as you can get spending your Sunday at a garden festival celebrating organic and heirloom fruits and veggies...so Mom and I weren't too conspicuous in our jeans and sneakers. We made out like bandits in the seed store, and I've got my work cut out for me next year with starting my own seeds. I did try it last year without success. I got the seeds to sprout nicely, but I tried setting out half the baby plants well after the frost and they promptly died a spectacular death. Same for the indoor seeds I DIDN'T set out. Yes...definitely have a busy winter ahead figuring this seed-starting business out. If I'm successful, I'll have all kinds of heirloom tomatoes coming out my ears, as well as some crazy stuff I just wanted to try. Blue pole beans, anyone?