Negative Poverty

Not as in the opposite of poverty.  And not like wealthy either.  But as in below poverty.

Apparently that is what our "leader" and Republican Presidential nominee considers our family's level of income.  I know, I know.  I should have never clicked on that "news" link on my email page.  But I was weak being without the internet for a whole five days (eye rolling) and I read the article.  Well, some of it anyhow.  I couldn't finish it.  And then I remembered why I don't read the news anymore.

But honestly?  One is generally considered middle-class if one's family income is $250 thousand dollars a year?  Really?  What the hell are people doing with that amount of money each year?

This little irrelevant piece of newsgarbage made my head spin in so many directions.  I had always thought that our family was one of those "Middle-Class" people when my sister and I were growing up.  We had a house in the suburbs.  We got to go to restaurants.  We went to a private school until high school.  We always had presents under the Christmas tree, birthday parties with all our friends, even went to Disney World.  We had a VCR (with a "remote" connected to the contraption with a wire....remember that???), a microwave (as big as a conventional oven!) and eventually had window A/C units in our bedrooms!  But now that I think about it - and it's too bad that I had to - I guess we really weren't so Middle-Class after all.

Because now, most of those things are almost considered a "right" or something that one is entitled to.  Even the "poorest of the poor" have these things.  And what makes things even worse, is that there are people who think that those luxuries should be given to them for "free".  There are government programs providing (at taxpayer expense, as all are dependent on tax money) "free" cell phones, food, clothing, utility payments, health care, even air conditioners.  But I digress.  Must.  Stop.  Welfare.  Rant.

Anyhow.  I was actually a bit depressed after reading above mentioned news (cough) article.  I suddenly felt that our family was poor.  That we were somehow inadequate.  That we were now unable to take care of our family because some dipshit just told me that I'm more than ten times poorer than the lowest middle-class family.

But after a while, I started getting angry (imagine that).  First of all, WTF does a holier-than-thou, lying-bastard-politician know about being Middle Class anyhow?  And if he really believes that a quarter-million dollar yearly salary is middle class, he really, really has no frekking idea what it is to be living on a tenth of that.  And how many millions of people do that for their entire lives, some even with much less that that?

These are the people that we want to represent our Country?  People so out of touch with the masses that I bet they've never written a check for their utility bill.  Or bought a bag of pinto beans.  Or even glanced at the prices at the gas pump (except to use in some ignorant political speech) as their chauffeur already filled up the limo before picking them up for their next $10K-a-plate dinner.

Another thing that makes me fume (imagine that, again) is that people actually believe them when they talk.  About anything.  How is it that people honestly think any of these political hacks have anyone other than their cronies or themselves in mind?  I almost choked a few weeks ago when an acquaintance on FB said something like, "I'm voting for Romney because he really cares about the people!".  Really?!  Are you serious?!  (Not just picking on him, I would have said the same if she had said "Obama".)  I'm sorry, but every time a politician lies, s/he is saying to you, "You are so completely ignorant that you will believe me no matter what I say, no matter how many times I am caught lying."  They have absolutely no respect for you.  At all.  Wake up, people.

So what does this all mean?  The $250K thing.  Is it that they cannot honestly contemplate someone living in on a smaller income?  Or is it something more calculated and conniving?  If they say $250K is Middle Class, then everyone under that is poor.  And nobody should ever be poor.  So if everyone under that magical number is poor, then the government needs to do something about that.  Or give more "free" stuff out to the poor so they don't feel so deprived anymore?  Just another way to incite more class-warfare?  Let's be angry with the Rich and Middle Class instead of with the way our government has been ruining our country.

Ugh.  Where was I going with this post anyhow?  See, this is what happens when I don't post for a while, I get all blog-rant-constipated.

Oh, let's get back on track (as if I ever were on one).  So since I've progressed from upset to angry, now was time to let it all go.  It was time to get back to reality.  Our reality.

We have a home.  We have working vehicles.  We have food in the freezer.  We have eggs, meat and milk just outside the door.  We have plenty of entertainment in the form of farm animals and outdoor activities.  And we have luxuries like a television set, DVD player, computer w/internet, cell phone, air conditioning.  We occasionally treat ourselves to a movie, a dinner out, an outing to the big city.  We we have our health.  And we have our family.  I don't care what any politician or census report says about our level of income.  We are wealthy beyond any of their calculations.

Paul's Take
Why does she even look at those headlines?  It's pure nonsense.  She's giving me a stroke just having to hear about this blog post in it's pre-published form.  Here, have a drink.  I'm seriously considering getting rid of all electronic devices.

Well Hello There!

I made it back.  It was hard at first, staying offline you know, for like a whole five days.  Pathetic, ain't it?  I'm not only addicted to your blogs, but have an infatuation with the weather websites where I get up to the minute updates on the local radar.  Weird.  Not sure when it starts, but apparently at a certain point in your life, being constantly updated on the weather seems of utmost importance.  And it's not like I really have anywhere to go.

But what's really weird is that I though I'd jump right on blogger this morning and start typing away, but I actually had to make myself sit down in front of the computer.  I've got several post-worthy rants brewing in my noggin, but had no real urge to put pen to paper (or more accurately - fingers to keyboard).

I did "cheat" a little earlier in the week looking up a recipe for Funnel Cakes (and I did try looking it up in my numerous cookbooks), but after I scribbled down the ingredients I closed up the computer again.  Early (really, really early....more on that later) this morning I opened up my email account and the "news" is on the page before you get to the email.  I made the mistake of clicking on one of the articles. And I wish I hadn't (something about $250K being "middle-class".....is this guy serious??) because it made my blood pressure rise considerably.  I know that one should be somewhat abreast on what's happening in the world, but really, did I need to be told by some political psycho narcissist that my family's income is basically considered poorer-than-dirt?  I've got a blog-rant brewing on that subject also.  Sure you can't wait.

So, what did I do with all the time freed up by not being online?  Only some of the items on the "Should already be done" list got crossed off, but others were added as things progressed.  You know, like how cleaning out the small kidding pen turns into scrubbing all the goat and chicken feeders / water buckets, then since I'm out there I may as well fix the wire screen on the pens, then have to gather all the tools to do the fixing, then figure since I'm cleaning out the small kidding pen I may as well get the larger pen ready for the creepy-meats and homegrown chicks, oh the goats look like they'd enjoy some of the weeds in the garden so I'll pull just a few for them then end up weeding the entire strawberry bed etc., etc, etc..  And I still need to clean out the chicken roosting / laying area.  You know.  The actual item on my list.

Not surprisingly, not everything got finished.  But in my defense, the list is usually added to four times for every one thing that gets scratched off.  The work never ends around here.  I wonder if it would be as bad if I still lived in the 'burbs?  Like, what would I feel I had to do if I weren't mucking out goat stalls or cleaning out chick bedding?  Would the list still be as long, but with different items?  I suspect that my house would be much cleaner.

I also did some reading, something that doesn't normally happen until the winter months.  I started with "The Art of Fine Baking" (1961) and then "The Borzoi Cook Book" (1923).  Yes, I can and will read a cookbook from start to finish like a novel.  The former I picked up looking for a recipe for funnel cakes (you never know, and I was desperate!)  and the latter just because I like to read older books.  The "Borzoi" was a rather interesting read.  Directions that included, "Place meat on fire in saucepan with water, better still, put saucepan into fireless cooker." and "Pass bouillon  through 4 thicknesses of clean cheesecloth.  The cloth must be scrupulously clean, washed every time with potash and well rinsed afterwards."

I'd better go check to see if we have enough wood to burn to ashes so I can make me some good ol' potash.  Let's see how many caustic burns I can get on one hand, shall we?  I believe I'll put that at the END of the "To Do" list.

Going Offline

I've been noticing that my online usage has been rather extravagant for the past few months.  Some of it I can blame on the fact that it was a horribly hot summer and I wanted to do absolutely nothing outside.  But now I'm noticing that there are many things on my "I should really have done this already" list and it keeps growing.  And I'm not crossing any of those items on that list by sitting on the computer blogging or keeping up with the 24/7 news coverage of the Election Madness. (I'm kidding about the election stuff.  They can all go jump off a cliff for all I care, lying bastards each and every one of them.)

So I'm going to unplug from the computer for a few days.  If I can manage to live through the fits of blog withdrawal, I'll be offline until this coming weekend, at which time I'll probably be spending an entire day catching up on what you all have been doing.

I wish you all a wonderful and productive week.  See you next weekend!

Krazo Acres Home for Wayward Pets

I like animals.  Probably too much, as Paul would readily attest to.

I like having a dog outside to alert us to any intruders (two or four-footed).  Unfortunately, Moonshine is at the point in her life that she is not only too rotund to get up and even fake-chase something, but even becoming rather complacent when it comes to other animals or people in the yard.  

Two weeks ago, we had a canine visitor.  I usually "Shoo" away dogs as best I can, throwing rocks or even plinking them with the pellet gun if it warrants a more drastic intervention.  But this guy just wouldn't go.  And he was darned friendly.  So after realizing he was more than happy to stay, I gave in and threw him a dog bone.  I penned him up for a day and posted a picture of him in the local online petfinder and online paper.  No one fessed up to being his owner, but I did get a response that someone did in fact, know this dog.  And it's home base was several miles from here.  Apparently it's "somebody's" dog that just wanders around and apparently started wandering into new territory.  Meaning our front porch.

After keeping him penned up for the day, Paul and I walked with him around the yard.  He didn't seem interested in the chickens or goats.  Didn't give a lick about the cats.  If he did, it would mean an immediate trip to the pound.  He also seemed to be good with Rhiannon, although we didn't leave them in close proximity to each other without one of us being right there.  So that night I gave him a bowl of food next to Moonshine's.  No growling, no snapping.  Just happy to eat.  Moonshine even seems to get along with him.  Everyone went to bed and I expected to find him gone in the morning.  

Except that he had made himself quite comfortable on the doormat on the front porch.  For four days.  We were becoming quite smitten with the bugger.  He barked when someone pulled up the driveway (but didn't charge) or if there were deer in the yard.  And other than having a few annoying habits like jumping and not knowing how to properly take a treat from your hand (he slobbers and grabs your entire hand, gently, but still not acceptable), he was a pretty good dog.  Rhiannon had even named him "Wallace".  And I had started thinking that we'd have to take him in to the vet to get him fixed and have shots given.  Man, that drives me nuts.  There are so many irresponsible pet owners around here that just get animals, let them wander, don't care for them and don't get them fixed.  

But on the fifth day, he was gone.  I called for him on and off during the day, but I honestly wasn't going to make a big deal about trying to find him.  I figured he was just passing by.

This morning I opened the front door and saw this:

I debated going through whole "Shooing" routine.  I debated having Paul run him off.  But in the end I just gave him a dog biscuit.  I'm a sucker.

I don't know what we're going to do with him now.  Part of me wants to keep him as he seems like a very nice dog.  And we do need a "real" dog (sorry Moonshine) on the homestead.  But it's obvious that he's more than comfortable wandering the county and I do not want to be the owner of a wandering dog.  I've also been debating taking him to the vet to get neutered because it's the right thing to do, but should we have to shoulder the financial responsibility of fixing and vaccinating someone else's animal, especially if he'll just leave us in a week?  That's a $200 expenditure right there and we're not exactly poop'n out greenbacks.

So I'll be mulling over Wallace's fate here for a while.  Got to go now.  I think he wants a biscuit.

Chick update

Creepy meats are growing and eating like crazy.  No big surprise there.

Getting kind'a crowded in there.

My homegrown chicks have had two more casualties.  One I had to put down, even after doing some fancy hobbling and another I found belly up in the brooder yesterday morning.  I didn't notice anything wrong like intestines bulging out or anything, but who knows what happens to the insides when you push "stuff" back in.

I even had a green egg hatch out this time!  It was the last chick to hatch and it probably had the worst problem with it's abdomen.  I had to keep re-bandaging that little chick and it didn't help that it kept peeping and peeping and peeping like crazy, each "peep" pushing it's insides out.  But it is still alive.

Fifteen homegrown hatchlings!

It seems that I have at least six roosters in this batch.  Given past hatchings, every chick with a white spot on it's head has turned out to be a Barred Rock looking rooster.  Guess it's a sex-link thing.  As for sexing the others, I won't have an idea until they are about three weeks old.  I can usually tell the males from the females then by the size and growth of their combs.

Both the creepy meats and the homegrown chicks are still in the garage as Paul doesn't want to run our hillbilly electricity to the barn (via a 100' extension cord hung high enough on trees so the goats don't chew on it).  This is how we've done it in the past, but it's still more secure to have the chicks in the garage.......although much more stinky.  I'll put them in the barn when they are old enough and feathered out as not to require supplemental heat at night.  They don't have a heat lamp on during the day because it's still been hovering around 100 degrees this past week.

We did, however, receive some blessed and much needed rainfall yesterday.  Over two inches!  And this morning it's a "blustery" 59 degrees......I'm even drinking hot tea!  The forecast for the next few days doesn't even have us getting past the upper 80's.   How wonderful and how I long for Fall!

Chick Triage

I started forty-five eggs in the incubator on the 15th of August.  After two weeks I candled them and tossed a dozen of them.  About half of the remaining eggs were "maybes" but I kept them in the incubator just in case I was wrong.

The peeping started Monday night.  By Wednesday morning, there were seventeen live and fluffy chicks.  But I had to preform some chick-fixing in order to save seven of them.  It seems that for whatever reason (my fault, incubator fault, nature's fault, etc.?) at least nine of them had problems with the attachment of the umbilical cord to their abdomen.  When they freed themselves from the shell, the spot where the cord meets the body wasn't totally formed or developed, so there was muscle poking out.  Not much, but every time the chick peeped, it was forced out.  I pushed the "stuff" back in and put a teeny-tiny bandage over it.  Seven of them got a bandage and two of them I just left as it wasn't that big and had started to dry up on it's own.  During the night one of them had the same problem but I didn't see it until the morning and there was already too much of his insides pushed out and dried out.  I put him down because there was no way I could get all that back inside without doing more damage.  I put down another as when he kicked his way out of the shell, most of his intestines were already outside of his body.

There was also one other that had started pecking out of the shell, but after a while there was no movement or sound and even a little "goo" oozing out of where the shell was pecked opened; another of the same problem I suspect.  I gave it another few hours then determined it was really dead and tossed it.

So out of forty-five eggs, I got seventeen live chicks.  A 38% hatching rate isn't very good, but it beats a sharp stick in the eye.  Except half of them had some serious development issues.  I did have a problem keeping the moisture up in the incubator this time and I also didn't get the eggs out of the egg-turner until almost 36 hours before the first one hatched.  Could that have been the reason?  Anyone have this problem before?  I'm assuming it wasn't just a fluke as there were so many with the same problems.  I just hope that they heal up and can become productive laying hens or soup stock (roosters).

I definitely think I'm going to have to call it quits for the 2012 Egg Incubation Marathon.  Although we finished with a total of 28 homegrown chicks this year (plus two wild turkey poults), I'd have to say that the outcome was less than desirable.

But just like the garden.....there's always next year!

Better early than never?

I had planned on having the Cornish cross meat birds arrive two days after my homegrown incubated chicks were to hatch so I could put everybody in the same pen and brood them all together.

The eggs in the incubator are supposed to start hatching Tuesday (tomorrow):

But look what I had to pick up at the feed store last Thursday:

Needless to say, I wasn't too happy about the early arrival of the creepy-meats as it messed up my carefully thought out plans.  But I took them anyhow as the feed store guy said he wasn't sure if they would be getting any more chicks and I didn't want to have to scramble around to find our future chicken pot pies.

So basically, the Cornish chicks will be a week older than the barnyard mutts I'm hatching out and since the Cornish are notorious for growing very quickly, I'm sure that they will look like monster-chicks compared to mine.  I guess I'll have to separate the two broods for a while until I feel everyone can get along without too much pecking and picking.

The older chicks are still being cared for by two hens.  Technically there should be three hens taking care of chicks, but one flew the coop after three weeks and left her offspring alone in the pen.  Once broody hen number two hatched out her single chick, I put her and her chick in with the abandoned chicks and after a few days she adopted them.  The third broody hen and her two chicks were put in the same pen after a week alone.  So there are two hens and nine chicks in the large pen.  I'm still weary of letting the chicks out though as I don't have good luck with the little guys coming back in the pen or in the coop.  The mother hens usually end up staying outside under the barn with them at night and become opossum or raccoon midnight snacks.

Eventually I'm going to have to boot them out though as the Cornish birds will need to go in that pen as they outgrow the bins, then even the smaller pen.  Or maybe I can put them in the chicken tractor.  It hasn't been used since 2010, so I'll have to take a look at it.  Hopefully it won't take a lot to get it back to being 'coon and 'possum proof.