Tag Archives: Poultry

Important Events from the Middle of Nowhere

Posted on August 19, 2011 by | 9 comments
Mouser wins prize for lousy judgement

The cat you see above came to me as a loaner 13-or-so years ago.  A litter mate to Hydrox, the jellical cat I’d established an actual contract with for the remainder of one of our lifetimes.  Mehitabel, an adult in the household, hated Hydrox and I thought he needed some company, so I borrowed Naiad on an indefinite loan, no contract involved.

 Turned out she’s probably the best mouser I’ve ever enjoyed spending a piece of my life with, a survivor.  She went through Y2K with me, has braved every available kind of predator stalking cats from dogs to coyotes, an eagle, hawks, bobcats and probably others she’s never had the courage to divulge, even to me, a liberal and open-minded sort of guy.
She generally trusts me but there’s always been that no-contract thing hanging over her head, and the guy loaned her to me got murdered a few years ago.  She’s acutely aware if I hold strictly to our original agreement I have no option other than to return her to Socorro, New Mexico sometime.  So she’s careful not to cross me.
But I’ve digressed.
When Gale, Kay and I encounter one another we almost always exchange news about which predators are currently threatening our chicken-herds, particularly predators that might commute from mine to theirs, or vicee versee.  Yesterday Gale sprung one me:
“There’s a cat working up here you might want to keep an eye open for.  Kay took a shot at it, but she missed.  Black cat hanging around down by the hen house.”
“Black cat?  Stalking your chickens?”
“Stalking something down by the hen house.  Lots of rats down there because of the chicken feed.”
“Black cat?  You sure it wasn’t Naiad?  She’s been around chickens on and off forever.  Never bothered a chicken.”
“You have a black cat down there?”
“Yeah.  I’ll email you a picture.  I’d be obliged if you don’t shoot her.  She won’t bother your chickens.”

Toyota Goes Communist

Thursday I needed to go to town, so I packed the ice-chest with ersatz ice, a shopping list, and went to roll the 4Runner downhill to start it so’s to get up to Gales and borrow a truck to go to town.  The 4Runner did okay rolling down but I suppose just half-mile trips back and 4th to Gale’s place hasn’t kept the battery charged.  I’m thinking it spang went completely dead.
So, 100 degrees out there and me all dressed up for town I pulled up my galluses and hiked my young-ass over the hills and through the woods, picked up Little Red, the loaner truck, bumped my young-ass back down here, picked up the list and ice-chest, then off to town, where I happened to notice L’il Red’s license tag and Safety Inspection Sticker had both expired back in June.
Sweated blood and bullets all the way to town, various thrift stores, feed store, grocery store, all without getting into a gunfight with the law over the expired civilization indicated on the windshield.  And not entirely the result of me being unarmed.  Every time I saw a police vehicle I kicked into my ‘invisible’ mindset mode, which works a lot more frequently than a person might be led to expect if the person isn’t into such esoterics.
 NEWS ITEM #3
The Terlingua blogsman
http://terlinguabound.blogspot.com/
Posted a piece this morning I love and I think you might love too.  Popular Science Magazine archives going back to before the invention of life as we know it.  Going back so far there weren’t even any human beings running around to publish and read it, at least no human beings as we’re currently prone to indulge in believing humans are.
Stay tuned.  Likely something else will happen here sometime.
Old Jules

Johnny Horton – Old Slewfoot
http://youtu.be/xKcCyhUgbnY

9 Comments

Posted in 2011, Adventure, Country Life, Current Issues, Human Behavior, Relationships, Solitude, White Trash Repairs, Wildlife

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Thumbing Rides on Throwaways

Posted on August 9, 2011 by | 12 comments


I’m a lucky man because I don’t have the money to go buy ready-rolls when it comes to getting done what needs doing. In this instance I needed a garden, but I didn’t want 86 deer, 23 wild hogs and a dozen chickens in there being Communists 24/7 messing up my diggings. But I also din’t want to have to be digging holes to support any fence I wanted to put the trouble into erecting. The layered limestone wasn’t in a mood to give up any ground in favor of having posts stuck in it.

This place has a lot of old pipe lying around wishing someone would find a use for it, so a few pieces of it became the mainstay for the structural side of the job. There were other things up behind the buildings around the owner’s workings pricking him in the conscience by not being used, as well.

A roll of 3-times used/3 times discarded chain link was also among them crying for a job after being out of work longer than a US factory worker after the guys the patriots love sent all their holdings off to be done in Mexico and China to manufacture and sell back to us.

The ‘frame’ includes two welded steel triangles used to support something long forgotten, a bit of galvanized discarded water pipe, and that’s about all besides one hell of a lot of tie-wire. Ah. There’s that gate frame gives it some support on this end. But it’s strong, self-supporting and didn’t need any violations of the sanctity of the limestone substrata to allow it to become respectable.


I lacked a couple of feet having enough chain link so I made up the difference with the refrigerator shelves wired together you see beside the gate.


The whole shebang is pulled inward against itself by wires stretched across crosswise, lengthwise and diagonally from the corners, but held back from collapsing inward by the horizontal pipes. Meanwhile the chain link keeps it from falling outward.

Meanwhile, I needed support for my tomato plants:



Two scrap illuminum storm doors and old goatwire served the need.

The only cost of this fence in dollars was a couple of rolls of tie wire.


One more bug scraped off the windshield of life.

White Trash Papa rides again.

HiiiiiOhhhhhhhh Silver! Awaaaaaay!

Old Jules

Marty Robbins – Little Green Valley

http://youtu.be/WT5qegD28Wo

12 Comments

Posted in 2011, Adventure, Country Life, Homesteading, Texas, Thrift Stores, White Trash Repairs

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White Trash Repairs: Throwing Down the Gauntlet

Posted on July 31, 2011 by | 15 comments

It’s a slow day here, is the reason I’m posting this.  It’s not because I was over reading White Trash Repairs/There, I Fixed It – Repairs blog http://thereifixedit.failblog.org/ and got riled with their uppidy attitudes.

No, I just feel a need to be forthright about the kind of person I choose to be.  Maybe that can best be expressed with a sneak preview of some projects I’ll be discussing here later.

After I haul some more rocks the above is going to be a woodshed with a watertight roof.  The hot tub was on the porch when I moved here, cracked, home to wildlife.  Now it’s metamorphosing into an eventual place to keep my firewood dry.
There’s a lot of work yet to be done raising that roof a few more feet.

Then there’s this.  A nesting box for brooding hens to keep them separate until the chicks are old enough to mix with the flock, but still protected from predators.  Refrigerator shelves cut down to fit the cable spool, mounted on a sawed-in-half lawn mower platform for mobility:

Or this:  A chicken-house fabricated entirely from salvage, discarded shower doors, camper shell roof, refrigerator shelves, whatever came to hand free:


There.  I fixed it.

Old Jules

15 Comments

Posted in 2011, Country Life, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Internet, Poultry, White Trash Repairs

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The Lost Coon Diggings

Posted on July 27, 2011 by | 9 comments

I try not to be too humanocentric in my  dealings with the wildlife population here.  I’m willing to put up with some inconvenience and irritation in most instances in favor of the critters having their own jobs to do,  not directly intending anything personal.  I haul away snakes and try to discourage the deer.  If a creature will agree not to bother my cats and chickens I’ll generally agree to keeping the .22 behind the door where it can be peaceful and quiet.

But sometimes an animal gets insistent about leaping out of this lifetime into whatever place it figures members of its own species go when they die.  Coons tend to be of this nature.

This particular one’s been fighting a protracted battle with me for a month, at least.  Trying to dig into the chicken fortress at night, me stretching chain with treble-hooks wired to the links to discourage it days.  Brother Coon moving to another spot, starting again.  Me cutting prickly pear, putting in the holes, stacking rocks, him digging past, gradually winning me over to his own point of view that he was destined for some help getting into the next lifetime.

Last night I finally broke down and put out the live trap.

http://youtu.be/vmQKryGxwF4

9 Comments

Posted in 2011, Country Life, Homesteading, Poultry, Wildlife

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The Liar: The Great Speckled Bird, Part 2

Posted on July 19, 2011 by | 4 comments

I’ve described a few of the attributes of the GSB on another entry, http://tinyurl.com/4yxat2b,  but I didn’t get around to mentioning another  facet of his complex character traits.  He’s a liar.

When he finds food he’ll burble in a special way for the hens, he won’t eat, but pecks it, lifts it with his beak and drops it, bringing the hens running from all directions to fight over whatever it is.

But sometimes GSB gets lonely when he hasn’t found any food.  He’s crippled up and has to move about with a crow-hop, so chasing hens down when he’s lonely doesn’t come easy the way it does for other roosters.

GSB’s developed a practical solution to the problem.  He lies.

When things get slow and GSB wants companionship he’ll pick a spot where he might have found food if there’d been some there, and he’ll burble, scratch and peck, picking up imaginary food and dropping it.  The hens are wise to this tactic.  Somehow they’re able to sense he’s faking it, so they keep on with whatever they’re doing.

But GSB knows hens.  Keeps right on, insisting he’s actually got something they’d like.  Gets excited, urgent in his pronouncements about what he’s offering.  Eventually, one or another of the hens will begin to meander toward him, curiosity overcoming the weight of her experience and common sense.  Usually when one hen heads toward him the others can’t stand the thought she might get something they’ll miss, so the momentum increases and becomes a race to see who’ll get to him first.

When a hen reaches him GSB lifts the imaginary morsel one more time, burbles, and mounts her for a quickie.  The other hens lose interest, GSB dismounts and wanders away, and the hen stays squatted on the spot a couple of minutes on the chance he’ll come back for more.

But if it’s to be done, best it were done quickly.

Old Jules

The Taker – Kris Kristofferson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfkN2i-yS04
He’s a giver, he’ll give her
The kind of attention that she’s never known
He’s a helper, he’ll help her
To open the doors that she can’t on her own
He’s a lover, he’ll love her
In ways that she never has been loved before
And he’s a getter, he’ll get her
By gettin her into the world she’s been hungerin’ for

’cause he’s a taker, he’ll take her
To places and make her fly higher than she’s ever dared to
He’ll take his time before takin’ advantage
Takin’ her easy and slow
And after he’s taken the body and soul
That she gives him, he’ll take her for granted
Then he’ll take off and leave her
Takin’ all of her pride as he goes

He’s a charmer, and he’ll charm her
With money and manners that I never learned
He’s a leader, and he’ll lead her
Across pretty bridges he’s planning to burn
He’s a talker, he’ll talk her
Right off of her feet, but he won’t talk for long
Cause he’s a doer, and he’ll do her
The way that I never
And damned if he won’t do her wrong
’cause he’s a taker, he’ll take her
To places and make her fly higher than she’s ever dared to
He’ll take his time before takin’ advantage
Takin’ her easy and slow
And after he’s taken the body and soul
That she gives him, he’ll take her for granted
Then he’ll take off and leave her
Takin’ all of her pride as he goes

4 Comments

Posted in 2011, Animals, Chickens, Country Life, Free-ranging-chickens, Human Behavior, Liars, Outdoors, Poultry, Relationships

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The Great Speckled Bird: Respecting our Betters

Posted on June 29, 2011 by | 5 comments

We humans cross paths with nobility so rarely, the surprise is in the fact we recognize there’s something akin to reality behind the concept.  Instead of looking for it we make heroes of celebrities, preachers, soldiers, cops, politicians, popular science personalities and any gender capable of making our genitals tingle.

We need heroes too badly to hold out for anything worthy of admiration in our fellow humans.  Far better to have a fat, power-drunken political radio rhetorician, an angry, strutting songster shouting a drumbeat of communal self-pity,  a tribe of pierced, tattoo–branded cattle, anyone who can catch a football  to represent the best we can find as objects of our veneration,  than to have nothing at all.

But I’ve digressed.

Probably Christendom runs amok with people who share their lives with creatures they believe are noble, worthy of a higher level of respect than the fantasy masturbation indulged in when they consider their favorite preacher, guru, rock star, or pleasing features.  A cat, a horse, a dog– anything capable of out-doing a human being when it comes to loyalty and the ability to do well what nature gave it the means of doing.  Most settle for less, knowing it doesn’t require perfection to trump any competition the human species is likely to put forward.

I’ve known a good many cats, and share my life with some now I’d stack up against the great majority of humans I’ve met in 6.8 decades of life.  They were good, each in ways we measure felines.

But the Great Speckled Bird is in a class all his own.

He was given to me as a discard, a crippled leg, a wing that hung low from some past injury.  I took him, but I wasn’t glad.  Not until a few days later when I saw him trying to convince a hen that a particular spot was okay for laying eggs.  Not until he snuggled himself into the spot while she looked on, hen-like.  Not until he stood guard at the entry while she did her business.

That was my first hint there was something special going on here.  I’ve admired roosters for conspicuous courage, smiled at their pride and posturing, cursed their wrong-headedness, acknowledged over time that traits of average roosters bear a lot of similarity to those of human heroes, celebrities, and the common run of mankind, only the roosters are more consistent, better at  it.

Learning to respect the Great Speckled Bird required me to suspend disbelief.  I had to learn to believe my eyes and forget the expectations acquired by long acquaintance with roosters.

Over time I watched him deprive himself as a matter of ritual, calling the hens to any food he found, picking it up showing it to them, dropping the morsel for them to fight over.  Refusing to go into the chicken-house at night until all the hens were safely inside.  A few months after his arrival I’d lost seven hens to some predator within a couple of days.  I was indoors when I heard the cacophony of flock alarm somewhere out back, took up a long gun and hurried to see what was wrong.  The Great Speckled Bird took flank position and we trekked in the direction of loose feathers up the hill.  I knew I’d lost another chicken, but I saw no sign of what got her.

Suddenly TGSB spread his wings and made a run for a cedar about 40 yards away.  When he was a few yards away a fox darted from beneath, crosswise to both our paths.  I fired and the fox chose to visit the place where chickens don’t have roosters and men with guns to guard them, or whatever place fox-folk think they go when they die.

Last winter was a tough one for the Great Speckled Bird.  Younger roosters were maturing and a long cold spell weakened him enough so the beta birds discovered they could beat him out in a fight.  I caged them so they couldn’t follow through, and he recovered.

But I’ve just pulled a brooding hen off nine eggs she sat for 25 days, none of them fertile.  The winter must have done more damage than his frost-bitten comb and the beatings from the other roosters.  No more chicks around here until he’s gone, but I doubt he’ll make it through another winter.

One morning I’ll go out there, see him lying beneath the roosting hens and whisper, the king is dead.  Long live the king.

Old Jules

5 Comments

Posted in 2011, Adventure, Animals, Chickens, Country Life, Free-ranging-chickens, Homesteading, Poultry, Senior Citizens, Texas

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