And then there were five...

Well, since the world did not end this month as the Mayans allegedly predicted, I will yet again endow upon the literary world a small glimpse into my thoughts. Go ahead and set up your electron microscope for this amoeba –sized brain leak. I spend much of my day thinking and although much of the brain power is spent on work-related issues, there are times in which the synapses trip the light fantastic (Or something to that effect). Lately my thoughts have meandered across such wonderful topics such as the economy, politics, and interpersonal relations. (Get your mind out of the gutter, I’m talking about manners).  Among those rather depressing topics comes a ray of hope, a burst of sunshine through the mushroom cloud of human malfeasance. Curious? Well by all means, read on!

While I realize my lovely Bride has already posted about our wonderful news, I have yet to share my perspective of this glorious event-to-be; she and I are anxiously anticipation a new addition to the household. No, not another puppy like our Jack, saved from the clutches of the animal control gestapo. We are expecting a baby (As opposed to what, a new yacht? Sheesh…).  So to get the basics out of the way, yes, I am VERY happy about it, and no, it was not a surprise. All things considered, no pregnancy should be a real surprise, assuming the marriage follows the traditional definition of a marriage. Even those who did not plan for a baby should not be surprised when their um, actions, lead to an easy to read blue line, or pink double plus sign… but I digress.

I love children. (Well, at least my own children. I’m not always so terribly fond of the offspring of others). And it’s a wonderful thing that I do love them,  considering I am about to have another one. Who else can make you happier than a lark one moment, and then mad as an old wet hen the next?  Speaking of wet hens, our chickens will stand in the pouring rain for hours and seem to enjoy it, never once uttering a cross squawk.  Makes me wonder about that old phrase after all… Anyway, children are a source of great joy and great pain. For instance, the Monkey will be ever-so-gently cavorting around the living room making silly faces and laughing, just  filling the room with joy, and then run full speed across said room and jump into his Daddy’s lap…and well, enter the pain. It’s almost like small children are born with built-in targeting devices in their needle-sharp knees. The military should look into using little boys’ knees as models for the newest missile defense system. Knees NEVER miss their mark. 

Another exciting thing about having a new baby is all that wonderful potential wrapped up in such a small package. Now you might think I’m talking about the possibility of this freshly hatched bit of human tissue one day becoming President of the United States, but I’m not. I’m talking about the ability of this small person to produce prodigious amounts of poo, another of my Bride’s favorite topics. How can it be that such a sweet being can take milk and turn it into a form of matter that could weaken Superman himself?  And what is formula really made of, powered stink bug? I mean it smells bad enough when you mix it up, but once it has processed in the gizzard of that beautiful bundle of joy, it becomes more deadly than anything ever released at Chernobyl. Sarin gas, bah. We have formula poo. Even Marion Donovan, the inventor of the disposable undergarments for infants, appropriately named these poo packs DIEpers… (Yes, I know, its diaper, with an “A”, but that doesn’t fit into the pun very well now, does it?).  And while I’m on this topic, did ya’ll know that all diapers are falsely advertised? No matter what the package says, those doggone things won’t hold 30 pounds. Not even close.  

Quite often I an asked if I’m hoping for a boy or girl and my response is “Whatever I am blessed with, as long as he is healthy”.  And while my Darling and I are hoping for a boy, we sure won’t be disappointed if it isn’t.  A girl just means I get to buy more guns for dating season…Uh, I meant hunting season.  Not that I would ever actually shoot a boy trying to date one of my girls, but HE doesn’t know that for sure and the girls aren’t really one hundred percent certain. I’d like to keep it that way . All I know is, boy or girl, I will love and protect this child with all the fierceness in my being, and will do my best to raise it with the values taught to me by my Mom and Dad; Honor, Integrity, Kindness, and the sheer, unadulterated love of a 30 ounce porterhouse steak cooked medium. (Sorry, it’s getting close to dinner time and my thoughts strayed).

So as my beautiful Bride and I travel this path of biological wonder, I will continue to occasionally post about it and keep you up to date on the pregnancy, weight gain (mine, not hers), delivery, and which one of us gets woozy first in the delivery room…me, or the doctor.

Until next time,

 

 

 

 

Look,up in the sky! Its a desk, its a bar, its..its...nevermind, its a desk....

So my wonderfully patient Bride often agrees to humor me and my attempts at woodworking. Thus far, my resume only included building a bookshelf for our living room, which she graciously rearranged the living room to accommodate. The bookshelf worked out ok, although the finished product ended up much larger than I had first envisioned. Apparently I dream big and produce even bigger, which can be a good thing at work, but not so great when you are trying to fit the results into a 12x14 room.

Anyway, my most recent project was a desk for work, which was a somewhat daunting task since I am not exactly a carpenter by any stretch of the imagination. I spent several days drawing, erasing and re-drawing the plans for the desk until what I saw in my head was somewhat represented on paper.

 

 

Once the drawing was complete, I made a trip to the Lowe’s store in Conroe where I bought all of the lumber and stain, then a short jog out to RND Rustics in Magnolia, TX, where I bought the cast iron stars for trim.  The lumber list consisted of whitewood dimensional lumber: (3) 1x10x6, (16) 1x4x10, and (3) 2x6x10 treated lumber for strength. Every cut was measured three times before the trusty Ryobi circular saw was even triggered, then measured again after the cut was made.

The desk top was fashioned from the 1x10 boards glued edge to edge, with ½” dowels every 6” for added strength, then clamped in a pair of pipe clamps overnight to dry (Thank you Aunt Judy and Uncle Jim, for selling those wonderful devices. I KNEW they would come in handy).

As the top cured, I began building the legs of the desk by gluing and screwing four 1x4’s together in a square tube 36” tall. My bride asked me “Isn’t that going to make the desk kinda tall”, to which I replied that it was. Since I’m 6’02” I figured the desk should be taller than average to accommodate my height, not to mention the fact a taller desk seems quite regal, like a judge on the bench…

 

Once the legs dried and were ready to be assembled I toenailed the 2x6 boards to the inside of the legs and checked everything for square for the first time. (I know, seems kinda late at that point, but it was actually dead on, so maybe not)

While waiting on the leg structure to cure I began sanding the desk top, starting with an 80 grit to remove all of the rough edges, then used a 120 grit, 160 grit, and finished with a 220 grit for a smooth finish that still left some of the rustic look (read defects in the wood…) without having to worry about splinters. I also cut twenty 30” pieces of 1x4 to use as trim and sanded it the same way as I did the top. By the time all of the sanding was finished the top and legs were ready to assemble, which I did by screwing a 1 ½ inch triangle cut piece of wood to the legs, then to the desk top. (Proof that I’m not a carpenter…I know there’s a name for those “triangles” but I can’t remember it; An example of knowledge in practice but not in theory!)

With the top installed, I used a countersink drill bit and wood screws to attach the trim pieces and a curtain to three sides of the desk, which made it actually look like a piece of furniture rather than a work bench and a collection of wood.

I was finally ready to stain the desk. I used an oil based Cordovo stain in English oak to give me a color somewhat darker than the natural whitewood as well as to bring out the natural beauty of the pine knots. Rather than follow the directions, which was to brush the stain on and then almost immediately wipe it off, my Darlin and I brushed the stain on and made sure all of the stray brush marks and bubbles were out, and then let it dry. I made this decision after experimenting with several methods of applying the stain, sanding, and re-staining on a scrap piece. Needless to say, the color came out exactly as I had hoped.

 

 

 

The final touch was to add the cast iron stars from RND Rustics. The smaller stars are attached by a nail made to the rear of the star, and the larger center star is attached by wood screws on either side. This was a fun project that turned out almost exactly like the plans I had drawn out.

 

Considering I am neither an artist (I couldn’t draw flies if I were covered in poo) nor a carpenter, I am pretty happy with the results. I attribute the success of this project to my beautiful wife, whose suggestion to take my time and “do it right” was instrumental in the outcome, as well as her willingness to wrangle our urchins while I stayed in the garage working on it. As a side note, it’s amazing how little you can hear in the garage when a circle saw is slicing through a 2x8. It’s even more amazing what you can hear when it stops, such as “Stop putting your chicken on that scab”, and “Monkey! Stop drinking the dogs’ water”. With such jewels as that being common fare at our house, I think it may be time for another project. Maybe new furniture for the whole house?  Just kidding Sweetheart. I couldn’t do that to you……

As a side note, the guys at work all asked me the same question my loving wife did.... Isn't it too tall, or is that a bar? Maybe I am spending a bit too much time at work...they're starting to sound familiar.

 

 

Until next time,

 

 

 

Kids…can’t live with ‘em, can’t trade ‘em for a milk cow...

My beautiful Bride and I was sitting on the couch a couple of nights ago having one of our wonderful talks that I sincerely enjoy (and no, there is no sarcasm there. I really do like talking to her) when we started reminiscing about our first cell phones. We described them to our 14 year old daughter, whose touch screen phone is (in my belief) permanently attached to her thumbs, and explained to her that with those phones, all you could do was make phone calls. There was no text messaging, no picture messaging, and definitely no internet. We changed the subject at that point because the look of horror on my daughter’s face would have led you to believe she had just witnessed the first wave of zombies feasting on the heads of small animals at the Apocalypse. After she calmed down, we described how out first computers didn’t have any access to the internet at all, had monochromatic screens, and played high tech games such as Alien Invasion, or other two dimensional games that required a great imagination to see what the developer intended you to see.  It was quite obvious that she didn’t quite grasp the concepts of the Radio Shack TRS-80 (which we affectionately call the “Trash-80) or the Commodore 64C, which was actually in color! By the time the child went to bed, she was visibly shaken at the thought of having to live in a world where one had to actually talk to someone on the phone and had to know just a touch of BASIC language to manipulate the computer.

Kids of today are a strange breed. I was brought up that self-sufficiency, honor, and respect were all things to be proud of, not ridiculed. Most kids I grew up around would never have back-talked their folks out of fear that the myth might actually be true; a mother’s hand is indeed faster than the spoken word and is apparently directly connected to the eyes in the back of her head. My Mom could be driving the car and could slap a kid directly on the thigh with enough force to dent ¼ steel and never turn her head. And as far as Dads go, mine had an uncanny knack of being right behind a mischievous little boy who thought no one was looking. I will never understand how my Dad knew I was lying when I told him nothing was burning in the basement (The smoke really wasn’t THAT thick...). On second thought, I will never understand how I thought the cloud of smoke billowing out of the basement door (caused by burning motor oil and old clothing) could go undetected, but I digress.

I guess as kids we don’t realize that our parents have “been there, done that” so many times nothing we could do will surprise them.  There’s a reason Riri tells the Monkey not to play on the front porch steps. He learned that reason and simultaneously conducted his first experiment with gravity after he attempted to remove part of the cement with his forehead. Lesson learned? Probably not, since after his crash landing the boy received lots of attention, kisses from Riri, and a new toy from Kiki. If anything, he has discovered yet another way to manipulate those of us he considers his minions. This is the same kid who knows a cute smile and a “pweeeeeze” gets him anything he wants

Waxing political....again

Ah yes, tis the season for all Americans of voting age, who have not been convicted of a felony (and in theory, who still have a pulse) to get out and vote. That time of year where our Great Nation pulls together and we choose that one man who we want to lead us into glory for the next four years, and we all just get along. In the spirit of the Election, I decided to write a little poem to honor that season.

 

‘Twas the week before election and all through the land

The candidates were smiling, and shaking our hand.

The Democrats were offering to buy up our homes,

And use all that money to hand out free phones.

Barak’s in the White House with Michelle by his side,

Both touting change and claiming nothing to hide.

“The attack on our Embassy was just a protest

And had nothing to do with those poor terrorists

Our economy is great and it’s starting to grow,

Unemployment is dropping, as our numbers will show.

Al Qaeda is weak and bin Laden is dead,

So is Qaddafi (or so they have said)

With Bush not in office, there’ll be no more storms.

What, that little thing on the East Coast? Oh look, tax reforms.

Social Security is safe, our nest egg secure.

But you might want to save, just to be sure

The deficit isn’t as bad as it often looks,

We’ll hide several trillion in debt from our books.

A nuclear Iran is no reason to fight

They need that plutonium to power their lights.

Russia’s no longer an enemy indeed,

They give bio- weapons to bandits in need

So get out and vote. You choose who you wanna

You have but two choices; the Truth or Obama.

 

Jack, Clem, and them...

Although I already posted today, I just could not find a way to introduce the newest member of the Rocking PMH Ranch in my rant about big box retailers being the downfall of modern civility, so I decided to give you a bonus post for today….



Jack (left) and Clem (right) saying hello

Please allow me to introduce Jack, a one year old Black Lab (Possibly a mix, but we aren’t sure who the father was) that joined our family over the weekend.  We didn’t plan to get another dog…it just happened. Kinda like my 14 year old’s accidental destruction of household items. Her favorite saying is “I don’t mean to destroy things Daddy. It just happens”. Well, Jack happened a little like this...

 

Saturday was a beautiful Texas fall day at our place; the sun was shining, birds were singing,  the hens were laying cartons chock full of eggs and there we were, unable to enjoy any of it. Nope, we were stuck sitting in the truck waiting for my daughter to finish having theatre pictures made at a local park so we could then have the privilege of waiting two hours for her play practice to end.  We spent part of that time touring the country side looking at local farms and available acreage, then returned to the school to pick her up. Needless to say, our plan of running to town and getting some errands taken care of was shot. Luckily, play practice ended at 4PM so when she came out at 4:30, we finally headed to town. Since so much of the day was gone, we knew we weren’t going to get nearly as much accomplished as we had planned, but we had to get at least two things accomplished: buy feed for the chickens and stop by the Hobby Lobby for my bride. We like eggs, and the chickens refuse to lay eggs if we don’t feed them.  I’m not too good at math, but I can add feed + water = breakfast. We went to the local Tractor Supply to get the feed and that is where all of our plans came unraveled like a freshly knitted quilt in a kitten box. As we walked up to the store we saw several portable kennels with dogs in them. I am usually immune to “puppy dog” eyes, but my bride stopped at one cage that had a young black lab in it that reminded her of a dog she used to know. Same white blaze on its chest, same white specks on the front paws, same general size. In fact, this dog was so similar that she thought it might actually be the same dog. That is, until we found he had a feature that her female dog never managed to grow (I won’t go into what that feature is. If you can’t figure it out, you might need to re-visit high school biology, or at least health classes).

My mistake was placing my hand within reach of this devious creature’s tongue. As I knelt by his cage, he ever so gently licked my knuckles and went back to lying around. It was almost like he was saying “Look, I know you won’t save me from the needle. I forgive you”.  My daughter immediately began begging us to get him, and of course the lady from the AnimalShelter was no help whatsoever. She began telling us of this poor dog’s hard life and how all of the dogs out there were scheduled to be put down in the next few days as this was their final chance at adoption. She iced the proverbial cake when she told us that a woman and her 15 year old daughter had adopted him, but promptly returned him when he chewed up one of their boots. Now me, I was wondering why the lady's boots were in the back yard, but soon realized he was either an inside dog or she was really messy and just left her clothes outside.  And as a side note, it is my personal belief that her daughter is the luckiest kid on earth. I mean, had she thrown up on the mother’s outfit once they got home from the labor and delivery, Mom might have packed her right up and just taken that kid right back to the hospital. Either way, it was not the dog’s fault that boots taste so good. I mean really, the only difference in boot leather and a good steak is about 5 minutes and 100 degrees on a grill.

We finally left the portable death row and went inside Tractor Supply to what we had come for. Now I’m not saying I was distracted but I grabbed a 50 pound bag of Purina Layena chicken feed, and a 44 pound bag of dog food. My bride reminded me that we had just bought dog food, and then gave me the look. You know, the one where they think they know you better than you know yourself…and they just happen to be right. Of course I played it off like I had grabbed the wrong bag and when I got back from putting the dog food where it belonged she said, “You want that dog, don’t you”. I don’t know where she got an idea like that. We stood in the aisles of Tractor Supply like a couple of goofballs discussing the pros and cons of having another dog while the same two employees kept asking if we needed help with anything. My first thought was to invite them to join us in the decision making process and to honor us with a lengthy discussion on the responsibilities of care and maintenance involved in animal husbandry, but then I  looked really deep into the eyes of these individuals and realized that there was a perpetual “Huh?” there just waiting for the right opportunity to escape the lips.

I decided that there was no way my landlord (who, by the way, is probably the best landlord I have ever leased from) would allow another dog on the property since our current dog, Clementine the Bloodhound, is in the midst of a serious identity crisis and believes herself to be a large mole. I mean for Pete’s sake, we have a scale model of the Grand Canyon in our back yard that we fill in every few months only to find that she has re-excavated it a day later. I’m not prone to exaggeration, but I swear I looked into one of her yard-holes the other day and saw a man crawling out who had similar facial features to Bruce Lee. But I digress. 

I called the landlord anticipating that he would give me an “easy out” so I wouldn’t have to be a grown up and make a decision, and he very quickly gave me his answer. My family and I bought our chicken feed and left the store without having to even discuss the matter any further. We stopped outside and paid the animal shelter lady her adoption fee of $25, and loaded Jack into the truck. You see, my landlord said, yes, thus defeating my plan and making me responsible for the decision. Apparently my wife reads me better than I read myself (Duh). We took Jack home and introduced him to Clementine the Bloodhound and within a matter of minutes they were playing around like best friends.  It appears that although I wasn’t sure getting Jack was the right decision, it has made Clem happy, the kids happy, me happy, and yes, my beautiful bride happy as well.

 

In fact, I’m not entirely convinced she didn’t use some reverse psychology on me and this was her plan all along…..

 

Until next time....

 

 

Here lies Customer Service, a victim to Convenience...

Here in the South, we have gained quite a reputation for hospitality and good will, so one would think that customer service here in the Great State of Texas would be among the world’s best. Well, one would be wrong! I don’t know for sure when it happened, but apparently customer service has been outlawed in most retail organizations, and is frowned upon in a majority of convenience stores. The very fact that we have “convenience” stores (which aren’t all that convenient, when you consider $6/lb. bacon) instead of “service stations” makes me wonder when it all changed.

Now I didn’t get on this soap box out of sheer boredom, but rather out of a recent experience my darling bride and I had the pleasure of enduring at the “big box” stores.  For example, one large retailer (We’ll call it Mal-Wart to avoid the slander law suit) has become so horrible to deal with that she and I refuse to enter the doors, even to go to our bank.  A few months ago we entered that local money pit of blue smocks and special low prices and were donating a decent portion of our hard earned paychecks to their retirement when I decided to purchase a couple cans of tobacco. The ever-vigilant clerk demanded my driver’s license to verify that I was old enough to purchase tobacco products. I support individuals following the law, and even slightly ridiculous store policies simply because I am a firm believer in following the rules. It is relatively easy to figure out that I am over 18 by a couple (twenty) years, but after I handed her my driver’s license,  she barked at the love of my life that she had to have her ID as well, or she wouldn’t sell the snuff to me. Now I certainly agree that my wife looks young, but I’m pretty sure that even Ray Charles could have seen that she was over 18. Not to mention, she wasn’t buying tobacco…I WAS. I asked the clerk (who I’m pretty sure was in the same graduating class as Moses, if not Abraham) why my wife (who doesn’t dip snuff, by the way) needed to show ID for me to make a purchase and the clerk said “It’s the Law”. Not “I’m sorry, but that’s what I’m told to do” or, “This is how I have been instructed to perform my duties”, oh no. She tells me that the Great State of Texas has bestowed upon her the power to demand the identification of a party not involved in the purchase. Now ordinarily, I would have let it go, and I probably should have, but…I didn’t.

 I asked her what law required her to ID my wife so I could purchase snuff for myself and she, as I anticipated, had no answer that remotely fit the definition of logic. So rather than letting it be, I began kicking that dead horse like a Venezuelan soccer player at the World Cup. I asked this fine example of human existence what she would do had I been there with my 14 year old daughter or my five year old son, who have no ID’s and she said “Nothing. I would have just sold it to you”.  When my jaw finally returned to its biologically designed location, I thought to myself “She would sell me tobacco to share with my prepubescent child, but Heaven forbid my adult wife be present”.  I was so shocked at her answer  I handed her my money, and left without burrowing deeper into the twisted psyche of this  salesperson.  

I remember working at Mal-Wart as a teen in high school and customer service was pounded into our heads. There was a story of the late founder stopping by one of his stores and teaching a company-wide lesson in one fell stroke: He fired everyone in the store. The short version is he walked into one of his stores and was not greeted by the effervescent “door greeter”, and when he asked one of the associates for help, they pointed across the store to indicate the location of the bobble or trinket he had requested. When he complained to the department manager, the founder received a less than enthusiastic reply and requested to speak to the store manager. Long story short, a bus brought in a whole, well, busload of new employees from other stores and everyone who worked at that store was looking for a new job.  He fired a whole store because of a minor instance (or three) of poor service. Now at this very same company, you might get a grunt if you ask for help from some employees.  As my dear departed (but probably not sainted) Dad would have said, “They got too big fer their britches”. Since leaving the Mal-Wart flock, my Bride and I have begun trying to shop at local stores for what we can’t grow ourselves, and if we have to go to a big store, we try to stick with Texas based stores that treat us well, like HEB, who treat me like my money is worth their time.


Until next time,

 

 

The greatest things in life really ARE free...or at least greatly discounted...

I walked outside last night to take the trash out and noticed what a beautiful, clear night it was. There were no clouds in the sky and the stars stood out like Christmas lights on the front porch in July.  I got to thinking about how easy it was to see the stars in our yard and about how few stars could be seen in town, which made me think about a conversation I had with my beautiful bride the other morning on the way to work.  Not the one about my dirty boots leaving mud tracks on the freshly mopped kitchen floor but the one about how great it is to live in the country.

The town I grew up in the first few years of my life had fewer residents than most big city high schools have students. I mean for Pete’s sake, we didn’t even have a Wal-Mart or a Kmart closer than 10 miles or so. We did have our own full service gas station  though, complete with a one -armed attendant (Mr Procise, I think his name was). The only thing I remembered about him was that he lost one of his arms after a car side-swiped him and to this day, I can’t ride with my arm out the window without thinking of his morbid warning: “You’ll end up like me boy”.

Our back yard was connected to a couple hundred acres of corn or soy fields, depending on the season, and our weekend getaways involved driving to my uncle’s farm an hour away. There I got to enjoy such pleasures as spreading manure, mucking out the pig pens, and tossing square bales into the loft. Interestingly enough, once I got older I found out my uncle had a conveyor belt to load the loft with, but that apparently wasn’t as much fun as watching me try to throw the bales to dizzying heights.  I learned many wonderful lessons there, such as when my uncle tells you that there is only one place on his whole farm where you can pee outside, check for the location of the electric fences first. Or when you are running the John Deere with a disk set, you “go with the ROW”, not “to the ROAD” (Sorry Unc, it's hard to hear over a diesel tractor!). Oh, and when you play in the hay loft, don’t undo the bales, no matter how much fun it is to jump into the scattered hay. Doing this will result in many more hours of baling.

  In the summer time at our house as soon as breakfast was over Mom opened the back door and said “Don’t come back in till lunch time”. I happily complied because coming back into the house meant you were bored, and being bored meant you needed something to do. “Something to do” could mean anything from cleaning your room, organizing your clothes in the dresser, or counting the rice in the canister. It wasn’t until a couple years ago I found out this isn’t actually a real chore, but a way to ensure I never complained about being bored. Oddly enough, the uncle I mentioned earlier was mom’s brother. I wonder where they got such a devious sense of humor….

It wasn’t until I grew up and entered the insanity we call adulthood that I began to appreciate the things my parents gave me as a child. I’m not talking about material things; Lord knows we didn’t have much of those. I mean the things that matter; respect, honor, dignity, and an appreciation for a simpler life. Even within the past two years I have learned a greater love for simplicity. Don’t get me wrong, I still like smart phones and cruise control, but the things that really matter are those things that you can’t buy, such as a great Wife, good kids, growing your own food, and so on.  These are the things that I now live for. My bride and I have started going for short drives around the country side on the weekends just to get out of the house and clear our heads. During one of these drives we happened on a small herd of deer consisting of several does, a couple of young bucks, and multiple brightly spotted fawns. As we continued down the roadway, we encountered several more herds of 10-15 deer. It was early evening, the sun was just beginning to bed down and there was a smooth mist covering the area like a light gray blanket.  At first, it reminded me of a beautiful painting, but when I finally overcame the urge to harvest a couple of the deer for dinner and re-capped the scope, I realized that nothing man could create could be this beautiful, and this real. And since it was just me and my Wife, no one else in the world would ever get to see what we were seeing at that moment in time.  It was a gift to us, and only us.  Folks in their high rise condos or in their million dollar mansions in town would never have a view like this, no matter how much money they spent.  I have to admit, it was a bit overwhelming at first and I nearly forgot that I was driving but luckily I drive a 4X4 and once I pulled the truck out of the ditch, we drove the rest of the way home in silence, appreciating the beauty of living in the country (and of course the fact that I had not killed us during our excursion).

                                                             Sunrise over Montgomery, TX.....

 

Until next time…

 

 

In the beginning there were Chickens...or was it eggs?

Howdy y’all, and welcome back!

 

Since the title of this blog is “the Coop”, I suppose I should at the very least mention the chickens. My wife and I decided to start raising chickens last spring and began heavily researching (and by that I mean “Googling”) information on the subject. Ah the dreams of the ignorant. We bought our eight birds as day old chicks from Tractor Supply and brought them home to the brooder box we had set up in the garage according to the internet gurus. The brooder box consisted of an old particleboard bookshelf with the shelves removed, and about 4 inches of pine shavings (also from Tractor Supply), an old screen door screen to prevent the adventurous chicks from escaping from the open top, a feeder, waterer, and a heat lamp. That one gave me pause; why a heat lamp in South East Texas you ask? Well, apparently chicks like it warm, and these were no exception. We purchased four Production Red chicks and four Buff Orpington chicks and introduced them to their new home. We sat for hours watching them run around and peck at anything and everything that they thought might be even remotely edible, and listened as they peeped their little chicken hearts out. As I watched the children (and my wife) fall in love with these birds, I made it very clear that they were “working” birds whose job was to grow up and lay lots of eggs for us to consume, and then when they reached the end of their usefulness as layers, they were going in the stew pot and new chickens would take their place. I strongly advised my family against naming them to keep from getting too attached and treating them like pets.

It was amazing how quickly Mudpie, Professor Fluffypants, Tiny (that was the fat one), Spike, Gomer, Lou, Sleepy, and What’s-her-name grew. In no time at all, they sprouted wing and tail feathers, and had the tiniest little combs you could imagine. And these chicks could eat. They would go through a one gallon feeder a day, and true to physics, what goes in, must come out. Had I collected all their droppings and sold them as fertilizer, I would be a millionaire, or at least be able to afford another Coke.

Fast forward eight weeks, and the now “teenage” chickens were released outdoors into their coop/run that I built with my wife’s help, meaning she kept my son from running off with my nailer and other power tools while I tried to build a coop for the first time. Despite a couple of setbacks and three extra trips to Lowes above the original plan, the coop was complete. The coop itself consisted of a 4x4x4.5 doghouse that our blood hound refused to even sniff, let alone enter, and a 16x4x4 foot chicken-wire run. It took about two days to realize that a four foot tall run was not a good idea, seeing as I am 6’02” tall, and not of a small stature (Heck, I’m not even medium stature!). Regardless, that coop and run combination served us well for about two weeks until our lovely hound, who had never hurt a fly, found that farm fresh chicken suited her particular palate.  In fact, the laziest of lazy dogs, whose idea of hard labor included moving from one shady spot to the next, suddenly adopted a course of action that left the yard around the coop with a strong resemblance to a Case backhoe that came to life and was looking for revenge. There were trenches into the coop deep enough a small horse could have trotted through, and our chicken population dwindled to only four birds very quickly. Us being the quick learners we were, we returned to Google and learned several ways to break a dog from killing and eating chickens. We dove into these methods whole heartedly finally found one that worked. We put 1 foot square pavers all the way around the coop so she couldn’t dig in.  And we called the dog dumb. I’ll bet she was shocked when we didn’t simply remove her access to the chickens in the first place, and figured the punishment was worth it for all the fresh chicken she could eat.

Anyway, hardest lessons are best lessons learned, and we bought more birds to replace those that were recycled into doggie bombs in the back yard, and have rebuilt our bird population. We introduced two Barred Rocks and two new Rhode Island Reds to the flock and everyone seemed to get along with each other. Everyone that is, except the one remaining Buff Orpington. And not that she didn’t get along with everyone else, the problem was they all ganged up on her! And that is how my father-in-law also became a chicken farmer….(the Buff is doing great there, by the way…)

We now have eight birds again, seven of which are laying large to extra-large brown eggs and getting along just fine. I have built a new run that is 16 feet long, 6 feet wide, and 8 feet tall, which makes it so much easier to access and care for the chickens. Our goal is to eventually have two coop/run set-ups; one for laying birds and one for meat birds, and for each coop to house around 50-75 birds. It should continue to be an interesting journey that I hope you will continue to take with us. And for you ladies, my wife has her own blog full of recipes, ideas, and good ol’ down home country livin. You can follow her at http://acountrychickinthehenhouse.blogspot.com/ and hopefully we all live and learn together.

 

Until next time,

the Coop

Handouts or Holdouts?

I was sitting in my office wondering what today's post should bestow upon the masses when it was brought up that I raise chickens at home. Now in my mind, I always imagined that when people spoke of cowboys, farmers, or just everyday country folk in general, there was a certain amount of awe and respect for the people who provide your daily bread. No, I’m not talking about Mrs. Baird; I’m talking about the farmer who spends months raising a crop of wheat to sell to the granary in order for that wheat to be made into flour FOR Mrs. Baird.   Come to find out, there is little to no respect for that man in the field. It seem that most feel it is better to run to the Super Quick Stop and buy a loaf of bleached, over-processed bread than to work your tail off and make it yourself. These same folks like to make fun of the chicken farmer for raising laying hens but ask “When are you going to bring me a dozen eggs?”

That brings me around to today’s topic of choice; the general sense of entitlement held by a large portion of today’s society. We live in a time where government subsidies are the norm, and hard work is scoffed. I’m not saying that every person on government aid is milking the system, but for Pete's Sake, when you stand in line at the grocery (for those items you CAN’T make yourself) and watch the person in front of you use a LoneStar card ( our local version of food stamps) to buy their groceries, and then stand behind them in line again as they send a thousand US dollars to a neighboring country, it tends to add to your cynicism. I am not at all against helping those who need our assistance. In fact, I believe very strongly in helping those in need but I don’t believe that giving them free reign with the cash money I earned working every day is helping them.  Why can’t we make helping others actually benefit more than just the people on the receiving end? Here’s an idea; Go to the farmers in your local jurisdiction and pay them to do what they do….farm. Buy local crops, beef, pork, (and of course chicken and eggs) from these farms, and then feed the needy with it. The stipulation is, it is not free. If, for whatever reason, the recipient of this aid cannot get a job, they can work on the farm and help that farmer grow the food they are about to eat.  If they are physically incapable of manual labor (not to be confused with lazy), they can be used in the non-physical aspects of distributing food. Can’t walk? Sit at this table and collect information on the recipients.  There is something for everyone to do and country folks have been bartering this way for years. The problem is, the government has made it so easy to get something for nothing that it has stopped being aid and is now support. Only children and the elderly should be supported. Everyone else get off of your behinds and let’s earn what we have.

So to totally change directions, anyone else out there carry more than one basket to collect your eggs? Cause I put all my eggs in one basket, and haven’t had any problems yet…..

 

See Y’all Later,

The Coop

 

Howdy y'all ...

Howdy to anyone and everyone who happens to read this! Today’s edition will be a brief introduction to me and who I am.

I guess a very important thing to know about me is that I am a Texan through and through, and make no apologies for it.  I wear Wranglers, boots, and a Resistol (if you don’t know what that is, see the black thing on my head in the profile picture!), I carry a gun everywhere I go, and I love my family with the fierceness of a pack of coyotes! I am very happily married to the most wonderful country girl God has ever created and look forward to coffee on the front porch with her at a very old age.  I am a conservative BUT, that’s not what this blog is about, so I won’t spend a lot of time trying to convince my readers that I am right and that they are wrong, or pontificating (love that word!) on the moral ineptitude of today’s politicians. Nor will I apologize for my beliefs, opinions, or statements. Now that part is over, I hope that you enjoy what you read,   and please feel free to comment on anything I post. I plan to have fun with this, and hope that you do too!

Now, since the name of this literary piece of….genius…is “the Coop”, I’ll explain how I came to that title. Although my wife and I both work full time jobs for the county, our hearts are on the farm. Our dream is to eventually own acreage and start a little farm of our own. Nothing huge, just something to help us become more self-sustaining. We both come from farming families and want to get back to the basics of living a simple life together. We raise chickens right now and are really enjoying the fresh eggs every day! Our flock isn’t big (yet) but everything has to start somewhere. You can see our flock at our ranch’s website, rockingpmhranch.webs.com. Please go visit us there, and let me know what you think!

Hopefully the disjointed narration above hasn’t made you decide not to read on but if it has, you probably wouldn’t enjoy reading what I have to say anyway, so why waste time!

 

Until Next time,

The Coop.