Sat. Eve Aug 15th... Last day of the Farmers Market went well... We’ll miss it...

Perhaps if we find ourself at the end of the week with a surplus of eggs, we might venture to the market again... who knows. We do know that if folks continue to come here and pick up their eggs at $2.50 a dozen, unclassified, we will make out better than going there on Saturday mornings. It’s strange, because we graded and sorted the eggs by weight, packaged them according to the dept of Agriculture required guidelines, with Jumbo @ 3.00, X-Large @ 2.75, Large @ $2.50, Medium @ 2.00, Ducks @ $2.50 and Bantams @ $1.50. After adding the value of 22 dozen eggs at $52.50 and deducting $15.00 for the spot at the market and $9.02 for 22 new cartons, we go home with $28.48.
Take the same 22 dozen eggs in used cartons, unclassified (jumbo thru mediums mixed) @ a flat $2.50 a dozen and you have a soild $55.00 if they are sold at the farm. It’s really better for us and a better “Bang for the Buck” for our customers actually. Kind of what they call a “no brainer” decision right? Sooooo, I guess we will be selling our eggs here on the farm like before. If we have an over abundance on Friday, we’re actually thinking about selling them inthe Freehold Country Store. By starting to retail them in the Freehold Country Store, we can begin to capture more new customers, which could also drive the short distance to the farm for the “better deal.”

Anyway, after we got home from the market, we took off for Frank’s in Norton Hill for a lunchtime soup & sandwich, and then returned home to let the dogs out a bit before going to our farmer friend down the road, for a small load of hay for the Alpacas and bunnies. Egg production for today was probably a dozen or so....... because the suns heat is unbearable. When we got home, there wasn’t a chicken, duck or turkey that was out of the shade, including the alpacas. Vicki even placed a container of ice in each of the bunny pens to help them cool down. If it get’s any worse, we will shave them and forfeit the fiber for their safety. Another half inch in length and they will be ready to shear anyway.

Last evening, I sent my credit card payment and authorization sheet for the printing of my first book entitled, Poetry From the Heart - Unpretentious Notions of a Minimalistic Man”, which should be in print and available around October I guess; that is, if everything is correct and print ready. We won’t know that until Monday or so, when a customer service rep will arrange for me to send him or her completed digital and PDF files and they have time to go over them. If everything published correctly, it will immediately be placed into their production schedule for printing. Shortly after that, we will receive a hard copy sample, complete to review and if satisfied, I fax a sign off sheet and they print the first run of my book. We’re excited and I will then begin to publish the second book and finish writing the third. Both Vicki and I are psyched!! Vick may do a gallery showing of her art later in the fall at the “All arts Matters” when they do an art festival of sorts. Below I have scanned in some of her latest works. I already say Vicki is the Artist Laureate of “The Cluckin’ “A” Critter Farm, LLC and I will then be the Poet.....in same standing.... What a way to retire and enjoy life!!!!!







A fly fisherman in the creek






Fall creek scene






Beaver pond and lodge on route 81, New Baltimore




Stone homestead, route 81, Coxsackie

Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Old barn off route 81 near Climax, NY

A Washington County landscape

Catskill Creek from route 41 bridge, near Cairo, NY

Calico Barn Cat

Black Lab in all her beauty

Friday Aug 14th... Tomorrow will be our last planned Farmers Market Appearance...

We are giving up the Farmers Market.... Much as we hate to do it and will miss the people, we cannot do as well at the market as we can right here on the farm. We must charge more for the eggs at the market due to FDA required packaging, grading and sorting, which costs us more than it does at the farm, because at the farm, we do not have to provide new containers or sort the eggs. We can place eggs randomly in cartons after cleaning and candling, and then sell them for one set price as before. The customers like that better and really...they get a much better “bang for their buck” buying in this manner.
We had discussed and taken stock of this situation yesterday and after some very intense scrutinizing, came to the conclusion that we are better off selling our eggs right here on the farm, rather than at the Farmers Market. We will continue as always, to clean, candle, check and grade the eggs, but we will again revert to boxing unclassified eggs in returned boxes to satisfy customers and also optimize a recoup of feed costs if possible. We will again sell the eggs for $2.50 per dozen out of the self serve cooler on the porch, but will no longer have varying prices for sorted, sized eggs. We will still box eggs in the FDA required manner for sale in our local stores, which will sell them at the retail level later in the fall.
As before, ALL eggs will be sold at $2.50 per dozen. We will take clean boxes back to recycle them, but cannot give a credit for them. If you want to give them to us fine... but it is no longer necessary and the price remains a flat $2.50 for everyone. This should make many people happy again...... we hope.

It certainly looks as if it is going to be another nice, sunny, hot summer day again today. Vick has to go for a hair appointment at 11:00 and after that we will ride down the road to see if we can purchase some bales of hay from our farmer friend that we have bought off of since we started. I hope he has been able to make hay this summer and we can get some. We are running seriously low at this time and the Alpacas and Angoras need their hay. They will not understand wet field conditions and hunger... not to be tolerated by them and they will let us know it immediately. Today is the day for securing that necessary hay....somewhere! How I wish my back and hamstring tendon was better. Better yet, how I wish you could find a young guy to help with such work around the farm as easy as it was when I was growing up. I helped a neighbor friend milk cows, bale and throw hay and clean up around this farm, just for the fun of it... now you can’t pry kids away from the TV and Wii long enough to help with anything. No kid will work for minimum wage, cleaning stalls or helping put hay in now days....especially when they can run to Daddy and he hands them money anytime they need it. Oh well.....

Thurs. Aug 13th... The Great Bird Escape at the Cluckin' "A"

Ok...we went out and let the critters all out for the day and took pictures like I said we would. The only place we didn't snap pictures was in the brooding house where we have 24 eggs perking in the incubator and thirty chicks in the brooding box. They are starting to grow nicely and will be out and running with the rest in approx 12 weeks or so. The 24 eggs should hatch on the 29th of August...





The usual daily visitors... Been here since birth...





The infamous escape from Cuckin' "A"






Every morning...the same thing...






These are the nine duckies we hatched a few weeks ago...






More avian mayhem...














This is one of our female bunnies in her own pen...

Here's Spike and one of the Vermont boys facing the other way...

This is one of our originals... I call him Spike... after the Gremlin...see his hair?

Both Vermont boy's together....

One of the original females

The other female.....

Luke and Bollero heard me, but can find me. I'm peeking out the window...

You can fool some Alpacas some of the time, but you'll never fool Iggy anytime!!! He knew exactly where to look...

Again... the geese try to overthrow the Avian Government to rule supreme

They are making headway with the takeover... birds keep stepping aside...

Just look at them pushing birds away from the feed...

Just like a police line they keep advancing... Pushing...

I am now within two feet of this one...

Here I stepped back into the barn to see just how far the geese would go...

See the Guinea Hen? Thirty seconds later the Guinea ran them off...all the way to the pond and into the water...

A lounging turkey

I stopped, knelt down and took a close up because he was just resting in the sunlight, showing beautiful feather color...

Immediately one of his nest mates wanted to know what was going on... she came running over...

The other hen rushed to within a foot of me to see what I was up to...

Then, of course... "Rooster Cogburn" has the last important say, if it must be said at all. Everything has to go through him... I believe the Guinea Hen's are employed by him....sort of like a God Father I'd say...

Thurs Aug 13th... Ready for another round of publishing calls to the printer...

This morning, will finish up the last of publishing corrections and launch us into a new area... dealing with the printer at Offset Paperback Manufacturers, located in the scenic Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania. We will contact the next step in the circuit of publishing, by arranging the finalization and release form today if everything can be resolved quickly and easily over the phone with that lady. After that, we fax the order form/approval sheet and we then wait for the hardcopy sample. Hopefully after today, that is what we will be waiting on.

Going out right now to leave all the animals out and I’ll take the camera as I’ve promised to before to shoot a few pictures of the Vermont Bunnies and daily bird escape! Stay tuned for pictures.....

Wed. Aug. 12th... “Push em back, push em back...Wayyyyy Back... Remember?

Sounds like an old high school cheer for our team...right? Well that is what America is doing right now...trying to support each other and allow democracy to work as it should. Seldom before have Americans stuck together and made the crooked politicians “sell” their program. Far too many times we just sit back and allow anything our legislators prescribe for us; what ever they feel we should need or have. This choice by them, of course, usually doesn’t encumber their lives or how they will do things, because they are always exempt from their own decisions. WOW...would I ever love to make just one decision in my life that wouldn’t impact on me. Imagine...no worries that my plan would fall apart and leave me in worse shape than I was before, and I wouldn’t have to worry about hidden information that would pop up later causing me embarrassment and money. How neat it must be to become a politician. How wonderful to hold the future of other people in your hands... making God-like decisions that will determine their lives beyond today, next week and for years. Great...that is, until the little people join together to start creating among them, a voice that starts to rise above the politicians chant......gaining momentum and becoming a thundering demand for explanation of their creation and the incessant backlash against them force feeding the public their rancid confections... It has even come down to the head honcho making statements like, "I also don't think insurance company bureaucrats should be meddling" Or “We’re not going to make so called “death panels” that decide who is treated and who is left to die because they are too old and it costs too much to treat them.” Then of course there is the most famous of all quotes by Obama saying......... “As long as they have a good product and the government plan has to sustain itself through premiums and other non-tax revenue, private insurers should be able to compete with the government plan”, Obama said.
"They do it all the time," he said. "UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. ... It's the Post Office that's always having problems."
Duhhhhhhhhhhhh... the Post Office....a federal, governmental entity????? Is it just me or shouldn’t that tell us something right there, Mr. President??? STAY OUT OF IT!!! The government should concentrate on things like our failing "Social Security System" and the illegal immigrants and other add on programs that are eating it up. Leave health care alone. Health care needs to be reformed alright... but not as you are recommending...just stop the lawyers and judges from awarding stupid, unbelievably, outrageous amounts of money in law suits that should never even exist.
Control the cost of hospitals and doctors malpractice insurance by getting freeloader shysters out of neck braces and off crutches and the cost of health care will come down. In fact...the control of all lawyers, Insurance companies and judges would eliminate a ton of problems and free up the judicial system for more important things. Then maybe we could address the “swinging door policy” for criminals that are constantly turned loose on our streets.
With all these concerns...would it be any wonder Vicki and I never know what we are going to do in any day? What if someone needs us to figure out how to deal with an international problem???? All I can say to you is that “You know my email addy Mr. President...For God’s sake... please don’t hesitate to call if you need our help! Being retired and constantly trying to figure out how to survive with stupid rules and laws that people like you jam down our throats, keeps us at the pinnacle of our wits and always available...