Cluckin A Critter Farm

Monday, January 23rd... First It’s Snow...Then It’s Rain...Make Up Your Mind...

2012-01-23T12:42:00.016-05:00

Yesterday it was twelve to fifteen degrees all day long. Today it is thirty and raining. Of course we all know what rain does when it hits the ground in thirty degree weather! It freezes...making everything treacherous for all; man and beast alike. The wind is howling and cold air is blowing in through the kitty door, making my knees cold right now, but what can we do about that? Nuttin! If we close off the little door, we’ll have kitty doo-doo or pee on the floor. Better to shiver and be a little cold from time to time.
Below are pictures of my work shop area in the basement where I build the fiber swifts I’m going to sell on eBay as soon as I get a box container fitted to it and can get a finished shipping weight, so I know what it will cost to ship. I believe I will offer free shipping anyway, so it won’t be long before you’ll see them offered.
The starting bid will be $155.00 if I give free shipping...a bargain for sure, if you’ve ever looked at the $250 to $350 price tag of all the other vertical swifts ever seen on eBay. We are also going to offer our spinning tools on our webpage too. We will offer a swift, the fiber combs and possibly drop spindles, if I can find a design I like with readily available parts. These are a planned venture which we have been developing for quite some time and we plan to sell them in our farm store when we build it this spring. It’s going to be an old fashioned country store offering eggs, frozen chickens, turkeys, honey, cheeses, maple syrup and maple candy, along with shelf jars of old fashioned penny candy. We will offer our fibers from the farm animals in raw, roving, bats and yarn form...and will sell the fiber tools along with a few spinning wheels. Vick plans to offer a large selection of wool, alpaca and angora yarns and products, making this the greatest country store around. I have visions of looking for old country store furniture and glass show cases to add that old fashioned charm lost to the years. This is gonna be fun! I really enjoy making the swifts and combs......and building the store is going to be a real blast too. Come on spring!
In the mean time, we’ll make more and more fiber tools, stock up on yarns, products and line up contacts for wheels, so we’re ready in the spring.
Anyway...as we said before...below is the swift I’ve made for sale, showing the adjustment arms extended, retracted and as it will be shipped. The other pictures are my work shop area where we design and build them. If you would like to order one, go to: http://www.cluckinacritterfarm.com/cluckin%20a%20critter%20farm_021.htm

This is the yarn swift we made to sell, here and on eBay

Here it is with the arms fully extended

Here it is with the arms fully retracted

This is a spring block which is on every arm to hold tension

This is the way it is arranged in box for shipping

A picture of our work area

Our precise cutting table saw

Our sturdy precision drill press

The smooth belt/disc sander combination

The precision router for cutting trunnion slots

And finally, a shot of the work bench and hand tools.

045320 Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Saturday January 21, 2012... And The Snow Came....But Not Like They Said......

2012-01-21T12:34:00.002-05:00

So here we are with our third little snow of the season...Only two worth mentioning though...for the other was a skiff of snow, less than an inch deep. I’d say this isn’t to awfully bad for the twenty-first of January. Our friend Linda returns today from Florida where she was visiting her son Marty. What a change of temperature she has to deal with after walking on the beach daily all this time! Well, anyway....WELCOME home Sis! Hope you don’t freeze today on your first day home.

This morning, I got up and replaced a zone valve for the downstairs heat. The old one would turn on, but it wouldn’t modulate to the closed position to turn the heat off when the thermostat was satisfied, so I ordered a new updated valve two days ago. It arrived yesterday while we were out, so I saved that job for first thing this morning. Now all is working correctly again.
Looks like I can now go into the basement and finish the yarn swift I will begin making for eBay and our webpage. It will have six adjustable feet which will make skeins measuring from 37 up to 72 inches. When collapsed to the smaller size, it will fit nicely into a box for reasonable shipping. If we were not going to make the feet collapsible, we would be shipping a package of at least 25 x 25 x 14” package weighing well over five pounds, making the shipping outrageous. Instead, it will be around 15 x 15 x 14” which should drop the shipping cost some.
Looks like I’ll leave the animals in today since it is cold and snowy. All they will do is go to a corner of the building and group and huddle together to stay warm, not moving anyway. There is no bare grass or open water for the ducks and nothing for the chickens to pick around in anyway, so we might as well just leave them inside on days such as this. It’s warmer for them anyway, considering there is nothing natural they can do out there anyway.
If we get bored......we can always go to the hospice gift shop and work in there for awhile....and I also have a book to publish for a lady down the road, so perhaps I’ll try to contact her and get that started.
Stay warm and tuned in for pictures of all the yarn swifts and perhaps a comb set!

045273 Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Wednesday, January 18, 2012...Busy, Busy...Always Busy...That’s What We Do...

2012-01-18T09:18:00.003-05:00

Busy isn’t a new word here on the farm. It gives two ol’ retired folks like Vic and I something to do to keep us out of trouble! I have my fiber tool project going in the basement, which is on hold at the moment, until we can get a more efficient work area set up and going by moving some shelving around and installing two more work tables next to the existing work bench. The production equipment can then be organized better and I can start to produce swifts, combs and drop spindles.
At the moment, we’re working at a friend’s barn doing building work and any other odd job tasks he has to raise a little extra cash.
We are also working at another friend’s house doing some remodeling for them. They get reduced labor from a friend they can trust and we make a little extra too. Everyone’s happy!!!!
The farm is existing.....as it always does in the winter. Nothing new is going on and nothing new is going to happen until fair weather returns. The animals are hanging in there....we are duck-sitting for the restaurant folks....and we are dumping chickens. We have sold off approximately forty-three chickens thus far and have more people interested.
The round bail lifter I rebuilt for the back of the tractor is completed and works like a new one. Now we just have to get our other six round bails we paid for we should be good until spring. That means the alpacas and sheep would have to eat two full round bales a month....taking three months.... or running into April, which seems to me quite unlikely....They haven’t eaten more than one bale in a month and a half to two months. At that rate we would be well into the summer with bales left over, so I’m not worried.
We are still discussing the agisting issue and looking at the long term affect it would have on the farm and our income. We will decide soon and if so, will start to advertise locally.
Other than that, everything remains the same...Busy...Busy....Busy

045218 Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Thursday, January 12, 2012...Summers Gone and Winter Is Here Again......

2012-01-12T11:12:00.004-05:00

Little do we have to complain about this winter...as we have transpired to the twelfth day of January...into the New Year with only one snowfall that lasted but two days. The weather has been such that our chickens are all messed up in their molt and we haven’t gotten regular egg production since September. It has been such an impact...as a matter of fact, that we are selling off the chickens and definitely moving toward a fiber producing farm. We have decided to keep a maximum of thirty or forty birds for ourselves, the ducks and guinea hens. We will continue to purchase and raise the meat birds and turkeys for sale in the farm store, but eggs will be few and far between. We will take what eggs we need to use from our chickens and sell the remainder, if any...to our friends and store customers.
The farm will then operate as a fiber farm with the seven alpacas, two sheep and the angora bunnies. We will decide in the near future whether to process all of the fiber here or send a bunch to the NEAFP, allowing it to accumulate there or seek its return in merchandise for the store.
We will also produce meat chickens and turkeys for the fall holiday seasons. I want to gather eggs from the three hens we now have and incubate poults in the spring so we can raise our own Heritage birds for the 2012 Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season.
We will still sell our cheese products from the refrigerator and freezer this summer and will shelve honey, maple syrup and maple syrup candies in the store.
The fiber will be packaged in raw form, roving and yarn in the store, with an array of fiber spinning and processing tools made by me. We will offer drop spindles initially, with Vick showing people how to get started in spinning without a large expenditure. We will also offer yarn swifts or weasels, fiber combs and hand carders for sale. Later...with some success in sales, Vick plans to offer a line of spinning wheels for folks to purchase and she will keep a demonstration wheel in the store for showing people how it is done and a letting them try their hand at spinning.
We expected this weather to finally show up one day soon, so when we saw the weather report, we concentrated on a list of things to do to be ready for it to arrive last evening. We finished everything and were ready for once. We eve covered our scrap wood pile so the snow would not be all through the wood. We can now set it on fire and burn the scrape pile up while it snows. We need not worry about sparks with such beautiful snow cover.
Yesterday our neighbors from Hollowbrook Restaurant brought their nine ducks over for us to deck sit over the winter. They are in the brooding house and happy. We are also going to offer agisting for alpacas...fulltime or partial. In other words, you can buy an alpaca and keep it here full time without doing anything except paying the agisting fee. This is done by signing over their care to us, allowing us to feed, treat and care for them full time. Come shearing time, you show up and pay for your alpaca to be sheared and take the fiber...it’s yours! You can also do a partial agisting, where you come and clean, supply all feed and care of your alpaca. Either way, you can have an alpaca of your own and we house it for you.
There will be an agreement to sign when registering an alpaca, but it will be simple and easy. All vet care must be current and proven, on agisting animals before entry to our farm and they must be insured against loss by theft, escaping or death.
Today I am going to finish our bail lifter for the tractor. I need to finish this because soon, I will need to place another round bail in the barnyard for the alpacas. They go through a bale a month easily, but that’s not too bad considering there are seven alpacas and two sheep feeding off of it. We bought a lifter at a neighboring business, knowing it needed a little welding work. The stabilizer pins were broken off, so I knew I could weld new ones one in short order, which I did... however, when I attempted to place it on the tractor, I found it was pinned for a class two hitch! The pins for the three point hitch were too big! I had to grind and remove the solid bar pin through the square tube and replace the 1 inch pins with 7/8 inch pins. This morning, I weld the new pins into place and the unit will be ready to use. It was still a bargain at $100.00, when others are running $435.00 new. I had the rod for the stabilizers and the pins were only around $4 each, so for $108.00plus my grinding and welding time, we got a bail lifter.

045138 Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Sun. Jan. 8th... Sickness Seems To Be The Daily Order of This House......

2012-01-08T10:49:00.002-05:00

I just got over some kind of crappy sickness last week and then Vick got it about three days ago. She is now suffering from a chest cold and I’m getting it again!
We have an appointment tomorrow morning to get some antibiotics from our doctor to start battling this croup or what ever it is that is making me miserable again. Vick takes it in stride as long as she doesn’t get nauseas...and if she feels like she may throw up...everything stops for fear of vomiting. She hates that and has only ever thrown up two or three times in her life. (Lucky girl)
Seriously....I understand her fear of throwing up. It’s never a pleasant thing and it makes your torso muscles ache for days, so I hope she gets over this quickly and it doesn’t turn into a stomach thing.
We still need to do what we need to do on the farm, so the other night when I put the animals in for the evening; I loaded the meat birds that I banded the evening before, into a wire cage and moved them to the big barn chicken coop. I set up a temporary wire fence against the wall, effectively dividing the coop into two sections so we can keep the meat birds confined for a week, in the barn. They need a week to break their preference for going home to the brooding house. The week will allow them to forget and become accustomed to the new barn as their home. I clipped their wings so they can’t fly over the four foot fencing and the regular chickens will not mix with these meat birds, so we don’t have to worry about them flying into the cage, because they know the meat birds will peck them. After a week, they will all become acquainted and used to each other and they will get along fine after being released. We decided to do this so they can continue to put weight on before processing them, giving us chickens as we need them, instead of just filling the freezers to the hilt. We decided to do the same with the turkeys and just last week, sold five live ones to a friend who wants to breed and hatch poults. Now we have a male and three hens left. We will finish raising them to maturity and then, incubate their eggs next spring for poults, which we will offer for sale. We will also raise our own for the fall holiday seasons by incubating poults in March.
Heritage birds grow slowly and will be about ready for harvest in early November, making them perfect for Thanksgiving and Christmas sales.
We will continue to raise meat chickens all summer long in the same manner we are now....banding them to run free until needing to go to market. That way we will have a constant supply of birds for our customers and ourselves. We will sell chickens and turkeys in our farm store along with all the other farm products this coming summer when we finish the farm store.
We will look around for some period shelving or counters from some old local abandoned and dilapidated stores in the neighborhood, which are falling apart. It will aid us in making the farm store look as closely as we can to an old store from the forties or fifties as we planned to do. We simply need to stop and inquire about who owns those old stores and see if any old counter or display cases and shelves are inside and if they will sell them to us for our store.
All the alpacas are together with the sheep and are getting along just fine. How nice it is to deal with them. They are a pleasure to be around and I would love to have more, but shearing is a fortune and winter feeding can be costly. Our friend’s Phil and Shelly from Brooklyn Alpacas, has around 25 to 27 animals, with a lot of females...some of which will be having cria in the spring. That will be neat, but having females with males is not something we want to experience. Females are unruly and males tend to fight a lot when a female is present. Female alpacas are instantly in season when a male is around and can be pregnant immediately after giving birth, so you can be up to your eyeballs in alpacas quickly when you have males and females. I imagine Phil and Shelly will be giving some away sometime soon....even though they don’t know it yet. Just a guess and prediction based on the economy right now and to come in the near future.
We are seriously hoping the alpaca industry becomes more illustrious in the future and maybe then...we can market our fiber and come out even or make a few bucks.
We are thinking about advertising to agist alpacas here in the future. Right now we agist our friend’s alpaca named Rafiki, full time. If we do decide to open the farm to agisting alpacas full time, we would require that all alpacas be covered with insurance by their owner before making an agisting request though. Again...if we do offer agisting, we will offer both passive and active participation by owners.
We are also contemplating the use of the New England Alpaca Fiber Pool for our fiber this coming spring when we shear. We have last year’s fiber in storage and if we take this coming year’s fiber from six animals...we will have a real nice batch to send. We can get it back in produced alpaca merchandise we can put in the farm store to sell. This spring will unfold into an enjoyable year of new ventures. Building the farm store will be a fun project and the building of the tool shed/work shop/welding facility will likewise be a Godsend.
I am keeping my wood working shop in the basement. I will manufacture the yarn swifts, fiber combs, niddy noddies and drop spindles there in the evenings. I enjoy working down there in the evening after dark and I envision having a lot of orders for swifts and combs. Fun, fun, fun! Stay tuned and follow us.

045089 Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

January 4th, 2012... All’s Sick That Are Sick...And That Is The Condition...

2012-01-04T10:58:00.006-05:00

Wonderful.... wonderful, just how wonderful it is to be sick during and after the holidays. Vick and I have spent the last week feeling lousy, while nursing a cold and sinus crap we got shortly after Christmas, but before New Years. I immediately jumped on a z-pack regiment and knocked it out of me quickly, but Vick has nurtured a sinus drip, cough and headache since before New Years. She seemed to improve daily, but it is a long row to hoe when you have other things you would rather be doing and now it looks like it is going to develop into a full blown cold.Yesterday she was doing a little better and we dove into the old duck and chicken barn to clean it out and place new wood chips down for the birds. We are getting our friend’s ducks for the next four months while they are in Vegas for the winter. We agreed to “duck sit” for them since we have the brooding house sitting empty all winter long. We figure taking care of their ducks will allow them to relax, knowing we have sixty five ducks of our own which makes us perfect baby sitters and we’ll take our fee in meals at their restaurant when they return in April.Doing that will benefit us both, without money being involved, making it more friend oriented.I made another yarn swift, which I am putting on an eBay auction for sale. The starting bid will be $85.00, bit I don't know what the shipping will be just yet. I need to work that out today and then I will list it on eBay.I will also begin making fiber combs individually and by the set soon. I need to do a little cleaning and re-arranging in the basement first, but that will occur soon. The pictures of the yarn swift is below and will be a regular offering on eBay and will be available for sale on our website too. Just go to the left and click on

"Click here to visit web site homepage"• Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

It is all the way at the bottom, left and is a link. Just click on it and it will take you to the home page where you can select a link to our farm products. There you will find the swift, fiber and a multitude of other far related items. There is a link for art related items there too, including Vick’s watercolors, glasswork and my books. Check it out!

This is the yarn swift (weasel) we are offering on eBay and our web site.

This is the spring loaded adjuster to compensate for stretch or shrinkage

045034 Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Wednesday, December 28, 2011...Four Days Until New Years Eve...Oh Boy......

2011-12-28T08:15:00.001-05:00

Soon we will be into another new year, where you write 2011 on all your documents until the middle of the summer again, as you have for every year since you can remember. Christmas passed us by this year like a freight train on speed! No sooner do you get prepared for it...then it is passed like a flash of sunlight through the tree limbs on a windy afternoon. Now we will all prepare for the New Years Eve celebration.... Usually Vick and I eat somewhere close and are home by seven-thirty or eight at the latest. We hate to be on the roads with drunks and freezing temperatures. It’s not a good mixture with us in the middle! Actually, New Years is just another day to us....so it would seem simple to celebrate it as many do.
I’ve been under the weather since Christmas day with the same sinus crap I get every year. I have the usual stuffy, but runny nose, headache, chest congestion and just feeling lousy; some lousy holiday condition, right? It seems to last only three days or so as long as I just lounge around and take a Sudafed every now and then, but remains a miserable three days. Last evening I went out and put the animal’s away, unloaded four bags of feed and fed them......in the rain......and when I got back into the house, had a chill and felt completely miserable! Vick offered to do it for me so I could stay on the couch, but she had been working all day long straightening the house and getting rid of extra, accumulated junk in the computer room, which took her eight or nine hours, so she didn’t need this on top of that. I wanted her to stay in the warm, dry house. After a few minutes in front of the pellet stove and a Sudafed tablet...and I was comfortable again anyway.
Today I will try to band the meat birds in the brooding house so they can be released into the general population to continue growing to a weight decent enough, before sending them to be processed. Besides, we have enough frozen birds in the basement anyway right now. This will allow them to live longer and give us more freezer space right now and they can be processed later...as will be the turkeys.
Once they are banded and released, we will ready the building for housing ducks belonging to the Hollowbrook Inn Restaurant. They close right after the New Year until sometime in April, so we will watch their ducks for them until then.
The reason we are banding the meat birds is obviously, so we can pick them out when it is time to process them, but we are also banding some Araucanas we recently purchased and a few other layers for ourselves. We are then going to put a sign in the local feed store advertising layer chickens for sale...and we are cutting our flock size from 250 to around 30-50 at the most. It is not beneficial and we are losing money daily selling a few eggs and spending almost thirteen dollars a bag or more for food a day. It was fun selling eggs, but enough is enough!!!
We will reduce the flock through the winter and renew our interests in the fiber end of it, creating a farm store catering to a little farm product like cheese, honey, maple syrup and maple candy...meat chickens and turkeys...and we might also offer any over abundance of eggs in there too, but our main focus will be on the fiber sales, yarns and spinning supplies. I will be in charge of the spinning accessories end. I will be making swifts, niddy-noddies, drop spindles, fiber carders and fiber comb sets which we will sell in there, as well as on-line. Vick will be in charge of the fiber and yarn end of it, possibly offering a line of spinning wheels as well. I may even design and build a motorized drum carder with a more favorable price tag than now available, if all goes well too.
Spring will also see the design and building of a tool shed/work shop/welding facility too. We need a place to keep all of our tools and a place to work on thing needing repaired, plus...a place for my welding expertise to be used in serving others who desire it. No one around here will fabricate or repair items cheaper than buying a new one, so there is a market for a fair metal fabricator to rebuild farm equipment and other items. With a work area, I can do that.
This spring will be a busy time, but unlike last spring when it was a rush to complete everything....this spring will be fun......Fun and easy............

044932 Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Thurs. Dec. 23rd...Two Days Until Christmas...AND The second Day of Winter...

2011-12-23T09:24:00.002-05:00

I know...I know; there’s no excuse for my neglect to post more often, but I’m burnt out. We’re finally done with all the planned things we wanted to get done before the snow flew...and we did it. Of course, the really warm, unusual weather for this time of the year helped, but it also made it far easier for us to pursue things we have wanted to do and couldn’t.
yesterday our neighbor delivered the first two, of eight round hay bales, we ordered for the winter and brought his Leinbach three point hitch bale spear along for me to put on the Cub Cadet, I asked if he would bring the unit over so we could see if I can handle a huge round bale with our tractor before buying one of my own. Well... it was a good test and I moved the huge bale into the barnyard with no problem. Later in the day, we went to Smiley’s equipment yard, a few miles away and we bought one that I can fix up. It was really cheap... much less than the $262.00 quote for the materials to make my own and then I would have had to do the work and welding. I also got enough material to repair the pole light at the end of the driveway I broke off last winter. I couldn’t find a base, nor could I find the material to make a new one until today....so maybe today, I’ll cut and fabricate a new lamp post base and get it installed again. (maybe)
All the alpacas are now together and doing fine. There was no fighting, which I was afraid would take place with two new Suri’s being intact and Luke also being intact. I figured there would be lots of fighting among the un-neutered males, which would be common as they spar for their spot on the dominance ladder. I was pleasantly surprised and relieved. Now I know they will all be together in the barn, snuggled together contentedly...keeping warm on those frigid, windy, cold January nights.
We are still not getting enough eggs to make the poultry portion of the farm worthwhile. If someone came and offered me a dollar per bird, I would sell them all but a few for ourselves and would have the ducks and fiber animals only! I hate chickens!!!
Soooooo......here we are on the second day of winter 2011...Not exactly a major thing to behold with temperatures in the high forties during the day and the mercury hanging exactly at forty last night...at ten o’clock in the evening! I just hope it continues. We have a plow blade set up for the bucket on the tractor, the bucket and a snow blower, all ready for use, but I wouldn’t care if we didn’t need to use them at all this winter. We made great strides to be winter ready with all this equipment in place and ready and the new 8Kw standby generator. For once, we have a great feeling of accomplishment. The four tons of wood pellets for the stove help that feeling too!
We are in a position now to be able to advertise and open the hospice gift shop more often too. With nothing else pulling at us, we can go in and enjoy spending the day being open, meeting new folks and raising funds for hospice. We have a two hundred dollar check in the account to send off to hospice for last weekend’s open house. It feels good to be of support for such a worthy cause.

044850 Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Saturday, December 17, 2011...In Just A Week, It’s Christmas Eve Again......

2011-12-17T23:45:00.004-05:00

Yes in less than eight days, it will be Christmas morning and I’ll have made it for another year.....my sixtieth one to be exact! Sixty years and the excitement is still actually the same....different, but the same! Years and years ago, I would await the arrival of Santa Clause with his presents to be placed under the tree of course...but never did a Christmas arrive that we were not reminded of the real meaning of Christmas. How Joseph and Mary found no room at the Inn and were directed to a stable, where Mary gave birth to our savior, Jesus Christ the lord...Son of God almighty.
In this day and age I wonder if there is much of a place in man’s heart for the poor carpenter that gave his life on a cross on Calgary that we may be free, forgiven and saved to be accepted into heaven before his Father. One would hope that such a personal sacrifice...made for each of us, would never be forgotten and his birthday celebration would be the ultimate of importance at this time of the year.
Forget him and he would have every right to forget you! BUT he won’t, for he is a loving God and wants us to be at his side. All one must do is simply ask him to come into your heart. He will never forsake your heartfelt request.
Today...we had a less than exciting day in the hospice gift shop. We opened at twelve noon and awaited shoppers until four o’clock this afternoon. We didn’t have one single shopper stop by, so Vick and I spent the afternoon arranging items, listening to Christmas music and drinking hot spiced apple cider. What a really super relaxing day! We will open tomorrow again at the same time...for the same amount of hours. I sure hope tomorrow is busier than today!!!!!!!
All the alpacas were out for the day, all together again...eating hay in the east barnyard. I turned the Suri’s loose for the second time and there was absolutely no problem...so we allowed them to stay in the big barn with the five other Huacaya alpacas. This is a great accomplishment, considering that sometime in the near future, Max the Llama will arrive and he is already acquainted with all five of the Huacayas and will only have to meet Slugger and Phoenix, the two new Suri’s.
I have already found a flaw in the yarn swift I created to sell. It seems the original fear that the yarn would be stretched too long to stay on the swift after the inital winding, wetting and weighting it down to stretch and set the spin. It seems the entire thing SHRUNK.... not allowing it to fit back on the swift at all so we could use the ball winder to make a skein ball. WOW....back to the drawing board!
However...I do believe I may have solved the problem already, but that remains to be seen with a trial and error session later, because I need to buy an additional piece tomorrow, which I don’t have here now.
There is a black bear around which was a visitor at our neighbor’s house last night. I sure hope I don’t have to end up eating bear steaks...but I cannot tolerate a bear poking around here, smashing into the chicken coops, killing our stock. It would even be possible it could go after the sheep and alpacas during the night, so if it comes around too often.....it’s a dead bruin. Plain and simple! It’s bear season right now, so I hope some hunter is successful in harvesting it before I have to.
I hate bears! They never belong to the state when you lose livestock to them, but just shoot one causing damage and the game protectors are right up your butt! Well Tough...you can't have it both ways!

044765 Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Friday, December 16, 2011...Pain, fear, Love, anticipation, regret...WOW...

2011-12-16T08:21:00.004-05:00

Feelings...it always seems we’re dealing with some kind of feelings; be it our own or someone else’s.....both close to us and of strangers. This world is a difficult place to live at times, because of those feelings. It’s difficult to understand how our feelings do not mean anything to certain folks around us, when everyone’s feelings are important to us. Does it not burden your heart to see someone with an incurable disease...be it someone close to us or a person we’ve never met before? My heart bleeds every time I think of a small child, lying all alone...scared and shivering, in a huge hospital bed, knowing their future is hanging on the extent of man’s knowledge of medicine. Somehow, even through their sparse realization of what is happening, they show fear for what lies ahead...not just plain fear... but fear of the unknown, which is understood by all but them!
How depressing the thought of future events can become if we choose to obscure the beauty also prevalent in everyday life. Who will we meet tomorrow? What will we experience that is new and exciting and how many times will we laugh when spending time with family and friends? Feelings are one emotion we can change by searching deep within ourselves to assign deftness to those feelings...comparative, superlative meanings inherent to wonderful occurrences.....beyond what could have been. For instance...instead of fixating upon fear of the unknown, we can rely on a new adventure and opportunity; the chance to become aware of...or better yet...become a part of a never before experienced phenomena.
I often think of all the things which I cannot control and wonder then...why I even expend a moment of my life thinking of that which will be, for it will be...without me thinking about it. If I spend this time learning or loving...singing or sharing with another person in need, did I not engage in a better experience of life?
To make another person feel love, happiness, joy and contentment, is a gift of God......meant for us to bestow on one another... for loving one another is the greatest gift of all. Helping another to feel love and cared for, by taking away the fear and solitude of loneliness, is something which that person will never forget.
The Christmas season is upon us and we are beginning to hear Christmas songs with some pretty strong meanings and special thoughts. Just listen to Alan Jackson’s song called “Let It Be Christmas” and feel the words. Christmas is a time of learning...a time of understanding that which our heavenly father wants us to feel every day in our lives. Love, understanding, patience, sharing, caring and enjoying life is one aspect of the message..........Another thing everyone should do at some point in the next few months, while the snow is blowing and drifting, is to pick up a copy of the book, "Into the Light: Real Life Stories about Angelic Visits, Visions of the Afterlife, and Other Pre-Death Experiences" [Paperback] by John Lerma.
Finally, a scientist and doctor that attempts to bridge the gap between science and spirituality. The 16 stories of individuals from all walks of life are extraordinary and uplifting and it does communicate a very hopeful message about the existence of a heavenly reprieve beyond this life.
Warning......the author does signify that you had better accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior before you do die, so......what has he heard from those 2,000 plus dying patients, that would make him say something like that when he is trying to bridge the scientific and spiritual gap...? Does he not think some religions will scream poppy-cock at that notion? I guess he feels strongly and doesn’t care but to give the warning...... Anyway, get the book and it might just change your life! One of the stories is about a person in a fairly new emergency room where he was resuscitated back to life and related later, his out of body experience of floating overhead, around the room, as the doctor and emergency staff worked to revive him. He mentioned to the doctor that while floating around the room overhead, he noticed a 1981 quarter lying on top of one of the pieces of emergency room equipment, which was over seven feet or so tall. He asked the doctor if he would check to see if there was really a quarter on that piece of equipment or whether he might have been dreaming it during his oxygen deficient state. The doctor later entered the emergency room suite with a ladder and his staff and there covered with a light dust, on top of the equipment was a quarter...with the date of 1981....in the exact corner the patient directed him to. Weird? Coincidental? I think not!! It seems pretty factual to me....but then I’m a believer who has already seen and heard enough of my own experiences, but that....is another story not told today..... Pick the book up. You’ll be glad you did.

044670 Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Saturday, December 10, 2011...Farm Update Day Has Arrived...We’re Done!!!

2011-12-10T11:49:00.004-05:00

Yes, we have accomplished our immediate goals on the farm for the 2011 year. Yesterday, we finished the south fence along the pond, so now the barn and its occupants and the ponds are completely surrounded by sound fencing, which will keep dogs, foxes and coyote out. It will also reduce the possibility of a rabid animal wandering into the farm area and attacking our livestock or fowl. We will be able to sit beside the pond and fish at night without wondering what type of animal is creeping up behind us. All in all, it is a good feeling to know the neighbor’s constantly wandering dog will never kill another of our animals and I will never have to kill their dog defending a sheep, alpaca or our ducks and chickens. Even when reported to the dog enforcement officer, they would do nothing. More of the small town politics! Don’t even go there.....
Anyway......we finished what we need to until spring, when we will dive into another year of build, build, build! We’ll do the farm store and a tool shed/welding facility in the spring and add fencing to the west yard where the temporary fencing now stands. We would have done that side now also, but Lowe’s raised the price of the landscape timbers from $1.95 each to $2.95 each and we we’re not paying an extra dollar per piece under that ol “seasonal item” excuse for gouging! Let Lowe’s trip over them until spring arrives and they drop the price again.
The generator is finished....on line and awaiting the first power outage, when it will burst to life and supply our power to hold us comfortably until the power company corrects the problem and returns power to us. It exercises every Monday at noon, so we can stop and make sure it is working properly. I love it!!! No more darkness in the middle of a storm... No more bucketing water from a pond...No more walking around in the dark trying to feed animals. No more worrying about us or our water freezing, or the basement flooding without the sump pump running. It’s great!!
I now have time to start building the planned line of fiber accessory things we will begin producing and selling in the farm store and on the internet. I will be making these things in the basement, using all the woodworking tools we previously bought throughout the summer, in anticipation of this time. I will be making drop spindles, swifts in several styles, combs, carding paddles, flicks and other wooden accessories to accent Vick’s fiber and yarns. I look forward to starting these ventures and expanding as we go. Once I perfect the process, we will start to market them on the internet. Below is a picture of the prototype yarn swift I just made for Vick. We will offer these on-line and in the farm store later.

So there you have it......Everything new and nothing exciting. The only thing really, really new is that I have to seriously look at getting my knees replaced.... Soon!
My Mother’s gift has approached rapidly....for I must use Ibuprofen daily and now have my very own prescription for Hydrocodone with Tylenol. The Cortisone shots are a relief......but only temporarily, so I guess it’s time to look and consider the old “chop em off and replace em” strategy. Others have done it and survived, so I guess I will too....or die in the process, but it needs to happen.

044595 Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Monday, December 05, 2011...We Were The Brains...Yet Were So Dumb...

2011-12-05T10:31:00.005-05:00

I was awakened by shivering. It was Saturday and my friend’s and I had agreed to meet at the woods road, beyond my grandparent’s house this morning with fishing rods and gear, to ride to the emerald hole to fish. The emerald hole was a mine pit which was dug before the turn of the century, while extracting iron ore from the ground. The story goes that there is a railroad engine and car in there along with a steam shovel that was loading it. They say that at the end of the day when the quitting whistle blew, the crew shut down and went home for the evening and when they returned the next morning, the pit was full of water and the equipment was lost. They also say there was an endless pit at the one end, which could conceivably go all the way to China. Hah....We fished every inch of that pit hole and our sinkers always found bottom! I doubt that that alleged equipment was there either. Why would they not drain the pit and remove the equipment? They have drained pits before... why not this one? Stories.....that’s all they were...stories to keep us kids from swimming in there. Who would want to? You would get stuck in the red clay and drown in short order, that’s for sure. We had stepped in the water along the edge and you would sink in up to your ankle, losing your shoe when you pulled back, then we would have to dig with our hands to retrieve the shoe. It took forever to wash that clay off....man, it was nasty!
Anyway, we met just inside the woods, on the outskirts of my grandparent’s house. As I was standing there, I saw my grand pap feeding his hunting dogs....one, a sleek bluetick....the other, a black and white spaniel; a cocker I believe. I remember like yesterday how he fed Ol’ Dad’s dry feed with a can of Kennel Ration, in the dark blue can. You could set your watch by Pap’s feeding of the dogs. It never varied a minute each and ever morning of my childhood. Anyway, I was watching him feed the dogs as the last of my fiends pulled up on his bike, fishing rod in hand. “Did anyone bring smokes?” I ask... Willy frowned shaking his head...as Jon muttered something about how his Mom had taken her unfiltered Pall Mall’s when she left the room, unlike usual, where she kept them on the shelf always. I mentioned that she was probably starting to miss them, since he was removing more and more daily. Ed and Dennis just stood there as they always did....saying nothing. Dave...however, had a big smile on his face as he produced a full...unopened pack of Pall Mall from his waistband of his blue jeans. He said his brother Jim had a partial carton in his room and this pack was ripe for the picking since there were about seven packs left in the carton.....the ultimate number for lifting a pack and remaining undetected. I likewise smiled as I produced a pack of Winston cigarettes from my rear pocket. Dave even had a great Zippo lighter, which always impressed the heck out of me. I however impressed all of them when I produced several Swisher Sweet cigars and was able to smoke them without watery eyes or chocking on inhaled smoke....
After all, I had smoked several in my Dad’s presence after being caught with cigarettes. It was Dad’s ultimate punishment...”Okay big shot”, he would say, “You wanna smoke??? Smoke one of these...Go on big shot...smoke it all...take your time and enjoy it...Sit her beside me!”
I gotta admit, it was harsh and cruel the first time around, and then...it got easier and even enjoyable, when you got past the pain in the butt of pretending to have watery eyes and being sick. Pretending it was terrible actually made sure it remained his first defense in punishment. One day as he was gloating about his punishment, Mom said, “Hey Jim...You know this happens an awful lot for a boy that hates these cigars and gets so sick smoking them....I’ve been watching him and when you say okay, that’s enough, he merrily trots off to parts unknown....probably to smoke another cigar!”
Curses......caught by the warden herself! You could never fool Mom.....unless she wanted you to....AND, you better not...especially if she wanted you to. Many times I was sent to the Forsythia bush to cut a switch which would tan my own hide for something I had done. Now...THAT’S cruel and unusual punishment. If I brought one too skinny or too fat, I was sent back to do a better job of selecting the subtle, springy little whip that would blister my ass cheeks as retribution for my endeavors outside her liking! When my friends were abruptly told to go home because I had a private job to do.....I would begin to quake in m y shoes, knowing what was coming.....even if I didn’t know why until the punishment was to take place.
Anyway, we were in no mans land...outside her bailiwick, with friends, rods and smokes....on our way to a fishing trip and would return later in the day....No one would know we had smoked a bunch of cigarettes when we got home....they never did! (They must have thought we smelled of smoke from being in my friends houses, sitting on their furniture, because I’m sure we reeked of tobacco after knowing what I do now)
My, the things we did...Never caught more than a fish or to all day too!

044512 Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Fri. Dec. 02nd... The Thrill of the Season Resides Within Us All...If We Choose...

2011-12-02T12:30:00.005-05:00

Years ago when I was just a lad, Christmas time was a special time of celebration. I remember my grandparents decorating their tree with a large white, fluffy cotton mat under it, adorned with little white picket fences, pine trees and cardboard houses. It created a little winter wonderland town with streets, cars and people enjoying the holiday season. The tree was a sight to behold with old fashioned bubble lights and big shiny Christmas balls of glass. There were many “special event” items displayed, all of which, my Grandmother could tell an individual story about. They were events important to and pertaining to my families experiences, which occurred throughout their lifetime together. One such item was a little wagon with a girl in it and others pulling it along the roadway, in the snow. According to my Grandmother, it represented the year when my Mother’s sister Isabelle, had broken her leg and my Mom, Aunt Nell and Uncle Son, pulled her to school every day. My Aunt Isabelle attended all twelve years of school without missing one day for sickness or truancy...winning her a certificate which my cousin (Aunt Isabelle's daughter) proudly displays in her home. That was quite an accomplishment in those days and not simply won...especially since she had to rely on brother and sisters to get her there while recovering from her broken leg. There were many such stories told by the items displayed on and under my Grandparents Christmas tree, so there was always an adventure to hear or something to learn when we gathered around the tree.
In those days, everyone had the Christmas spirit and religions that didn’t celebrate Christmas, still respected our beliefs by going along with the celebrations of the season. We in turn respected their non-Christian holidays and their religious celebrations without incident. Today, the world and its inhabitance seem to be so intolerant of other’s beliefs and will make issue with anything or anyone that does not pertain to their belief. It is a terrible thing that people cannot be tolerant of other’s beliefs and feelings, by simply joining in and going along with them, even if they don’t agree totally with their religious affiliation. After all, we all worship the same God....the ultimate creator of the universe and all in it.
Can’t we all learn to be tolerant and just get along?
In those days, I remember being off school a few days before Christmas and not returning to school until after New Years day. That span of time seemed as long as the entire summer break, usually because the days before Christmas dragged like there was a million pound weight on the hands of time....dragging and dragging until Christmas Eve finally arrived. Usually Christmas Eve found us with snow, a big moon and extremely chilly temperatures. I remember one such night when all the neighbor kids (a total of nine boys and girls) all congregated in an open back yard to ride our sleds under the extreme moonlight sky. It is one of my fondest memories of childhood! I remember all us kids laughing and yelling, as we rode down the hill repeatedly...in the blue hue of the moonlight on the white snow. What fun we had within the moonlight and colored lights glowing on the porches of all the surrounding houses. You could always hear the faint rhythm of Christmas carols being played within the nearest house... It was simply a time to embrace and always remember throughout our lives.
Now one only experiences those feelings while watching “A Christmas Carol” or one of the other classics of the season, where you can transport yourself away from reality and back through your memory to those years when Christmas meant something special. Thank God for memories... and I’m so sorry for today’s youth, for many of them will never experience that which I speak of!
Vick’s cousin Junie from Las Vegas came over Thanksgiving to visit with family and stayed with us for two days. She is very family oriented and loves Christmas the same as Vick and I, so we did our decorating and she helped...causing it to be a special time. This holiday season started with a happy time of decorating and spending time with cousin Junie. Too bad she could not be here for Christmas, but she has her sister and brother to spend the holidays with out there in Vegas.

044469 Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Tuesday, November 29, 2011...The Way It Was...Seems Pretty Good To me...

2011-11-29T10:07:00.004-05:00

It was cold out there. Cold and windy, with a hint of snow riding on the breeze every now and then, I rushed to get dressed in the freezing temperature. With the sun just announcing the arrival of daylight, I could see wisps of fine snow swirling around the rattling window in my bedroom. Usually I kept the clothes I was going to wear the next day, beside the bed, so I could pull them in under the covers to heat up a little before donning them the next morning. Many times Mom would place a tin of water beside the bed so we didn’t have to get up in the night for a drink...but usually it was frozen in the morning when we awoke. In those days, cold was a way of life. Many times I looked back and wondered how we ever made it in such harsh conditions, but now realize that we were conditioned to live that way. Everyone lived that way back then. Specialized winter clothing hadn’t been developed in those days and many people out in the elements wore everyday clothes....just a lot more of them...piled on to ward of the chill of winter. As I remember, the hardest thing to do was to keep your feet warm. I was usually able to keep everything else warm....but ended up prancing around with stinging toes!
Anyway, the sun was beginning to peek through the trees and I could see things materializing out of the darkness in the side yard, through the window. I quickly finished dressing and went downstairs to find Mom fully dressed and cooking something hardy for us to eat. We always ate a hardy breakfast before trudging out through the morning chill to our favorite stands, where we would stage a vigil of determination against the elements as we awaited a chance to bring home much needed venison for the table. Times being what they were...wild game was about all most families could afford to adorn their table these days. Dad worked an entire week to bring home a meager sixty-five dollars in those days, which was about the usual wage...but it never went far enough to cover all the expenses.
Hunting season afforded us the opportunity to place good food on the table, allowing Dad’s paycheck to go for other necessary things and it always came just before the holidays, which was a welcome thing. Many times, if it hadn’t been for the deer and small game we were fortunate enough to have for the table, we would not have been able to have such a nice holiday and Christmas dinner.
Once finished with breakfast, I wished Mom and Dad good luck for the days hunt, grabbed my old “punkin’ Slinger” and was off to the corner of the yard, where I slid through the weeds and bushes, slipping into the timber of the large public area called state game lands No. 176. Most folks call it the Barrens or Scotia. Mom and Dad historically head straight for the lands of Harbison- Walker, a vast tract of land owned by an old, defunct brickyard who mined clay from the surrounding property to produce their bricks. They went out of business, many years ago, but held the property and never posted it, so the public could use it for whatever purpose they wished. Many people hiked and had picnics there thought-out the summer months and many hunted there or did cross country skiing in the winter months. It was our playground when I was growing up. We fished in the old ponds and swamps...ice skated on them in the winter and hunted around them in the fall. The brickyard land bordered the state game lands, giving us a playground that stretched for miles and miles in all directions, so living there had its definite advantages!
When I slipped through those bushes and tree limbs, stepping into the woods of the game lands, I could feel a change coming over me. It was as if I was transformed from a regular twelve year old kid, into a young Indian brave on a mission of hunting for food...actually reflecting my Indian heritage...as I became extremely aware of the world around me, seeing and hearing everything much more intently than before. I was a warrior hunter, fulfilling my hunting instincts, which were past down from my forefathers. I saw deer tracks in leaves that eluded others, found scat along trails and saw deer hair on limbs and under leaves... I had the uncanny ability to find deer which were bedded down far ahead of me in the trees and brush before they knew I was there. Many times I watched deer as they lay under pine boughs, chewing their cud, watching their back trail. I could easily scope them as they lay there and pick out a buck with ease.
I covered many, many miles in those days of my youth...never thinking of the long drag I would have if I had shot a buck that far away from home. I was young, strong and adventurous in those days and didn’t worry about such things. I would travel a good four miles by foot through the barren landscape of the game lands or the brickyard land in search of that elusive buck venison for our table. Many times I would hoist a buck up and onto my shoulders...much as they did in the old movies, eliminating the drag, which made covering the distance to home much quicker and easier. In those days, you didn’t have to worry about someone shooting you for a deer. We were all hunters in those days...we had scruples. We would not take horrendously long shots that were impossible, just because it was a buck. Many times I let a huge racked deer go on it's way unacosted, because I could not assure that I could drop it with a clean shot and we were taught to insure every shot was well placed in a target that we intended to shoot. If you do these things religiously, without reserve, how could you ever shoot another person by mistake? Know your target, know where to place the shot and let it pass unchallenged if you cannot guarantee a clean kill after fulfilling these two criteria.
Anyway, on that given day, I enjoyed the walk and frequent stops, to sit on a log or stump and watch the world around me. I enjoyed this part more than the hunting and the slaying of my quarry was the most despised part of the entire hunting ordeal. Unfortunately, there was no better way to supply meat for the dinner table in those days, so we had to resort to this out of necessity. I did however relish the days afoot in the wilderness when I saw animals and enjoyed the fresh air and scenery without seeing my intended quarry to return to the dinner table.
In later years, I was able to hunt with both my mother and father, which printed an indelible memory in my mind; one that allows me to return to those days, to be with them, in my mind...much like writing this story. I no longer hunt these beautiful creatures because our table is filled with food which allows me to simply watch them and enjoy them in their natural surroundings. I still want to go hunting and take Vick along to enjoy the experience. The difference now will be the type of shot I take. Now it will be a shot using a zoom lens and a multiplier on the end of our D50 Nikon camera. I can still bring the trophy home and hang it up for all to admire...............

044399 Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Thurs. Nov. 24th... Happy Thanksgiving...and...Looking Beyond our Nose...

2011-11-24T09:26:00.006-05:00

Today is one of the most widely celebrated holidays in the western world!
Almost every religion...if not all religions...can and do celebrate this day of thanksgiving! Everyone, without personal religious contravention, may conduct this special celebration with a gathering of friends and family for a feast in the tradition of giving thanks for all our blessings.
We participate in this annual day of thanks by gathering at a designated home within our family and stuff ourselves unmercifully and sometimes unwittingly for this (hopefully) one day. Our doctor recently reminded us that Thanksgiving Day is a day for celebration....and to not worry about our diet. He also quickly reminded us that it is Thanksgiving DAY, NOT days....or week!
Eat well, eat plenty...Enjoy family and friends, but remember your health and tomorrow. Below is a (comic) reply to my blog of Tuesday the 22nd, which came from a well known blogger in the Long Island area of New York. I say comic, because he is bludgeoned regularly if he eats one potatoes in the shape of fries...or a lardy donut...candy or anything unhealthy....so there DUDE!!! Now, with that stated, explained and...realizing that he is smiling at my “got ya back”...AHEAD of time....read his reply to Tuesdays post and understand that you can indeed smile at this response, even though I can envision others uttering this very reply under their breath. (Uttering...ONLY in the fear of their loving wives hearing them)
You can read more of his wit and humor (and possibly a posting such as this for Thanksgiving) regularly at:

http://eastmeadow.patch.com/users/bill-alderman/blog_posts

Last evening my wife , I and several friends, read your blog about attending a presentation about health, diet and living...called “Life at its Best”, presented at the Greenville Library and almost spit out our meatballs. Their mission is simple...they want you to stop and THINK! Think about your HEALTH......Mental - Physical – Spiritual. They simply want you to...Think about your LIFE, Think about the CHOICES you make, Think about your FUTURE And know there is HOPE! They want YOU to be HEALTHY and HAPPY! They want to assist you on your journey to Health, Healing and Happiness in life by offering you a free Multi-Media Health Presentation called, “Life at its Best”...with Dr. Walter Veith.
GROW UP JOHNNY APPLESEED!!!!!!!
If in truth they wanted ME to be happy they would have made me Bacon and ribs and a juicy t-bone wrapped in bacon and kept their fruit and veggies for those pansy yuppie vegans in Albany and the Hamptons. There is nothing that makes me happier than eating things that come from animals. Whether it is smoked or deep fried, that makes me happy, giddy and filled with glee. Grilled Organ meat brings me closer to God- I know people who have seen that white light and still come back for a second helping. Keep your fish oil and fish iron. If I wanted iron I’d eat a crowbar. I am a carnivore. A meat eating animal, Lions and tigers can be healthy at 700 pounds, why not me? Do I look like a chipmunk or squirrel? Keep your nuts and legumes and fill my belly with potatoes if you want me to be happy. Baked, fried, broiled, boiled, fluffed, stuffed, AuGratin, chipped and skinned will make me smile every time. Salad makes me frown. It is the free crap that high end restaurants give you, so they can give you half the amount of meat and potatoes that you crave and still get you to pay the check. Offer any starving person in Nigeria a choice of a bunch of healthy potassium filled bananas or a bucket of KFC and they will pick the Colonels secret recipe every time. And so will the dudes and duchesses in the nursing homes in Pennsylvania. I have concrete proof. People need to quit kidding themselves! Eating healthy sucks and is about as mentally enjoyable, physically pleasant and spiritually satisfying as chewing on a burlap sack. Go to a movie and eat apple slices and some plain yogurt? I think not! Order the garbage pail of buttered popcorn, extra large nachos with an extra helping of cheese, and a gallon of Diet Orange Fanta soda. Now you can chow down and enjoy the flick in peace. Unless the thinking moron with the celery stalks and veggie chips starts crunching again and we have to move to the first row to hear. And as eating and viewing sports on TV or attending an engagement party , Keep your sushi and give me a 3 cheese and pepperoni calzone and a beer. And I mean a real beer, not one of those lite water down, whiz ‘em as soon as you chug them beers. Something with haps, barley, alcohol and no fruit... keep that lime or lemon for your girly martinis. You want me to think about my health and healing, just give me a bag of some frozen peas so I can put them on my jaw after I hit the floor in a drunken stupor. You would think that a seminar called “Life at its Best” would be about lard, liquor and getting laid. So there!
And I double dare ya to print THIS, lil dose of reality MR “Be who you are and say what you feel!”
So there you have it folks....have a great Thanksgiving no matter how you believe we should enjoy it!

044274 Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Tues, Nov. 22, 2011... “Life at its Best”...What A Wonderful Concept......

2011-11-22T09:53:00.003-05:00

Last evening Vick, I and several friends, attended a presentation about health, diet and living...called “Life at its Best”, presented at the Greenville Library.

We were privileged to watch this presentation by Walter and Joan, a wonderful couple who run a 501 (C) (3) organization, addressing the WHOLE YOU - the mental, physical, emotional, spiritual and social dimensions of life.
Their mission is simple...they want you to stop and THINK! Think about your HEALTH......Mental - Physical – Spiritual.
They simply want you to...Think about your LIFE, Think about the CHOICES you make, Think about your FUTURE And know there is HOPE!
They want YOU to be HEALTHY and HAPPY! They want to assist you on your journey to Health, Healing and Happiness in life by offering you a free Multi-Media Health Presentation called, “Life at its Best”...with Dr. Walter Veith.
It was a very eye opening presentation about statics gathered by multiple studies about how our diets affect our health and it compared results from the western world to other places such as the United Kingdom, Australia and Africa to name a few. It was a very eye opening presentation based on factual scientific data, which would make the most skeptic person sit up and take notice. I know Vick and I were impressed and so were our friends. Some of our friends were already practicing this type of living, and Vick and I have been slowly moving in this direction, so last evening was just a boost for us. If you are interested in more information about their program....WHICH IS FREE... simply go to their website and check them out. It is http://alltnew.org/ ALL THINGS NEW – Mind Body Spirit.
Another nice thing, was their generous gift of a large basket of fruits and veggies, which was offered as a Thanksgiving Basket...presented to each and every participant in their program. They will run another session of the program at 2 PM this afternoon and I hope they have a better turnout than last evening, because it is such an inspirational program for better living....and presented by the greatest couple. Check out their website using the link above.....

We have been racing around the farm, trying to get everything finished and ready before the snow flies. We finished the generator....all but installing the battery, which I am reluctant to install until the Kosco gas man arrives and pipes it up, connecting it to a new propane tank which will supply the new generator, the gas range and gas dryer. They will pull our old tank and replace it with another one...twice as big as the older one. Once they leave, we will be forever protected against loss of heat, lights and water in the event of another power failure from Mother Nature or equipment failure.
I still have two tons of pellets sitting outside on pallets which need to be transferred into the tractor shed extension, where they will remain until used throughout the winter month. At least we can use the pellet stove when power is lost, because the generator will power these things previously lost.
The barns are winter proofed and the animals are as comfortable as can be expected. If the chickens would only begin laying their eggs again to pay for their feed....it would be nice. Once they start and we can supply customer demand again, all things will be much better.

044209 Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Thurs, Nov. 17th... It Comes...As Surely As The Sun Will Rise Tomorrow...

2011-11-17T10:41:00.005-05:00

I was out early this morning and felt the coming of the season... More and more, the smells of fall are disappearing... going into that familiar dormancy of winter.
The sweet smell of fall leaves and wet earth are diluting in the chill of the air and each weather report on television reverberates within my brain, that which I feel in my bones. Most all the leaves are now upon the ground, except for the hardy oaks which hang on til the bitter end...sometimes not relinquishing their grasp until a new leaf of spring promises to continue the vigil, allowing the old, weathered sentry to retire to the forest floor, once and for all.
Upon my morning visit to a friend to return a borrowed object... We spoke of the peace and tranquility of nature when you slip into its bailiwick and remain quiet and unannounced. She invited Vick and me to enter her private and very spiritual place, hidden toward the rear of her property. She calls it, quite appropriately, “The Hemlock Forest”, which she only visits during the cold months, when she does not have to share it with ticks and mosquitoes.
How I love to sit in a pine glen with the breeze gently swaying the pine needles, as the wind whispers an almost indistinguishing shhhhhh... I feel that breeze upon my face; much like Gods breath and it’s as if the wind is telling me that if I’m silent...more will be reveled unto me. I used to sit in the woods and watch nature’s animals, the light filtering through the trees, casting their constantly moving shadows and the wind as it plays tag with the remaining leaves of fall. It was here I could drift back into my memories of childhood and visit with departed friends and family members. How easy it is to choose between memories of my youthful experiences... my family activities... or simply zone out in meditation. Sometimes I would simply doze off in the comfortable heat of the mid-day sun as it warmed my body amidst the chill. All these things were, and still are, very enjoyable and free.
I plan to expose Vick to this experience as soon as the ticks are packed up and gone to their winter resort, promising not to return until next spring. As I said before, when we go...I’ll take the camera with zoom lens and multiplier used for capturing those special moments only available to those who patiently wait for them to occur. Some of my fondest memories of being in the woods revolve around simply sitting and observing my surroundings. A chipmunk scurrying about, taking care of its daily task of survival, becomes an interesting documentary and there is no limit to the additional wonders of nature which presents itself when you blend into your surroundings while afield. Whatever you see and experience is well worth the wait in allowing it to materialize in its own time. You should really consider trying it yourself!
It takes no special ability gain permission from a landowner to slip into a tranquil area of the forest with a seat, field glasses and a camera for a few hours of blissful relaxation and enjoyment. Honest!

044086Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Wed. Nov. 16, 2011... We’re Back in The Saddle Again... Making Great Strides...

2011-11-16T15:30:00.006-05:00

“For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: ‘It might have been!’”
An excerpt from John Greenleaf Whittier

Long ago...and far away...for these are the thoughts...which we share today... S. Watt

The above is my preamble of what I do regularly in my published blog postings every day for people to read. To some, they are important; a link to their very own innermost feelings and thoughts...to others, they are simply entertaining, in that the content takes them along back to a time when there are a lot of, “there might have been” moments in their lives too. I often look back upon the events of my life and wonder if my choices were different... would I have arrived where I am today, by a different road? I was later afforded the chance to do so by the changing of my entire life through failed marriage and retirement. I finally began life the way God had intended for me to enjoy it. I labor just as hard, but have a loving, kind and caring soulmate who lives the same way...living her dreams.
I often catch myself daydreaming to years ago when I sat at my desk in my bedroom, writing in a journal...much as I observe John-boy Walton do as I watch that syndicated old show. Many times I can relate to his adventures in literature, for I started much as he did, though my journal was lost in time and moving multiple times. I often wonder if any of my ancient poems from the sixties will ever show up in old family papers saved by my departed mother. Probably not...for they would have most surely surfaced by now, since my brother and his wife had gone through all their belonging before having auction and selling the house when Dad went to assisted living.

So....Lost through the years,
Are my thoughts and my tears,
For they’ll never return,
All these things that I’ve learned,
For ears listening concerned,
Related memories told which I yearn.

As I promised yesterday, I am loading some pictures of our latest progress and will tell of more to come. We are so close to being finished for the fall and ready to enter the winter dormancy outside, except for feeding and watering animals.
We will begin to open the hospice gift shop and classify and catalog all the artwork by number to make checkout of bought merchandise much easier, thereby making restocking much easier too. We will be ready for the holiday season when people wish to buy hand made presents for people on their gift lists.
We are now operating a small farm store on the front porch, since theft of our goods stopped us at the usual farm stand. Perhaps if we wish to revive the honor system, we will need to install surveillance cameras and prosecute the thieves who wish to destroy our dream of country charm and the honor system of paying for farm items. So many of our friends and neighbors are now doing without because of this low life.

Our make shift Farm Store

The white one is Slugger & the other is Phoenix

A real chicken explosion

The closed in barn roof section and added light & receptacle.

The North fence on the island....Safety for all from predators...

Ducks galore........

Another explosion.....only ducks this time

Turkeys for the holidays

Doodles swimming off.....

Doodles watching me......

Me watching Doodles.....

At the waters edge....ready to go.

Doodles on his way to his daily job.... Being a Goose!

Doodles is a full blown, wild, Canadian Goose....He lives with us in the barn at night....

Tina Turkey on the left and Doodles Duck on the right....

These are the meat turkeys for sale......

No longer a mirroe, but an activity center....

These are the meat birds for sale.......

These guys are gathered around the water cooler at work

The gate and fence at the compost pile out back....

Like a giant mirror of trees......

What we have during an outage, thanks to the automatic generator....

The three breaker panels....

The generator after installation.....

Poudy Tat in her Conduminimum

044046Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC
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Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011...Time Marches On and So Do We...Briskly Too......

2011-11-15T10:28:00.002-05:00

Yesterday we moved like a house on fire and accomplished a bunch of tasks we have on our list. Today...with the exception of doing the fencing on the south side of the lake, which we have to delay until we have more money for fence and posts, we will pretty much wipe out the list of things needing completed before the snow flies. We started the day with inside chores, then went to do our volunteer jobs for friends, like feed their chickens and walk their dog while they are away from home. When we returned home, we grabbed a bite and then started the work at hand. We closed in the roof section between the barn and the run-in shed, closed in the soffit area across the entire alpaca stall roof and changed a light fixture’s mounting to get the light lower. Today, we’ll move a gate to eliminate the pain in the butt it has been since enlarging the alpaca stalls. It will go to the outboard post so the gate can be against the blank wall when not being used, instead of in front of the main stall gate. We will add interior light fixtures and a receptacle in the outboard run-in shed where the Suri alpacas reside, giving them light and a bucket heater receptacle for this winter. We will also install a piece of heavy-duty plastic over their screened window to stop the winter air from entering their stall. Later, we will install a pair of rubber mats to keep them off of the wet ground when they bed down.
Sometime before the twenty-eighth of the month when the gas company comes to pipe, test and start the stand-by generator, I will install the battery and be ready for that final pre-operational testing and finally place the generator into service. It will exercise weekly and in the event of a power failure, start itself and automatically switch over from utility service to generator service. It will switch back after regular utility service is returned to normal and stand at ready again. SWEET!!!!!
Looks like we will postpone the building of a farm store onto the barn until next spring due to a shortage of funds, time and the approaching winter....we will wait to start the much needed new tool/welding shed where we will store all our tools and perform the welding work too. We’ve done and spent enough this year... Winter can be our needed rest period when we can recover financially and enjoy other interests a little bit.
After today, we’ll take pictures of everything and post them tomorrow morning in the morning post.

044010Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Sunday, Nov. 13, 2011... Best Made Plans Are Always Made...Seldom Followed...

2011-11-13T08:47:00.006-05:00

Our best attempt at making a “to do” list takes place at the breakfast table every morning as I sit there contemplating what we have to do and what we can jam into the day and get done. Ha, Ha, Ha oh my......I think to myself...and even sometimes laugh aloud as I reflect on my past performance in this regard. I make an itinerary every morning over my coffee....and then again, changing it when Vick comes down the stairs, because her thoughts for the day’s projects carry different and usually far more coordinated scheduling than mine, which is to do as much as possible, regardless of the importance....you know, lessen the list of things needing done. She places a sort of preference by importance tactic, which I fail to possess.
Often, while sitting there, sipping coffee and thinking, I reflect on the desire to talk to my neighbor Ken and get his permission to walk on his property to the rear of ours. I want to take Vick back into the tall timber, beyond the field behind the house and sit for an hour or two watching and observing nature like she has never had the opportunity to do. We should take a thermos of blackberry tea, some trail mix or something to munch if hungry...our portable folding chairs, field glasses, the camera with zoom lens and multiplier and give her the opportunity to see why I enjoyed hunting so much in my younger years. Oh, I’ve killed my share of deer and wild game over the years, but never more than I could consume...But the real enjoyment beyond supplementing my table fare in lean times, was the peace and solitude derived by being one with nature.......the world around me. Call it the little amount of Native Indian blood coursing through my veins, but I love to sit in the woods and listen, smell and hear what you can only observe by being there.
I enjoy the fragrance of fall soil, decomposing leaves, which have recently fallen and create a blanket of colorful fall paintings throughout the woods....covering the fragrant earth; soon to join with the loom of composted relatives, from seasons before.
I love to sit quietly and watch as gray squirrels seem to endlessly be harassed by red squirrels as they attempt to chase off or steal the nuts gathered by their neighbor. Deer amble by, munching and browsing on succulent twigs and acorns missed by the burying squirrels. The birds will actually land on you and walk up your arms if you sit quietly enough and the sounds and smells which you experience are so intense sometimes, that it is amazing to behold.
Contrary to popular belief....there is nothing to fear in the woods while enjoying nature first hand as long as you remember to remain quiet and still if a bear happens to amble by....and remember, never allow yourself to be between a sow and her cubs. Always make plenty of noise if you see a Momma and her cubs approaching to give her plenty of time to avert an encounter. She and her cubs will make plenty of noise as they approach, so you will definitely hear them. Take action and be especially noisy as soon as you see them in the distance so she can head in another direction.
Some people desire to carry a firearm with them when they go afield such as this, but it is extremely hard to explain to a wildlife officer why you are there with a gun if you are not hunting....and saying it’s for self defense is usually not believed, since poachers readily use this tactic for their excuse, so perhaps this would be a bad idea.
Anyway...This is another good example of something which I’ve been wanting to do ever since we moved up here and as yet, have failed to execute...always filling the itinerary with other things and that annoys me. I should pursue this with renewed excitement before it never comes to fruition and Vick never has the chance to see this wonderful gift of God. It is merely a phone call to Ken, to acquire his permission and blessing.....a ten minute walk and two hours of enjoyment, after which we can resume the usual schedule again. I’ll positively add this to our to-do list!

043947Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Friday, Nov. 11, 2011...Onward and Upward...or Forward at Least for Now......

2011-11-11T17:27:00.003-05:00

This from a dedicated reader of our blog’s last posting about the YU55 Meteor.

The moon is approx 239,000 miles away from Earth last nights asteroid was approx. 202,000 miles away from Earth Many, many People speculated and feared what would happen if the asteroid hit Earth and you wrote about it, but let’s try this glass half full scenario...If the asteroid traveled 20 MPH slower or was angled a 1/3 of a degree south it could have made a direct collision with the moon the force could have thrown the moon off axis and Thrown the Earth into a second ice age within 60 days It wasn’t a 200,000 mile buffer, Instead by a school speed zone alteration It Was a 37,000 mile NEAR MISS....closer than you blogged!
That is approx. the round trip distance of going from NYC to London only 10 times! Put that in your corncob and light ‘er up...Calling Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck!!!!!!

Okay then, so now we can put this all into perspective.... I’m really, REALLY glad that this thing missed us, because I really enjoy the subtle change of seasons we have throughout the year and I wouldn’t want to immediately be thrust into another ice age period and miss them. I enjoy the invigorating changes in temperature, scenery and everything else that goes hand in hand with the seasonal changes.

Yesterday, we had a productive day here on the farm! I started the day by pulling the barn gate off and re-adjusting the hinges and tack welding them into position so they will maintain the correct position of the gate. It used to slowly slip down until the gate was rubbing on the stones underneath, making it a real task to open. Now it glides perfectly.
After that, I concentrated on the generator for awhile. Working out the wiring in the transfer panel, which had what I thought to be a lot of redundancies in the design. I finally called an electrician to discuss my thoughts and he agreed with everything conclusion I had come to when tracing out the wiring. It will now be a piece of cake to complete tomorrow or later today.
We gathered up the temporary fencing along the south side of the lake and moved it to the west side yard and let the alpacas and sheep in there all day to browse happily on the succulent green grass. They were mooing contentedly all afternoon long as witnessed by Vick and I as we installed the ground net for the generator. We accomplished this by installing two eight foot copper ground rods into the ground, ten feet apart. We then ran a single length of solid #4 copper wire from the generator ground lug, to each ground rod, affixing it to each rod with an acorn nut without cutting the wire.
While I was doing some of the seasonal clean-up....such as putting the filter and pump, floater, chemicals and hoses for the pool away, Vick cleaned the barn entry and bunny brothel floor and I later put new wood chips down.
Today, we will work on whatever we need to complete for winter as time and weather permits. Later this evening, we will enjoy the annual Norton Hill Methodist Church turkey diner. We wait for this event all year long, preparing for the next one the day after the present one is enjoyed! It’s the best!!!

043916Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Wednesday, Nov. 09, 2011...Yeah, Yeah, yeah, I Know...It Missed Us, But...

2011-11-09T10:10:00.002-05:00

“What’s all the hype? What are you talking about? What the hell is a YU55 anyway”, you ask?
2005 YU55, was a potentially hazardous asteroid measuring approximately 1,300 feet in diameter....about the size of an aircraft carrier. It passed 0.85 lunar distances (or 201,700 miles) from the Earth. This is the closest known approach by an asteroid of this size since 1976...yet it's not even close enough to see with the naked eye.... and did you hear much about it?
Now they have mighty fancy equipment that keeps track of this thing...both in the past and looking into the future and they are indicating that more passes near the Earth are predicted and that that they pose no unusual level of danger. In fact, those special machines and equipment used in tracking and computing its future path eliminated any possibility of an impact with the Earth for the next 100 years. It was removed from the Sentry Risk Table (a highly automated collision monitoring system) on 22 April 2010 and as such it now has a rating of 0 on the Torino Scale, a method for categorizing the impact hazard associated with near-Earth objects.
The next time a known asteroid this large will come this close to Earth will be in 2028 when 2001 WN5 passes us at 154,000 miles from the Earth.....much closer than last nights 201,700 miles.
But, what if..........What if, in its travels, it hit another asteroid, which slightly changed its course of travel and it wouldn’t have been a near miss, but a direct hit?
According to Jay Melosh, if an asteroid the size of 2005 YU55 (1300 feet across) were to hit land, it would create a crater 4 miles across, 1,700 ft deep and generate an earthquake equivalent to a magnitude seven quake. If an asteroid such as 2004 VD17 were to impact land, it would produce a crater about 6.2 miles wide and an earthquake of magnitude 7.4.
So what’s the big deal? Nothing as long as they miss us, but imagine the damage done if one hits! We would first have the direct damage...earthquake like tremors.....and a Tsunami reaching over seventy feet high, within 60 miles of the crash site.
They sure are closed mouth about things like this.....I sure hope their tracking skills warrant such nonchalance in these matters!
That aside and well past from last evening.....Today we will work around the farm until we have to leave for an appointment later this afternoon. When we return, we’ll again labor on these things around the farm. The first thing will be to get the generator ready for the gas company to pipe it in and test it. I’ll install the battery, change over from natural gas to propane and add the oil to the engine. I will install the ground rods and ground wire. Once that is completed we can call the propane guy in to finish his part. Later I can complete the wiring in the main panel.
We will also be working on the fencing around the pond.....and some of the temporary fencing around the west side by the garden. Below are a few pictures of the generator now and the fence area.... More to come!

043853Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Sunday, November 06, 2011...As the Flame Dwindles, Understanding flares Up...

2011-11-06T09:06:00.003-05:00

Many years ago, I started my working career as a lowly worker in a large company which was considered one of the three best paying employers in our local area... and certainly the very best in our town. I continued to work for that company, until in my twenty fifth year of service; they sold the department in which I worked so long, (actually a business in itself) to a small...but successfully growing family business...which already had two facilities in Pennsylvania. I decided to leave my original employer to work for the new owner. The old business had undergone changes in ownership at least six times while I was with them and was now owned by an overseas corporation and no longer family oriented. We had lost such things as a family picnic once a year, a Christmas bonus, an appreciation day meal and other such smaller perks throughout the years and the security of employment was dwindling daily also. I had worked my way from a laborer of minimum wage, to one of the highest paid hourly workers in the plant and was a department planner/leader when I terminated my employment to remain with the department as a superintendant of the facility for the new owners. I had nine employees working for me in three shifts, around the clock. My job was performing upkeep to the entire facility, performing carpentry, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, welding & fabricating, heating, air conditioning and miscellaneous repairs to the grounds and roadways. In addition, we kept all of the machines and production equipment running to producing product, which meant fixing malfunctioning machinery...be it electrical, mechanical, pneumatic or hydraulic in nature. My duties were to perform the above, along with creating O.S.H.A. programs and compliance guidelines, maintaining a parts inventory, capital investements in equipment replacement, developing a yearly budget, maintaining a working preventative maintenance program within the computer, meeting with vendors and provide a training program for my mechanics, plus do yearly performance reviews and period reports.
I trained all my people to perform the multi-tasks necessary to keep the facility running and producing cast iron products for industry.
As I look back, I may have taken my job too seriously, but gee whiz...that’s what I was paid to do! Management often referred to me as "a petulant, impatient, but brilliant perfectionist in his field..... one capable of turning out good mechanics in record time, able to function in all fields of maintenance and repair satisfactorily."
My mechanics however initially considered me harsh, nasty, demanding and expectant of far too much performance...too fast...and highly critical of their efforts. Later they came to realize I was pungently honest and sometimes hurtful in delivering assessments to their efforts. When I was young, I admired clever people, watching them...learning from them...imitating whatever brilliance I could collect and use to my benefit in constantly climbing that ladder of success.
Now that I am old, I admire kind people...those who bend the truth to be kind. As Robert Breault, the American operatic performer known for his strong acting skills and diverse repertoire in opera throughout America and abroad once stated, “Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true”.
Vick is my mentor in that regard...as she would never utter a word that would offend another person, for she learned a long time ago that you never judge a person by their demeanor, for you don’t know the road they must traverse. I was usually brutally rude to anyone that didn’t live up to his capabilities, let alone my own standards! I would say you came to me for this job...I told you what I expected and I’ve paid you for each and every minute you’ve been here, but you haven’t made good on your promise to perform for me....

I guess I actually demanded excellence in all areas of their working life, and thought that basically...if someone was not, in my opinion, excellent......I felt justified in telling them my opinion of their work; their performance and career standing.
As I look back...I know I was secretly scorned among my employees...for expecting from them what they easily saw I lacked in myself. I had endured two nasty, ugly divorces as a result of both my personal actions and those associated with this ever so demanding job. At the time, they didn’t understand that my personal struggles and failures weren’t at all important to their careers...What was important was their performance and the improvement of their skills, which they today rely on...and are the gift which I gave them, that will remain with them until the day they die...untouchable by others. They all lost their jobs when the plant closed after my retirement....but they didn’t lose what my gruff nature and demands on them created. They are still the owners of the excellent skills and knowledge I demanded they know and master. I knew that those skills would one day, be much more personal and far more important to them than the struggles and failures I experienced in my journey.
I believe each individual mechanic will not admit the skills they rapidly gained struggling under such leadership, until they retire and look back upon their working career and marvel at the gifts they received along the way...not only from me, but other older co-workers. You never realizing until after you retire that your working career had such an impact on your everyday life and those around you. Thus, as the flame of labor dwindles, the inferno of gratitude in understanding flare up to warm your soul...... You can be told a million times that you’ve done a good job, but only once, do you need to really feel it in your soul to become satisfied with your efforts.
It is much more tranquil being a kind person these days....
Thanks Vick...I’m trying and I love you for it!

043786Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Thursday, November 03, 2011...Go Back to Start...So Not Pass Go or Collect 200 Dollars.......

2011-11-03T08:15:00.003-04:00

For the last three days or so, I’ve felt under the weather with this confounded sinus crap I get every time the weather resembles spring....when there is melting snow and a chill in the air. It seems a cold or something settles in the small of my back, then I get what feels like an inflamed diaphragm when I breathe. This has happened to me for as long as I can remember...and if I don’t pay attention to it, it turns into pneumonia. If I stop and rest for a few days and do very little other than lie around inside the house, it goes away and never even gets to be anything resembling a real cold. So....for the last three days I have been simply buying my time....taking it easy and not leaving the house except to drive somewhere and feed, water and either release or put the birds and animals away. Today, everything is gone except for the sore back, and historically.....that will be gone tomorrow. I hope so because I have a ton of things I want to do and a million more I need to do.
Yesterday the gas company guy came to inform me that I cannot have the generator where it is. I talked to him on the phone and was aware that the spot I made the pad was unsuitable because he told me the generator had to be five feet away from any window, door or opening into the house. I was going to slide the pad two more feet to the left and wire it up before they came to see it, but decided to just wait until they came to see it. It’s a good thing I did, because I would have moved it and then found out that it also has to be ten feet from the tank and five from any opening into the house! SURPRISE!!! Imagine some one telling you everything you need to know at once....Hummmm, sounds like that is what you should be informed about when you first call about what you need to do....not some now...some later and more in the end!
Well, anyway...now I will have a generator...on a pad...in the middle of the opening between the house and the garden....rendering access between the house and garden a thing of the past. In the future if we need to go between the two with a wheelbarrow or mower....forget it; we’ll have to go around!
Tomorrow, Vick and I will probably load stone onto our utility trailer from the local stone quarry and make a new pad base, where I will then drag the existing concrete pad to, level it and reinstall the generator in the new location. I can then mount the connection box and wire the inside BX cable to it, tying the generator and transfer switch together. I can then do the selective circuit wiring into the existing main panel, program the generator to self start in the event of a power outage and run once a week as an exercise cycle for ten minutes.
After finishing that project, we’ll be pretty much prepared for winter.

Oh, I have the canvas Quonset hut to finish, which is where we will store round hay bales for the animals through the winter, but that won’t take very long to complete.....honest!

043732Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Monday, October 31, 2011...WOW...Snow! Who Needs It On Halloween Anyway?

2011-10-31T09:55:00.004-04:00

Here it is.....Halloween and we have had a major snow storm of eleven inches!
True, much of it has melted in the first day after that storm, but still....we’re still officially in the beginning of fall. This is no time for snow...this is the time of celebration of the harvest and enjoying Halloween, apple cider and fall foliage festivities...not shoveling snow. With everything that had gone on here in the last month, we never got the pool closed properly, so now the filer and pump assembly is out there in the snow...Our cushion on all the furniture had to be put under the deck roof to dry before we can put them away and we only accomplished closing up and winterizing the barn because we hustled like crazy the day before and of the snow storm, finishing only in time work in the snow before it began to accumulate.
Now we are hoping for the 51° days they promised on the forecast Saturday as we were being pelted with the eleven inches of snow! Upon checking this morning, they are offering us 48° today and 51° tomorrow with only 33° overnight. The remainder of the snow should then melt and we can finish the winterizing we should have had done by now.
In the meantime, we are planning to go to Kingston someday this week to pick up clay for ourselves and Lois, our potter friend. She has turned Vick onto sculpting which seems quite fun. I believe I’ll give it a twirl too, once we have some clay and tools to work with. I’d like to see Vick get a wheel, because I believe I’d enjoy throwing pottery and we can always cure our wares in Lois’ kiln when she fires it.
Below I’ve added some pictures I took yesterday morning beginning at 5:30 AM when the dogs wanted out to start their day. After leaving them out, I saw that I had acquired a virus when the power went off momentarily, so I began working on getting Norton Security back on-line, which finally took me and a service rep five hours to accomplish, after finally removing several damaged files and the virus, which came from an AOL page in their news. So much for their lousy virus protection.....Thank God I have Norton, which can at least give me support and tools to remove what sneaks by them. Without their free “Virus Eraser”, I would never have gotten rid of it! It was a nasty one!!! Anyway, since working all that time, from 5:30 AM on...I had lots of opportunity and different lighting situations to snap pictures of. ENJOY!
Too bad the little kids will be slipping and sliding and walking in snow around here for Halloween. We got some candy, just in case, but I doubt that anyone will show up. I’m not sure we’ve ever had one kid in all the years we’ve been here. No neighbor kids or anything....SCARY!!!!!!

043682Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Thursday to Saturday...Caught With Our Pants Down...In A Blizzard......

2011-10-27T22:45:00.009-04:00

Have you ever sat down with a cup of coffee and looked out a window early in the morning and found yourself transported off to another place and another time? Perhaps it was a time of fondness....say, somewhere in your childhood that was a time you’ll never forget. I have those times...times when I can sit and not move a muscle for fear of breaking my concentration, which could revoke my privilege of revisiting this special time and place...of which there are many.
I remember sitting down in front of the computer today and seeing a warning of impending snow, which was to start during the day sometime...and true to their prediction, it did...but not before I was whisked off to that special place in my memory. It was a time when I looked out the window of our house....during the 60’s sometime, and school was out for the holidays. That might have been Thanksgiving or Christmas, but most assuredly wasn’t anytime around the first day of deer season, for there were not a bunch of people at our home in Marysville, Pennsylvania and if it were around deer season, there would not be a sane moment in the day or night. Many of our family members came to hunt with my Mother and Father during the deer season, and my Grandmother would be the “camp cook” for the first two days. Mom, Dad, my other Grandmother and both Grandfathers, along with many aunts and uncles would hunt from our house for those two days. My Grandmother, who cooked, watched my little brother all day and I after the bus dropped me off at our door after school. My brother was eight years younger than me, so when I was old enough to go hunting with the troops...he was still only four years old. I was less than twelve as I recalled in this memory, for I was not hunting with everyone....but awaiting the chance, so I was living in a dream world of deer hunting as I recalled. I always reveled in the dream of joining the hunt and becoming a part of that traditional time of the year, for there was always such hearty laughter and story telling going on...just what an eleven year old has to endure for the last time....considering I could not hunt that year, but would come of age a mere three months later. Just my luck! Become twelve and able to legitimately go hunting.....but have to wait another lousy eight month before the next season rolled around. That part really sucked. They should have left you hunt the season, in the year of your twelfth birthday. How lucky the kid born in the second week of November! He would not have to wait much at all to hunt in his twelfth year...considering buck season was the Monday following Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania.
Anyway, I was awaiting a holiday meal of some kind, because I remember my Mom working in the kitchen, with her mom... sitting at the table, sipping coffee and talking to her. I was frantically pacing between the front door and the back door, checking and watching for the others to arrive. Dad of course was working...due to arrive at any minute, usually carrying milk and pastry for the meal. My Grandfather was drinking a cup of coffee too, but he was on the side porch, listening and looking for anything that might present itself before him. I believe it was the American Indian in him, which kept him from enjoying the indoors. He was always much more relaxed sitting on the porch or sitting in the woods hunting...for it was there he was at his best. He was half Indian...Shawnee brave of the Algonquin family in the Juniata Valley of central Pennsylvania... His Mother, my Great Grandmother was full blooded and was well known in the community as the girl whose Aunt was the squaw that drove the oxen from the Reedsville stockyard by the railroad to the Big Valley Auction barn, where they would be auctioned off to the settlers in the valley. The stock master contacted her because the local men were afraid of the oxen....after all; they had never seen such huge animals before. The extremely large animals didn’t scare Aunt Anne Henry, for I suppose she saw many a buffalo during her march to Oklahoma, on what was known as the trail of tears. She was taken there as a young girl, sold for a nickel and brought all the way back to central Pennsylvania in a stroke of luck....or was it?
Anyway my Grandfather was an elusive and hard man, passing many of those traits to my Mother and obviously, on to me in the end. Mom was a loving, strict, stern parent who was much dumber on the outside, than she was on the inside...or at least that is how she portrayed herself, for I would figure out a way to get ahead of her to do things I wanted to do without her knowledge, but much later in life, she smiled and told stories in great detail about all those things I did behind her back...Which she didn’t know anything about.....Smiling all the while, as she continued to tell about all the things that she never knew about. It was times such as these that prompted me to ask myself, who was really the dummy here anyway?
I remember longing for those days of celebration to arrive, for m y Mother made every one of those holidays the special times in our lives that they were. So special and so exciting that we didn’t realize how much until she passed and we never had those times again. Now I would give anything to go back and enjoy but one of those times with family again...and be able to introduce Vick to her and have them do what a wife and mother-in-law like my Mom, would have done. I know they would have gotten along like a mother and daughter, laughing and enjoying one another’s company. They say some things never change, but that is a wrong statement...for everything always changes...everything and everybody.....all in their own good time and all in their own way. I suppose that is why a dream of the past and a memory of the same never vary. It is all we have to cling to when that time is done and that chapter of our life closes, like a page in a book.

Last evening, I went to the basement and installed the transfer switch for the new generator on the wall and tie it into the existing breaker panel. I now will bore a hole in the wall and run the BX cable of the prewired panel to the prewired box on the generator outside. That will tie those two together. I will then have to cut in the chosen circuits in the panel which will be energized by either the power company or the generator, depending on where the transfer switch is toggled. I need to ground the generator with two eight foot copper coated ground rods and contact the propane company to come and advise how it should be tied in to their supply tank, so as to not disrupt the other devices supplied by the existing tank.
Lastly, we will need to fire up and test it. Once completed, the house and farm will have lights, heat and water in a power outage.....AUTOMATICALLY! Below are a few pictures of the existing panel with the new one connected and ready to wire in. Now....for the “caught with our pants down...In a blizzard” opening statement!
We have all the summer stuff still out in what appeared this afternoon. SNOW! Yes...look below at the pictures following the generator installation pictures and you’ll see our snow accumulation, which is now covering lounge and chair cushions, the pool filter and pump...picnic table umbrellas and all the other summer things needing put away. Yep...our pants were at our ankles in this one!

Friday, October 28, 2011...OMG...There’s Another On The Way Tomorrow......

Oh boy...there’s another significant snowfall predicted for tomorrow night, with an accumulation of 2-4 inches here in the valley area and into Albany, with 5-6 inches possible in the mountainous areas where Vick’s brother lives. That is the same accumulation they are calling for in Philadelphia, PA....and on up the coast, into New England. We still have all the summer things out in the yard and with things as they have been for us this last month, the pool pump and filter is still on the pool, instead of being tucked comfortably in it’s usual winter resting place.
All the cushions are on the deck chairs, etc. and the grounds hoses and hose reels are still full of water......now quite frozen and threatening to rupture.
We must go to the mountains today to celebrate our nephew’s birthday, so the work of preparing will be cut short this afternoon, when we take off for Lexington.

Saturday, October 29, 2011...... Yikes, They Now Call For Six to Fifteen Inches...

Here we go again... This stupid weather is gonna kill us in the end, sooner or later.
If we get six to fifteen inches of wet heavy snow with the leaves still on most of the trees here, we will surely have power outages similar to the extent we suffered during hurricane Irene. Our standby generator will not yet be hooked up and ready for operation, so that will be another ultimate blow to endure.
Imagine the feeling...having no power for heat, lights, TV and the usual comforts, yet we have a generator sitting on a pad behind the house which would run the entire house and it’s just not exactly ready to operate yet! PERFECT... Simply PERFECT!
We will do our best this morning and afternoon to gather up as much of the summer crap which we neglected to put away yet and stuff it into the buildings so we can at least have some of the stuff done before the snow hits, so this is about all I will write for now. I’ll post pictures of the big event and the resulting floods we get on Monday when it is 51° out there and everything melts rapidly. That is if the house doesn’t float away!!!!!!!

043655Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Wednesday, October 26, 2011...Cold and Rainy is On the Agenda Today...

2011-10-26T08:28:00.003-04:00

Looks like today will be a lousy day of rain here on the farm....with the next several days only going further down hill, so it seems. Tomorrow they are calling for snow in the higher elevations of New York and across the New England states. It appears old man winter is a bit anxious and in a hurry to make his appearance this year. That’s okay, because we’re always ready when it comes right down to it. We have some new tires coming for the car this week sometime and the barns will be finished as far as winter-proofing them. (Vick did the large chicken coop yesterday afternoon....and we’ll finish the little coop today between raindrops. It doesn’t take long with the electric stapler, a cord and generator in the trailer behind the little garden tractor, making everything portable and quick moving in the rain.
Yesterday we placed the generator on the pad next to the house and I carried the panel into the basement. We will mount the panel next to the existing electrical panel in the basement, and then I’ll run the BX cable to the generator and make those connections. The final electrical connections between the transfer panel and the existing panel will take place some morning when I can shut the power down to tie in. I’ll call in the propane gas company to see how we should tie into their tank.....maybe having them do it, so they can check the pressures and supply.
We are now allowing the alpacas to graze in the western pasture area, by the garden plot. There is an abundance of grass there that can be eaten and such a lack of it on the rest of the farm, where the animals have been plucking it out as fast as it grows. The grass out front needs mowed once before snowfall, but I need to find the time to do it.
Here is a picture of the generator on the pad and the temporary “rope fence” we strung around the yard for the alpacas to graze. They aren’t the greatest pictures, but it’s gloomy and raining. (Some I took through the screened in front porch, so excuse them please) I’m reluctant to allow the sheep to be in there, because they could graze right out of the yard, walking under the rope and find themselves lost in the adjacent field. Sheep aren’t too bright...and when they find they are “Lost”, they panic and run, trying to find their way back, which might just be hurrying in the wrong direction....... They are herding animals, so they want to stay with their flock mates, but they also enter laa-laa land when eating lush, green grass...so find them selves sometimes “escaped”, before they know it.

043590Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Sunday, October 23, 2011... As Fall Marches On...Winter Brings Up The Rear...

2011-10-23T09:53:00.006-04:00

Every morning...more and more, the smells of fall diminish further and further from my nostrils. I used to smell Halloween in the air every morning I opened the sliding glass door, releasing the dogs for their morning run. Now I smell the void of summer... a dwindling smell of fall leaves and harvest smells...and an increasing smell of winter. Oh yes....Winter, that bland, lifeless void of fragrances, so prevalent on each and every cold winter morning...So devoid of everything, that you fear you’ve lost your sense of smell, for there is nothing present that you can distinguish. The harsh, bitter winds sting you nose as you pull in air, sampling it for the presence of anything you could identify, but there is usually nothing to detect riding on winter’s frigid breeze. How I hate yet love the winter. It is far more difficult to endure its harsh, unfriendly temperatures, the snow and ice, yet I hold a spot near and dear to my heart for the beauty of new fallen snow and Christmas Eve, with a blue cast light upon a newly acquired field of soft falling snow. There is nothing a Christian silently enjoys more than the special feeling a night such as that brings to mind. I immediately am transported back to a childhood time...awaiting family and friends to congregate around the table to celebrate the season of our Lord...How wonderful those memories are of my mother and father, enjoying our family and their parents. I remember upon their leaving that beautiful blue moon, casting its lovely rays upon the soft, fluffy snow and the bite of winter’s breath as it entered my nose and throat. Christmas carols could be heard from afar and neighbor kids laughing or just talking as they played on porches, waiting for bedtime...after which, Santa would arrive. I remember the plans being made for our Christmas Day dinner the next day and who would bring what....and at what time they would arrive. I remember all these things, for that is all we adults have, but to remember......for children grow up and the excitement is then revolving around their children...and when they are gone, so then is the Christmas spirit usually, except for those who choose to cuddle together and keep those memories alive. We choose to do just that....and will do so in the coming months as we decorate and round up music and movies to usher in the seasons as they arrive, thus...taking part in the perpetuation of those memories for yet another year. Vick and I have no children here......so we summon the child-like being within ourselves and fuel them into existence again, just long enough to create and enjoy the holiday season like everyone else...together... Won’t you join us?

Yesterday was a day of stop and goes... We would stop and go throughout the day, for we went to get the cement for the generator pad, which I got poured and ready. We did what we could and visited when we could, ate when we could and planned for today. This morning, sometime before noon, we are to go for a buffet breakfast at a local resort, as guest of the town clerk. She wanted us to go as her guest to show her appreciation for all the times we volunteered to help with the rabies clinic which she headed annually. After that, we will return home and do whatever we decided to do, along with turning the animals loose to browse and enjoy the fall day. We have fence to build and a gate to hang, but may choose to do other things today and complete those tasks on Monday instead. Below is a quick snapshot of the pad, ready for the top coat and then curing before placing the generator on it and wiring it in.

043520Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Saturday, October 22, 2011...Working On The Pad For The Standby Generator...

2011-10-22T10:26:00.004-04:00

Every day brings us closer and closer to the impending fate we know is just around the corner. This morning it was 42°, with a brisk breeze from the north. It incited a chill to my bones as I left the house to make a pickup at a friend’s house before they left for their Saturday’s planned activities. The sky is overcast and threatening a winter type look, far exceeding the fall which had begun several weeks ago, to which Vick and I have not had time to fully participate in this year. We have been busy with other things which cropped up over the last several months...sickness, soreness, behindedness and other things... far too numerous to mention, but we have been extremely busy.......BELIEVE ME!....even when we weren’t appearing busy!
Today, we will pickup several bags of sakrete (cement) and pour the pad we are preparing for the stand-by generator we purchased for the farm. It will supply the house and barn with needed backup electricity year round, in case of another power outage like we experienced with hurricane Irene. We decided chipping a hole in the ice during a winter blizzard for days would not be something we care to do, since dragging water from the pond to water the animals in the summer was bad enough. We will have our furnace (which heats our water), lights, well pump and pellet stove, which are the necessary things to survive a power outage in the winter. We have a gas range to cook on and a gas fireplace stove in the art room upstairs, which also heats our bedroom, so we will be set. The generator is large enough to give us TV and other receptacle circuits for computer and phone service too, so we planned ahead for the needs of this purchase.
The generator will supply 100 Amps and will start automatically with a special transfer switch to protect everything from malfunction....especially if when the power comes back on, protecting our generator, shutting it back off and transferring back to normal power.....even if we were away, protecting our home, the dogs and our farm animals. Below are two pictures of our progress with the pad.

After pouring the pad and finishing it off, we will install the gate at the corner of the property and begin installing the fencing on the north side. Once installed. We will be finished for the winter, unless we feel like doing more. The winterizing of the barns will be a piece of cake, because when Vick opened everything in the spring, she made special provisions for redoing them now....Everything is there, so all we need is the screw gun and a few hours to re-install the vinyl coverings hanging right there and install the wood strips.

043496Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Wed. Oct. 19th 2011...And The Race Is On & Here Comes Us In The Back Stretch...

2011-10-19T10:40:00.004-04:00

We’re once again in the race against winter with all our things we were planning to finish during the summer months. Well you know what? I’ve come to the conclusion that we will never get done....will always be in the back stretch....and that’s just how it is! So, finally giving into that fact, I don’t give a damn anymore! We’ll take each and every day as they come, when they come and however they come. We’ll roll with the flow and do what we want when we want and build or finish when we want to.....SO...... now we will only keep busy when we’re not busy and maybe we’ll be busy doing something else until we get busy again! Simple I thought, as I wondered why it took so long to come to this ideal solution!
Yesterday I dove into the fencing of the island side section near the lake. I call it the island side section because it is surrounded by water since we dug the little stream, duck pond and drainage into the lake several years ago. Once this island section is fenced, the entire northern approach to the farm will be closed to all four footed predators. Of course it will do very little in the way of thwarting An Attack from a hawk, but we won’t have to worry about the neighbor’s roaming dogs, foxes and coyotes anymore. When we finish the south swamp approach, the only way into the farm grounds where the animals occupy will be the open water between the two sides of the lake. Everything else will be fenced and gated, effectively closing off access to the farm, thus protecting the animals and making it comfortable to walk outside in the night. Our dogs will also be able to police and exercise in select sections of the yard then too. Below are a few pictures which I promised to post. They are of the area I’m closing in on the island section, but where the birds are congregated on the bank, you can see the south exposure where we will be replacing the nylon fence with a post and wire fence too. The trees were alive with blackbirds this morning....all over the property; obviously they stopped for a drink and rest on the migratory route south, because the trees looked like a scene from Hitchcock’s “The Birds” movie.
I have included a picture of our generator I we will be installing. The unit itself, the hole we will fill with gravel, level and place the wooden frame atop, before placing rebar and wire and pouring the concrete pad. The large transfer panel goes in the basement, next to the existing service panel and select circuits get tied into the transfer panel and go to the generator. This transfer panel isolates the generator from the incoming lines to protect power company personnel from injury as they work on lines when the power is off and our generator is on.

043429Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Saturday, October 15, 2011...Things We Do...About Things To Do...Usually Slow...

2011-10-15T11:19:00.001-04:00

Usually I’m slow at doing things necessary to do the other things we have to do. The night before last, the tire obviously went flat as I crossed the yard and when I made the turn, the tire popped off the bead of the rim, causing me to run through the grass leaning grossly to the left...taking a moment for my dulled mind to process what was happening. SO...there is where the tractor sat all night long and all day long through yesterday’s torrential downpours! This in itself made me shudder, in that I always park the equipment in, under the overshot roof in front of the barn to keep them out of the weather. Had I felt like a normal human yesterday, between showers and downpours I would have refilled the tire with air and got in under the shelter, but not feeling so good....I merely got it up on a block of wood to relieve the flat side, so it would take air and re-seal the bead on the rim. That being done, I opted to sit and rest my aching knees, rather than drag the compressor over there to fill the tire. That fun time job is reserved for this morning!
I must then begin in earnest, the work on the base pad for our generator and sketch out a plan for installation and the extension of the wiring between the transfer switch and the compressor, since the two must be located so far apart.
I’ll get Vick to snap a few pictures for the next post, showing our progress.
Maybe we’ll finish the barn opening too! We’ll see.....We’ll hope....We’ll probably crash and burn again too, in the end, and again it will be the things we don’t do to accomplish the things we should do........

043355Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Wednesday, October 12, 2011...The Seasons March On...Relentlessly, It Seems...

2011-10-12T10:03:00.006-04:00

As I sit here this morning in the pre-dawn light, watching as the approaching day greets me the same way it does each and every morning. It is so peaceful at this time, with a breeze coming through the screened door of the dogs exercise yard, which keeps the bugs at bay, (at least those bugs hearty enough to fly and wear a coat in the morning chill) yet it still allows me to catch a whiff of that elusive honeysuckle, or whatever it is that has been permeating my sense of smell each and every morning for the last two weeks. The sounds of life are emerging, as surely as those increasing sounds of the hatching chicks beginning their lives in the incubator in spring. One little, but constant chirp, turns into a chorus of many excited, hungry chirps as time marches on. So does the dawn of each day...beginning with a cock’s crow...and a birds chirping song, soon including others of it’s kind....to the added sounds of dogs barking, crows cawing and chickens hurriedly performing the days work of eating, squawking and egg laying. It’s funny how the hen sits so quietly as others around her squawk and putt...but as soon as she lays her egg, she exits the nest and does her “bock, bock, bock, baaa-calk” announcement.....sounding like, “Look, look, look, An Egg!” They stand and announce for several minutes....repeating this call....before moving on to leave the egg fend for itself...all alone. They never protect their eggs or build a clutch until they go broody, which is nature’s way of keeping her on the nest to hatch a brood of chicks. She will leave for a very short period of time to eat and drink...at which time another hen may deposit an egg into her started clutch, which she will then reclaim upon returning...to guard and build the number of eggs. This continues daily until she feels a sufficient amount of eggs exist to start perking the brood. When this starts she will be glued to the nest indefinitely for the next 21 days, seldom leaving to eat or drink.....and if so, for only a minute and then is right back on the nest until they hatch. We have only achieved a hatch under a hen once, to find the chicks killed the next day, so now we hatch solely in the incubator, kept in the brooding house. When they hatch, they go under a heat lamp on a brooding shelf until they are old enough to mix with the rest of our 250 chickens.
We’ve had two separate clutches of Guinea Fowl hatched by parent birds, only to lose the entire clutch to rain or chill a few days later. In the future, if a hen brings a clutch into the yard, we will scoop them into our net and put them into the brooding house too. We did have a female Rouen duck that was very, VERY intent on hatching a clutch of ducklings....so intent; in fact, that she sat 28 days to find none of her eggs hatched...So we snuck the eggs out and replaced them with six more duck eggs, which she sat upon for another 28 days to no avail. I then pulled the six out and placed about a dozen or more under her and at exactly 28 days....the day of the hurricane, she hatched six little guys and took excellent care of them.
She did, however lose one to predation of some kind, be it snapping turtle, fox or hawk...but the remaining five are alive and well, beautifying the farm, as they go about their everyday life....just being a duck!
Anyway....by now the sun has pulled itself from below the horizon, scaled the trees and is climbing into the sky. Unfortunately, the clouds from an approaching rain is gliding across the sky, toward the sun like a blanket being pulled up around a childs neck, soon to obliterate the sun's warming glow. I feel the chill of the approaching rain in the air, causing the trees sway and sing in the breeze, it's leaves performing their dance with some being eliminated from the competition.... leaving the dance limb, to drop down and take a seat on the forest floor, watching the remaining contestants in the fall dance extravaganza.
Soon the rain will begin, casting an uncomfortable wet feel as the world becomes soaked. This will cause many of the beautifully painted leaves to give up their display location, swaying and waving like hands in a parade...ending up with those others on the forest floor to begin their next purpose in life...creating that life giving loom to the earth, which will help guarantee a healthy tree to supply leaves again in the spring.
To everything there is a season.....a reason and a purpose.....as it is for us also

043292Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Monday, October 10, 2011...Ever onward, etching out an existence in the World...

2011-10-10T13:51:00.002-04:00

We march onward each and every day, trying to achieve so many things... running, planning... searching and trying our best to reach the top. Where exactly IS the top? What do we expect to find there if we ever arrive at that unknown pinnacle?
Helen commented on my last blog saying, “You really made fall stand out in this entry”, which made me feel good to really achieve the portrayal of my world to her, all the way down into Alabama. My reply to her was, “If you simply tell everyone what you see, hear, smell and think, you can transport them to your side to enjoy it also.”
Achieving that kind of comment from a regular follower, lets me know I am doing my job as a writer. She will return to look for future posts which will transport her to my side, where she will again share in the lovely things God has put right in front of us all to enjoy. I Think about all the beauty I can describe by a simple walk out to our lake, then you can think about all the lovely things God has given you to enjoy, which are right there...in your own yard, on your lot, on your block, or in your town and state.
I went out early this morning to survey where I would start the fencing today, which will close off the entire north approach to the farm. This will aid greatly in discouraging predators and hopefully... make coming near our farm a fruitless effort, which will cause them to go somewhere else... to an area of better opportunity. Following is what I saw, heard, felt and thought:

It is now light enough to see the approaching daylight through the thinning tree limbs at the far end of the lake. They appear as an old man’s balding head, as each day causes less and less obstruction to seeing the underlying limbs....or scalp of the land. The sun is pushing daylight closer and closer to the horizon, where I will soon see it actually appear, being pushed by that huge globe of blazing energy. That will truly be the start to this day...as we are now in the “curtain going up” phase.

As I walk, I can hear the crackling of dead leaves which had previously rattled against the tree limbs in the breeze from its springtime and summer home, which it had recently moved from, as the approaching fall demanded it relocate itself to perform it's true destiny. We are all a star performer in the play of life, as we move along, performing our everyday part in that play. We perform a function, crucial to the outcome of that play and when our part has been fulfilled, like the play itself, our lives end to begin anew in another realm....an unknown tier in another plane of our existence in God’s creation.
The dry leaves crackle and I walk toward the swamp's edge. I smell a sweet smell...the smell of honeysuckle, which I can never locate. In fact, try as I might, I can never locate the source of the pleasant, sweet seducing smell, but it tempts me to stop and allow that seduction of my nose for as long as it continues to permeate my sense of smell. Once the fragrance dwindles, I smile to myself and move on, looking across the rippling water, wondering how it can ripple and flow in one area and then have an area with a mirror like calmness directly next to that rippling section. Another "slight of hand trick" by God, as he performs his magic act for my delight, on an everyday basis.

I hear birds singing from every imaginable direction and the roosters are crowing behind me like a competition is taking place in the chicken theater. One always tries to better the other in the “Cluckin’ “A” Critters have talent” act.
Crows call as they move from woods to field and I heard a distant turkey gobble. If I linger to look closely, I may see the flock working their way along the balding fencerow next to the field beyond the swamp, where they pick bugs and spend their mornings and evenings. The neighbor’s dogs bark and bay, as if to beckon the sunlight through the trees on the horizon....for it is now peeking over the lowest trees, sending out streak like fingers of warmth in the morning chill.

Fall is definitely here...for the steam is rising from the Pupskill Lake, letting me know the water is finally warmer than the surrounding air. The steam is rising through....as the water vapor cools, the foggy mist disappears into the air, becoming crystal clear above the haze.
The fish are enjoying the coolness of the fall, as they swim and chase those smaller than themselves.... always on alert; for they know there is usually always one bigger than themselves, as they chase a meal of smaller ones. No one cares to become “the meal”, while searching for one....but it happens.
I pass a spot where the grass is very neatly packed to the ground. It was here that a deer spent the night, contentedly chewing her cud of grass, with water and open safety around it. Here they could see approaching coyote before they could get close enough to cut off their escape flight to safety. If I looked long enough, I would probably find several other “nests”, where other deer joined this one, but I have things to do....even as I drink in the morning beauty. After surveying the spot where I will have to dig the first post hole by hand, because of the stream which will keep me from getting the tractor to this first hole position, I started roughly counting how many more holes I would make after that first one by using my measure gage and paint. I will install fence posts about as fast as you can imagine with this method, and guessed at approximately fifteen more posts. On the way back in from the end of the lake, I watched a red-tailed hawk gliding on the warm air currents as they lifted him higher and higher into the fall sky, until he disappeared from sight by either lofting so high he was out of sight or he caught a good tail wind and darted across the county at break neck speed before doing the rise and glide thing all over again. They can utilize this trick to glide hundreds of miles effortlessly, by seldom flapping a wing, which uses up their energy. Once I returned to the deck, I came inside and made myself a cup of coffee and returned to the deck to warm a chair and sip my morning coffee. I was sure I would continue to see amazing and beautiful things as I sipped my coffee and enjoyed my surrounding......and I wasn’t at all disappointed....Not for a moment!

043239Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Saturday, October 08, 2011... The Feel Of Fall Is In The Morning Air..... Below is Vick's watercolor of "Witt's End Farm" in the fall.

2011-10-08T09:17:00.008-04:00

Being up at six AM with the dogs to leave them out, brewing hot coffee and making a hard roll with butter to enjoy, while reading the morning news on-line, is one of my daily pleasures. That pleasure is multiplied ten fold at this time of the year, because when I open the sliding glass door to the dog’s exercise area, I am met with the smells of fall. Fall is my favorite time of the year, because so many aromas that are drifting in the air right now, kidnap me instantly...taking me back to a place I’ve always been held captive. That wonderous place, of course is my childhood...somewhere around the age of ten or twelve.
At this time in your life, you are given... and also find new freedoms as you simply go from day to day things. You are trusted to venture beyond your backyard, to visit your neighborhood friend’s homes. You play and now find that you may ride your bike more and further...to a store to perform small errands for you folks. You also find that during your expanding exploration...you see new and exciting things, but for me, the things that come to mind most in my memories are all the smells, items and holidays associated with the changing seasons.
When I stop at a store and see pumpkins and corn stalks which are gathered and tied into small shocks or bundles of brightly colored Indian corn hanging from peoples front doors. I remember all these things of my childhood...when life was fun and carefree. I remember donning grotesque Halloween masks and lurking around the neighborhood...scaring the neighbor girls and making them shriek with fear and playful gasps and laughter...bobbing for apples or drinking warm, spiced apple cider. I remember my friend’s Mom, making Halloween cupcakes and keeping candy corn in a big bowl by the counter, which we visited often on our way byit...all day long. Of course there were always peanut butter sandwiches on home made bread, but at this time of the year, there was also a heaping layer of apple jelly added to coincide with the season...
I love all the apple festivals...the mums, corn, apple turnovers, apple cider, the chill in the air prompting the wearing of fleece shirts and jackets...the swirling leaves, as they follow the wind in tag match, much as a dog would chase it’s tail. That very chill, makes you pull your shoulders up, as you snuggle your collar tighter around your neck. I love all the wonderful reminders of fall...reminiscent of the bountiful harvest from a season of hard work, before the earth rests up through winter, getting ready for a new spring of life for the coming year.
I sit on our side deck often...enjoying a cup of coffee. In the winter...it is a fleeting stay of as few seconds to a minute or so as I pray for spring. In spring, it is a longer duration, as I smell the fragrance of the world coming awake from its wintery slumber, with earth smells and an occasional fragrance of early spring flowers. In the summer, it is as long as the sweltering heat from the summer sun will allow and in the evening, more so... if I’m not consumed as the dinner of the ka-zillion mosquitoes we have here. BUT in THE FALL....RIGHT NOW.... I can linger and daydream the entire day away if it would be possible. Daydreams come randomly with each new fragrance that wafts across the yard and enters my nostrils. The sun is inviting, the breeze refreshing...and life could not be better or fall too long in it’s duration to suit me. Fall happens just like its name, quickly and before you know it! Yes...before you know it, all the leaves are gone, the smells disappear, the sun is less warming and old man winter once again takes over...nipping the tips of your toes, nose and fingers with his odorless, icy breath.
Why would I not wish fall to last year round? I Do!!!
But I also know that God has a reason, for every precious season, so I accept that.....

043200Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Thursday, October 6th 2011... Embracing The White Light Of The Almighty...

2011-10-06T10:22:00.006-04:00

Although Psychics, mystics, mediums, healers and people of many different spiritual venues seek the white light and have different but similar understandings of its meaning and origin, I simply attribute it to God, his presence and healing gift and his presence in my life, especially in stressful times.
I think the white light transmutes negative thoughts into positive thoughts. Feelings of guilt turn into acceptance and any fear of fate becomes desired opportunities through God’s intervention. White light is the space within the universe where positive energies are stored and white light can be called upon by anyone, for protection from negative energies or vibrations. White light will never come to harm and can ever be harmed in anyway. For this reason, I believe negative or "dirty" energies can be sent to the white light for purification and transformation.
For example, after searching out and cleansing your aura, you can request that the impurities you combed out of your mystic field be sent to the white light for cleansing. Visualize the white light coursing like a liquid through the entire body removing negative karma and rejuvenating your soul through God’s gift of that healing white light. It is and always has been my way of dealing with things beyond my control....things which I believe stops most people in their tracks because they can no longer deal with the negative karma dealt them on an everyday basis in life.
By seeking the white light daily...I find solitude within myself and allow it to transform any guilt I have...by utilizing the white light to convey God’s forgiveness of my human faults, into the acceptance that I am a human and not perfect. I draw on the white lights strength of karma to help me understand my surroundings and deal with everyday life, where I share an existence with others like myself...who are human and do negative things unto me.
This morning, I asked for white light cleansing of the anger I had last evening with negative feelings about the current and ongoing theft of our eggs by someone who feels we should give them away. We cannot even come close to paying for our feed with the money we get from the sale of eggs and some cannot understand that they should pay for their eggs. True, we give some of our very close friend’s eggs for nothing, because they also give us things for nothing. That is what close friends do and the majority of those friends still slip their money into the box before leaving...as we do at their house by slipping our money under something on their table or somewhere that they will find it after we leave. Our friends do not take advantage...and neither do we. That is how true friends treat one another. Who ever is taking our eggs without paying, is NOT our friend and it causes much negative karma as a result.
That is why learning to summon the white light is such a blessing. It allows us to achieve peace, deal with the situation and ask forgiveness for that person, as we change to another method of stopping the negativity of those feelings. We will simply sell our eggs out of the house, which will allow our friends to still get eggs, but will eliminate the theft and give that person a chance to remain honest.
We can also use God’s white light by directing it toward curing sickness, reducing stress and finding peace in what we cannot change in our lives.
Many friends in our realm of everyday life also believe in the power of the white light. Our friend Judy made the beautiful crystal heart which symbolizes the white light and this morning, I walked into the kitchen to see many signs from the white light. There on an angel was the aurora of colors created by the white light. There were places on the wall and on one of Vick’s watercolors indicating that the protective, positive power of God is all around her and with us always. We keep a burning white light candle in a bowl to keep that everlasting white light in our lives, symbolizing God’s gift of cleansing within our lives. In many ways.....we are truly blessed.

043166Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Tuesday, October 04, 2011...Good Point There Judy...Glad You Stopped In...

2011-10-04T09:36:00.003-04:00

As we reported in the last post...the egg bandit continued to steal his (or her) eggs at will. Not matter how many times we posted signs saying that egg production was down...egg money was missing and the cost of feed was high... and we asked them to leave a note if you forgot your money, etc. and many people left notes. Some explained how we have money without eggs being gone...and how we had twice the money we should or why there was no money. One person put money in and then found the box empty...several got here to find they forgot their wallet or cash...and some dropped money off to pay for times they got and didn’t pay, but forgot to leave a note. All were honest mistakes, except the ass that wouldn’t pay for his eggs because I wouldn’t “reserve” eggs for him alone and the thief that continues to take eggs. Jack will probably never come back....as will his brother who continued to take advantage of us while thumbing his nose at me...So great for us...We don’t need people like them even coming here. And the “friend” that continues to take eggs without paying, even though they see us struggling trying to pay for feed, as we try to keep our price down... should lighten up a bit. All our other friends tell us we should increase our price to $3.00/dozen since feed costs have risen so much...and we might have to do so to survive, but we have tried to hold on to see if the price of feed would come back down first. Unfortunately, I do not believe it will come down. When we started...the cost of fifty pounds of pellets was around nine dollars and change...and now it is almost thirteen dollars. That occurred in only two years or so of operation here, so we indeed will probably have to increase egg prices to the three dollars per dozen.
As Judy said when we were explaining what happened with the theft, she interrupted and said, “Whoa...Whoa...wait a minute, you mean they took eggs, but left the honey and all my jams there? If I’m gonna steal your eggs, I’m gonna take em all, the honey and all the jam too. I’m not just gonna steal a few dozen eggs. This person knows you very well....in fact well enough that they think they don’t have to pay for their eggs and you won’t mind. It’s one of your close friends.” Sometimes you can be so upset looking into the distance that you don’t see what is right in front of your eyes! She was correct...it’s a person that thinks they are so close to us that we won’t care if they take eggs. We have many friends that get eggs and will not take them without paying...even if we tell them to take them for free, so we will find them sooner or later, but in the meantime we are selling again. We agreed that we were not really ready to give up on our honor system for one person and loose our dream, so we are back in business with the egg stand again.
043120 Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Sunday, October 02, 2011...Every Day We Change A Little...Sometimes A Lot...

2011-10-02T08:11:00.003-04:00

Well, we’ve reached it! The straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak. We’ve bent over backwards and probably foolishly wished that things would be as they are in our fairytale dreams......BUT THEY ARE NOT.
No matter how much we want the world to be a nice place and dream of people being decent and loving...fair and kind, there are always those slugs...crawling underfoot, just waiting to take advantage and spoil what decent folks cherish.
The farm will not be the same anymore. We reached our tolerance for theft yesterday, right after a period of warning the thief that it was going to happen. We were ripped off again. Right now, we are experiencing the downturn in egg production that everyone experiences this time of the year. The days are becoming shorter...and nature is telling the chickens, ducks and guinea fowl to slow down laying eggs, for the cold weather is coming and their chicks could not survive the coming fall chill. We could hold their feed and keep them in total darkness for a period to force the molt, but Vick and I both agree it is cruel, unnatural and unhealthy for the birds when doing this...simply for the gain in egg count. We can make sure the lights are on to increase lighted hours to the fourteen necessary for them to lay optimum egg numbers while still allowing the natural molt nature intended. We want to benefit from our flocks normal lives, not change them against nature’s will for profit! (Which has never happened here and won’t, since we loose money constantly!)
Anyway, yesterday before going to Albany to visit family in the hospital, we placed five dozen eggs in the box....and upon returning, we found money for three dozen eggs, yet all the eggs were gone and there was no note on the note pad. This has been happening the last two weeks from time to time and we are finished with it.
I removed everything from the stand, (signs, bags, display bottles, etc. ) and placed a sign on the lid, telling everyone the honor system was DONE!
Anyone wishing to purchase eggs now must now come to the house and hope we are home. This really pisses me off, not because we have to do this, but because the thief stole from our friends! They stole the convenience of 24 hour egg service, year round...And they stole the quaint trust that we had for our fellow man, in a time when only a few of us were interested in maintaining that country charm. Now...like so many other fond memories of the “good old days”, a piece of our dream was stolen from us. The money is unimportant and we often said, please let a note saying, “Sorry, I’m short on money and need the eggs for my family” and we would have been glad to help. They never needed to sign their name...just let us know you were in need and they were yours! Unfortunately a month ago, a previous “friend” ripped us for eight dollars, because I would not reserve eggs for him, by turning other neighbors away. Maintaining that “first come, first serve” rule, then gave this slug justification to not pay the eight dollars for eggs he took that day, saying he was short of cash and would come back with the eight dollars. This was a business owner with plenty of cash, who constantly complained about how he always gave to his customers, only to be used and taken advantage of. You learned well Jack...congratulations, but don’t come back! We had several times when we were short in the box with no notes or explanation, so yesterday’s theft is not the first time.
All I will say is thank you to all our fine neighbors and friends that have done business here in the past...enjoyed the old fashioned privilege of the honor system and will now continue purchasing their eggs here by knocking on the door.
To the low life thief....Thanks for nothing and God will square your debt at a later time! You may hide from those around you and steal at will, but you cannot hide from the almighty. May God forgive you all, who ever you are..............

Please bear with us as far as the scarcity of my blog posts recently, for we have been visiting a family member in the hospital for close to two weeks now...spending as much time there as possible daily. Thank you......

043072Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Wednesday, September 28, 2011... Life As We Know It Has Changed...

2011-09-28T10:04:00.006-04:00

With our statement of yesterday, we have decided to restructure our lives by slowing down a little and taking one day at a time...as they come to us. We will continue to fence in the property...build a farm store... care for the animals and continue the farm, but it will be taking a new turn for Vick and I. We want more time to enjoy life...family and relaxation, so downsizing the farm as far as egg production and flock size is the first step. It is the only step we will even consider right now as we work through issues as they come to us. All too often people come to a conclusion, learn of something or decide on one thing and then take off on a wild and crazy tangent of changes....all too important and intricate to make harsh, spur of the moment decisions about. We’ve done this in the past, only to wish we had thought more intelligently about our course of action and not simply jumped the gun with a reaction.
First of all, we want to spend more time with family. That is an important thing in life that we all take for granted by becoming so busy with everyday life that we fail to spend the time we should with family members. Most of Vick’s family are within a four hour drive, and we as a couple, each have a few that are within a five hour drive....close enough to make at least once or twice a year, enjoying the road trip and subsequent visit with family. Vick’s immediate family is within an hour and that leaves little reason to not visit at least weekly, so we are structuring our everyday lives to take this into consideration and spend more time with family.
Secondly, there are fairs, festivals, shows, concerts, antique malls and restaurants which we can and will visit more often, rather than staying here, building a farm kingdom which drags us down and benefits those who come to enjoy it. Little do you enjoy something which causes you sunrise to sunset labor without enjoyment...so we will revise the amount of animals we have by reducing the rooster population... not replacing hens as we lose them to predation and old age...getting no more ducks or guinea fowl and reducing the feed costs. We will keep the angoras, alpacas, sheep and Llama (we will soon get) and utilize the NEAFP to do 95% of our fiber processing yearly, leaving 5% for Vick’s enjoyment in processing and spinning. Her produced yarns and items, along with returned items from the fiber pool, will be displayed and for sale in the farm store and hospice gift shop.
We will offer raw and finished fiber and fiber items, a few spinning wheels, spinning tools and spinning accessories, honey, maple syrup & maple candy, several kinds of cheeses and frozen chicken and turkeys in the store, along with old fashioned items which were often found in old general stores...if we can.
As I mentioned above...we are going to spend more of our days doing things we like to do. We love to fish and have not done so in two years...even though we have a large lake beside the barn, just jammed full of natural bass and other fish. We could take an hour any time and fish in it, releasing the fish to catch another day, but we haven’t even taken the time to do that.
We like to visit antique malls to just meander throughout the building, seeing items and reminiscing about these things from our childhood....recognizing many daily items used by our parents and grandparents. We love musical performances from individuals, bands and concerts... and just the other day, at the Garlic festival....saw an amazing prodigy of the musical world. His name is Myles Mancuso; he is fourteen and has been fronting his own band since he was nine years old. His band, called The Mojoe Myles band performed at the garlic festival and he stopped hundreds of people in their tracks and many began rocking, clapping and dancing to his performance....He was Remarkable and so talented! He plays guitar, piano and sax, performing flawlessly and effortlessly, as if he had performed publically for fifty years. Click on the link above and listen to him!
We love to go to Vermont and Northern New York, so we will continue to do that and enjoy the road trips, but not as a farmer’s market product pickup like before....in fact, we will not support the local town market any longer due to their lack of support form us during our grand opening of the hospice gift shop. We usually lost our butts there anyway, so locals can come to the farm for their delights and we might....I repeat MIGHT seek another place to sell our items next year...if at all.
Well, there you have it....sketchy plans to say the least, but we are going to access the market, the farm and our lives in the coming months, before making any real earth shattering decisions anyway, so stand by folks.
043013Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Monday, Sept. 26th...What The Heck Are We Doing??? Do We Even Know?

2011-09-26T21:03:00.004-04:00

This morning’s blog is not intended to be political....and if it seems as such please recognize that it in no way is party oriented or administratively biased toward the present White House occupants or the past administrations either!
I am simply stating fact and my own personal observations that something is wrong with our heads! All Americans!!!
We are all to blame for the present predicament we are facing with zillions of U.S. taxpayer dollars slated to be further wasted by turning over some 500 U.S. bases, filled with office items, tanks and war equipment, to the Iraqi government which will total billions and billions of dollars. It is bad enough that we all paid for this stuff, which they will simply turn away from and leave, but what of the possibility of enemy forces ultimately coming into ownership of these things and our technology? Won’t they then simply use this against us to reinforce their squashed Taliban and radical Muslim Jihad toward us? This is an absurd decision which will undermine and reverse any possible headway our forces made with their presence there and is a slap in the face to all soldiers who gave the ultimate sacrifice of their lives while fighting to liberate that country against the very evil which will end up with this equipment of war. We need to wake the #*%~ up Americans!!!!! Tell your elected officials we are sick and tired of their belligerent crap and arrogant behavior in these matters. We are bringing our military personnel home...why in God’s name would we not spend a little more wasted money to get this stuff out of the hands of crazy radicals, rather than spend ten times that amount by waging war against them later because they have these weapons we left there and are using them against us in their quest for worldwide dominance? As I said....I am finding fault with the decision and the politicians allowing it to happen, not a particular political party or individual.
We cannot afford to sow seed of poison and then leave the fruits of their growth for our enemies to feed to us later. We must harvest the bounty and bring it home!
We have basically come to a decision today as to the direction the farm will be taking after several recent occurrences in our lives. With the economy, the cost of feed, our having Lyme’s disease and limited time and money...we will probably cease the retail egg business and reduce the flock to enough chickens for ourselves, grow the meat birds and turkeys for ourselves and run the farm store for the fiber, cheese and meat birds, etc.
By doing this, we will reduce our feed cost and fill our freezer for ourselves instead of our customers and spend the profits on more chicken feed to produce eggs that don’t even pay for the feed. It is a vicious circle which ultimately costs us money in the end to operate...and that is stupid in anyone’s eyes! Especially ours!
The farm will evolve into a place we run for fun and slight profit without the chickens eating us out of house and home. We will sell fiber and fiber products from our alpacas, fiber tools and some spinning wheels and accessories in our store, along with cheeses, maple syrup, maple candy, honey, frozen turkeys and chickens. We will then operate this store and the hospice gift shop as our primary interest and the farm will be our love of life to enjoy ourselves with far less work and expense than now. We will still invite anyone that wishes to come to visit and tour the farm, but we will not offer the amount of eggs we have in the past...that’s all. We have come to the bitter fact that it requires either this, or a complete shutdown of the farm, which we definitely do not want to do. This farm and the animals have been our life’s dream, so we must do what ever necessary to preserve what we have built with hard work and our own hands. Sorry everyone...we regret that we will gradually have less and less eggs to sell until these sales cease all together.

Oh the things we have to do to survive life and its trials and errors...................

042988Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Sun. Sept. 25th... The Insight To The Perspective Of Life On A Farm Is Amazing...

2011-09-25T10:24:00.001-04:00

Being on the farm and watching the animals from a distance, adds knowledge, understanding and perspective to the meaning of life, if you take the time to think about what you observe.
Not so much recently due to our schedule, family illness and the changing of the seasons......but in the past, I’ve had the opportunity to relax and watch the animals actually “living” their lives under my silent, observing eye.
Our alpacas and the two sheep are highly sensitive and social animals...longing to be with one another...sophisticatedly communal and living within a hierarchy of their own...established in the same way we do politically, but using a silent vote, which we never see or hear. Right now, Luke is the dominant male (all our alpacas are males for obvious reasons) of the group, numbering seven, because he is the intact male and unchallenged ruler of the farm herd. Brooklyn Slugger and Brooklyn Phoenix are both intact juvenile males too, but new to the herd by a few months and will be gelded before actually allowing them to mingle together, for safety reasons. We refuse to add females to the mix because we would immediately experience herd problems due to male fighting and because a female is immediately in season once in the presence of an intact male and she will become pregnant, giving birth in eleven months...and can again become pregnant, while still nursing that cria, so we choose to not subject ourselves and the herd to those “exciting” and out of control fighting and expansion potentials.
That aside, I love to watch as they co-exist peacefully within their domain...browsing for awhile and then heading to the barn or a shady corner to lie down and snooze or peacefully chew their cud before browsing again in the late afternoon. They almost always bed down early in the evening, around twilight, chewing their cud and mooing contentedly into the evening. If it is extremely hot, they tend to bed down in the barn in front of the oscillating fans, but if it is clear and cold, you can bet they will be in the pasture, near the barn for the entire night.
The chickens are heathens.....simply stated....like Neanderthal creatures. They pick and flog one another for no apparent reason...will kill another if it has one little imperfection or spot if blood on it, in their half baked attempt to keep that affliction from spreading throughout the flock. We must remove an ailing chicken to a separate area for them to recover a small injury or the others will simply kill it. They will find a near dead chicken and mate it repeatedly in mob rape fashion until and after its death, reinforcing their brutal, monstrously medieval behavior. Seldom does a chicken possess any type of personality...they all act alike.
Ducks on the other hand are highly social...yet strictly adhere to a flock behavior. If five happen to hatch out and grow as a group...they will be a five count group for life...even when they actually enter the overall flock and live there on a daily basis. They stay together in the duck house, mingling throughout the night and time in there, but as soon as the door is open to allow them access to the outdoor world, they break off into their respective groups in which they hatched and grew up with.
Each duck possesses an individual personality and never changes....from the way it walks to the head motions when it talks... to the places it goes and how it eats. When a duck looses it’s mate, they continue on alone for awhile until they seem to find it okay to mate up with another duck, being sexually active all the while, but when a couple exists, the male doesn’t want another male breeding his female, but will sometimes wonder off to breed another female. Perhaps they are too much like most males in that regard, but geese do not exhibit this kind of behavior. They mate for life and actually morn the loss of their mates and a lot of times will not take another mate. My kind of animal....they are strong yet sensitive... outgoing, yet sincere and monogamous, caring for their relationship.
These are things we see and ponder over on the farm on a daily basis. It’s not always about the hard work and long hours...and there are positively all these hidden benefits that others seldom experience. I wouldn’t give it up for the world!
Each day is a new and exciting experience in life.

042951Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Sat. Sept. 24th...The Way We Think ...Is The Way We Should Live......

2011-09-24T08:24:00.004-04:00

It’s a fact! Most of us know better and have inner thoughts and feelings about everything and everybody in our lives, but we don’t often act upon the feelings we have or do what we feel is the proper thing to do...instead doing something different, to later find that what we did against our own better judgment was a big mistake...and we see it. This is when we should learn from our mistakes.
Seldom do we make mistakes with our close and dear friends, for we always make decisions from the heart when dealing with family or friends. Close friends, become loved friends and family is always family. Through time, our close friends actually become as family, making it very easy to conduct everyday decisions about anything that happens. We never take money from friends except to recapture what we spend if they ask us, or we offer to pick something up for them.
You never profit by making money from friends....it’s just an unwritten rule that always prevails. Make money on friends and you will destroy the relationship. Our friends give us things constantly...never asking or expecting compensation and we reciprocate by helping and giving in the same manner. It all works out in the end and all our friends are unconsciously careful to care and nurture our friendship, just as Vick and I do...always questioning ourselves to be sure we never take advantage without thinking.
Vick and I would do anything to help our friends accomplish what ever they need done, saving them money by not having to call a repairman or someone to help them achieve a job requiring more than themselves or tools and equipment we have that they don’t have to rent. We would take them anywhere they need to go if they need a ride, run an errand for them or simply bring them a hot meal if busy, tired or sick. Our kindness toward our friends was recently returned ten-fold, as seen my other family and friends during our grand opening of the hospice gift shop, when all our friends came and pitched in, by bringing food, drinks and helping us during the opening by volunteering their time the entire day, helping host and feed the visitors. When it was all over, many stayed and helped clean up and remove tents, garbage cans, signs and other paraphernalia used during the opening.
Our family was amazed at the amount of help our friends gave us and the way they just showed up and began to do things...endlessly... and so very cheerfully. Vick’s Dad mentioned that it was great that we had so many kind, caring and special friends to rely upon in the time of need...and he was exactly right...and we know it and never take that for granted. Our friends ARE family and they feel it.
We of course have family that joins right in whenever we have an event planned and they become a part of the group, if it is a public event. Our son and daughter, Bill and Loraine, from Long Island come regularly a few times a year to visit and relax, but they show up at the drop of a hat if they are needed to help with something too, so we are bless with both family and friends!
Isn’t that what it’s all about? Isn’t that what really makes us rich...not the amount of money we have in our pocket or a lousy bank?

042923Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Wed., September 21, 2011...Where To Start, What a Week, Off And Runnin’...

2011-09-21T10:22:00.004-04:00

Well, since the last post, many things have happened here on the farm....
First of all, Joe the duck which was brutally attacked by the snapping turtle is getting ready to return to the usual duck world by spending a few days to a week in the bunny brothel with just a cling wrap on his foot to help keep it clean until it has a little more time to heal. Below is a picture of the progress and extent of injury this duck has endured. It is lucky to be with us after such a vicious attack. Thank God we keep an emergency medical kit here with blood stop compound, bandages, disinfectants, an injectable epinephrine and a Pen-G, which is an antibiotic. These things are a must once you have a lot of animals that all live and browse together. We use a vet when we need one, but you cannot afford to utilize a vet for everything that occurs on the farm, so you must be prepared to handle most incidents, reserving the vet for the intricate ones where you just aren’t sure...or you don’t have the expertise to handle what comes up. Anyway, Joe is doing well and will be out running with the rest and swimming once again in the pond, where that turtle was eradicated! Here is Joe’s foot and a picture of Doodles....a tame Canadian Wild Goose that was dropped off here a while ago. He is like a little puppy, following us around and coming in at night with the other ducks. Also I added a picture of Percifer, our king of the chicken world rooster.

We have again begun sinking fence posts and have closed off the northern most section of the back yard, returning the Wilson house and storage area behind to our yard again. Previously we had chicken wire running to the one side and from the other, continuing across the yard, removing access to the sides and back of the building. Now the permanent fencing runs along behind the Wilson house....not touching it, allowing a ten foot area behind it.
Soon, we will have then entire north end of the property closed off from the woods and back fields, removing the possibility of a fox or coyote to dash into the yard and grab our chickens and ducks. After that, the threat will be hawks and owls....which are not much of a problem, compared to the foxes and coyotes. Below is a picture of a deer which was killed by a car along the road a few hundred yards from our house late in the evening and what was left by daylight.

The coyotes got to it during the night and were as efficient as a butcher with a sharp knife, leaving the bones and stomach.... They are very efficient predators, yet get blamed for much more damage than they really do. Many times feral dogs, running in packs are mistaken for loose pets or a pack of coyotes, but there are tell-tale signs at a kill site which will tell you what killed the animal. A lot of times a coyote or coyotes, are only cleaning up the remains of what a pack of feral dogs or a single dog has killed. Anyway, we have the section on the left side of the pond to finish....and then the right side to do, before moving to the west side of the property and finishing that to join to the existing north border, which will then completely enclose the property where our animals live and browse. It will be such a relief if we are a little late getting home in the evening, knowing that the fence is there, possibly keeping the predators at bay, until we get here to close our animals in for the night. Now, we worry until we get here and see that everything is okay and no one is hurt or gone.

On the creative side of things...Vick just purchased another spinning wheel from a really nice lady down the road that is moving and has little space for everything she now has in her house. It was a really good deal, including the wheel, a Lazy Kate and two sets of hand carders. We couldn’t pass this up, because it was a good deal and Vick has had so many people that stop by to see the farm and gift shop and while here, expressed the desire to learn how to spin wool. Vick now has three wheels...her new Kromski traveler, an Ashford traditional and this one she just bought, which will now allow her to teach at least two people while spinning with them. What a good way to spend the winter evenings, with two friends, teaching them something they will enjoy. Here are some pictures of the new wheel and accessories....

Finally, on Saturday, we are attending the sheep and wool festival in Washington County with Isabelle and Ralph, our friends from Alpacas-4-Pets, in Coxsackie. (We will also attend the Rhinebeck, Dutchess County sheep & Wool festival on Oct. 15-16)
On Sunday, we are all going to the Garlic festival in Saugerties, NY to enjoy the day with Ralph & Isabelle, listening to music, seeing different events and tasting garlic flavored foods....We will also buy some garlic for planting. Ralph does great garlic beds on their farm.

042855Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Friday, September 16, 2011...Our Meat Birds Are Done And Almost Ready......

2011-09-16T09:37:00.003-04:00

Yesterday morning, we took 21, six pound Cornish X Rock broilers to Dine’s Farm for professional processing and picked them up later in the afternoon. They were all cleaned, bagged and weighed....ready for the refrigerator, where they will rest for two days and then be frozen. The turkeys will never be ready for Thanksgiving Day, let alone Christmas, but we learned our lesson this year and will not make the mistake of waiting so long next season. All we were able to get in August were Heritage turkeys...which are slow growing. No one wants to deal with turkey shipments in the heat of summer. Next year we will order our broad breasted bronze turkeys in June and go from there, or find another breed which is a good meat bird. The good news is that the Heritage breed is good for keeping here and will lay eggs and breed, giving us future birds for free.
The weather is finally turning and we are looking forward to getting back to work. Two things that don’t go together are definitely the Lyme’s affliction aftermath and heat. I don’t do well with either and the two combined are unbearable.
Joe the Pekin duck that was brutally attacked by the basketball sized snapping turtle is doing much better and soon the bandage will be coming off. He seems to walk on it, but had a nasty cut the entire length of his right foot, with the worst area being the meaty part, on the underside of the webbed foot, right at the bottom of the leg, where the foot pad and web branches out. The turtle had torn that section pretty badly and the bleeding continued for over an hour...AFTER I got the turtle to release the duck. There was massive clouds of blood in the water and I feared the duck was already in shock by the way it was acting in the water, but as soon as I got the turtle to release him, he took off like an Olympic swimmer, heading for the finish line and popped right up and out of the pond in record time. Vick and Lynda finally caught him and went to work on the bleeding with blood stop compound, peroxide, disinfectants and gauze with pressure bandages. After an hour of doctoring, the bleeding was stopped and hasn’t really bled since. Another SAVED CRITTER here on the farm thanks to Vick the nurse!!
Today I am going work on cleaning the small barns and brooding house....and then I will sink some posts in the ongoing project of fencing the property where the animals live and browse regularly. We will soon concentrate on poking holes and installing sauna tubes for the farm store too, but I have to make a concrete pad for the standby generator we ordered the other day. The next time we lose power may be in the dead of winter with three feet of snow on the ground and this generator will give us heat, refrigeration, lights and water...Just knowing we will have lights, heat lamps where needed and water for the animals in the barns is a comforting thought for the winter. Who can chop holes in the ice and wade three feet of snow to feed and water animals without power? I’m too old for those worries anymore. If my tractor won’t start, I can heat it up with my portable propane heater and use the battery charger as long as I have power. We have adopted pre-planning since being caught with our pants down during the hurricane.

042762Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Monday, September 12, 2011...The Gift Shop Grand Opening Was A Success......

2011-09-12T10:05:00.022-04:00

Yesterday we began the morning around 6:00 Am by taking all the “grand opening” signs to their predetermined areas at the end of the surrounding routes which would lead to the farm and the hospice gift shop. After that, I picked up some ice and last minute “forgot items”.....returning as quickly as possible to help get the rest of the preparations made for the arrival of the people. Our friends all showed up in good time and Isabelle took on the food area, while I went in and manned the checkout at the computer. Judy and Lynda helped Vick outside anywhere they were needed....with Lynda sticking close to Vick....constantly, as she had all last week long and all day yesterday. Judy was also helping Loraine with her testing and other friends drifted in and helped where needed. Bill and Loraine, our son and daughter from Long Island, helped tremendously... Loraine, by conducting the Psych tests, which... for every person taking her test, there was a $10.00 donation made to hospice, in the folk’s names... so with the thirty-three tests she did, that gave hospice a check for $330.00 alone. Bill was indispensible running errands and directing the parking of visitor’s cars. On top of what Loraine’s testing made hospice, we did an additional $795.00 in sales and donations within the hospice gift shop, so the day actually netted the hospice program around $1,125.20.
We will deposit the money in the account and then forward a written check to the Catskill regional office of the Community Hospice very soon. Hooray and thanks everybody! You’ve all helped us to supply needed operating funds to help assure that hospice clients receive the same quality care while maintaining their personal dignity that our regional hospice program has always strived to supply.
Below are a few pictures of the day’s festivities, with folks just mingling and enjoying the superb day.
Now for the excitement of the week...other than the grand opening... Saturday afternoon, while we were intent and rushing to finish things up for the opening, Vick’s Dad called me to the rear deck, where he had been sitting, sipping coffee and watching the animals most of the afternoon. He pointed to a Pekin duck on the pond and said that it was having trouble swimming and was sitting really low in the water, compared to the rest...which were swimming around him, but at a distance. I agreed that the duck in question did not look right, so I started out to get a closer look. At first, I didn’t see any problem, but it needed to use its wings to move toward the bank and as soon as it quit flapping, it drifted right back out away from the bank. I thought I would go pick up a long piece of wood at the barn to help pull it in to the shore, to see what the matter was with it. As soon as I started to pull the duck into the bank, I saw it! A big round shell....the size of a basketball...and I immediately knew a snapping turtle had hold of our ducks leg and foot. There was a tremendous amount of blood and I feared it was going to amputate the ducks leg if I didn’t get it off, so I took aim and cracked the turtle right in the middle of the shell with all my might, swinging the full length of the eight foot piece of treated wood. To my surprise, the turtle released the duck and it made a hasty retreat to shore and popped out of the water... but bleeding profusely. Vick and Lynda went to work with the duck to stop the bleeding, which took an hour or so to accomplish. I on the other hand, beat feet to the house and retrieved my 12 ga. Shotgun with #4 high brass shells and went back to the pond, knowing the turtle would have to surface for air sooner or later. There were other ducks in the water too, so I vigilantly watched until I saw his huge head pop up for air and I let him have it. He immediately ended up on the bottom, in three feet of water, just off the bank where I couldn’t reach it, so I grabbed the wooden stick again, but until I got back, it had rolled over and had disappeared within the green depths of the pond. Now I waited again, knowing that if it flipped over, it was recovering and would have to surface again. When it slinked up to the bank about ten minutes later... almost between my legs that was his final fatal mistake, because he will never grab another duck again!

042703Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Thurs. Sept. 8th...Did A Newspaper Interview OnThe Hospice Gift Shop Opening...

2011-09-08T09:26:00.006-04:00

A reporter from the Greenville Pioneer was here at 8:30 yesterday morning to do an opening interview for the gift shop. It should have been done sooner, but the weather didn’t co-operate and still isn’t. After the interview, we had to run to Lowe’s to get some items needed to finish the data line from the house to the shop, which will facilitate the use of the credit card machine. Once it is hooked up and the phone is in place, we can run a credit card transaction for anything sold in the gift shop building or from the farm stand or store.
We decided to leave all the animals in their housings yesterday, due to the torrential rains we were experiencing throughout the night. All we could imagine was the momma duck with her five tiny babies going over the breast of the dam and her trying to get them back to the barn after that... We also have five juvenile ducks which were given to us recently....and a wild Canadian goose that has taken up residence in the barn. He (or she) is sweet and must have been a pet somewhere, because he is loving and follows us around....lets you pick it up and talks to us. We called him Doodles and told him he is welcome to stay as long as he likes.
As soon as the newspaper interview was over, we took off for upstate New York and Bennington, Vermont, where we picked up a bunch of cheese product, syrup and so on. We saw a bunch of flooding along the way, as we drove up route 22, along the Massachusetts line near West Stockbridge and Pittsfield Ma. The Hoosick River was overflowing its banks, destroying standing corn for a second time in a week. Some houses along the way had water all around them...soon to enter the dwelling, again....for a second time in a week.
We made out way to Bennington to pick up our cheese, and then proceeded to a little place west of Salem, NY called Garden Works, where we checked out the latest artwork displayed in the loft of the barn. We then made a quick stop at the Battenkill Creamery for an ice cream cone. The creamery recently won the award for the HIGHEST QUALITY MILK IN NEW YORK STATE. They were presented the title on August 30th 2010 at the State Fair in Syracuse, NY. The title was awarded by Cornell University’s Department of Food Science and if you ever have the chance to try their ice cream, it shows! It is super delicious and creamy!!
Leaving the creamery, we headed west to Greenwich, to pick up some maple syrup from our supplier and then on the Battenkill Fiber Mill to pick up finished alpaca yarn belonging to Isabelle, our friend. We then headed home to collapse....tired, happy and happy with our day... except that we never did make it to Lowe’s.
Oh well, today we will get there, pick up the few materials and then, we can get back to readying everything for the grand opening of the hospice gift shop. I will take updated photos inside the shop and update the web page. (FINALLY...)

042600Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Monday, September 05, 2011...Went Onto the Mountain to Deliver A Table Saw...

2011-09-05T09:08:00.004-04:00

Yesterday morning after we got the animals fed and released for the day, we took a portable table saw and dropped if off at the Lexington post office, where they had a food pantry and collection site manned by locals and the National Guard. They had the road closed at that point (the intersection of 23A & 42) due to two bridges being out They were calling for anything that could be used in rebuilding people’s homes which were lost in the flooding of Irene. We thought perhaps the bridge between Vick’s parents and the Lexington fire house on route 42 had been repaired and we could drive up to see them, but it hadn’t and we could not get to their house yet. We were within five miles or so, yet might as well have been way across the country... hours and miles away....like the old saying, “So close, yet so far away.”

While we were passing by Hunter, the location of Traphagen Honey, we stopped and picked up another ten, 1 pound bottles of wildflower honey for the market. We need to go to Washington County, to pick up some maple syrup which Vick ordered and maybe some of our friend Tim’s honey too. We are getting low on our stock and in the coming weeks, we will enter into pancake season, so the maple syrup and honey will start to sell pretty well and the eggs will continue to sell out!

Looks like today will be a what-ever day...That is a day where you perform what ever you can in the allotted time remaining as things come up or you just work from your list of “always have things to do”. I will attempt to install the phone line to the hospice gift shop to facilitate the credit card machine and a phone extension. It shouldn’t be too tough, as I have it planned and ready to install. There are always other little things needing done to, so I guess I should get cracking... Hopefully not the eggs I need to wash and box first! LOL

042537Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Sunday, September 04, 2011...Off to Volunteer For Cleanup...Thanks to Irene...

2011-09-04T10:53:00.009-04:00

We are pretty much caught up here, I guess....so we are volunteering to help with some cleanup in Greenville, at the GNH Lumber Company parking lot. There is a lot to do everywhere and since we were fortunate to have little loss, we’re more than happy to help those who lost a lot. Help where ever you can!
Here are some posted YouTube videos of towns on the mountain, only twenty minutes from us... God bless these people and their families.........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RImPJfPDcVQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZWqUpZVm-o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdfEXzMLGdc&feature=email

042505Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Sunday, August 28, 2011...The Farmer’s Market a Usual Bust...Before the Storm...

2011-09-02T11:09:00.008-04:00

The farmer’s market again broke all the records for being a real waste of time except for the camaraderie between the produce farmers, Razzberry Raccoon Jams, soaps & candles and us selling eggs, cheeses, honey and maple syrup.
Today, we sold 18 dozen eggs and one lousy container of cheddar bites.
Judy sold about twelve dollars worth of stuff and the farmer seems to carry out as much stuff as he brought in to start. I’m afraid we will all have to contemplate returning next year at all...and I’ve already heard groans and mumbles about not coming back. I hope it gets better when the crisp fall weather comes, along with apples, peaches and other good baked goods.

We have been missing one of our three cats for three full days now and were finally, almost resolved to the fact that she was caught by one or more of the coyotes out back in the fields, when she magically showed up last evening. We were overjoyed that she came home and it relieved us of the worry that we might have locked her in somewhere and she died from starvation....however on day two, I went all over the property opening everything up to make sure she was not trapped in anywhere. Now we know she was just gallivanting somewhere. (As usual)
Hopefully, she will stay here at least during the hurricane and bad weather, so we know where she is and that she is safe.

It is now raining profusely....has been since 2:00 AM, without pause or reduction. It is as if there is a huge garden hose or bucket up there and the rain is being sprayed or poured consistently. Usually it comes and goes in intensity, but not this storm....it is steady and unwavering....

The power just went off three times, coming back on shortly in between... There isn’t even any wind blowing the trees here yet, so I suppo

Wednesday, August 31, 2011.... It is now 7:18 in the morning and we only got power back late last evening. We still have no internet service or phone. It has been simply an inconvenience to us here.....Many have died, lost family members, personal property or their homes, in the area East of us and on the mountain.
42,000 people are still without electrical service in New York, so we have NOTHING to worry or complain about. We had a little water in the basement (⅞”), had to carry water for the animals from the pond and couldn’t shower, so big whoop! We had it easy with a generator we kept moving from refrigerator, to freezer, to sump pump, and back to the other refrigerator, but we kept things cool and dry. The animals were comfy in the dry barn with the new drainage system we recently installed, so we did rather well and now we have power back and can go back to 99% normal.

Thursday, September 01, 2011... Mid-Hudson cable just hooked our internet cable back onto the pole and rebooted us. We are back with little loss, but won’t have phone service until next Thursday sometime. We’ll survive and we’re thankful that for all that happened to us...we barely suffered at all! Many towns around us are almost non-existent as a result of torrential flooding and many people lost their lives on the mountain. They do, however need to revise their attitudes up there, because their local radio station and some others up there have turned help away, saying they take care of their own and don’t want our help. Vick called our town clerk to ask where we should call to volunteer our help with anything we could do and she said they contacted people up there and that they basically said, “We don’t need your help.” That butthole needs to make that statement around those people that lost their homes...or have no gas or food and are stranded because all the roads are washed away. Supermarket shelves are empty.....no food....restaurants are closed without power, food and refrigeration for any food which they did have. Helicopters and the National Guard are air lifting food and supplies to stranded folks up there. Vick’s parents are up there without lights, food, and gas or needed supplies...and all the roads are washed away, leaving no way to get out. It is too far for her parents to walk to a main road where we could pick them up......because I don’t think we could get within miles of their house. As soon as the road is passable, we’ll definitely pick up her parents to stay here with us until everything on the mountain is stable and they can return to their house.
Below are pictures of what happened around us...nothing exciting nor devastating like areas down the road a little ways....and toward or on the mountain, but our story.......

Friday, September 02, 2011... We have finally recovered enough to be able to sit and finish the blog and post pictures of the hurricane.
(All the wires you see along the road and our driveway are 12,470 volt primary lines....so we were a little concerned about crossing them. A downed line just like this was live in Freehold for the entire day Sunday....burning a two foot diameter hole down through the macadam roadway, so you cannot trust downed wires to be dead or shut off!)

042382Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Friday, August 26, 2011... Inching Toward Our Favorite Time of the Year...

2011-08-26T11:32:00.002-04:00

We are rapidly inching toward fall days, which are Vick and my favorite time of the year. I love that the mode of life changes... and I suppose it reverts back to my childhood when school had just started...everyone was settled back in after all the summer trips, visits and vacations to begin a routine life again. The days became shorter and the smells of summer were replaced with fall smells. You saw corn shocks on porches, Indian corn wreaths or a bunch of ears grouped and hanging from doors. The smells of apples and other fall fruits fill the air with their wafting odors... yellow jackets abound this time of the year, competing with us for the goodies at the various fairs and festivals. There is enough of a chill to make a flannel shirt feel comfy and cuddling in front of a fire outside was all the rage. Kids looked forward to Halloween...in a time and place where you needn’t worry that a neighbor would try to kill your child with needles or drugs injected into apples, candies or treats given out in lieu of requiring those same kids to soap your windows...a harmless act which facilitated older folks to wash their dirty windows anyway.
Yes, I have many, many fond memories of fall in the days of my youth. It saddens me that we cannot have the same world for our children today, but we must now be ever mindful of the dangers created by US....the same ones who enjoyed those things became so politically correct and tolerant of weirdo’s and their rights, that we stole the very possibility of our children enjoying those same things, right out from under their noses...replacing them with fear and doubts about the people around them. Shame on us........
Anyway....we are definitely on our way to fall, which will occur this year on Friday, September 23rd and that my friends is only 28 day away, so enjoy what’s left of your summer. School starts in some places this coming week and others just before or just after Labor Day the 5th of September...so enjoy what you have left everyone.
Okay, I know I was going to give you series 2 pictures last evening, but as usual, I didn’t make it, so you will get them today. They start with five pictures of the alpacas, sheep, chickens and ducks out in the pasture, enjoying their day. Next, we have a couple of the turkeys, then a picture of where we left off with the regular fence posts, and where...behind the little white building the posts will go, near the dirt pile and then turn right across to the old dull red building. There will have to be a three foot piece of fencing between that dull red shed and the bright red brooding house. Then attaching to the existing fencing around the meat bird pen, the fence posts will follow the rope line all the way to the water. Once that is done, we will run from the fencing on the other side of the lake to the end where the stream borders us. Finally...the last three pictures are of the juvenile birds, the babies and then the meat birds gorging themselves on their afternoon feed.

042182Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Thursday, Aug. 25, 2011... Fall Is Just Around The Corner...Look at the Trees...

2011-08-25T11:48:00.007-04:00

It isn’t hard to tell that summer is winding down and fall is peeking around the corner...because the mornings are crisper and the evenings come sooner. The maple trees on the mountain and in a few sparse spots here in the valley, are starting to turn to chartreuse and orange. That familiar old smell and feel is in the air...that familiar fall feeling that only comes when the apple cider is ready, pumpkins adorn front porches and brown, dried corn stalks rustle in the night breeze, making the hair on the back of your neck stand up...especially if your can’t convince yourself that Dracula could be lurking around every corner! The moon is particularly large this time of the year...and being it is close to harvest time...it is no wonder they call it a harvest moon. How beautiful it is when it is just clearing the horizon...looking large and red. It is part of this season, as surly as the pumpkins, rustling corn shocks, the smell of apples and that clear night, cool breeze which also ruffles the withering maple leaves...all signs of fall during its approach.
As soon as Vick’s parents go home, I plan to be out and about in the cool mornings doing what I cannot do during the heat of the summer. I will pick up on the fencing to get the rest of the property fenced and protected against coyotes and foxes, then build the farm store to house our goods and make selling them much easier.
When the cold winter winds blow this year, I’ll be in the basement, working on fiber tools like combs, swifts, drop spindles and anything else I can produce to sell, along with Vick’s wool, alpaca and angora fiber, yarn and fiber products.
We are continuing to work towards the grand opening of the Hospice Gift shop, slated to take place on September 11th. (The 18th is the rain date) We are inputting items into the computer system and today a representative from the credit card service is coming to install the system so we can accept credit cards.
I will also attempt to gas weld the lamp post base today, using the aluminum rods I purchased from TSC in Glenmont. If it works well, I can finally get the lamp post back up and looking normal at the end of the driveway.
Below are a series of pictures I took when I let the animals loose for the day. I’ll call them series “ONE” and “TWO”. Each series has twenty pictures. “One” will be in this morning, and “two” will be posted this evening.
The first twenty pictures begin with two paintings we recently got for the hospice gift shop. Neither was painted by anyone we know and the horse was in the trash along the road.... Then there are Vic’s sun flowers, with the bees working on them, parts for bottle trees I am making for sale at the hospice gift shop, the lamp post base I need to repair, the fencing I need to install and two pictures of Sergeant Pepper...one by his blue eyed self and one with Bollero looking on from behind. We have pictures of the ducks and chickens awaiting release and the ducks fleeing toward the water... Then we have the angora bunnies...BGtoo, BB, Harry and Jack-in-the-box. Then, we have Tina turkey and Tutters the duck in the background and finally two pictures of the alpacas and sheep browsing in the far pasture, near the pond .

042159Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Tues. Aug. 23rd...We’re off to see the Doctor...the Wonderful Doctor of all...

2011-08-23T08:00:00.004-04:00

Today we have a Doctor’s appointment in Albany, so afterward we’ll do some shopping and grab a bite to eat and then when we return home, we’ll enjoy spending time with Vick’s parents, who are here to visit for a few days. Yesterday, we spent the day doing little things which needed done and visited intermittently, throughout the day. Vick repainted the door on the hospice gift shop from ice blue periwinkle to a Krylon periwinkle blue, which is much, much nicer. The ice blue was more of a lavender, which didn’t really fit the building well. As soon as Joan saw it, she said, “NO! Wrong periwinkle blue!” Thank you Joan... good eye for color as usual...as you were definitely right! Once again your artistic conception of color has shined through spectacularly! We continue to move ever closer to the opening date of September eleventh with growing excitement. More and ore of the elements are finalized and are falling into place daily now and we are continuing to get the word out about the opening...with flyers, word of mouth and personal invitations by our friends to their acquaintances and friends. We are hoping for nice weather and a large crowd that day. We are going to have live music by Vick’s Dad who was a lifetime, career entertainer from here in the Catskills, to Brooklyn...all the way to the resorts in Florida.
There will be refreshments and lots of folks from the area hospices and other programs...the newspapers and television... It should be a great opening for the Nature’s Friend’s of Hospice, Inc. gift shop.

Nature’s Friend’s of Hospice, Inc. is a 501(C)(3), not-for-profit charity organization, whose sole purpose is to generate revenue for the Community Hospice program which serves seven counties in and around the Albany/Catskill area.
Nature’s Friend’s of Hospice, Inc. will transfer all revenues generated, to the Catskill branch of Community Hospice on a regular basis, to be used in any of the seven county branches which they feel needs it most.
Nature’s Friend’s of Hospice, Inc. is in no way affiliated with the community hospice program, except that we are a recognized donor organization supplying funding to them.

042113Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Sunday, August 21, 2011...Hot and Muggy Seems to be the Order of the Day...

2011-08-21T11:58:00.001-04:00

I went out around ten o’clock this morning to feed, water and release the animals for the day and found two dead Araucana chickens...both in the big barn chicken coop. One was just inside the screened door and the other was in the corner, under the roost. They looked identical in size color and everything, and this sometimes happens, so it’s the reason we constantly hatch or buy chicks all summer long. If we didn’t replace the losses, we would not get enough eggs to sell for feed costs. We are at the point now where we need to sell or process some of the roosters because the hen to rooster ratio is greater than it should be and they are eating us out of barn and home! They eat and return very little to us except in the way of protection, much like the mafia did when they sold their protection...
We are going up onto the mountain to bring Vick’s parents here for a few days to relax and visit. We’ll take an evening and go out for a nice dinner at Paul’s or somewhere and eat here the rest of the time, cooking out on the grill.
Before we leave to pick them up, I want to replace the cable clothes line out back so Vick can use the entire length of it with helper rollers. Right now if it droops under the load of wet clothes, she installs a roller helper and can only use half the length of the line because of the two connection points where the cable clamps hit the rollers. By replacing it with a solid 100 foot piece of cable, she will be able to utilize the entire 50’ length before the cable clamp will contact the helper rollers. It won’t take me more than fifteen minutes to change it out I’d say.... Better get with it because we will leave shortly....
Bollero, our alpaca that was acting as if he had a UTI, is now acting normal again...happy and eating....pooping and peeing at will, so the antibiotic must have done the trick. We’ll still keep an eye on him to be sure, along with all the others which vigilant Camelid owners must do constantly. The stinkers are herding animals and know that weak animals are target prey for predators, so they hide their illnesses until they drop and can go no further. Sadly, if you don’t pay strict attention to their everyday demeanor, they will go down and die on you before you can react to reverse the problem.

042078Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Saturday, August 20, 2011...A Lousy Day at the Farmer’s Market Seems Normal...

2011-08-20T22:52:00.002-04:00

Yes a lousy turnout seems to be the norm at the farmer’s market these days. I realize there are many other venues occurring at this time and people are traveling, vacationing or possible just taking in the fairs and carnivals in various surrounding towns, but it’s becoming pretty discouraging to say the least. I’m up at 6:00AM almost every morning, so getting things ready and being there set up and ready to sell by 9:00 AM isn’t an issue for me at all, but when the community you are supporting doesn’t reciprocate by supporting and buying your items, you wonder of it’s even worth your while to attend anymore.
While we have a few returning customers every week which support us, the entire town is less than supportive, especially when we give up going to other places with lots of traffic....lots of traffic which has nothing to do with our community that we so dedicatedly stand by and support weekly.
After leaving the market, returning and putting everything away, Judy came over with a box of goodies for us to deliver to Lynda’s antique shop when we went over to fix her chicken coop and outside yard run. We cut a hole in the wire and secured the pen to the side of the coop so the door could be opened for the chickens to freely move from inside the coop to out in the yard. It provided them access to the outside fenced in yard with security against predators, like fox and coyotes. When we finished that we, along with Lynda, went to Paul’s in Coxsackie for a pizza dinner.
That is about all that went on here today....and now it’s over!!! What a day.

042066Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Friday, August 19, 2011... A Friday at Home For The First Time All Summer Long...

2011-08-19T11:57:00.005-04:00

Today should be a good day to hook up my grinder, the acetylene torch and weld the aluminum base for the lamp post so I can get it back up and in place. Then I can finally end the ugly sight of the empty concrete pillar base with the wires twisted and secured by wire nuts where the lamp post once stood. I bumped it, breaking the base off; while plowing snow last winter and the aluminum was too thin to arc weld, so I had to wait until I could use the acetylene to weld it. I finally found acetylene rods at Tractor Supply in Glenmont and a special tip to use propane in place of the acetylene, so I’ll hook it up along with the oxygen bottle and stick weld the base. (Hopefully) Below are a series of pictures I shot this morning... one of Vick’s newest garden attempt...the alpacas...our new signage and a problem at the corner of the pasture gate, which will take a can of hornet spray and darkness to resolve. (Those suckers are big and probably have stingers measuring four feet long!) Yowl.....I gotta make sure nothing goes wrong with that operation this evening....FOR SURE!
Another thing I would like to do today is sink some new fence posts across the back yard area...from the place I left off by the Wilson House to the big dirt pile, where we will turn the corner, add a gate to access the manure pile and onward to the corner of the back shed. There will be a little length between the read shed and the brooding house and then I will be off to the other side of the “Island side of the pond to join at the meat bird pen and run to the open water at the end of the pond. That will close off the entire woods side of the yard to coyotes and foxes...making it hard for them to snatch chickens and ducks. I have a fixture made up to measure exactly ten feet between posts, so it makes it much quicker to put them in....I measure with it, spray a spot on the ground, get on the tractor and drill the post hold, place the post, put the dirt in and using the fixture, measure the next post from the one just installed...mark and drill again and again... It’s pretty quick. Stay tuned for photos of the installation procedure.......

041994Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Thursday, August 18, 2011...And They Wonder Why We Old Codgers Daydream...

2011-08-18T09:27:00.002-04:00

When I was younger and feeling my oats...running and ripping, trying to make a place for myself in this wild and crazy world, I would often see old fogies sitting quietly...almost mesmerized and seeming to be in another world. Now I know what they were doing! They were in another world...a place from their memory....when things were simple and calm and nice...where they could exist and be comfortable with what was going on around them! They were dreaming of a world that was sane...a world they happily lived in... until we grew up and took over, messing the whole thing up. We thrust them into a world of computers, the technology making massive media coverage of world events as they happened possible and an everyday routine...changing the economy, educational system and politics. We removed everything they had worked to achieve and add to our country. We bitched and complained about rights....rights for minorities...the same minorities that would turn their backs on us later, to achieve their own evil and selfish agendas, which now oppress and take from us!

Now we are the codgers... the fogies wondering where in the hell our world went... just like those old fogies that I used to look at. Now all we see is killing, plundering, lying, war and taking from the poor to support the rich and worthless. In a shot time period, we went from the strongest nation...in agricultural, industrial and technological production, to a nation of cringing givers who worry about being politically correct in everything we think, say or do. It is no wonder we all sit in our chairs, looking like sixties pot heads....seemingly in another place, in another time....because that is where I am half the time. When I am here and thinking straight, I am constantly wondering how an entire nation and all it’s political leadership......can be so corrupt, selfish and uncaring about their own children and grandchildren, that they will sell them out, destroying their future... A future which will be served under another; not a life to be lived....but a life sentence of service, to a tyrant leader. Then I wonder all over again....How did we let this happen? How could we explain this to all our forefathers who fought and died for this country and our future? It makes me ashamed and sad...

Yesterday was another Lyme’s killer day for me. I had the classic, crippling lower leg pain, sore knees, sore wrists and thumbs all of which rotate between aching or just severe jabbing pains. My choice of treatment, in lieu of any doctor’s lack of interest would be Ibuprofen or a lot of wine. And then it only numbs the pain.
Since I know the pain will last all day long, we decided to go to Shandaken to pick up screens for the windows in the hospice gift shop. Putting them in the windows so they can be opened will aid in making it tolerable for Vick, Isabelle, Lynda, Judy or Joan to remain in there, working to finish the pricing and display of the art for the opening which is slated for September 11th. (A rain date of September 18th was chosen as a back-up)
Isabelle and Mable (her Eskie) went along for the ride.... and both she and Vick hit every neat little novelty store along the way from Woodstock, to Shokan, to Mt Tremper, and Phoenicia...checking out their wares and goodies. I sat in the car with Mable and munched on an old fashioned licorice roll, a few hard candies and an ice cream cone... treats which I was supplied with at each stop, for being as good as the dog. We did click a few pictures, which are below. One is of a pile of rubbish going into Phoenicia...What it means I don’t know and the focus is a little off, but the sign says, “Bye-Bye Phoenicia”... The elk are at the Armstrong Elk Farm.

041960Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC

Tuesday, August 16th...Today Was A Barn Cleaning Day...

2011-08-16T21:49:00.011-04:00

We started out this morning going for chicken feed and wood chips to clean out the barns. I let the alpacas and sheep out to graze in the pasture, which is the first in over a week. The grass was so burnt and low, that we were afraid they would actually kill the grass and it would never come back, so we kept them out of the yard to allow the grass to recover...provided we would ever get some rain to help. Finally yesterday, it rained all day long and the grass sprang to life overnight. The alpacas and sheep browsed all day long happily. While they were out in the yard, I closed the pasture gate and opened the mid gate for the Suri’s to come into the main pasture and explore that, then into the barn stalls if they wanted to. They did not care to enter the barn, so I didn’t press the issue and after a brief period of time, I returned them to the front pasture and run-in shed, where they are extremely happy living. I guess coming from a farm with 150 alpacas to ours was a joy to them, since they are the only two in the front pasture and they get all the attention.
We went to work cleaning the barns after having a bite of lunch, and we stuck with it until almost dark, but got the long run, duck barn and back chicken barn cleaned. Then went to the brooding house, where we cleaned everything in there, caught all the young laying hens, separating them from the meat birds and taking them to the big barn, where we isolated them against the front wall behind a protective wire barrier for the night. We then cleaned the center of the big barn where the duck stay and the center of the bunny brothel where we keep the water and feed for the crippled ducks and Tina Turkey. Everything is nice and clean now and we can concentrate of bigger and better things tomorrow. Below are a few pictures we took of the birds we have at the bird feeder out front. We were eating lunch and decided to snap some pictures for you to see the birds we look at while we eat our meals.... There are also pictures of flowers and the alpacas and chickens enjoying the day. Vick also snapped a picture of her new loom for making alpaca fiber bracelets....

041921Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC