Get your gun!

Before I go on with today's post, Caroline in NH left me a link yesterday. Some interesting news for all you No NAISers out there. If you haven't read about it yet Farm to consumer legal defense fund has sent a letter of intent to sue to the USDA over NAIS. You can read the intent here on Farm to Consumers Legal Defenses website. You know I will be watching this one closely.

I had a massive head cold yesterday, so it was good thing that for once no one had any questions. If you had, my answers might have sounded a little drunken. But I digress. My husband came home after work yesterday and we were talking a bit in the living room, suddenly my husband jumps up and runs into the bedroom. I look out the window and there in our field was that fox that had been killing our good neighbors chickens. I, in the drunken head cold state I was in, was a little slow to the point. "Get your gun! it's a fox." Of course by the time I said that, my husband was flying out of the room with our antique bolt action riffle.

The fox with what looked like a bird, in it's mouth was to far off to be shot at safely. So we watched where it went. Hoping to find it's home close by. Within a few moments one of the neighbor kids called my oldest son to tell him he just saw a fox. My oldest said yep, we saw it. My dad was going to shoot it. Now this statement might not seem like a problem, but it is. This kid's mom has no livestock. They live in the country just to live in the country. They want all the animals to be free to roam and live. There will be backlash on us for this wanting to shoot a fox. But here is the problem. Turns out that the the fox lives closer to the river then to us. It is stealing rather then hunting and it does so in the middle of the day. This fox has been found in chicken pens. The good neighbor did not have his gun on him, so screamed at it to scare it off. It had killed most of his chicks.

If this fox was hunting rather then stealing, we would leave it well enough alone. Not only are there small children playing out here, but goats are getting ready to kid. We can't afford to lose anything to a lazy/sick fox. If they are hungry enough, they will take down a kid or a calf. Before owning livestock, I too would have said live and let live, but between the fox, human thieves and dogs, I am tired of losing my birds. I will be doing all my chores today with that rifle strapped to my back.

In happier news, my veggies are doing well and I have peaches this year!

Back in those Idealic days

I am not in the mood to lecture. This post began as such, and I found myself just not up to the argument. We had a long day of hauling things around, rearranging things, and weeding the garden. As well as my youngest going to the dentist.

So today I will leave it up to you. It has been a while since we have done any Q&A, but with the shear amount of people stopping by and reading my blog, I am sure more then one of you has a question. If not, I will chalk it up to everyone feeling just as exhausted as I do today.

Are you Paying Attention?

Two posts in one morning? Why yes, yes there is.
Myself and many other homesteading blogs you see on my sidebar live in a strange activism world. Strange to the majority of activist, but not to us. We live in a world full of genetic modifications, calling USDA certified organics, junk food, and being pro meat, trying to inform people that the only way to save a heritage barn animals is by eating them. We say these things, and most the time we are ignored or bashed. We believe in responsible farming and child raising. From time to time we speak out, telling you what is going on the affects us, and soon you. You choose to listen to what you want, just as we all do. We try not to be in your face about anything that means so much to us, some times our emotions can get in the way of facts, but we do not threaten people and we tend to let things slide more then most. But Monica over at Small Meadow Farm has brought something to our attention, some thing I had not heard of and apparently neither has most of the media.

With virtually no fanfare, President Bush signed into law a plan ordering the government to take no more than six months to set up a "national contingency plan" to screen newborns' DNA in case of a "public health emergency."
The new law requires that the results of the program – including "information … research, and data on newborn screening" – shall be assembled by a "central clearinghouse" and made available on the Internet.

What!?! nonononono! This goes way beyond tracking animal movements. This is leaning towards a Logan's Run society. Is this what will makes us feel safe? DO you feel safe knowing that your child's DNA will become government property?

"Soon, under this bill, the DNA of all citizens will be housed in government genomic biobanks and considered governmental property for government research," said Twila Brase, president of the Citizens' Council on Health Care. "The DNA taken at birth from every citizen is essentially owned by the government, and every citizen becomes a potential subject of government-sponsored genetic research."

I believe there was a thriller based on this subject,

"In England they decided they should have doctors looking for problem children, and have those children reported, and their DNA taken in case they would become criminals,"

In case? Children with social problems, something that they may just grow out of are now becoming guilty before a crime is even committed?

In fact, published reports in the UK note that senior police forensics experts believe genetic samples should be studied, because it may be possible to identify potential criminals as young as age 5.

I. . . I just don't know what to say about this. I feel for anyone that is about to have a baby. I worry for the safety of my grandchildren. Now might be a good time to become a midwife. I foresee many secret births in our future.

You can read the entire article over at Small Meadow Farm. Thank you for bringing this to our attention Monica.

It's Like Killing Two Birds with One Stone

No, more like four birds with an electric fence.

What we think happened was that the birds landed on our fence, then touched the neighbors hot fence. The initial shock doesn't normally kill them, but will knock them out for a few moments. These guys didn't fall free from the hot fence, so the constant electrically flow going through them, killed them. What we will be doing to stop this, is donating our offset isolators to our neighbor. This way if another bird lands on our fence, it won't accidentally touch the electric fence.

I thought my children were bad, turns out that horses are just like them. Here they all are, attempting to remove one of the birds.

Earlier in the day, I saw the birds hanging in the distance. My thought pattern was that they were not wild birds, but my chicks. And that the person that had been stealing my adult birds had placed them there to say that no matter what we do, they can still get to our birds. Paranoia or too many horror novels?

How to Shear a Goat

Meet Delilah

She is an Angora goat, and our host for today. You will need a goat for today's experiment. You will also need to wonder through your local farm store purchasing items such as bleed stop, sprayable iodine and bandages. Try not to look frighten as you give these items to the cashier, she/he might think you are up to something. And a nervous giggle is something you should avoid as well boys and girls. Cashier's are able to give you the evil eye without lifting their heads, it's spooky.

Now that you have your wound care, and your goat, you need a pair of shears. For educational purposes only, we have gone the route of manual shears.

Purchasing a goat wrangler comes in handy as well. Look around, it is worth it to find one to your specific likings.

The floor of your barn should be clean, no mud of straw to get into the wool. But for this experiment, we will forgo the sterile room.

Many people and books tell you the once they are on their backs, they are passive. This is not true. Goats will spit and buck while on their backs. Just a gentle holding down of the horns to keep their heads from moving seems to be much better then some of the other techniques I have read and seen.

Starting on the front right shoulder, you cut as close as is comfortable for you. The book I have said to flip the animals back and forth, going from right to left and back again. This however, boys and girls, doesn't seem to work for these goats, for as soon as you attempt to roll them, they attempt to get up on their feet and run away.

Just curious. But, does this goat make my butt look big?

Sometimes your Angora wrangler is done for the day, even if the job isn't. It then falls on you to do the rest of the shearing. Not to worry boys and girls. The goat isn't being sat on, merely straddled into compliance. (I wonder what kind of google hits I will get from that statement)

When your goat is down, now is the time to trim hooves and look for any problems. This goat shows signs of neglect from previous owners. We are in the process of fixing that.
This goat is also pregnant, that or she has an alien about ready to burst from her stomach.

I know, I know, this was horrible. We did a bad job with the shearing, but it is our first time. We will hopefully get better as time goes on.

NO goats were hurt in the making of this post. just our pride.

The Slide

Continuation of the depression series

1929
I told dad that I liked bubbles. He chuckled at me. He said the bubble that grand dad was talking about wasn't real. He said that sometimes so many people like and want something that there is great demand for it, and when that happens things go good for businessmen. But after awhile, just like a bubble, it gets too big and has to pop. I don't like it when bubbles pop, I told my dad. He looked sad as he agreed with me. Then he told me to go out and play, the grownups were talking. I hid in the hallway, grand dad said something about too many people were buying air. I learned later that he meant that people where buying stock up fast because they thought that the stock would go up, because it had already gone up. A new government agency had decided to raise interest rates to try and stop this air buying, but grand dad said that was a bad thing to do.

2007
My husband and I love our new home. The housing market seems to be good right now. People are buying up homes and flipping them like crazy. We are in a housing bubble right now, have been for a few years. We talked about flipping houses as well. So man people are making good money doing it, and there are even television programs on how to do it. The Federal reserve has dropped interests rates once again, encouraging more people to buy, making it easier for more people to buy homes that normally they couldn't afford. Buying a home right now is a good sound investment.

October 29, 1929

Dad said that the stocks that he had purchased were now worth only a tenth of what they had been. Mom had her worried look on, and dad said that they would just have to wait and see what will happen now. Mom teared up a bit, they had a lot of money in the stock market, even if grand dad had warned them that this bubble was getting to be too big.

The next day, dad came home early from work. His managers had told the line workers that they were slowing production until they could figure out how much demand for their goods there really was. He would not go back to work for 3 days, and he would not get paid for that time. Mom ran into her bedroom, crying. Dad said that we would not be buying that new car that we had been saving for.

Late 2007

Flipping house has turned out to be a bad thing to do. Those low interest rates have suddenly gone up. Those too good to be true loans have reared their ugly heads. You can't get a fixed rate if your credit isn't spectacular. Our friends are now having problems selling their homes before the mortgages comes due. We bought one house to flip, we too seem to be having a problem flipping it. I don't know how much longer we can go on paying 2 mortgages.