Tues. Sept 30th… Over the mountain beyond the ski slope… to Grandmothers house we go……sings Katie!!!

All afternoon, Aunt Vicki and Katie worked on her school project dealing with chickens and their feathers. She needed at least ten species of chickens pictures, their species name and family. They are going to place a feather from each chicken on a page in a book with the chickens picture and their genus and species or the scientific name. There will be ten or more different chickens on individual pages. Seems to be going above and beyond on this project, so she should nail down an “A” for it. It is really interesting.

I spent the day in the barn running lights from a newly installed electrical panel. Tomorrow I will run a few receptacles at the bunnies and chickens and maybe install a light in the feed room.

Soon we will gather all of Katie’s homework, her and our things and us, then head for the mountains. Tonight is going to be roast turkey night at Katie’s house. Yum….Yum!!

OOOOOh…..by the way…… don’t let wall streets sudden surge in stocks rattle you. Remember I said there are some greedy bastards doing things to set themselves up to get rich? Well the sudden buying is them buying penny stocks by the thousands after scaring hell out of less informed stockholders, causing them to dump and run, losing their respective asses. Now these greedy shits buy it up for nothing…..and lots of it and sell it tomorrow when it begins to recover on the market. There is evidence of some 1,000% gains doing this making millions!! (But you better be brave and stay on top of it. One false move and you’ll have only pennies! If you’re lucky…

Sit tight and be conservative. Don’t buy anything right now. Bye-Bye

Tues. Sept 30th… Stocks drop… birds sick… worry, worry, worry!!!!

Each and every day is a new chapter in life! Stocks tumble, causing everyone to loose grip on reality. If you have stock, sit on your hands and do nothing right now. Now is the very worst time to dump unless you wish to experience the financial success of the 1929 stock market crash! Everyone needs to just hold on and weather the storm. Keep you nest egg protected by making sure your stock broker is invested in FDIC insured accounts or gold and silver, which are stable commodities that will always be of value. You positively don’t want to run wild right now, based on Wachovia’s being bought out by Citigroup because these guys feed upon one another in times such as these. One makes a bad decision, they crash and are acquired by another. It will all settle out with the dust after the panic quiets down. There are many places being taken over by another right now and this is basically a result of greed and market trader panic. Things are bad… no doubt about it, but not nearly as bad as the conditions in 1929’s crash. Unemployment then soared at 40% and we are still in the single digits. Banks are still dispensing money from the ATM’s and open for business signs are still in small business windows. SIT TIGHT!

The last thing you want to do is dump and run, as many have done, which adds to the problems already there. Every time something like this happens and an investor gets a little panicky, the removal of your money from, where ever it was invested in the economy, now leaves a void that must be filled by other's money. Enough of this kind of voids and you have exactly what we are experiencing. The blame lies with the greedy bastards on wall street…… they very ones begging for more money……. And don’t think that there aren’t a lot of greedy bastards that are now orchestrating a "set up" for them selves to make a killing over this, so sit tight. Unless you are a “Jim Cramer” or a “stock market genius”, don’t do anything. Put your trust in the broker that has been managing your money and doing a good job in the past. If you dabble in the market, perhaps you should seek out a good broker now, that knows when his butt is nearing hot water, because it is close my friend. There will, at least, continue to be a recession (which we are now and have been in) greater than the 1980 fiasco, but if someone doesn’t do something soon, there will be a depression with business closings, job loss and bank buy outs with locked accounts if not bank failures that will parallel the 1930’s disaster. If the right thing is done…… all this will be averted and stocks will appreciate and rebound. It always happens!! Just sit tight!! If you pull now and run and you’ll never recover your losses. Something needs done NOW, but not by us at the lower levels!

This morning I again went to the chicken house and checked the flocks, which looked good. Everyone seemed to be holding their own, but when I went to the brooding house, sadly, I found Tara (the turkey) had died during the night. The others in there seem to be coughing occasionally, but none seem to gurgle when they breath. We are still treating them with the antibiotic and holding all their eggs, which we will do for about 4 or 5 days. In these days, we are pulling all eggs and putting them under two layers that want to "perk" a clutch of eggs, so we will have more young peeps to replace the ones we lost. The little ones should be ok in the barn this fall season. Anyway, when this bout with colds are over, we will wait for two days so the antibiotic can clear from the birds system and then start pulling the unmarked eggs from the houses and begin selling again, leaving the marked ones to be hatched.

Katie, our niece, stayed over last night for the first time since we have moved up here and is lounging around this morning watching TV and fussing with the dogs. We will take her home later today and have dinner with the family again this evening.

Last night at 11:30, when we returned home, we all went to check the animals, gave them food or water if needed and Katie played with the bunny babies. They are getting big and we will need to make a new wire cage to separate them from their momma’s so we can put the does back in with the bucks for awhile to have more babies later. The circle of life, ya know…………

Beautiful fog across the fall mountain near Lexington

Crossing the Gilboa-Shandaken water tunnel vents

A mountain meadow boasting fall surroundings

Same area looking toward Westkill

How beautiful the foilage and fog on the mountains

Near Jennings Hill Road and Vick's parents & brother's house

Katie-Q, our niece....

Monday, Sept 29th… Tomorrows the last day and today is lookin GOOD!!!!!!

Tomorrow is the last day of the month and even though we officially entered fall or autumn on Sept. 22nd, it never quite feels like autumn until October traditionally ushers it in. October is always when you think of fall hay rides, pumpkins, Halloween and such, but it also makes me think of falling leaves, the approach of Thanksgiving and then winter. Oh, how the seasons do fly, much as a marble rolling downhill on a smooth surface.........the way it gains speed as it goes further and faster. Such are our lives……… Everything goes faster as you get older. Every year, although they still remain 365 days long, they seem to become shorter in length, as do the hours in a day when you are trying to get things done on a schedule. We need to all revert back to the days when we were in grade school and each summer was a lifetime long. How was it possible to cram so much laughing, fun and living into three short months, yet I can’t seem to do half that much in 12 months? It seems I never get started on something I want to do, before I encounter a disaster which needs to be addressed, which takes the entire day to resolve. Then, after looking back, it seems I should have been able to do that and much more in that amount of time, but it never works that way. I guess we get caught up in procrastinatory thoughts of dealing with things we are really unsure of, then spend more time thinking through different optional avenues that we may use to resolve them. Perhaps we have lost that youthful disregard of fear in our decision making process, as we perfected our though process.  You know of course, that was usually absent in our youthful decision making. Anyway, my point is that life is passing us all by as we search and labor over the problems in our lives. After we are dead and gone, no one will remember our problems, nor will they even remember most of us, so I think we had better wise up and live our lives to the fullest.

This coming month, go to a Halloween function and laugh….eat some fall pastries…… go to the Oktoberfest activities near you and take a little day trip with the family to somewhere out of your area and eat a meal there...... and spend the day! Explore a new town somewhere by walking their streets and windowshopping while holding your spouses hand.  Live the fall months and enjoy them before you are trapped in your house with the snow blowing. (what a mistake that is when there are so many wintertime places and fun things to visit and do too)

Today, we are going to work in the barn a little, because the chickens all seem to be holding their own. The five in the brooding house seem better and are moving around and wanting out, but I didn’t turn anyone out because we are planning to go to Vick’s parents & brothers house for dinner and a visit, so we’ll work on the barn this morning & leave for Lexington at 5:00 this afternoon.

Bye, Bye

Sunday Sept. 28th… What to do…What to do… SICK Chickens!!!!

Again, we have suffered another blow to the starting of the farm’s chicken flock. We now have chickens that sneeze and cough, are shaking their heads and have a gurgling noise when they breath. We noticed four yesterday, and quarantined them, but before the day was out, We found another one. Anyway, the five that we quarantined and treated with Terramycin powder, added to their drinking water, seemed to improve, but it said on the instructions that we should see results in 24 to 48 hours. That was only last evening, so it has only been about 19 hours now, so are we safe or will it get worse? Who knows!! Vicki is now cutting up garlic to add to their scratch feed, which is supposed to help with colds. They were all ok until they stayed out in the rain all day Friday. We have checked on the internet and it seems that other people have had the same problems and we have been doing what they recommend to treat them. All we can do is treat the entire flock of chickens, ducks and turkeys (one turkey is sick too) with the Terramycin and hope for the best. We cannot collect and sell the eggs during the time we are treating them with the antibiotic powder, so we will mark all these eggs and place them under the layers to hatch them and have little ones. By marking them, we will know which eggs are treated eggs and after two solid days of no chicken antibiotics, we can then start pulling eggs to sell again, leaving the marked eggs for them to hatch. Obviously, egg sales will cease as soon as the eggs in the refrigerator are gone and will not resume until two days after we quit treating birds. Boy oh boy……. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. We don’t need this kind of luck! It has been tough enough getting the farm established and going. Hoping for better news tomorrow. Stay tuned…

We might try to work in the dark, in the barn this evening after dinner. It’s not a bad thing to do, as it’s inside and we have temporary lights to work by. Who knows…… maybe we’ll just hang it up until tomorrow. This chicken problem has made us weary, trying to deal with it all day….watching birds, moving them to isolation and scouring the internet for information. We’ll see.

Bye, Bye

 

 

Sat Eve, Sept 27th… More and more chicken dilemmas!!!!!

Well, we didn’t get anything done in the barn today. I went out this morning late…… after blogging and writing a little more in my book and I found a dead chicken laying on the floor under the perch roost. I then remembered the day before, when I opened the door, that the first chicken out had sneezed twice. Now I had never heard a chicken sneeze before, so I didn’t realize there was a problem. Thank God I have Vicki around to rely on, because she is the “If I have one…..I’ll read all about it” lady. She reads “Back Yard Poultry” magazine and anything else she can find on the internet about anything that has to do with our chickens or ducks and turkeys. I forgot to tell her until later in the afternoon when I heard one of the chicken breathing like there was fluid in their lungs. They actually bubbled when they breathed. She decided we needed to immediately go to Agway, where we picked up pine chips and a powdered antibiotic which you add to their water. Now we cannot collect their eggs, because we chose to not only treat the four or five we quarantined into the brooding house, we treated all the birds in the old hen house. That way if it is something catching, all the birds are on it earlier. We will mark their eggs and place them under the sitting hen in the other barn and let her hatch them since she won’t get off of her nest out there. We will keep the chickens on the medicine and collect and mark the eggs for 4 or 5 days, then give it a good two days for them to clear the antibiotic out of their bodies before we will sell their eggs again. We’re hoping to see a marked improvement in the 4 or 5 tomorrow or maybe the next day if they can stay alive until then. If that is the case, we hope the rest we have started on the medicine, get a better starting chance. We spent the day cleaning out the chicken house and spraying it down. Stay tuned for the outcome………

Bye,Bye

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Sat Sept. 27th… Sit up and Take Notice Folks… BAN Chinese Imports!

Again, how many people must die before we get wise and stop importation of anything known to originate in China! Buy all your farm products needed for your business from our own guaranteed, safe, American farmers!!!!!!!

Now read this anywhere on the web, but we told you about it twice since our original blog of Sept 15th.... It has only become a widening horror story for the Chinese infants.

The Milk Scandal is becoming worse and ever widening since Chinese milk suppliers were found to be adding melamine to watered-down milk to boost its apparent protein content. The chemical, which is high in nitrogen, can fool tests aimed at verifying protein levels. The compromised dairy products are blamed for sickening 54,000 children. Now it has spread to anything made with Chinese whole milk powder and can be found anywhere in the world as these ingredients are purchased in bulk from China for a song and dance by world wide snack producers using chocolate or icings etc. Take Kraft’s statement that none of their Oreo-based products contain any milk powder from China, this statement apparently sent out immediately after emails about the Oreo icing containing such tainted Chinese powders.

READ MY LIPS!!! (in print) They are fooling the testing methods in China that insures quality milk now! The poison they are using to do this is telling the test results that the protein is there, thus making it good quality milk. It does not identify the poison as such! Who can be sure of anything from China. We have suffered many recalls from the past killing children and pets in our country.  

Being safe and careful is great and everyone should remain so, but does it ever occur to anyone that while you take care in what you purchase in the supermarket, are you so sure about what you get at a restaurant? Chinese restaurants, (which we frequent quite regularly, use food and preparations imported from Chinese companies over seas. Now I’m not saying anyone here in the United States is using something they know is tainted and I have a very high regard for the Chinese and Japanese working people and business owners for trying to provide high quality food and service at their establishments, but…… as you do not really know what is in what you buy from American producers in the supermarkets, (due to imported spices and fillers in their products) neither do the honest, conscientious, Asian restaurants.

This is why I think we should immediately ban any importation of a food product with a known origin in China. Surely some things will slip through the cracks by originating in China and flowing into another “Who Cares Country”, then on to us in their prepared products, but it will reduce our exposure greatly. Let them kill themselves or deal with it in their own country. No foreign country likes the American people anymore anyway, so we better start looking out for ourselves! As I’ve said before, Bring our troops home and use all the foreign aid money to make ourselves safe by paying our service men to protect the United States borders and keep illegal immigrants out. Build up our military defenses to thwart any outside country’s attack of us and finally feed and cloth our own people and deal with crime and corruption here.

                                                 

Today, I think we will work on the barn things still needing done. We have two panels to install in the chicken run area to close off the cold air of the fall evenings and lights and stuff to install. There are a host of little things that will finish off the barn and make it as we have dreamed it would be from long before we started placing foundation stakes in the still frozen ground last spring. It is not such a big deal anymore, because we can stay inside a closed building and work where there is no rain or cold wind…… enjoying the same protection from the weather for us, that we have afforded the animals, for the coming winter. We need to do a little plywood installation on the office wall upstairs and mount the glass paneled door too. The nice thing is that we are almost done with the barn and can now relax to enjoy life a little more than we have since last spring when we committed to doing the barn ourselves.

Bye, Bye

Friday Eve, Sept 26th… Lost in the ordeal of living my life………

Again, I missed blogging this morning. I wrote all morning long, trying to finish my book, “An Uncommon Journey”, which is basically a biography type book that I will publish soon. It is in the final stages and I will be ready for a second writing soon. This book is a story of two people who’s lives seemed like they were over, Vicki’s due to the death of Carl, her husband of many years and mine as a result of a lousy marriage of many years. It details the amazing journey we both made through difficult times and how we became as one combined and enjoying our life’s dream of living on a farm and raising animals and enjoying nature and God’s bounty everyday. I got so enthralled in writing this morning that I truly didn’t realize that throughout all the writing I had done between getting up for coffee and toast, I hadn’t done the blog. I’m still amazed that I didn’t. Anyway….. We just got home from Vick’s parents and brother’s house where we enjoyed the evening and dinner. Tomorrow we are going to see Audrey and her husband Alfredo, who is in a rehab after a fall down a flight of stairs in a restaurant this week. He had fractured his pelvis and has been in the hospital and now the rehab since he fell, so we will be going to see him down at Monticello, which is where the rehab is. Again, I will plug an address into the GPS unit and away we’ll go, putting our faith and car in the hands of the NASA people with their bright, shiny, satellite and the little, electronic genius in the box, on the dash, that tells us to turn left in ½ mile.

We didn’t do anything in the barn today except feed the critters and tomorrow we will not do any more than that before we leave. Sunday, we’ll work in the barn. Maybe………if we feel like it.

Bye, Bye