Duck, Duck, Duck

The white ducks (Pekins) were supposed to be for food, while the Mallards were to be Little Z's pets.


The ducks have turned out to be much more interesting than I ever expected. For example:

* One day, the Mallards set about teaching the Pekins to fly. [Pekins are flightless birds.] A few Mallards quacked at the watching Pekins (giving instructions, certainly), went for a running start and then up, up into the air! Then, flew in a circle, and landed back by the Pekins, and said, "Quack. Quack quack quack. Quack." [That's how you do it. Now, it's your turn.] Then the Pekins, while the Mallards stood and watched, would run and run as fast as they could and flap their wings, but never get off the ground. They waddled back to the Mallards, disgruntled, but the Mallards encouraged them to stick to it and try again. They demonstrated again. And so on. The Pekins tried again. Same result. We think that the Mallards, getting ready for their flight south, clearly do not wish to leave their friends, the Pekins, behind.

* The ducks run through the sprinklers in hot weather, just the way small children do- except that, instead of squealing like little girls when they run through, they quack enthusiastically. Then they wiggle their tale feathers and quack a lot and say, "Let's do it again!"

* There was a turf war one day between the chickens and the ducks. The ducks were outnumbered, three to one. Corn was at stake. Lots of corn, laying on the lawn there, free for the taking. A plucky rooster was guarding it all, pecking at whoever wanted a bite or two. The chickens all bickered amongst themselves, but the ducks soon discovered that, if they worked together as a team and ganged up on all of the chickens, they could win the corn. So, they did. They worked together and drove away the chickens, charging at them full steam and quacking with vigour. The ducks won. Teamwork takes the day!

* The ducks actually cross the road way more often than the chickens do.

Another Day, Another Bee on Another Yellow Flower

Ladies and Gentlemen: David Bowie with a Pig

That pig looks sweetly content, doesn't it?


via the Retronaut

Bedtime Stories: Edible Wild Mushrooms of Illinois & Surrounding States

It isn't often that a field guide to wild edible plants is readable for pure entertainment value, but such is the case with Edible Wild Mushrooms of Illinois & Surrounding States, by Joe McFarland and Gregory M. Mueller. I was not at all interested in reading this book that Bad Assed Husband (BAH) has been toting around lately while gazing at the ground, until he started reading aloud from it for Little Z's bedtime story. Little Z and I were both riveted, on the edge of our seats, as BAH read us the passage describing the experience of eating a Wood Ear mushroom,

"The Wood Ear rehydrates just fine and becomes a perfectly edible mushroom you can share with dinner guests while serving Asian dishes. 'Interesting texture' is how generous people describe the Wood Ear, before taking a drink...

"The flavor of Auricularia auricula-judae is not foul, nor is it good. We'd like to describe the flavor properly but it really has no flavor, as far as we can tell. Perhaps meditation will provide answers, or eliminate the question altogether."

Then, lest you should think that wild mushrooms don't taste good, BAH read a bit for us about the Lion's Mane, page 59,

"It [Lion's Mane] has a surprisingly mild, totally inoffensive tendency to actually taste a bit like crab or lobster meat, mild and sweetly tender, which is a culinary description rarely assigned to mushrooms. Hericium erinaceus, therefore, is a good example of why people should try a few different species of mushrooms in their life before deciding they don't like mushrooms. It's like being opposed to music based on a specific hatred of the zither."

The photographs are wonderful, too. And, if you happen to live anywhere near Illinois, you could even use this book to find some wild edibles. Or, read it to a child at bedtime. Edible Wild Mushrooms of Illinois & Surrounding States has multiple uses. Highly recommended.

Honey

We've had a lot of feedback about our honey, all of it positive! This is my favourite:

"please bring me another two pints next week. it has a very distinctive initial taste...I want so much to know what the taste came from...almost tastes like yarrow smells but that would not have been in bloom yet when they were collecting pollen...hmmm what do you or your bee friends think is the source? I think you should have an exotic name like meadow flower honey or something"

I agree about the flavour she is describing, but I had trouble putting it into words on my own. It makes all of the craziness of harvesting the honey that day worth while.

My sister Kathy took this picture:

Nobody is Watching You. Really.

Little Z was dancing to these videos on youtube that have a rating star system in the upper corner of the screen. It's just like the Wi dance games. She danced to the video, dancing just like they were, and said,

"Oh, man! I only got three stars!"

Then she danced to another one on youtube, and said,

"Yay! I got five stars! I danced really well that time!"

Don't watch this unless you're unclear about what I mean:


I told her,

"It can't see you. It's just a recording. It gives you the same rating, every time."

"No, it doesn't. Really? I don't believe you."

So she kept dancing and dancing and being either disappointed or delighted, depending on the number of stars in the pre-recorded video. She didn't even believe me when she left for awhile and came back, and still got five out of five stars! She couldn't believe she wasn't being rated on her dance moves.

Nobody is watching you. Nobody is judging your dance moves on a scale of one to five. You are free to dance as you will.

Really.

Creativity

Joel Salatin wrote that if you ever doubted the creativity of farmers, you should just look at the variety of gate latches they create!

Here is my contribution today:



Yep, yessiree, things are pretty darned exciting around here! No poop stories, though. Not that I mind.

I got the sheep into that new pasture- I finally finished the fence I started at the beginning of the summer. One of the sheep literally leapt for joy as she pranced into the new meadow. I didn't get that on tape, but I did take a picture of them later, happily munching wildflowers (and of Tom Turkey who now believes he's a sheep, of course):



Ah, the life pastoral.

The Glamorous Life of the Poopsmith

Much of farm life deals with poop.

Take today, for instance:

I noticed that Yoshimi had worms. The way I noticed this was, when I was in the pasture, I stepped own and my foot went SQUISH! Which is bad. Sheep should poop in little pellets, not little squishes, so I knew someone had worms. I looked around for a poopy bottomed sheep, and Yoshimi definitely was it.

Are you still reading? Really? I never write about this stuff.

So, today I caught Yoshimi by feeding her corn, and then tying her to a post. Her mom, Sevilla, came, too, but that didn't matter. The one with worms will always be the hungriest, of course. Yoshimi is fiesty one, so I tied her with two ropes and a chain. Then I shoved the dewormer down her throat with a little medicine gun. This was my first glamorous act.

Next, was the true glamour. Yoshimi had a lot of dried up poop stuck to her butt, which had to come off, or she might be attacked by flies. Normally, you cut it off because it just sticks to the wool. Unfortunately, she was so recently sheered, that the wool wasn't long enough to really do that. So, I got the hose and started washing her bottom down.

The hose water is from the well, so it's ice cold. Yoshimi seemed surprised to have ice cold water sprayed on her bum, but not entirely adverse to it. Everything was going quite well, she was almost ready to be let loose, and then she shook herself off. She shook like a wet dog, so that the poopy water spread out everywhere and sprayed over me! Ew!

But Yoshimi will feel better now. I let her loose and went off to take a shower.

Here is a song to make you feel better about all of this:


Such is the life of the poopsmith.

P.S. Today was the first day of first grade for Little Z, and my first day not being a teacher when school was n.

Obsesssions with the Superficial

I watched a movie last night called, "Antiviral". It was about a near future where people were even more obsessed with celebrities than they are now. People in this future are so obsessed that they actually take on the diseases of the famous to feel closer to them.

The main character is someone who works at a company that sells diseases of the famous and injects you with them. He's basically a salesman. I liked the main character because he had more freckles than I'd ever seen on a leading man. And he gave a great performance, actually.

The movie goes on to a logical conclusion that is really quite gruesome. I think I liked the movie a lot, but I don't know if I would recommend it to other people. If you like this sort of psychological horror film, then this is for you.

I used to have a recurring fantasy that I picked up Johnny Cash hitch-hiking. Why he was hitching, I'm not sure. I don't remember most of the fantasy, actually, it being a long time ago (before he was dead) but I do remember that, in the fantasy, I would never let on that I knew who Johnny Cash was. I think it is important in a famous person fantasy that, somehow, you are on equal footing with the famous. Maybe they see the truly great you whom no one else sees. They understand you like no one else. They understand that you belong with them, with the beautiful upper echelon. The two of you are then equals. And, you share something. Something intimate. A conversation on the highway. A kiss. Sex. A disease. Something.

That's pretty much what this movie is about, but taken to the extreme.

Together

I think she's mad at him for leaving him with the kids all the time while he's out doing god-knows-what!