More Chicken

Picked up 100 pullets today down a Mt Healthy. That makes 151 chickens on our farm-all for eating, none for laying. We took the chicks out of he box hey came in, gave each one a drink of water and put them out on grass in the sun. leaving them to their own devices while we ate lunch and caught a bit of the race at Talledega (Jeff Gordon won which will make my friend Rosie quite happy). During lunch we decided that perhaps it would be a good idea to turn the brooder lamp on and put them in the tractor and shut the door after Eugene ran up there a couple of times to check on them.

So I went up to the peeps and one by one put all 100 into the tractor. This was not too hard to do as most were falling asleep and were very easy to catch. I was dubious that with 100 chicks there would be enough room under one brooder lamp (we have always done 50 at a time in the past and that is what we are set up to do comfortably ) but they seemed quite happy and content and well spread out but not so much to tell us they are too warm and need the lamp raised. They will likely stay inside for a day or two so they get used to the idea of the brooder lamp and know to get under it when they get chilled. After that they can come and go at will.

The older group of 51 birds is halfway to table weight and will go to the killers in another 3.5 to 4.5 weeks. These are our experimental batch of chicken cuts. In The past we have offered whole birds only. But after asking people on my email list what they would prefer we decided I would be well worth getting some of our birds processed into cuts like wings, legs, thighs and boneless breasts. If these sell well for us we will do more.

More Chicken

Picked up 100 pullets today down a Mt Healthy. That makes 151 chickens on our farm-all for eating, none for laying. We took the chicks out of he box hey came in, gave each one a drink of water and put them out on grass in the sun. leaving them to their own devices while we ate lunch and caught a bit of the race at Talledega (Jeff Gordon won which will make my friend Rosie quite happy). During lunch we decided that perhaps it would be a good idea to turn the brooder lamp on and put them in the tractor and shut the door after Eugene ran up there a couple of times to check on them.

So I went up to the peeps and one by one put all 100 into the tractor. This was not too hard to do as most were falling asleep and were very easy to catch. I was dubious that with 100 chicks there would be enough room under one brooder lamp (we have always done 50 at a time in the past and that is what we are set up to do comfortably ) but they seemed quite happy and content and well spread out but not so much to tell us they are too warm and need the lamp raised. They will likely stay inside for a day or two so they get used to the idea of the brooder lamp and know to get under it when they get chilled. After that they can come and go at will.

The older group of 51 birds is halfway to table weight and will go to the killers in another 3.5 to 4.5 weeks. These are our experimental batch of chicken cuts. In The past we have offered whole birds only. But after asking people on my email list what they would prefer we decided I would be well worth getting some of our birds processed into cuts like wings, legs, thighs and boneless breasts. If these sell well for us we will do more.

Embracing My Inner Redneck

Tony Stewart Signing autographs at Eldora Speedway August 2006
©Lucy Owsley 2006 do not use without permission

Today is the Daytona 500, the Super Bowl of Nextel Cup level NASCAR Racing.

And this lefty tree hugging , organic farming, college educated, brought up by liberal and affluent parents, farmer is gonna be watching and cheering on Tony Stewart who is favored to win the big race.

I got into NASCAR back in the late 1980's due to dating a gearhead ex-dragster racing dude. he watched the Winston Cup races every Sunday afternoon (this was before 2 networks showed these races or there were any Saturday night races). We'd sit around all afternoon swilling beer and watching fast cars go round and round the track and occasionally have a big wreck. For a couple of years I found this about as appealing as watching paint dry. But getting tight did help in that respect and of course the wrecks were always worth watching. Some weeks the two of us would got to Zerby's house and watch with him. Zerby hated NASCAR but he and I had a good time wondering what would happen in they used a figure 8 track and just generally making fun of stock car racing while Drew-bob got all pissed at us for not taking this sport seriously.

frankly, back than I could not take NASCAR seriously because I was not tapping into my inner redneck. Despite being raised in SW Ohio (this is where a lot of guests on the Jerry Springer Show come from, in the first 5 years of that show I'd hazard a guess that about 75% of his guests hailed from Hamilton, Butler and Preble Counties in Ohio. I grew up in Butler county and I have lived in Preble county for the past 14 years), I was a liberal , anti corporate, feminist, secular humanist, conservationist, foodie, well read, a tree hugger, Birkenstock wearing elitist. I am still all of these things.

But after being taken to a nigh of sprint car racing in Winchester, IN I was hooked for real. Nothing like driving into the parking lot and hearing your first racing engine doing hot laps. God that was exciting! This was not a top level NASCAR event. Actually I don't believe it was a NASCAR event at all because I do not remember stock cars racing that night. It was all sprint cars. It was also Jeff Gordon's last time driving sprints before going off to the big show-Winston Cup Stock care racing on the super speedways (he was such a geeky looking teen back than). Not that I knew what that meant at the time. I was just told this 17 year old who was winning all his races that evening was leaving for the big time. And he has certainly made his mark.

Anyhoo Drew bob and I broke up and I figured I would quit watching NASCAR but I found myself drawn to it. And this embarrassed me as none of my close friends could stand the sport and ridiculed it. So I went underground for several years. I did have a co-worker, Kenny who was heavily into Winston Cup and we would sometimes talk about it at work or after work if we went out drinking together (pretty common thing to do when you work in a kitchen). Than in 1997 (or thereabouts) I met my buddy Rosie and we found we had two strange things in common-we both loved the Ohio Lottery show (which has since been ruined) and we both love NASCAR. Like me Rosie is well educated (Ph.D from Harvard in toxicology) and politically liberal. Finally I had someone I could come out to. Someone who would not denigrate the redneck inside screaming to come out, but rather would embrace her.

The only problem we had in the beginning was the fact I did not like Jeff Gordon back than. I referred to him as God-boy. but Rosie was (and is) in love with Jeffy. I used to bust her chops by insulting Mr. Gordon and than telling her the story of getting to see him race his last non NASCAR race. I don't do that any longer as I have grown to really respect Jeff Gordon's abilities on the track. He's very very good.

Back when I met Rosie I was Bill Elliot fan but now I have been a Tony Stewart fan for the past 5 years or so. I like the fact he's a local boy from Rushville, Indiana (yeah he claims to be from Columbus IN but when he was a rookie he was called the Rushville Rocket), he 3 years ago bought Eldora Speedway up near North Star, OH (about 45 minutes north of me), he has an anger management problem which can make for some rather interesting incidents and he is one hell of a driver.

I got to "meet" Tony last summer when he was racing at Eldora. After the races you can go to the pits and wait in line to get something autographed. Most people chose to get their hat or T-shirt signed. Me, I opted to have him sign a thing of Old Spice deodorant that they were giving out to everyone who came to the track that night (Old Spice was the main event sponsor). Next time I will get a T-shirt as Sharpies and the plastic on the deodorant container do not mix well and even after 6 months the ink has not set and will easily rub off.

So this afternoon I will be allowing my inner redneck to revel in the Super Bowl of NASCAR. I can't wait.

Search Keywords Today

3 people found this blog using " sexual attachments for cordless drills" I am not sure if they have a sexual attachment for cordless drills or they want such attachments (ain't the english language fun?). I do find it strange that this blog shows up on the first page of this search. Does this mean this blog will get flagged by the gummint as a pornographic blog and shut down?

1 person get here by typing into google " jeff gordon rv bus driver" Again I am not sure if they think Jeff drives an RV (I am sure he has at some point in his life) or if they wanted information on ther person who drives Mr. Gordon's RV to the Nextel Cup NASCAR races. Perhaps this is an omen and Jeff Gordon will end up being a RV driver after his racing career is over

1 person Googled " buy raw butter in indiana" This I know something about. Go to the Weston Price website (link in the side bar to the right). They have a huge database of all the farms in the US that sell raw milk products.

Those are the keywords/terms today

Sprint Telecom rant

I have been having phone line problems the past week so getting online has been a tricky proposition at best. This would not bother me much if this were not the 3rd time this has happened since we got phone service here in mid September. Sprint has really sucked with our phone service and now they want me to get DSL through them. Right...

if Sprint cannot keep my regular lines free of static and ticking lord knows what DSL would be like-expensive and unreliable is what I think.

And now Sprint will be taking over NASCAR Nextel Cup (Should be Winston Cup) since they bought out Nextel Communications. I can only hope they do a better job with stock car racing than they do with my phone line.

Ah the phone has kicked me off line. If I am lucky I will be reconnected-Yes!!! I am connected! But for how long?

Okay back to the rant-So I call the Sprint number in the phone book and find the number in the book is for long distance accounts only so I must sit through the various menus and finally the hook me up with a human being who gives me the correct number. I call and get put on hold for 12 minutes (so I watched Blind date while waiting). Finally get someone and they assure me the problem will be fixed by 7pm Monday.

Monday?!?

This is Friday morning why the 72 hour wait?

Saturday it was impossible to connect with the internet because of the phone noise so I got housework done along with some porch painting (perhaps this is really a positive thing-the bad phone lines). While doing some baking I get a call from Sprint telling me a person will be out to fix the phone lines sometime on Monday.

Now, I do not have a cellphone nor am I likely to get one. To me they seem expensive and the quality sucks. I hate talking to people when they call me on cell phones-can't understand much of what they say. My brother was visiting and he called his girlfriend on his cell several times a day and it seemed to me he spend at least 50% of the call saying "What?" "Can you repeat that?". yes cell phones are cool technology-hell they are Star trek Communicators come to life. But get away from the surface coolness and the suck.

Just like Sprint.

And I am beginning to suspect the poor quality that is cell phone communications is now becoming the norm with land line communications, at least my Sprint landline.

Hey! I was able to complete this Blog entry!