Just a Little Advice for the Tea Party/Republican Party

Since I can't tell you all apart anymore, I have lumped you all in there together. Here's some advice that I think might be useful to you. But I realize that the worst thing in the world is unsolicited advice, especially that which comes from someone who for 45 years has tried to figure out what he is and has failed.

These are in no particular order.


* Schedule some training from some hi-tech firm, not the leaders of the firm with which you so well identify but from the front line tech-geek, preferably someone who uses the gear they have developed. This may be difficult at first, because they are most likely, at worst, tree-hugging, come-as-you-are Northwest liberals, with those little bushings in their ear lobes, or at best crunchy-conservatives who like the whole tree hugging thing but with out the piercings and ear-bushings. Ask them to bring you up to speed on modern technology. Now listen very closely, Mitch McConnell. Right now you are an embarassment to your state, your country, and the legislature. The Mr. Magoo thing ain't working now (see suggestion #2) Following this advice will save your career, if that's what it is you call it.  Recording devices no longer look like this.:

 or this:

They are now much smaller and more powerful than you can imagine. In fact, they are magical things that can record hours of audio and video. Ask Mr. Romney. Really, the tea party's inability to adapt and learn is quite shocking.


* Mr. McConnell, and others, the Mr. Magoo thing ain't working.

*Please, for the love of God. Just stop. Please, please, just stop. Okay, you were instrumental in pushing through the new raw milk law in Arkansas. Thank you. But if I had any suspicion at all that you did this because it was the right thing to do and not just pandering to your Tea Party constituency, if I really felt like this was more than just a political ploy to get a republican in the Governor's chair, I would be a little more sincere with the thank you-s. But, I guess, since you haven't learned your lesson from the tape recorder, you still haven't learned you lesson from the 80s and the Moral Majority. Falwell, Dobson, Terry, Colson and their ilk proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Religious Right/Moral Majority movement in the 80s failed to "take America for God" back then and it is failing now. There is already too much noise, too many stressors. Your talking head's Gospel of the American Revolution is a part of the problem. It is not a solution. Do America a favor and just be quiet.

1st Spring Chicken Poppers

There are several things throughout the seasons that I really look forward to. The first batch of Pasta Fresca, a creamy bow tie pasta with fresh tomato, basil, and garlic sauce, topped off with chunks of mozzarella. Pair this with cold white grape juice or a Vouvray, and it is the very picture of a midsummer meal. The first cold front blowing through, at or around, September 14th every year is another one of those seminal moments that remind you what the heat of summer is really for - to prepare you for fall. I think one would not appreciate the fall so much without a blazing August. The first snow fall or the first morning when a wood fire is absolutely necessary but you didn't realize it until you get up that morning- and the feeling once the fire really gets going as you sit in front of it thinking "yes. this is it."

In the spring, for me, it is the first shoots of asparagus, for sure, but even more than that, it is my first batch of Chicken Poppers. This is a delicacy little known to anyone. I think it is an old family recipe from my Grandma Hutchins, an austere, frugal woman, who never wasted anything, and who also always filled me with fear when we visited.

We had a hen get broody 3 weeks ago. She refused to leave her nesting box like the other chickens, so we set her aside in her own maternity-ward/range shelter, placed a dozen fertile eggs beneath her, kept her stocked with food and water, and 21 days later 8 baby chickens hatched.

Patt wanted to raise them up to eventually put in our freezer or to replace some of our older hens eventually but I convinced her to let me try something a little different. Chicken Poppers. I share the recipe with you now. I hope you enjoy!



This recipe is really simple and can be easily scaled to the amount of chicken one has. There is no prep work for the chicken at all as it is cooked whole.The best taste comes from fresh chicken off the farm, but you can source the bulk of the ingredients from a local Tractor Supply or local Co-Op/Feed Store.

In a large cast iron dutch oven bring 6 cups of oil to a boil.
 Dredge the chicken in egg yolk mixed with milk and flour to create a simple batter. You may salt and pepper it to taste if you like, or even add some cajun seasoning.

Much like lobster or crawfish, the best flavor is acheived by gently placing the chicks into the hot oil while they are still alive. Don't worry, at one or two days old, they do not feel anything.

Remove the one or two day old chicks from under the mother hen and drop them into the oil. Deep fry for about 3 minutes or until the chicken begins to float to the surface. Remove with a slotted metal spoon and place on a stack of paper towels to drain.

The outside (feathers and skin) of the baby chicks will become very crispy while the insides stay nice and moist and cooked through. When cooled, place the Chicken Poppers on their backs, on a decorative plate with feet sticking up. These provide "handles" eliminating the need for toothpicks, etc. Simply pick one up by the feet and pop it into your mouth like a lolly-pop, close your lips around the Popper and pull. The handles pull free and you are in Chicken Popper heaven.

We have always found that these Hors d'oeuvre are the topic of intense conversation at parties where we have served them. So people must really like them. I know we do. We need to have another one of those parties again, it has been such a long time. So I hope you enjoy the recipe...

(This article is rife with satire and should not be considered the truth at all. That's kind of what satire does. If you are of that unfortunate group that can not mentally process satire, I apologize and probably should have made this disclaimer at the beginning of the article.- the author)

God's Dream

It has occurred to me that perhaps the world did end on December 21, 2012 as prophesied by the Mayans.

It's not just that time is out of joint. It's not just that the overall stupidity in the world has magnified in its intensity and frequency. It's not just that there seems now to be a prevailing sense of apathy about anything.

People I have known seem to have given up. There seems to be no higher purpose driving them on. There seems to be an increase in the zombie-like muddling through one's day and the next guy be damned if I am late, or don't respond to an email, or do not return a phone call. And I don't care what sob story you have about how much you need my help, or who is going to die, or what you expect from me for the money you pay me for service.

The Zombie Apocalypse is here. Just look at anyone in the customer service, food service, or hospitality industries

When once there was a clear cut, in focus world, perhaps not filled with, but not impossible to find sense of honor, dignity, duty, resolve, selflessness. Since that fateful day in December 2012, I have found these things non-existent -- except for the rare few that one runs into in one's day, and they seem as befuddled as I am. "What has happened to these things?" they ask.

In a recent conversation I had with a coworker who was also lamenting the disappearance of selfless customer service, senses of urgency, a smile while selflessly serving another, we postulated that perhaps the world did end and those that muddled through life asleep or angry or selfish don't know it yet because, for them, the world had already met its end. The rest of us - those who walked about in wonder, those that felt the pain, those that strove to make something better, those of us who had a higher purpose for what we do and who we are and how we act, are the only ones that have really noticed. Because for us, the world had not already ended. And now, where before, we lived in expectation of the hope of a better world, we find ourselves alone, only rarely passing one another, shooting each other quizzical looks as if to say, "What has happened? Am I the only one?"

Our conversation went on to the metaphysical and we questioned whether the world up until the end of the Mayan calendar was just us living within God's dream and on December 21, 2012, He awoke and now we are just a distant memory, vivid but unclear. What if those of us who are still awake are simply those fragments of a dream - we've all had them -- that seem perfectly clear and retain a spot in our memory throughout the day, but this time it is not ours but God's; and those who did not notice anything amiss are simply fading away.

I think, and this sets up my next post, the makers of Craftsman lawnmowers, and others ( I feel compelled to  mention the Tea Party infested Arkansas Legislature), are a part of God's fading dream and those of us who are awake will have to, with renewed purpose, dedication, and unfaltering faith, keep the dream alive.

Appropriate Self Righteous Responses #2

Perry County Farmer's Market on any given Saturday.

Old woman approaches the table, looks over the ornately displayed fare.

"How much for the turnip greens?" she asks, "I can't eat lettuce because of my gall bladder."

Not knowing exactly what she means by this and not a little turned off by the discussion of her endocrine system, I keep silent.

"So I have to eat turnip or mustard greens. There turnips at the ends of those greens?" she continues

"No ma'am" I say. "The turnips feed our pigs, we just sell the greens".

"Well how much for a bunch?" as she picks up one from the container. "Why there ain't enough here to make a mess -a- greens!" she criticizes.

I make an attempt. "Ma'am, there's more greens in that bunch than you'll get at the store. You can always buy more than one bunch. In fact, there's more in this bunch than you'll get from anyone else here."

"Alright. How much?"

"Two dollars."

"Two dollars! Heck! I can grow my own turnips for that!"

Insert Appropriate Self Righteous Response Here.

"Then grow your own damn turnips!"

Another satisfied customer.

New Pigs - Squeal and Grunt

Fourty two and a half miles from Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock is our farm- The Shamrock and Thistle Farm. For these three years past, the little postage stamp of green we call home has been devoid of that favorite of farm animals - the pig. Twenty miles north of S and T Farm lies Morrilton Arkansas nestled between two ridges of highlands between the Arkansas River and Interstate 40 on State Highway 9. Eighteen miles north of Morrilton through relatively flat plateau, past Heifer Creek Ranch (Highland Cows), is Center Ridge Arkansas and State Highway 124. State 124, scenic and smoother than one would expect, rivals, and in some cases exceeds State Highway 9 for its sharp curves and 40 to 55 speed limit and back changes. Eight miles after taking a left on 124 in front of Nemo Vista School one encounters, to the right, a dirt road aptly, but obscurely, named with a small blue road sign at the apex of a ninety degree left hand curve, is Lost Corner Road. Aptly named because we had passed it and would have wound up lost if the directions we had been given were not so precise, "Exactly eight miles..." the farmer had said. Another 2 miles, we were told, you will see a mailbox with the farmer's name on it. "B____" and a "cedar box I built to hold my garbage in there besides the road." Two miles later, in Aaron's Jeep Grand Cherokee, we saw the mail box but no cedar box wherein the farmer "holds" his garbage. We pulled into the drive. The large split level house was abandoned. A small creek ran past it at the base of a ridge, picturesque, but no farmer, no pigs, and an eerie feeling like we had driven into the plot of a slasher movie. We pulled around the circle drive and decided to continue down this dirt road in the hopes of seeing another mailbox with "B_____" on it and the elusive cedar garbage box. About a 1/4 mile more and there it was. No mailbox, but a cedar one at the end of a dirt drive, pock marked by deep ruts and holes. In places where there was not a rut, or a hole, there were large rocks that had probably been in their places for millenia. Rain hitting the ridges that bordered this farm apparently had run down to this sunken road and washed away the top soil to reveal the boulders, that, we hoped, Aaron's Jeep was made to traverse.

I have given you this detail to not only show you where we went and how we got there (it is important to set up the end of the story in this manner) but to set up where I am going with this post.

During the hour and a half drive I mentioned to Patt that I hoped where we were going was a nice farm. We've had too many experiences in picking up animals we have bought, of driving on to a farm littered with scrap metal, garbage, disjointed buildings barely standing, over crowded with, perhaps not abused, but neglected animals that have become wild through a lack of the farmer's attention. We pulled into the drive and found beautiful scenery, a clean crisp farm with good fences, well constructed barns surrounded by paddocks with safe looking fences and gates - not the Martha Stewart kind of prissy barns and paddocks you see in the magazines but efficient and safe and clean. We are also greeted by a pack of dogs and a teenager who informed us, though we arrived at exactly 5:00 PM that his father who works an hour and a half away had not yet arrived but since his cell phone went directly to voice mail, he must be almost there. We checked our cell phone and saw that, we too, had no bars.

The teenager gave us a quick tour of the place and before too long his father pulled into the drive. We shook hands and introduced ourselves and without hesitation he put on his work jacket as the air had become cool and he walked us towards where we thought he kept his pigs. However, he instructed us to get into his old farm truck that never left his 130 acre "pasture", he driving, me in the middle and Patt riding shot gun in the single cab pickup, his teenager and our large dog crate in the back. We bounced and jiggled down yet another trail, over rocks and into gulleys, down a hill. As we came to the bottom another beautiful vista appeared to as, a valley nestled between the two ridges, a creek to the south and a large pond or small lake up top of the northern ridge. This lake, we learned, captured run off from the rain. We stopped briefly to pick up two 5 gallon buckets of feed for the hogs (to keep mama hog busy while we stole her children) and headed to the flat piece of earth on which the hogs were kept, surprisingly by a small pen of hog panels and an immaculate house which kept the piglets, and a decent sized pasture of nothing but a single strand of solar powered electric fence about knee high. Behind this electric pen were two very large boars and a couple of sows and a pack of mid sized hogs that would soon go the butchers.

The farmer, I'll call him TB, instructed his son to hop in the piglet pen and catch us two girls while Patt and I stood ready with our crate, still in the bed of the pickup, because the tail gate would not lower - the truck had over 400,000 miles. I won't tell you the make and model. If it were a Dodge I would have.

Teenager had some trouble with the lightning quick masses of muscle, so I, in my newly cleaned work coat hopped into the pen to help him. I picked out the one Patt wanted, corralled it up against one of the panels and reached for it, grabbing it by a hind leg with one hand and attempting to cradle it around its belly with the other. The little 20 pound piglet put all of her dense musculature into action and drug me to the left and right into their mud-hole. But I caught her! I leapt over the hog panel and walked her quickly, covered in pig mud to the crate and shoved her in. By this time TB had finished feeding the big hogs and had come back. He asked,

"How'd you get mud all over you?"

"The little pig went at tackled me!" I said. He laughed and hopped into the pen to catch another little girl. He wound up crouched inside their little house and with a cacophany of grunts and squeals emerged with another little black and white piglet. With of our new pigs in the crate we piled back into the pickup and bounced and jiggled back to the drive way where the Jeep was parked, lifted the crate up over the stuck tailgate and into the back of the Jeep. We closed the hatch, said our good byes and we headed home.

The inside of the Jeep smelled like hog, hog manure, hog mud, and sweat both from the two little piglets in the crate and from the big piglet driving - me! With windows cracked we headed home with the piglets screaming, squealing, and grunting the whole long way home...

And, here is Squeal and Grunt our new friends on the farm.

Appropriate Self Righteous Responses #1

We started our egg business back up. Going slowly. Collecting up to 3 dozen per day, nice clean beautiful eggs that we place in recycled cartons in our fridge in the barn. I take 6 dozen a week into work and have just now made my first sale - 3 dozen. I've been giving them away for the past two weeks - kind of like a crack dealer who gives away the first hit in hopes of getting the user hooked.

We are selling them for $3.50 per dozen and as happens frequently at the farmer's markets, one of my customers, in an over exaggerated stream of hyperbole protested, in front of several of our new potential customers.

"$3.50 per dozen. Are you crazy? I can get a dozen at the store for around a dollar!"

I will now share with you my response, which, self-righteous as it was, is completely appropriate when addressing his neanderthal-ic reaction, especially since he felt it necessary to use his personal repugnance of our pricing to discourage more willing potential buyers from purchasing our eggs.

Long version - actually spoken while onlookers, slightly taken aback reveled in the embarrassment of the ass who started it all. 

"If you want high protein, high calcium, high in Omega 3s, fresh clean eggs with rich dark yolks and calcium rich shells that are, hard to crack open, from happy chickens, chickens that are fed from my pocket, running free on pasture that we hand pull weeds and naturally fertilize; and eggs collected from healthy hens who are allowed to act and live as chickens were intended, by farmers who open the coop at 5:30 AM, clean it by the muscles in our backs and the sweat of our brows, keep them safe throughout the day from predators and thieves with fencing we've bought from our own pockets, and farmers that, rain or shine, sleet or snow, make one last trip down the hill to close the coop for the night, a coop we built with our own hands in the heat of summer, a coop made from recycled wood and windows you and people like you throw in the landfills or the ditches then $3.50 per dozen is a small price to pay. If however you prefer thin shelled, pale white, almost translucent eggs with pale yellow nutrition-less yolks, high in fat and Omega 6s, harvested from hens stacked 6 in a cage, who never or rarely see the sun or God's green earth, eggs pulled from them by machines and conveyors, scrubbed of everything good, stuffed by the hundreds of thousands into large diesel sucking refrigerated trucks and hauled thousands of miles to your grocers - then don't buy our eggs."

Short version - which in retrospect would have sufficed.

"Then don't buy our eggs."

Feeding Time

Flurry is only about a month old. So we will need to bottle feed her for the next month until she is of weaning age and is fully able to digest hay, grains, and fresh grass. For the first two or three days we had to convince her the bottle was good for her - and boy did she learn quickly!

Her friend Slipper, a couple of weeks older than she, not so much. She still has no interest in the bottle. But, unlike Flurry, Slipper is content to eat the alfalfa pellets, fresh grass, and hay we set out for her.

Now when Patt enters her stall in the morning and when Boyd enters at night when he gets home, Flurry hops up and expectantly waits for the bottle - which is an empty coke bottle with a lamb nipple stretched over the top.

Tonight, without hesitation, without taking a breath, Flurry slurped down the whole bottle without stopping, collapsing the bottle in Boyd's hands.

Another interesting development is that we saw Flurry chewing her cud this evening. This is a tell-tale sign that her four stomachs have the right balance and is starting to digest fresh grass, grain, and hay. The chewing of the cud is the way sheep, goats, cows, re-chew already chewed food. This assists them in digesting what they eat and means they are happy and healthy.

Since Flurry is most likely going to be the ewe that starts our herd, we hope to grow her big and strong by keeping her in milk for much longer than is necessary to get them to weaning age. This will help her grow more quickly and will make her friendlier towards us. Over the next few weeks we will spend much more time with her, just sitting in the stall, letting her get used to us. Eventually we will be able to lead her around the farm.

Once weaned from the bottle and fully on pasture, she will be either tied out to a different spot in the pasture or let loose in one of our three paddocks.

    

 Boyd and Flurry at the evening feed.

Not only will she be the mother of our meat for the next 10 years or so (God willing), she will also be our friend, and our lawn mower!