On Nov 2, 2017 10:40 AM, "Dennis Williams" <dennishwilliams@gmail.com> wrote:
We hatched our first quail a couple weeks ago. It was the size of a large bumble bee and with one leg pointing up. Our bird wranglers asked if they should try to straighten it or should they destroy the bird to keep it from suffering? I said it's too hazardous and delicate an operation, and sometimes damaged birds (and other beings) do very well and even surpass others. It appears that was the right decision (I can't be wrong ALL the time!) It now barrels around the cage on its stump so fast the chicken chicks don't even know it's there. If it turns out to be female I'll call her "Peg" (short for Pegleg and if male "Hook" short for Captain). 2 quail eggs that were looking promising didn't deliver and fourteen eggs that promised nothing delivered nothing. We took the eggs to Jim' Waid's studio during a blackout fearing they might cool down too much. The wranglers left the eggs and went home. Jim and I just got talking when they called & said bring em back immediately, the lights came back on. The babies as usual took priority.
I expanded the area of the alley we're running goats in. We left notes at all the neighbors to call me if they were bothered. So far they're all delighted to have them there and have the weeds eaten. This is a good step toward asking that the alley maintenance be allotted to the Neighborhood Association. On which I am Chair Of The Committee On The Golf Course (by default, but, I have selective memory on that, depending on who I'm talking to.) One neighbor said he'd hire me to take the goats out to Three Points to eat weeds. I'll have to make sideboards and partitions for the trailer to do that. But that takes one more small item out of the red and into the black. I also have had plans for a goat cart for kids' parties. I've got to put ads out to rent a Billy Goat for the females.The golfers are in love with the goats. One lady saw a newborn wobbling around & she walked back up the hill toward her husband, golf club in one hand, very dramatically pounding her heart with the other hand. One morning I heard this loud "conversation" in the alley and went to look and it was a golfer, sitting in a golf cart, waving his hands and talking away to the goats. I could still hear him talking after i left, must've been at least fifteen minutes, and I didn't hear one of them say one word back. Another golfer comes by now & then to ask,"How are our goats doing?"But my aim is still to have more variety and exotica in our petting zoo. And more "pets" (like miniature (Kuna) pigs etc.) I like it when we have animals and birds that are pets and follow us around like dogs, so Code can't call them livestock and hang me on being over on my "livestock units". Isn't it cute the way they can quantify and make law on every damdumb thang?The goats are good recyclers. They eat native food plants that code enforcement calls "weeds" (Squawberry, Malva, Verde Lacas (purselane) also bark, straw, dead wood, the clothes off our backs if we'd let them. Awhile back I told one WWOOFER,"You don't need to ask me if the goats will eat anything."Two of my customer restaurants paid the processing fee for 2 goats at the U of A Meat Lab on the 29th of this month so they can get goat meat and give me half and some of the recipes they make of the meat.But they are a lot to take care of. There was a man walked back and forth across the USA with a herd of goats pulling a big wagon. He lived off the goats. Finally he got old and decided he needed to go into a home, and friends came by to visit, because by that time he'd made a lot of friends, and they would ask him,"Don't you miss your goats?"And he said,"O God, NO!"But recently my goats have been much less trouble. They got all gentled up and compliant ever since the flood nights when I had to go rescue them from flood runoff from the golf course they were standing in and too scared to walk to higher ground. I put out wood pallets and little huts made from fiberglass showers. They run into them immediately at the slightest hint of rain. In dry times they get on top of them and use them for jungle message drums. I don't know if I'm glad or sad I don't know their code. Even the two bitchy females have decided to come to me to be petted when I come in the gate. (One of those nights when I went to the ER with feelings of depression and abandonment, i was met by a zombie of a psychiatrist who needed more help than i did. (She asked, in this mournful dead voice if I wanted some drugs) & I was happy to be thrown back on my own devices, one of which, I suppose, is to be a comforter (& enjoy the comfort) of animals.I made duck soup but it wasn't "as easy as duck soup". It was a failure, not enough squash, carrots, potatoes, cilantro and some magic something everybody but me knows about, AND(?) (Surprise!) too many experimental things from the produce dressings from the Co-Op. I generally just wear and eat whatever comes out of the bag and it's either wonderful or awful.The baby juvenile duck/pet in the picture (notice the pleading look in its eyes) is huge now compared to its cellmate, the juvenile chicken so self consciously, stylishly, dressed in black. They got to be cellmates because they were at a vulnerable age to be put with the larger cannibal chicks. When they get separated the chick chirps loud and often until they're put together. Then the chick drops itsefl into the duck's pin feathers and goes to sleep. So far the duck has a very beautiful color I haven't seen in the other ducks so it's a cross between the white Pekin and Mallard or Muscovy. Another contribution to the National Absurdity And Assinity Archive (The NAAA) from Casa Goofy International.
We have a white grub infestation. It killed our first garden effort (with the help of gophers) this season. We're treating it with nematodes and diatoms and chicken wire and smoke. Little bittys versus The Great Whites of the garden. But it's only symptomatic and symbolic relief so far. If only we could get the chickens or something(!?) to dig them up without destroying the vegetables, if only there was a "Strange Attractor" or "Pied Piper" to lead them to the chicken yard,
"Here worms! Nice worms! Suet! Suet! Come on! Wiggle wiggle giggle giggle!"
But whistle, sing or holler they just won't foller. Maybe a Border Collie? They can do everything, herd anything else! How can we reach out to the neighborhood and the world and universe if we can't get a little worm to cooperate? We shouldn't have to feed them to the chickens one at a time. The chickens should get the connection. Or just get a job damit!
Our neighbor across the street doesn't speak much English. I don't speak much Spanish. So we have to communicate by grunts and gestures. Code enforcement got on him because some neighbor complained about the piles of scrap metal and junk in his yard. He told them,
"That's what I do for a living."
He cleaned up a little but nothing really changed. But for some reason they left him alone. When we were cleaning up and had a pile of stuff on the sidewalk waiting to be picked up, two City cars came around the corner and started taking pictures. When they left Manny ran over grabbed all our junk and put it in his yard. The cars came back and there was nothing there for them to report on. We never heard from them. I give Manny junk Motors and compressors from my Refrigeration jobs. He gives me DC motors from treadmills to use for my wind generator (project), cabinets for storage, and once in awhile big appliances like the Maytag Neptune washing machine we hauled out back of the outdoor kitchen and for the use of wwoofers and other volunteers. Manny saw the drain hose I rigged up to run the water from the washer into the garden across the path. He picked it up, delighted, and said,
"Oh! You! Recycling!"
This guy with no English and no money gets it where some university scientists are still failing. The washer only worked if you set it and pushed START and regulated the hot water manually and then pushed START again for the next cycle. I THOUGHT it was the water valves and the timer at fault, but, for some reason, I took the board out. it was about half the size of the motherboard in a PC and I took it to a truck driver who got into that business because he got tired of working in factory electronics. He found two circuits that were burned and repaired them. Victor, at Victor's Appliances, gave me the soap dish cover. I told him,
"I bet I have the most expensive outdoor washer this side of The Santa Cruz." He said,
"Yeah."
I put it all back together, dead certain sure, that the problem was the timer. But the machine worked perfectly. I was very pleased to be wrong. I now tell people
"It's not a washing machine, it's a relationship(s).".....
......between us three (and who knows how many other people? and Technology. Yes, Technology is enough of a person to be part of a relationship. I know it's a person because it's wilfully perverse. One computer repair company, I know of, has its employees wear buttons that say,
"Technology. It almost works!"
Likewise for all the above as regards our MISSION at Casa Goofy International,
"A global conversation using local examples."
