- goat stand

Recently I completed a project, one which I should have done many months ago.  A goat stand is used for securing them so you can milk them or (in my case) work on their hooves, ear tags, etc…

I initially thought about buying one, but did not like the styles of the metal stands and after looking at the wooden ones, decided that I could build one.  I started by searching for goat stand images on the internet and simply used them for references.  I was able to look at many different designs and determine which features I wanted.

I opted to build the frame out of 2x4s, but used 1x8s for the floor and the neck locking boards.  My first set of neck locking boards proved to be inadequate for two reasons: I made the hole to big and the smaller goats were able to simply slip their heads through and escape.  I also made the sides too thin and our buck (Jimmy) was able to break them.  I re-fabricated the locking boards and they seem to be much more secure/sturdy now.

Aside from my children playing with it, today was the first time that I really put the stand to use.  I banded (form of castration) our new buckling while he was on the stand and it went fairly well.  Every goat (except Jimmy) had their turn on the stand for a quick exam and some hoof trimming; the turkey and chickens even seemed to enjoy “playing” on the new goat stand.

I am still not real happy with the locking mechanism I have (for locking the two neck boards together), but overall I am pleased with the way it turned out.

- Merry Christmas

I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

I also want to remind you of my Brothers who are away from their families right now.  They may not have seen them for months and they may still have months to go before they are reunited.  They are in the midst of battles that are very "unpopular", but they fight on none the less.  They do not necessarily fight for their country; they certainly don't fight for their Commander in Chief.  They fight because they are willing to risk their lives to defeat evil men and protect one another.

It seems that everybody "supports the troops" even though most are not willing to act on it.  If you do not support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, I would simply ask that you think of the men fighting for your right to disagree and at least acknowledge that they are the most selfless people in our society.  If you do support the wars, please do not be afraid to express it.  Either way, please support the men fighting and those who are willing to risk their lives for you.  Please show it every time you meet somebody serving or a Veteran who has previously served.

I have included a short video of Oliver North (LtCol, USMC, Ret) speaking at an NRA dinner.  Please take a moment to listen to what he has to say about those serving.  His words about our military should transcend your political or ideological beliefs.  I have also included a BLOG post written by Ben Stein about a recent trip to visit some Marines at a former home of mine, Camp Pendleton, California.

A Pre-Christmas Visit to Camp Pendleton

By Ben Stein on 12.14.09 @ 6:09AM

Thursday
 

Thursday, a dreary, cold day in Southern California . My pal Lisa Agustsson and I drove down the 405 Freeway to the 5, immense ten lane highways most of the way, to camp Pendleton, the major Marine Corps base on the West Coast. I had been invited to appear and meet and greet marines attached to a rocket artillery battalion about to deploy to Afghanistan.

We went through the guard gate, were met by a man in a huge truck, and escorted many miles inside the base to a large hangar like structure gaily hung with balloons and a cheery Santa Claus and many young men with mostly short hair, including some who were having a rock climbing competition as we pulled up.

The men were muscular and fit looking with no exceptions–lean, intense, alert. Most were in civilian clothes, even T shirts with rock group characters on them. There were pretty young wives, many with small children, many pregnant. I was greeted by several women from the huge Saddleback Church . They were the organizers of the event and they had invited my appearance. They could not have been more enthusiastic.

Glad hander that I am, I started immediately greeting as many men and women as wanted to greet me, which was pretty much all of them. I posed for pictures with them, asked them where they were from, told them of various connections I have or my wife has with their part of the world.

They were from small towns in Missouri, small towns in Wisconsin, small towns in Colorado, small towns in New Mexico, in Mississippi . There were also many from East L.A., happy to get away from the gangs, many from parts of New York City, even one young officer from Spring Valley, an extremely upscale part of Washington, DC. (“The Marine Corps attracts all kinds of people,” he said happily.)

They had the kinds of faces you used to see in Jimmy Stewart movies, all American faces, white, brown, black, Asian, but all smiling, all eager to do something for their country. They did not have the kind of conniving, weasel like faces I usually see around me in Beverly Hills . They looked like straight shooters, in a word. I guess they are, since every Marine is a rifleman.

I asked each of them if he would be deploying for Afghanistan soon. With only one or two exceptions, they all said they would, and usually said it as in, “I hope so, sir.” They said it like they meant it.

Several of them explained to me the rockets they would be firing. These were little devils that could go about fifty miles and hit a target within ten feet with a large explosive charge. They use satellites and drones and computers and I am glad it’s our side that has them and not the Taliban.

After about an hour, I went inside the hangar or whatever it was. Hundreds more Marines and their wives or girlfriends greeted me and told me how eager they were to be deployed–although the wives looked a bit less eager than the husbands. ( Later that night Lisa told me that a wife told her she could not sleep at night worrying about her husband.)

I gave a short little speech about how they were where the rubber meets the road in saving freedom and dignity. It may be agony for Mr Obama to decide what to do in Afghanistan, but it is these men and their families whose lives are on the line. I told them that we back at home sitting in chairs with our fat asses could not survive without them and that we thanked them, asked God’s blessing for them, prayed for them.

I talked to still more people, ate some turkey that a local church had prepared for this large group, and then, thoroughly chilled, went off into the night back to Los Angeles.

We had a driver so I slept most of the way back. But when I awakened near Long Beach, I saw immense waves of cars and their lights rushing towards me like a scene in a movie of a space ship rocketing towards a cluster of stars. There were thousands of cars, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands. And in the rest of the nation, hundreds of millions more.

A whole nation. Three hundred million plus souls. All rushing around making a living, taking their kids to soccer games, buying groceries, getting and spending.

And in this little corner of Camp Pendleton were the men and women who make it all possible, about to go fight in a horrible place called Afghanistan . Not one of the men or women I spoke to tonight ever mentioned the stock market or real estate or the dollar or commodities or a stimulus package. Not one of them complained to me about anything. It was probably the longest time I have ever been in a crowd where not one person mentioned money. Maybe it’s because they know that what they do is beyond price. Back to sleep and then I awakened as we got close to home.

I passed many Christmas decorations as we got off the 405 and headed east on Santa Monica Boulevard . The thought came to my old head that I had just seen the best Christmas group I have ever seen: men and women who so love their fellow man that they are cheerfully and eagerly going off to risk their lives to save total strangers. These really are the peacemakers. These really are the blessed of the earth, the gifts from God. If we have any decency at all, these men and their families take our gratitude and our prayers with them with every step they take. Merry Christmas, Camp Pendleton, and all who serve to save.

- a gift of debt

On this Eve of Christmas, I thought I would take a moment to point out the gift of debt that our federal government has blessed us with (I hope you sense my sarcasm).   More importantly they have saddled my children, my unborn grandchildren, and great-grandchildren with debt that will probably never be paid back.

As if it were not bad enough, congress recently voted to increase our Debt Ceiling to $12.4 trillion.  Most of us are disgusted by hearing that, but we have no real concept of how much money it really is.  To give you a better idea what 12 trillion dollars is:

$12,400,000,000,000  that is what it looks like... It has way too many zeroes. 

We are paying more than ONE BILLION DOLLARS in interest every day.

A $1 bill is approximately 6.125 inches long....  So if you laid $12.4 trillion on the ground, end to end it would stretch more than 1 billion miles long (1,198,705,808) or more than 48 thousand times around the earth or to the sun and back more than 6 times.

I also read this morning that California is $21 billion in debt and that "there are no easy solutions left".  I have an easy solution; STOP SPENDING MONEY YOU DON'T HAVE!!!!!  I know it is a wild idea, but one that most families and business owners understand.  Maybe we need to elect businessmen and family men rather than actors and lawyers.  As a nation (regardless of political party) we continue to elect the most unintelligent people on earth and I simply don't understand why.  I wonder what it is going to take for us to wake up and realize that we need to do something very different.  We need to elect "average guys" to run things.  As long as we continue to elect the same fools, we will continue to run down the path of ruin.

- conservative, but socialist?

How can the above title be true?  How can a conservative be a socialist?  I am not sure, I don't think you can be both so what do you call a self proclaimed conservative politician who takes hundreds of thousands of dollars in farm subsidies from the federal government?

Hypocrite is the first thing that comes to my mind.  The second is that you cannot be a true conservative if you regularly take money from a social program, especially when you are making as much money as the average politician.  One cannot make a career of fighting against government programs, but take money from one.

Despite my agreeing with many of Michelle Bachmann's views, I cannot support any person in office who lives with such a dual personality.  Don't get me wrong, I am willing to send my tax money to help people who need it, but that is not the case for most large scale farmers and I doubt that Bachmann's family would be hurting without my tax money.  In fact, any government employee who makes $174,000 per year (yes, that is what all of your "public servants" in congress make) should  not get a dime from any other government program.  I say this as my small farm continues to suck money from my family's savings.  I will never accept handouts from the government, I never have.  If our farm gets to the point where we cannot make money or sustain it on our own, we will change how we are farming or do something different all-together.

This article really highlights the problem with all of our politicians: Liberal and Conservative, Republican and Democrat.  This article only points out the Republicans who are getting undeserved money, but I know that it is the norm in both parties.  Politicians have turned into a permanent ruling class who literally think they are better than all of us "common folk".  They believe they are entitled to all of their perks, pay, and benefits.  While the average people argue about differences in political beliefs, the politicians continue to all act the same and trample on us.  Our government has become what the founders fled and our "rulers" are not public servants; they exist for only one real purpose... to serve themselves.

-1,2,3,4, I love the Marine Corps

This video is so motivating, it makes me want to join all over again!!!  OOHRAHHH!!!!

- happy chickens?

I have to admit that I don't know exactly what a "happy" bird looks like, but I am fairly confident that our birds are happy with their environment.  While they may not be totally free range (more about that later) they have between 1000 and 6000 square feet of fresh pasture to roam every day.  Along side our goats and turkey, the chickens are free to eat as much grass and as many insects as they like.  I must say it is also somewhat entertaining to see they flock of birds come running when they know they are getting moved to new grass.

I know there is no scientific data (even if there was, I  probably wouldn't trust it) to prove that happy birds produce better eggs, but I am convinced that happy chickens are more healthy and make healthier eggs.  It is a win-win situation, they get to live more naturally and we get better food.

- managed intensive grazing

We have been utilizing a rotational grazing method for about 6 months, but only recently did I “wake up” and decide to use an intensive grazing approach.

In the past the goats/chickens/turkeys had access to a section of pasture along with their shelter and I would move the whole paddock every day.  This was a lot of work for my children and me, but I felt it was necessary to give them a large grass area and move their shelter daily.  Aside from the hassle of moving the shelter every day, I was frustrated by the fact that they never seemed to eat the grass down very well.  I was constantly faced with the dilemma of cutting the remaining grass (to stimulate growth) or to let it go.

About a month ago, it dawned on me that I needed to force the animals to eat more intensively.  I achieved this by creating a much larger paddock and only moving the shelter every 3 days.  I then use fencing to create a much smaller section within the larger paddock.  Rather than moving the entire shelter/paddock set-up each day, I simply move the fence barrier in the larger paddock every 18 hours or so.

The smaller sections force the animals to eat all the greenery, not just the plants they like.  Liken it to forcing your children to eating their broccoli with their dinner, not just their meat and potatoes.  Not only is this newer system making better use of our land, but the animals all seem to be healthier too.  I also find it interesting how the birds seem to be more "in-sync" with the goats.  When I walk out to the paddock, they all start to go crazy; they know they are getting fresh pasture.  When I move the fence, the birds come running along with the goats.

I took this picture just after moving the interior fence and giving them new grass.  If you look at the photo, you can see the line in the grass to the right of the animals where the fence had been and they had eaten most of the greenery.  You can also see the section to the left where they will be eating in the morning.

I guess if I were to be an intensive grazing purist, I would be moving their shelter every time I gave them new pasture, so that they were never on the same grass for more than a day.  This seems to be a good balance for us right now, they eat fresh grass every 18 hours, but we don’t have to hook up the shelter to the tractor and drag it around every day.