- the ant and the grasshopper

this was posted at the Rural Revolution, but I wanted to share it with you.

OLD VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself.
_____________________________________________________________________

NEW VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green.' ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.” Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake. President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper's plight. Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share. Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Actretroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and once peaceful, neighborhood.

The entire Nation collapses bringing the rest of the free world with it.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2010.

- life and death

In addition to our one indoor cat, we have two outdoor cats.  We got Hank and Hunter to be "farm cats", to kill mice, moles, etc...  The one thing we did not plan for was how the two mousers would affect our bird watching.

They do primarily catch mice and the like, but occasionally they will hunt at our bird feeders.  We do our best to chase them away, but inevitably they do grab a bird once in a while.  A couple days ago, I walked in to the garage and found an Oak Titmouse sitting on the floor.  The two cats were only a few feet away keeping a close watch on their captor.  The bird was not dead so I naturally scooped him up and chased the cats away.  Despite any obvious wounds, I could tell that the bird was severely injured.  He was alert, but sat calmly in my hands as I brought him into the house for the family to see.

I planned to shoot the bird and put it out of its misery, but after we all held it, I got a little attached and decided I couldn’t do it.  I placed him in the brooder with our new chickens, hoping he would recover.  It was not to be; I found him dead a few hours later.  It was sad, but I think we were all grateful to hold and pet a beautiful little species that we have admired, but never been able to touch.  Just another life and death experience at Liberty Pastures.

- green eggs

In an effort to grow our farm we continue to buy chickens; our hope is to start selling eggs in the spring.  We have always purchased breeds that are known to be prolific egg layers, but we recently decided to add a little variety instead.  We purchased five, 14 week old Americanas (Araucanas) from another local farm.  They don’t look much different from our one existing Black Star (Black Sex Link), but they should eventually look and lay very differently.

Their mature appearance is rather unusual for a chicken; their “cheek feathers” tend to sort of stick out and they have a longer beak causing them to look like a chicken with the head of a Hawk, or some other raptor that likes to eat chickens.  In addition to their hawk-like head, they will lay smaller eggs that are blue/green in color. As with all animals at Liberty Pastures, they are in constant jeopardy and two died the first day we had them.  We are not sure what happened, but my best guess would be that they accidentally got trampled by a goat.  The three remaining birds are now in a brooder in our garage; I am not sure when they will go back outside, but for now they are safe and warm.

- snow

It has snowed several times this fall/winter, but we finally had a snow storm in which it came down heavy and accumulated a little bit.  It was a lot fun for the children to get outside and play in the snow.  True to Indiana weather, it only stayed a few days, but it was nice while it lasted.  We look forward to the next opportunity to go sledding.

- a deere in the snow

I know she should be in a barn or a garage, but since that is not really an option for me, she gets to enjoy the snow.  It amazes me how it fires right up no matter the weather.  Good old fashioned American craftsmanship; true to their slogan "Nothing Runs Like a Deere".  And I think she looks pretty too.

- new additions

Last week I responded to an ad and purchased two more goats.  These ones are different than our others; primarily because I bought them with the express intent of slaughtering them as soon as they hit the 1 year old mark.  Despite knowing my plan, the children could not resist naming them; they came up with Bud and Temple, I refer to them as Dinner 1 and Dinner 2.

The white one is about 7 months old so he should be ready for me to butcher in the spring, the smaller one is only 4 months old so he has a way to go.  It is a little sad, but amusing to watch them try to fit into the existing order of goats.  As soon as they were placed in the paddock, the head butting began.  It is their way of determining where they will rank in the “pecking order”.  It was also very interesting to watch our turkey (yes, she is still alive) respond to the new-comers.  She puffed up like a Tom and actually chased the new goats around the paddock.  For days, she would run up to the new goats and “challenge” them with all sorts of interesting clucks and trills.  She seems to have accepted them finally, but even today she was challenging them again.

The little goats were treated cruelly, by the older goats, for the first couple days, but every day they accept them a little more.  As for Bud and Temple, I mean Dinner 1 & 2, I hope they enjoy their lives here at Liberty Pastures; at least until it is time for them to fulfill their purpose.  :-)

- a new visitor

I guess I need to start by saying Happy New Year.  It amazes it me that it is now 2010; seems like we just passed the big 2000.

Anyway, I wanted to share a couple photos I just took.  It is a beautifully clear morning with no wind and a brisk temp of 15 degrees.  I happened to look out of our back window toward our creeks and saw a Great Blue Heron sitting adjacent to (what we call) Phillips Creek.  The photos are not the best, but hopefully you get a good idea of what this magnificent bird looks like.  We have seen them flying low along the water of the larger creek that acts as one of our property boundaries, but this is the first time we have seen one "on" our property.  The first 3 pictures are from about 10 minutes ago, the bottom one is a stock photo in case you don’t know what they look like up close.

Great Blue Heron: The largest North American Heron, with a head-to-tail length of 36-55 in, a wingspan of 66-79 in, and a weight of 4.4-8 lbs, it is blue-gray overall, with black flight feathers, red-brown thighs, and a paired red-brown and black stripe up the flanks; the neck is rusty-gray, with black and white streaking down the front; the head is paler, with a nearly white face, and a pair of black plumes running from just above the eye to the back of the head. The feathers on the lower neck are long and plume-like; it also has plumes on the lower back at the start of the breeding season. The bill is dull yellowish, becoming orange briefly at the start of the breeding season, and the lower legs gray, also becoming orangey at the start of the breeding season. Immature birds are duller in color, with a dull blackish-gray crown, and the flank pattern only weakly defined; they have no plumes, and the bill is dull gray-yellow. (from Wikipedia)