They're ugly and they know it!

Almost time to go back to work for me.
I didn't get as much done as I wanted to this weekend, I was kinda under the weather.
I did worm the goats, butcher the rabbits, and prep for the fall garden before putting out turnips and kale a bit ago.
I actually put out a good bit of both hoping that it'll take in a semi-wild setting to be used as extra goat forage once it turns cold. Still gotta get the cabbage and fall beans put out.
My six bunnies yielded about 14lbs of meat including 2 full carcasses, three parted ones, almost 2lbs to be used as sausage and the rest cut and boiled with the sweets for stock. Those bits and about half the stock were then deboned to use for dumplin's later. the rest is frozen for using to cook rice or whatever.
I made a very good quiche and think I finally figured out the secret to yorkshire pudding, by mistake.
Lastly, I tried really hard to get a decent pic of the new peeps. But I think I've told them how ugly they are so much they have a complex.

Every time I go by the coop I make sure I say hi and tell them how ugly they are, so when I took the camera out they all hit behind their two moms.

Out of five of the ugly little buggers, only one will grow up to be considered "normal" the rest are gonna be dustmops, like their daddy, poor bastards. Look at the fuzzy little feet this poor soul.

But I do have to admit I can't wait to see which   momma they wind up being colored like.

WAHOO!!!!!
It took an hour, but I did it!
First, let me say I got busy this summer and lost track of time, which explains why I haven't posted in months.
But then, because it had been so long, I forgot all of my login information, my gmail account etc.
So its been a nightmare trying to get back into this account.
But I did it!
But I also have to go get ready for work so I don't have time to actually post what I wanted to post.
GRRRR...
But I'm off Wednesday, and now that I know I can get back in, I should be able to post then!
J.D.

The new "Mother Earth" is here! The new "Mother Earth" is here!

That's right boys and girls, yesterday when I got home from work was that special time that rolls around every other month when I check the mail that's piled on the kitchen table, run through the house like The Jerk, and promptly lock myself in the "reading room" for long enough to scan each page and decide what I want to read first.

Granted, I don't usually get around to reading anything longer than a few paragraphs til the next day, but since it only happens every other month, and there's only about an hour's worth of material in each issue, I have to spread the enjoyment out over a few days.

Ive learned that if I gorge myself by reading cover to cover the first day, within a week or so I'm frantically flipping pages hoping I missed something, and by the end of the month I'm in a down-mouthed funk and kicking at the dog on my way to the mailbox.

So anyway, like I said before. I've always liked this magazine, though since the new owners took over it has gotten a little bullish with its political agenda. And it doesnt seem to have as many "backwoods-type" articles as it once did.
The home made crossbow and black powder squirrell hunting were among my favorites back in the day.

I still glean some handy information from each issue.

I also get several "D'oh! What the Hell is that?" moments.
Now, I realize that more and more people who live in urban and suburban areas are trying to be more self sufficient. And I truly do applaud that.
I also realize that when neighbors can wave to one another through the window as the rinse their supper dishes, or loan each other certain paper products without having to get off the throne, that aesthetics come into play more than they do here in North Reagan.

But I still have to ask who, from what planet, would figure paying $400-$800 for a 3 to 10-chicken coop, made of plastic, is at all in line with the ideals that founded "Mother Earth News" or homesteading in general?!

I'm not going to show you this thing, because if I link to it, one of you Rockafeller chicken adficiados may buy one and I couldn't have that on my conscience. And besides, if you want to pay $400 for a chicken coop, just let me know and I'll tell you where to send your check, for a one-of-a-kind, earth-friendly, delivered to your door in 4-6 weeks, coop that I guarantee with be nothing like anything your neighbor has!

I bet the folks who buy that thing are the same ones who told me "it's not any cheaper to raise chickens than it is to buy eggs..."
I guess it wouldn't be if you paid $75 sq.ft. For your coop!
I've got 10 chickens, 3 more hatched while I was gone, in a coop that cost me about $75 total.
And the chickens were free.
So for about a buck-seventy-five in scratch a week I average 14-20 eggs a week.
Nope. Not a bit cheaper than $2.25 a dozen from the store.

But back to my original rant...
I will say I rather admire the design and engineering that went into this thing, almost as much as I admire the company for actually convincing anyone trying to lead a more self-sufficient and frugal lifestyle to buy one. But come on! For that amount of money it should automatically feed, water, delouse, and collect the eggs of 10 chickens. And for another $50 it should move itself to a new spot in the yard every other day.

Y'all tell me, if you had $400-$500 hating around, would it even cross your mind to spend it on a coop for 10 chickens or less?
I know it wouldn't mine, even if I had it, which I don't.
And even if I did, and it did. I'm pretty sure the brain damaged dog would bite me over it, seein' as his ass sleeps in a an old Round Up barrel...

Well, its back to work tomorrow. And I'm still not adept at posting from my phone. So before I go here's a few more of the gang of nine on walk about.

Lillie on the left, Ginger on the right.

She's called Lillie cause she looks like a jersey cow. Which made me think of The Jersey Lillie.
Which seemed better than saying she was named after a cow...

That's momma goat in the back and Boy in the front.
He's not going to be here long, so we didn't name him.

Momma again. 

Add caption

Him and 7 girls. He'll thinking he's in goat heaven for a little bit... then he will be. 

Sugar is getting bigger! Cause she eats constantly!

Momma wants me to come on, its time to get the bucket of sweet feed for desert.

Queen. She's still not sure she likes me.

Brownie off by herself being camera shy.

Finally Pigpen and the girls
Hawk, Buffy and Stripe
Stripe went Broody a few weeks back. And I think Hawk either caught it or just got jealous because they have been taking turns on the eggs. And we have four little chicks hopping around the coop. One is gonna be a dust mop just like it's daddy! Pics soon.

I Do Not Hate Cats

Ok, some people may have gotten the idea that I don't like cats, from my post the other day.

The truth is, with a few exceptions, they are probably my favorite animals out of the bunch. 

There's just never enough meat on them to share.

Really though, I am probably the most pro-... feline (that's the word I was gonna use) person you will ever find. The bigger the better! I wish I had the money and facilities to run a big cat rescue (for BIG cats not lots of little ones).

I don't remember ever not having a cat at least nearby. They have all had very interesting and unique personalities. And I thought I'd tell you about a few of them.

First, there was Tom. He was my grandmother's mouser when I was a baby. Tom weighed about 15 pounds and to say he was ill tempered is like saying Charles Mansion has a few socialization issues.

Tom also had a hole in his throat where something had attacked him as a kitten (a opossum we think) the hole never healed and because of it he couldn't meow properly. Instead he made a funny chirping noise. We also had to keep newspaper down around his bowl because whenever he ate or drank, it would drip from the hole. I saw Tom leave everyone who ever tried to pet him bloody. Except me. For some reason he liked me. I could even pet him while he ate. He'd growl... or at least try to, but he'd put up with it. I guess because even back then I was adorable. Tom was one of those cats of legend, he never really died. He just wasn't there any more after a while. I think he's still stalking those woods somewhere.

Later on, we got a cat from a friend named Ezra. We called her Easy B, maybe that's a Southern thing. 

But she wasn't quite right. Maybe it was because the previous owner thought it was funny to blow shotguns in her ear (it was the 70's.) Now if you don't know what that is, please don't go looking it up! I get blamed for corrupting too many people as it is. But whatever the reason, Easy was a little "off," but still a good cat. She just laid around a lot. and one day, after her first batch of kittens were grown, she climbed up the big oak tree by the front porch and never came down. I think she much have come down at night for water. Mom always left a bowl at the base of the tree for her. But I never saw her on the ground for, I know, two years.

Now, those kittens she had... I made a mistake with them, but I learned a valuable lesson.

If you ever want a real, honest to God, rodent eradication machine I can tell you how to do it. I mean the kind of barn cat that will take down anything smaller than a mule, and can back a St. Bernard on a corner and make it wet itself and walk away grinning!

You see, it was a matter of timing. Those cats were just getting weened about deer season. So the first solid food they ate was scraps from processing a deer. And that was all they ate for the first month or so. And some say it ruined them. Personally I thought it perfected them! You couldn't touch them and they wouldn't eat "store bought food" but they stayed close by. Of course after a while I'd look up in the sky and see song birds fly in a wide arc to avoid even flying over our property. But I'm telling you those cats were better than Ninja Guard Dogs.

After that came Garfield I and Garfield II. 

Garfield I wasn't particularly remarkable. But I think he was gay. and he use to try to catch the little ship that ran across the top of the screen when we played Space Invaders.

Garfield II was a bit more remarkable.

He grew up with my wolf pup, Harley(more on him later, I'm sure). and they acted like typical brothers, which was entertaining enough. But then it got better. For a while we had a problem with dead Opossums in the yard. like every week. This confused me, because I knew harley couldn't climb trees and Garfield wasn't big enough to kill one and drag if the 200 yards or so from the edge of the woods to the yard.

Finally one night I was up watching TV and heard Harley tearing ass down the hill. So I got up to see what was going on.

I saw Harley circling a tree like a coon dog, and G2 jogging down the hill toward him.

When he got there G2 went straight up the tree and after a good bit of commotion and limb rattling I saw a opossum hit the ground running. Well, lumbering, maybe even limping... doesn't matter, he wasn't going to outrun a dog that weighed 85 pounds and was mostly leg. He was done for. In fact, he was done before G2 was even back on the ground. Then they high-fived one another and Harley brought the nasty critter back to the yard and they batted it around like a soccer ball for about 30 minutes before deciding to go find a new game.

But probably my all-time favorite cat wasn't even one of mine. 

LeShot was not only the baddest cat, but the baddest animal I have ever known. We called him Shots for short and he belonged to the Thayer family who lived next door to my grandparents. Shots was all boy cat. Hell he was the He-Man of cats. A proverbial feline Chuck Norris! By the time he was an adult his ears had been bitten and clawed down to about 3/8" from the top of his head, and at point he came home with an eye pulled out of socket and dangling on his cheek. I think that was the day he kicked the Honey Badger's ass.

Shots also killed one of these!

At the end of the road, one of the other neighbors had a Grand Torino, it looked just like the Starsky and Hutch Car and he drove it like he was auditioning to be a driver for the show. Shots didn't like that, cause there were kids around. So he would regularly head up the hill about 5 minutes before Mr. Kozart would come power-sliding the turn onto our road and wait in the middle of the road. And with 3,500 pounds of growling, angry, dust throwing red and white furry barreling down on him, he'd sit calmly licking one paw, claws out and gleaning in the afternoon sun, and his one eye glaring at the grill of that car... about the third time this happened, the Torino wound up in the ditch and Mr. Kozart bought a big old Ford Bronco that he drove a lot slower.

But by far the most amazing thing I ever saw Shots do, and thank God there was a witness, was one day when and friend and I were squirrel hunting. Now, I've had a few cats who would follow me hunting or walking through the woods, and Shots was one of them. But this day I shot a squirrel on the run and winged it. It jumped into a gully full of kudzu and vanished.

Now it was mid September and the kudzu was still going full-tilt-boogey. Dave and I looked at each other and decided that neither of us was wading off in that snake and spider infested weed pile to get that squirrel and started walking a bit further down the trail. Several yards later we stopped again looking for movement in the trees and I felt something hit my foot. I looked down to see Shots holding that squirrel, still barely alive, by the neck at my feet.

Man I miss that cat.

And while we're on the subject I came home the other night to four new kittens courtesy of Jo-Jo and Momma cat. Who wants one? 

Who wants one? They make great doggie snax, targets, fish bait.
Hell, they're even good in stews and casseroles.

This morning before work

Going to be another fun-filled week at work for me and Sam, but before that I thought I'd Show you a few pictures of "the gang of 9" on their morning chomp through the woods.

Being as I don't have nearly enough fence (donations are encouraged by not required) we try to walk them around the Municipal Building and Armory complex at least once a day. The aim is to let them roam at least an hour as long as they don't get unruly or in the road.

This morning they decided to head into Reagan's own version of "The Big Thicket" so we cut things short and ran them back to the pen.

Looks kinda like a reverse hydra don't it? one head and nine... well you know.

Then, as I was heading back into the house I spotted this outside the back door...

I have got to get that kid a play set or treehouse built.

And one last note: A special thanks to Ohiofarmgirl over at "Adventures in the Good Land"
for her help setting up this load of drivel, and for pointing out that Pigpen (remember Pigpen?) is most likely some kind of Frizzle.

Don't he make you want to just grab him by the legs
and use him to wipe down the TV and the ceiling fan?

Butcher Knife Totin' Annie, Unrepentant Gangster

One of the first things I learned, aside from that some rabbits do not, in fact, breed, well... like rabbits. or even at all. Is that you should really spend a little time with a goat before you bring it home.

Let me tell you about Butcher Knife Totin' Annie.
We got our first two goats from the father of a friend of mine. He had a bunch. Most of them were nearly wild, but I didn't realize that soon enough. We went and picked out two.
I was careful. I selected the two does I wanted based on build, probability of them making at least decent milkers, and coat (because I knew one day I'd get around to tanning the hides on these girls and I wanted them to look good.
We got a young doe we named Brownie. She was stand-offish but easy going and wanted to be friendly.

Brownie has adapted well to life following the incident.

And we got a mature doe... we wound up naming her Butcher Knife Totin' Annie (props and a PBR to anyone who can tell me where we got that name.)
Anyway, Annie either just didn't like the accommodations here, or, she was just a... well you know.
So Annie got her name because I'd been listening to the Hindu Love Gods that week. And because anytime she made eye contact you just got the feeling she was waiting for everyone in the house to go to sleep so she could be America's first caprine axe murderer.

"I think she'd kill me if she could" Randy Newman

Well, it wasn't long before Annie made a break for it. And she kidnapped poor Brownie and took her on the lamb with her.
Now, there's about 900 acres of woods across the road, and another 800 out back,  all sitting between two state highways. But I consider myself a decent tracker and I spent most of that day on Annie's trail until I finally lost her in a thicket.
I spent most of that weekend mad that almost $200 in goat futures was now wandering Coyote bait.
But, one morning early that next week, Sam (I'll explain him later) called me on his way to school and said "I think I found the goats!"
So I loaded up and sure enough, they were standing in the neighbor's yard about a quarter-mile away eating azaleas and yellow bells.
I quickly rallied the rapid response team. That would be Sam, who was already on the scene, Myself, E and Sam's mom Kimberly, and after about an hour long standoff the two fugitives were taken back into custody. I'd like to tell you that Ash was a tremendous help in this effort, but the truth is he was still too small to do much more than cower and wet himself any time he was around Annie.
Now that these two hardened criminals were back behind bars, er, yellow and black stringy electrified stuff and a bit of net wire. All should have been good and the residents of North Reagan were safe to return to their beds at night right?
Wrong.
Like any career criminal, the gate had no sooner closed on Annie than she was already hatching her next capper. And sure enough, a few days later she caught a guard napping, took his gun, pistol whipped him with it and bolted.
This time Brownie wasn't so sure a life on the run was for her though and kept lagging behind. First she forgot her purse, then she decided to wear pumps instead of heels, finally she had to stop off for a snack at the clover patch... All the while Annie was frantically yelling for her to "come the hell on!"
In the mean time, the unconscious body of the guard was discovered at shift change and the warning siren was fired up. And the rapid response team was redeployed to the scene.
At this point, even though I'm sure you can guess the ending if you've ever seen even one decent gangster movie, I guess I should explain how Johnny Law operates in North Reagan.
We are a peaceful people, usually opting for a live and let live attitude. But when it comes to hardened, psychotic, knife-toting livestock... the current philosophy is simple. You get one shot at reform and if it doesn't take, then you will be taken down "with extreme prejudice" and "by any means necessary."
So as Annie was standing at the front gate, trying to pull a distracted Brownie out with her, the order came down and the team sniper went into action.
Within seconds a single shot had echoed across the hollar and Annie's rampant, probably drug induced, crime spree had ended.
It was never admitted publicly, but there have been rumors that Brownie might have been deliberately dawdling, doing her own impersonation of Dillinger's "Lady in Red." We do know that aside from a week or so of solitary, her sentence seemed awful light.
When asked about the event the warden would only say "What we had here, was a failure to communicate! Some goats, you just cant reach... I don't like this, any more than you men."

The moral of this tale is two-fold. First, get to know your stock before you go to sleep around it.
And:
"If you're Ever in Reagan,
Boy you better do right!
Better not gamble,
And you better not fight..."

So what am I talking about anyway?

I guess maybe I should explain what I mean by an accidental homestead, huh?
Well, to begin with, I never expected to be here, less than 3 miles from the house I grew up in.
When I was a kid I had the same dreams George Bailey (that's right, look him up) did. Basically to live the life of a Nat Geo photographer, the bush hat, the shoot me first vest, the old land rover, exotic locations, animals and women, the whole bit.

Growing up I wanted to be this guy.

Instead, I wound up with a degree that, these days, might have well been a major in full-contact mahjong. You see, about the time I proudly became the first college graduate in my family there was a big boom in this new thing called the internet. It was cool at first. But, if I'd known what it was going to do to the field of print journalism, I'd have stayed in school and picked up a second major in something that might still be useful.

Anyway, a rapid decline in decent papers, a total and complete unwillingness to work for Gannett, and a desire to raise a child anywhere but in a metro setting led me and my then expecting wife E back to my home town. We started a newspaper of our own. Just your average small-town newspaper. Our goal was to actually let people know what was going on.

Turns out we might should have stuck to obituaries and baseball. Because after six years I finally learned that when it comes to their own back yard, people don't want the truth. Instead, they want you to tell them the planter that they made out of old truck tires and that avocado-colored toilet they found by the road should be on the cover of Southern-Living.

We may get to more on that later.

Instead, I wound up doing this.

So, anyway, without more gory details of spectacular misdeeds, we wound up on 23 acres in the woods literally just a good walk from my childhood memories.

I'd always had a rather passive interest in what I called the "Mother-Earth News Lifestyle," but not much more than that. And while I'm not much of a deer hunter (I despise sitting in the cold) I learned to butcher and eat them (and about anything else with fur) with great efficiency at an early age. And, as I began paying more attention to commercial meat practices (and prices), decided I liked having so much control over my own food.
But, like I said, I'm not much of a hunter.

So after a great deal of discussion we decided to add some rabbits, just four to start with. We bought two New Zelands and two Satins from different breeders with the intent of raising our own meat rabbits. I also figured it would make some good teachable moments for our now eight-year-old little girl Z. (We will revisit this soon)

The bunny Hutch, when it was new.

Well, from there we figured "why not a couple of goats?"
(More to come there too)

Brownie 

And after much wailing and gnashing of teeth on my part we even brought a few chickens on board. You see, I despise chickens. I think it comes from traumatic incidents as a child when it was a fairly common occurrence for us to wind up stuck behind a truck load of the nasty little buggers on their way to the sale barn in town. Let me tell you, nothing endears you to an animal like having bits of it splatter on the windshield as your riding to school.
I despise chickens. But I hate ticks more. And I love eggs! So I gave in.

What the Hell is this?!
No, really, this is our rooster, Pigpen, but I have No Clue what breed he is.
Help.

So, in a little over a year now the North Reagan Municipal Building and Armory has become home to (and probably the final resting place for) 10 rabbits, 9 goats, four chickens, three or four cats that I refuse to feed more than twice a week.

(L-R) Momma cat, Joe-Joe(he travels a lot but sometimes he's home on weekends),
 Not-the momma cat, and Cleo (she hates the dog so she lives on the roof.)

And one brain damaged ACD pup named Ash.

All ears and legs, but no brains. And yes, as a matter of fact,
he IS named after Bruce Campbell's character in the Evil Dead movies.
In the late 90's we had two other Heelers named Brisco and Bowler. What of it?

So now that you know the backstory and have met most of the cast, we can start story development, next time.

Why not?

What are you lookin' at, Fatboy?

Afternoon, I'm Not sure who will find this or how as I'm new to this whole thing, but I've been reading a few blogs on topics that interest me and figured I'd jump in. If nothing else, I could use the practice. 

First I guess I'll tell you a bit about me. I'm a curmudgeon. Look it up. 

I'm also a Libertarian. Hopefully you know that one, but if not, look it up.

 I was raised a fine Southern Baptist, but guess mostly now I'd call myself a Diest... You guessed it. 

Suddenly I'm realizing why I rarely bother to describe myself to other people. It takes too long. Let's try the easy stuff. 

So far in life I have been: 

A rounder 

A little bit of an anarchist 

A bachelor of arts 

A nonconformist 

A construction worker 

A reporter, editor, columnist, paginator, and a photographer 

A CEO 

A commoner 

A flunky 

A factory worker 

A cook 

A butcher 

A blacksmith 

An in-house advertising and promotions specialist 

A motorcycle rider 

A gun nut 

A political junkie 

A malcontent 

A pizza delivery guy 

A husband 

A father 

A Knight Templar 

A cub scout (they were not prepared for me) 

A defendant 

A patient 

A stinker 

A streaker 

 A runaway 

A fan of video games, punk rock, bluegrass, and tequila 

Classified as 4F 

And an accidental homesteader 

So let's pick a topic and get started! Mostly, I think my intent here will be to share the happenings, events and lessons learned from this accidental homestead on 23 acres in West Tennessee known as The North Reagan Municipal Complex and Armory. But my ADD could kick in at any point and I may go off on a tear in any direction. 

Strap yourself in, hang on and try not to scream so loud you distract me, or we might both get hurt.