Spring Has Come to the Chicken Yard..kinda!

Spring has come to the chicken yard..kinda! I have nursed my remaining eleven pullets and two roosters through a harsh North Missouri winter, fought mightily against their propensity for suicide by accident as fledglings, grieved repentantly over the one I dropped the gate on, struggled through snow drifts to ensure plenteous food and a perpetual water supply..and my reward has been what I call extremely minimal.

Only one small hen, of the ancient Dominecker breed if anyone is interested, has shown enough gratitude to produce anything. Of her I will say that she is conscientiously committed and surprisingly productive. But she can’t carry the load alone. I have explained this in terms I thought ANYONE could understand to the flock on several occasions with no result. I have given explicit instructions, provided all necessary supplies..yet the underperformance is…well it’s disappointing.

I’m beginning to think it is the fault of Marlboro, the White Wyandotte Rooster that somehow wormed his way into the order I received for fifty day-old pullets(females) last October.

Marlboro is an extremely aggressive but lovely specimen of chicken manhood and already shows every indication of excessive testosterone. He totally consumes all the spare time the little hens have by running them around the pen and doing what roosters do when they have the slightest opportunity. He is equipped with a fierce, yellow eye, a strong projectile of a beak and large and very sharp spurs. His hostility is magnified by a large, red comb that stands upright and waggles threateningly when he is irritated. He is a man to be reckoned with.

Winston, another chick of the male persuasion, also missed the cut when they were shipped. Winston has a fierce visage, and sharp spurs too. He is as big as Marlboro and as strong. But Winston lacks commitment! At some point Marlboro got his bluff in and Winston now makes no advances toward the hen flock. His comb droops in a rather depressing manner and his gaze tends to wander to the feed pan and to the chicken picture on the feed sack.. This is rather sad because it leaves him with no romantic outlet other than the feed sack chicken.

Winston has taken to dancing with the feed sack in the way of roosters and if ever there was an exercise in futility this has to be it. But, if he gets anything out of it who am I to interfere. Marlboro doesn’t seem to care about the feed sack pin-up chicken girl so Winston has her all to himself and spends considerable time doing the little chicken dance of roosters. ..hop..hop..scratchy scratchy..hop hop hop..one wing down and trailing like a feathered toreador cape..more hop hop..stretch the neck..fluff out the neck feathers..well I’m sure you know what I mean. It all seems more than a little pointless to me but then I’m not a chicken.

Anyway, people who know “all about chickens” tell me that the hens will begin to lay soon and all will lay at once. Won’t that be nice?

I Can't Believe We're Still Talking About This!

Death Panels Some More?? Too many waivers in the Health Bill?

It might be worthwhile to check out who demanded the waivers for which lobby group. It might surprise you. Legislation is not easy and never "pure". As for death panels..oh crap!! We've been living with death panels for ever.

Twenty-five years ago when my mother-in-law was nearing the end of her medicare benefits after living in a coma-like existence for several months benefiting no one but the hospital, (the knee replacement surgery on a comatose patient seemed a little over the top to me,) we received a letter that when her benefits ran out we would be responsible for her care fees. I was wisely told by an older person familiar with health care procedure, and whom I trusted, "not to worry" that she would not outlast her medicare by a week. She passed away five days after the expiration date. Coincidence? I don't think so. I believe she was allowed to pass..

I don't ask to live for ever. I ask not to be put in an unheated hallway or room to hasten pneumonia. I ask not to have food withheld if my stomach spasms or water withheld if my mouth is parched. I ask to be able to remain dry and in a minimum of pain. If you think these things have not and do not happen your dream world is one to be envied.

I simply ask to have the options explained to me by someone who does not have a dog in the fight over the length and quality of my life..and to have that choice.

Incidentally, medicare guidelines have included almost the exact same wording for years as it pertains to Dr reimbursement for taking the time to sit with a patient and explain their end of life options. Now it's called death panels? Good Lord!

My Friend Bo

My Friend Bo

Morphias Orbison Bogarden was a friend of mine but like most people around here, I just called him Bo. I think even his mother, Pauletta Deen Ray Bogarden, had a hard time spitting out the Morpias Orbison in a pinch. And Bo was always getting into pinches.

They say he was named after his Great Great Grandfather Morphias Esther Bogarden, who was a kind of cultural icon of the family, him having fought in the War of the Rebellion and all. Most of us called that mix up The Civil War but the Bogardens referred to it as The War of the Rebellion. I think it had something to do with them being Vermonters.

The Orbison was stuck on him from that more current cultural icon, the singer Roy Orbison. Pauletta Deen Ray was a real strong fan of his and even if he was dead she played a lot of old tapes of him singing and would sigh and dab at her eyes every now and then when Bo’s Dad, Joe was looking just to make him mad.

Like I say, Bo was a friend of mine and no matter what he did I always took up for him and stood by him for the most part. And he generally stood by me whenever fate hit me hard in the unnatural vicissitudes of life.

That’s why it bothered me so when the whole neighborhood got all up in arms over such a tiddly little old thing as happened to Bo last winter. They were all hollering about Bo “was a threat to the neighborhood” and a calling him a “dangerous lunatic” and ..well I don’t know what all.

Bo’s hauling his lawn mower into the bedroom in the middle of December to work it over and lighting one little old cigarette and setting the house on fire wouldn’t have mattered so much if Bo hadn’t moved into that new apartment complex with his girlfriend for the winter. Now Bo and his girlfriend, May, would be out on the street if it wasn’t for Joe and Pauletta Deen Ray taking them in. The people were all screaming at him and shaking their fists at him right there on TV.

People just have no patience anymore. Just the least little thing riles them up. I think it’s just politics myself.

Sports and Politics

Polling conducted by Scarborough USA, a joint project of Nielsen and Arbitron, showed that Republicans hold the edge among die-hard sports fans with only minor exceptions. NASCAR fans, like fans of the PGA and NFL, were broadly skewed to vote Republican and WWE fans tended to vote with the Democrats. I guess one mindless endeavor for each party is only fair.

Thankfully however, according to the same poll, fans of both of these culturally inspiring sports are less likely to vote than fans of the more cerebral and complicated competitions like college football and PGA tournaments. I guess there is some solace in that.

Another Day Another Dollar

It's 4:00a.m. I am wakened by Brian going in and out of the house. There is two inches of snow and cold. The furnace runs and runs. I must get up to make sure he closed the door. He didn't.

On his return from his smoke shed..(he doesn't stay long because of the cold)..he confronts me and says .."There's a dead mouse upstairs." Like it's personally my fault.

I say, "Yes, I can tell. And wander back to my bed."

The downstairs door slams again. I get up..go down to make sure the door is shut. It is not. I say.."Brian, Quit this damn running in and out. I have to work today." He says, "There is a dead mouse upstairs." at which time I loose my temper and tell him to "get his %$# up there and find it and do something about it."

He gets a huge wad of paper towel. (He is very fastidious about THAT sort of thing.) It doesn't take long for him to find the dead creature. I think it had tripped and broke its neck over one of the piles of rubble in his room. He nearly runs down the stairs and out the back to dispose of it.

He wants to know how long will it smell bad in his room. I have lost patience and I want to go back to bed.

"Probably forever," I say, "but light a candle anyway. If nothing else it will appease the spirits."

He looks at me like I'm nuts and I am always nuts at 4:oo a.m. so I wander back to my bed.

The Phantasy Called the Middle Class

The distribution of income in the United States forty years ago was not significantly different from that of other developed countries. The power and stability of our middle class was the envy of business communities and governments worldwide.

The opportunity for an individual, through their own effort, to enter the middle-class was better than any other country in the world.

The facts today are far bleaker. To find societies as unequal as the United States currently, you must forget about all the developed nations’ economies and look to Latin America.

In addition, today a hard worker motivated to acquire middle class economic security for his family, has a better chance in almost all other developed countries including Canada and Great Britain.

In 1967 as a single mom with three kids I had a factory job that paid $5.75 an hour (I cleared about $875 a month) with monthly bonuses and full health care. My house payment was $211 a month for a reasonably nice three bedroom ranch on a three acre lot. My utility bills ran less than $100 a month and $100 a month fed my kids, who were all big eaters. House maintenance, car payments, car maintenance and insurance, medicine, school supplies and clothing pretty much ate up the rest.

Our vacations were spent camping at one of the many Federal parks les than a day’s drive away. The fee was $2.00 a night with all the swimming, boating, hiking etc. free ..bathrooms, showers and water supplied free.

My budget was tight..and it was close..

But I didn’t know how lucky I was!

In 2007 factory jobs were gone..replaced by jobs offered by Walmart, McDonald’s, QuickTrip, truck stops, etc. and the local nursing home. Office workers’ and service workers’salaries had quickly dropped in direct correlation with the destruction of the unions in the 1980’s. Although not heavily unionized themselves, they had benefited from the wage floor gained by the unions for their own workers. Office workers and service workers now joined the ranks of the minimum wage worker.

A worker, with or without a family, was looking at the same $5.75 an hour, (minimum wage had stagnated through the Bush W era), health insurance costs of $500-$700 a month, minimal housing at $500 amonth, $500 a month to keep a car to get to work, $2-$3 a gallon gas, $200 a month utility bills.. Even a two-wage earner household bringing home $1800 a month..or the lucky individual who had escaped the minimum wage trap and earned $10-$12 an hour..(they would be clearing about $1400 a month) would still be having an impossible struggle.

And that vacation at the Lake? Forget that! Camping rental the last time I checked was $15 a night. Water, shower and toilet services had been suspended at many locations and fees instated for some services formerly provided. Fifteen dollars plus a night may still sound cheap if you are retired on a 1970’s retirement benefit or in the top earner bracket but when you’re living on $1400 a month with a family it’s not so cheap.

Something is terribly wrong here. When workers no longer have any hope of attaining the security of the middle class..when the wealth of our country no longer goes to those who work.. something is terribly wrong.

Christmas-The Hope and Light of the World

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. Luke2:7

2010 years ago this winter a teenage mother, watched over by her middle-aged husband and warmed by the breath of the cattle of the fields, gave the world Christianity.

To a world where slavery, poverty, suffering and ignorance were the norm, a small, a very small, glimpse of light..a glimmer of hope, pulsated in the heart of humanity.

Rumors concerning this particular child had been circulating long before the humble birth. Men long distances away from that miserable little barn, who had spent their lives studying the prophesies of the world’s great religions of the day and the configurations of the heavenly bodies they believed to be set in motion by “the creator of all”, were convinced that something momentous had happened and set out to observe and record the event. Heads of state surreptitiously made their way to the grass-filled manger and knelt by the tiny child.

It is said that a sword pierced the young mother’s heart upon his birth as the knowledge of his true life and purpose had been revealed to her.

Christianity, cursed by the viciousness, greed and intolerance within the human family and blessed by the undying belief in the possibility of goodness, changed the world.

The new religion, made only stronger by the persecutions of those whose interests were immeasurably threatened by its existence, spread west and north across Europe and east into Central Asia, constantly changing yet ever the same. Great battles were fought..many suffered and died..over seemingly small and insignificant theological points that we now accept without question.

Although not a military one, the first and most significant battle within the church, well chronicled in the New Testament, is Paul’s assertion that salvation was for ALL people. The failure of Paul to win his case would have strangled the new religion and delegated it to just another sect, among many sects, within the Jewish community.

Western Medieval Europe, ravaged by war and famine,settled into a few tenuously organized and fragilely constructed governmental bodies that found they had far less need for expensively maintained standing armies that had been in place for generations. Not to mention the depredations and pillaging committed by a bored and rapacious population of young men with very narrow skills. Thus was born the Crusades. They served two purposes. The troublesome armies were let loose in other neighborhoods and much wealth and loot was brought home.

And so, through the years, man’s interpretation of Christianity has swayed and morphed between sanctity and savagery. The world was flat. The world revolved around the sun. Fire at the stake purged unbelievers. Women were ordained by law to “suffer” child birth and die if necessary without interference from the ungodly measures of science. Disabilities were the result of sin. Poverty was an affliction placed there by a loving God and not to be tampered with. Were the poor not well beloved by the Lord and therefore more blessed than the pitiful wealthy?

War is waged. Populations are ravaged and destroyed. Bodies desecrated, children exploited. In the name of Peace and Love.

Slavery and its degradations was embraced and upheld by the church for centuries. Birth control is still anathema within some Christian communities. Even here, in this multi-blessed country that we live in, a large segment of the Christian population truly and genuinely believes that the rewards of the world should only rightly be held by those of the same race or gender or sexual orientation or religion as themselves.

Yet that small light brought forth in those meager circumstances 2010 years ago, often dim, flickering frighteningly, smudged by the excrement of evil alive and well, still glows. It ebbs and flows, waxes and wanes. Its devotees struggle and stumble. Yet it glows.

Who has not stood alone in some dark hour and cried out. “I believe. Oh Lord help Thou my unbelief.” ?

And the breath from that crying out causes that feeble glimmer to leap into light again and we are sustained for another hour..another day.

Because of that child.. The Christ

LR/12-2009