Wow, got to work, was in the middle of posting and Bamm, lost power in the building. Everything in our area, not just our building. I waited 45 min and then decided "screw it" undocked the laptop and headed home to work the rest of the day.

Will say, better coffee here and I can see the Redhead;). At work, she looked like a linked McAffee Filter warning, heh heh.

Glen, sounds like our G'mas were cut from the same cloth. Sharecroppers, full working farm. My mom grew up in a house without plumbing and electrical until my Grandpa put it in. My memories are of a different two story Farm House two miles down the road from the original homestead. In typical, Central Illinois creativity, they called it the Two Mile Corner.

The two by four incident was when I was about eleven. We raised chickens and calves for awhile where I grew up. Grandma and Grandpa were over one summer afternoon to barbecue and I was tasked with getting the eggs.

Now, we had around twenty to thirty hens and three of the most evil White Rock roosters to ever peck the earth. Usually I could fake the roosters out long enough to get into the chicken house, shut the door, gather the eggs quickly and beat feet. However, on this one particular day I had only seen two of the three roosters at the other end of the pasture and made a disastrous assumption.

I rushed into the Chicken House, locked the door behind me, turned ......... and saw Henry....... Meanest of the three. Maybe his temperament was due to the fact that my sisters named him Henrietta as a chick, forcing him to live a transgendered life until it was obvious he was a rooster and my Sis's finally gave in to a name change. Needless to say, of the three "Sister Named" roosters...It is only that bastard's name that I remember.:D

Screaming (as only a pre-pubescent eleven year old boy can) triggered a full attack mode in Henry. None of our roosters had been clipped and all three had gnarly spurs and these guys had been practicing on each other for years. Henry was intent on inflicting maximum damage on the cornered youth...As he was repeatedly attempting to spur me in the legs, I was repeatedly trying to punt him like Ray Guy on speed. In the confined spaces of that hen house (which had been simmering in the mid 90s all day) those wings of Henry's quickly stirred up feathers, dust, feed, old straw and all manner of dried fecal matter.

Now nearly blind and frantic, my only thoughts were of semi dignified escape. Ray Guy had nothing to worry about from the Rook and I wanted to live to fight another day.

Michael you tell a good yarn.

I have similar stories from the milking days of our uncles farm, he had friesians, bloody big black and white beatches, and a bull, and if the bull came in to the milking yard with the girls for milking, he was a real bastard to get out of the yard, and would protect his women. Very scary, they were big mothers. One always went out equiped with a piece of two by four to scare him, ha that usually didn't work at all, but it made you feel better that you could wack him between the eyes when he was charging you, although in the confined space he couldn't get to much speed up, he could scare the sheet out of you before you side stepped and had him out the gate.

It was definitely better to do the milking in the summer than the winter, at least in the summer you could see him coming!

My cousin that lives in Oologah OK raises chickens as a hobby. She has all the chickens named and they are pets. She has her husband dispatch the roosters when they are young.

The eggs are sooooo much better than store bought.

Gives new meaning to see food

Bulls! I have one semi scary/funny story about a bull and oddly enough,,,, crawdads.


My sisters loved naming the animals... We ended up having to lie to them when the calves were butchered. I lost track of how many we raised just to have them carted off to a "petting zoo". Though I was sorely tempted to drop that Nuke on my Sis's from time to time there was always the Deterrent's Belt.



Running out of air (I had also been holding my breath because who likes eating chicken SHI feces?), and groping blindly I offered up the most tender parts of my body to Henry so I could make my escape. Found the latch, opened the door and rushed out into the clean air......Freedom!.....and right into the other two White Rock Ninjas.

The ruckus in the hen house evidently sounded like the amorous adventures of Henry engaged in a chicken menage et' trois. The other two Nameless Devils wanted them some of that and had come to investigate! Within seconds Henry followed me out of the hen house still intent on buggering me up. Now it was a chicken menage et' trois but, no hens,,,,three on one (cowards). Fine by me because now I had room to maneuver, I could see and I could kick for the end zone. I was human after all and towered over these mere chickens.

At this point, the rest of the hens came running over and I swear they ringed us in like a scene from a bad prison yard movie. I think we all know who the ***** was...and Ray wasn't sweating it. I kept those three at bay as best I could but, they backed me up against the side wall of the hen house.. Fine by me, it had my back. The Spartan 300 had held off thousands..

We of course know how that played out. Now they were playing me...one would feint and another would attack. I was starting to get tired, couldn't see a way out so I fell back on the only thing that had worked so far.....


I started screaming for my dad (as only a pre-pubescent eleven year old boy can).

Great tales, Michael. Having grown up in the midwest, in a rural setting, too, I can relate. SmileWavy

Glen,I do miss my mech's lovely farm fresh eggs.

So many double yokers, and such a lovely orange yolk. They used to let the chickens free range all over the farm during the day and they had to be rounded up of an early evening and locked away so they didn't get eaten by marauding foxes and feral cats. And that was never easy during the summer months, they wanted to stay out and keep eating.

Oh yea, my cousin says she never has to worry about bugs. The chickens eat em all. The yokes are so bright they look fake next to a store bought egg.

Thanks Jim! SmileWavy Most of my writing is so technically dry by design...It's been a long time since I stretched some of these muscles. Feels good...

I know what you mean about the eggs... My folks haven't raised animals in years but, my MIL has Bantams up in Lake County. We always leave a visit with several flats.

There's also a local chicken farm that sells eggs by the flat as well. THat's where we primarily get ours. All of the chickens are free range. There is definitely a difference in the richness of the yolks.

However as anyone who has raised chickens knows...yes, they eat the bugs and the rotten fruit and the grubs................They also eat chicken SHI feces and each other.. Nasty ass creatures but, I do love me some fried eggs..;)

We have some free ranging hippie like folk who live a few miles away, Beth gets her eggs from there, she says they are great.
I am allergic to them so I take her word for it

Dang spring weather. It is 55 degrees colder than normal right now!

We are supposed to have a hard freeze tonight. The winds are only 22 mph.

I AM READY FOR SPRING.

Get ready you east coast folks. I am bet our weather will come visit you soon.

The only good news is it is supposed to get to 61 and be sunny tomorrow, and 79 by Sunday. Yea warm weather.

Afternoon/Evening Ladies and Gents.

Nights are starting to get cool.
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Took a little while to catch up here.

Sorry to here about your Gram Michael.

Having a busy week and have decided to make today the end of it. Not sure what I'll do with my long weekend.

Well that forecast doesn't look too bad.

I can live with that. It wasn't too flash yesterday or this morning, but it is back to lovely sunny afternoon here.

Went to Panera Bread lunch with the ladies today and they had the fire going!

Evening Jeff,

you going to a dawn service and gunfire brekkie for Anzac Day?

Yep, the ritual ;) continues - only day of the year I get to wear my gong from GW1. Climbing Anzac Hill in the morning for the dawn service at sparrow fart (5:30am).

The rissole is at the bottom of the the hill, so it'll be back down there for coffee royals and breaky after the service.



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Rick take 10 off the top and welcome to Washington...

Anything happening for Anzac Day over there Azzy?

Been to Washington and I didn't find the weather to my liking

No, surprisingly enough, even though we have plenty of RAAF, RAN down here in Pax River,there is no service, and realistically we have not been invited to the Embassy (which is about an hours drive) for anything either, so, us orphans down here are not doing anything. I will be at work on Thursday early, and we will probably have a coffee, and remember.