California - Northern

[ronott1]

Wow! I wish my smiley icons worked on this computer so I could use the green one lol. I can't even imagine and at 1am too!

 

[liz9910]

Quote:
Thanks Ron!

 

[Happy Chooks]

Rufas is still so sad...

He is using his special skunk xray vision. To avoid them now ..

Baking soda, peroxide and dishsoap. It's the only thing I've found that takes the smell out. And if it rains, you'll smell it on your dog for MONTHS. My dog took it right in the face. I got the smell out of her fur, but you can't do a thing about in the nose and eyes.

 

[debs_flock]

I used to work with a woman that surprised a skunk that came onto her enclosed porch through a kitty door. She got sprayed onto her bare legs. She smelled in the office for months, no matter how many times she showered and doused herself in cologne.

She said the spray was thick, green and gel-like.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Ewwwwwwww.

 

[liz9910]

Time to work from home lol.

 

[gryeyes]

I used to work with a woman that surprised a skunk that came onto her enclosed porch through a kitty door. She got sprayed onto her bare legs. She smelled in the office for months, no matter how many times she showered and doused herself in cologne. She said the spray was thick, green and gel-like.

Oh, ick. Ick, ick, ICK. That is the reason I bought the pricey electronic pet door for the house. When I lived in Monterey County, the pet door was just the flap thing; a baby fox kit moved in for four days, hiding under an end table in a corner when I was home sleeping. I worked the midnight shift..... Day two, I found a "mistake" in the house and thought one of the dogs or cats had an upset tummy. My pets were fascinated with the coffee table, even growling at it. On my days off, I finally pulled the table out to find the tiny thing hiding there. It still had its milk teeth! The SPCA responded, retrieved, and rehabilitated it. A raccoon also came halfway inside the pet door one night - my Pappillion Nicholas and terrier mix Gus took it on in the laundry room. (Neighbor was feeding the 'coons!). Gus was blond, I found his wounds. Nickie had a puncture wound in one black ear flap I didn't find until it was nasty. There was a nightly Possum Run along my fence every night. When I moved to Yolo County, I installed a sliding glass pet door panel with 3-way lock on it. However, during the daytime when the pets had free access, so did Louiie, my first Cayuga drake. As this property is really rural, I sprang for the electronic pet door. (Louie still tries, now and then, but he doesn't have the sonic collar.). Chickens and geese often walk up the exterior ramp and tap at the clear plexiglas panel.

 

[capayvalleychick]

given our various discussions of processing chickens, thought folks might be interested to read this -- my friend David Evans is opening a meat-processing plant in SF:
http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/...-is-bringing-butchery-back-4682939.php#src=fb

I can't read it because I'm not a subscriber. Is this going to be a public cut & wrap or just for Marin Sun Farms? Where's the location?

When I lived in Monterey County, the pet door was just the flap thing; a baby fox kit moved in for four days, hiding under an end table in a corner when I was home sleeping. ...
A raccoon also came halfway inside the pet door one night - my Pappillion Nicholas and terrier mix Gus took it on in the laundry room. (Neighbor was feeding the 'coons!). ...
There was a nightly Possum Run along my fence every night.

When I moved to Yolo County, I installed a sliding glass pet door panel with 3-way lock on it. However, during the daytime when the pets had free access, so did Louiie, my first Cayuga drake.

All critters love you and want to live with you!

 

[lawatt]

Oh, ick. Ick, ick, ICK.

That is the reason I bought the pricey electronic pet door for the house. When I lived in Monterey County, the pet door was just the flap thing; a baby fox kit moved in for four days, hiding under an end table in a corner when I was home sleeping. I worked the midnight shift..... Day two, I found a "mistake" in the house and thought one of the dogs or cats had an upset tummy. My pets were fascinated with the coffee table, even growling at it. On my days off, I finally pulled the table out to find the tiny thing hiding there. It still had its milk teeth! The SPCA responded, retrieved, and rehabilitated it.

A raccoon also came halfway inside the pet door one night - my Pappillion Nicholas and terrier mix Gus took it on in the laundry room. (Neighbor was feeding the 'coons!). Gus was blond, I found his wounds. Nickie had a puncture wound in one black ear flap I didn't find until it was nasty.

There was a nightly Possum Run along my fence every night.

When I moved to Yolo County, I installed a sliding glass pet door panel with 3-way lock on it. However, during the daytime when the pets had free access, so did Louiie, my first Cayuga drake.

As this property is really rural, I sprang for the electronic pet door. (Louie still tries, now and then, but he doesn't have the sonic collar.). Chickens and geese often walk up the exterior ramp and tap at the clear plexiglas panel.

hilarious (retrospectively, i'm sure at the time it was a hassle!) -- my house came with a cat door when i bought it two years ago, but it was a "short sale," and has sat vacant for 9 months while i waited to find out whether the deal would go through -- and the raccoons clearly figured out how the door worked during that time, so i just boarded it up. my cats go out during the day through the regular doors, and are required to stay in at night anyway, due to the number of predators around here.

 

[lawatt]

I can't read it because I'm not a subscriber. Is this going to be a public cut & wrap or just for Marin Sun Farms? Where's the location?

that's odd, i'm not a subscriber either -- but i think i had access because he shared it on Facebook, & that's where i got the link. it's apparently on the front page today! here's the text:


Gourmet meat company is bringing butchery back


By Stacy Finz
July 24, 2013
In these days of mechanization in the meat business, David Evans' Marin Sun Farms is about to take a gamble by becoming the largest carcass-to-cut meat processor in San Francisco.
Evans is not only bucking standard industry practices - most processing is done right at the slaughterhouse these days - but he's reversing a migration that started in the 1970s, when meat plants began fleeing the city because of urban density and the price of real estate.
U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors were expected to sign off on licensing Tuesday, and then Evans can begin moving truckloads of meat - beef, pork, lamb, goat and chicken - into the former United Meat Co. building on Bryant Street, which has been empty for more than a year.
The project is a $3 million-plus investment, which includes the lease, revamping the building, new equipment and hiring 24 additional employees, at least to start, said Evan Meagher, Marin Sun Farms' CFO.
"The art of butchery has been degraded, and we're bringing it back," Evans said as he wandered his new 18,000-square-foot building, complete with 800 linear feet of rails (to hang the animals) and a 300-square-foot dry-age cooler. "Most butchery is very cookie-cutter. This is an opportunity for less waste with more usage."
Evans' business model is not without risk. Very few processors do custom y by hand any more. It's too specialized and costs too much, and most retailers are happy enough with the basics - perfectly uniform cuts like strip steaks, pork chops and rack of lamb, vacuum-packaged. Most meat companies just have the animals' carcasses divided at the slaughterhouse and sent directly to a distributor.
"He's doing it the old-fashioned way that's much more expensive," said Bill Carman, a meat-marketing expert and consultant. "It's not going to be a meat plant; it's going to be a butcher shop. And there is certainly a market for that - people are gravitating back to the old way. So I can see it being successful. But on his scale it seems like a long shot."
City's meat history

And given that the company's animals will continue to be slaughtered at least an hour away from San Francisco, the city seems like an odd choice. But then again, San Francisco has a meat history.
In 1877, the Bayview neighborhood was dubbed "Butchertown," when 18 slaughterhouses set up shop on the waterfront. The last one left in 1971. And as property in San Francisco became more expensive, food plants began to follow. Even Del Monte, one of the largest meat packing companies in San Francisco, is planning to leave for Brisbane by year's end.
Evans, however, is optimistic about both his plan and his location, because many of his clients - the kitchens of Apple, Oracle, Zynga and Stanford University - are in the Bay Area. The rancher, who procures his meat from 15 California farms and ranches, including his own in Point Reyes, expects to turn Marin Sun Farms into a $50 million business within six years.
Restaurants and high-end retailers, such as Bi-Rite Market, Milk Pail Market and Good Earth Natural Foods, already clamor for the company's all grass-fed beef, lamb and goat meat and its pasture-raised pigs and chickens. And now the company will be able to offer even more specialty cuts, like the velvet steak, a thin piece that comes from the steer's back legs and grills quickly, or the Denver steak, which comes from the front of the animal but has the taste and texture of a tri-tip.
New opportunities

"There's opportunity to experiment with dry-aging," said Jeff Bordes, the company's director of sales and marketing. "At least one celebrity chef has called to ask about dry-aged lamb. We've never done that before."
Evans also plans to offer his services to small producers who want to sell their meat at farmers' markets and through local retailers. At Marin Sun Farms' old location, a leased space at F. Uri & Company in the Dogpatch neighborhood, there was barely enough space to butcher their own animals, Evans said.
In the new plant, there is the potential to quadruple his weekly production, processing about 200 steers and hogs, 300 lambs and goats and thousands of chickens.
"This is a big step for us," Evans said "We're the first farm-to-table meat company taking this step on this level. But we feel that there is a huge niche to fill."