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Heel low:
I am old school Bama--my suggestion is for anyone really interested in a kewl version of practical poultry genetics, that one invest (what, around fifty bucks I figure?) in Dr. Carefoot's book...all of 200 real to goodness honest pages of knowledge easy to understand with a sense of the most practical for those into birds. He teaches poultry genetics that hold value to real persons like us...in a manner that is both concise, logical and with a flair of humour to keep it fun.
- Creative Poultry Breeding, By W.C. Carefoot, MSc, PhD. Copyright 1985, Published by Veronica Mayhew in 2005.
If you go to my website there is a e-mail link to Veronica so you can purchase the book from her. I believe it is in its second printing and she is a fabulous woman outta England...totally awesome regal lady.
Well not this weekend...my father (that has visited us only once in 20 years--is here visiting this weekend) so we are doing two days of entraining and catching up on family time. My pen clearing out is on hold while we socialize. He is getting on so this could be the last time I see him in person. Gotta prioritize everything as to what is MOST important, eh?
Glad you like the thread and thank you for that!
Thank you for posting this link Wisher!
Yes, I am always plugging the FTDucks. I see we have an addict in the makings...poor kid!
The first hit is free...agh! Then there is NO saving them...
Good winter lull time (if the cold and dumps of snow are more reasonable this winter!) reading and seeing the way genetics affects our chooks and whatnots. The stuff will be here to be read and reviewed as per our own schedules. I have more to post but need time to have a clear head too...pitching poop is a good time to have an "outta body experience" and gives one time to think about what next to post and how to keep it simple (me stupid, eh?). LOL
Dump of noxious Coast snow but I guess that is what happens when whatever is in charge of these matters decides we don't really need to have FALL time before WINTER time! Lots of power pops here that day and lots of damage in the cities. We lost some branches but not too heavily hurt thank heavens!
Got the blankets I made all off and the snow sorta stowed away from the plants it was meant to protect.
The squash never made it...dismal but no matter...and the Scarlet Runners pretty much are toast too.
I expect with higher more seasonal temperatures, the carrots, beets, beans and chard that were protected will recover...but that is that for me this year. No more covering no matter what the temps will be.
It does have to end sometime and I am done and we can have the rest as DINNER! Potatoes, onions...yes, there will be more harvesting before the ground freezes to its traditional 15 feet deep...bwa ha ha...try getting potatoes outta that ground...ha ha ha.
Tucking time will take me time. I will keep at this until I cannot clear out pens any more and settle myself into thinking, "Yeh, it is what it is and it ends now!" because it freezes up solid. I may win and have all cleared out...I did get the Coop fer Sure and the Pheasant Cabin cleared out and restocked for winter bedding...not nearly as well along on the Duck Barn but I did fill another tote (that makes three thus far I think if my mental tally is right) but it is far too soft in regards to the tractor making any head way to haul that one away to the area we are composting in.
Fall agenda as per every year...we have over four tons of oats and wheat in totes to haul home for me to off load in five gallon pails into the feed room (every time we do this we discuss getting an auger and then I do it with the pails and we don't talk about it until the next year...hee hee)...ten to twelve tons of mixed pelleted rations to take off pallets and hump into the feed room too, 250 square oat straw bales have been ordered and will also need to be hand balmed on and off...I think that one may be a bit of a wrangler mess since we do currently have a 28 Chev one ton chassis in the way of a clear right of way with the one 22 foot trailer...so Rick may have to bring me pallets of bales I off load instead of parking the trailer right beside the Hay & Straw barn. Oh well...extra slice of Booberry pie for me, eh!
All the lawn ornaments can be hauled into storage in the greenhouse now and I did manage to get all the veg garden "ornaments" moved to the entrance way for easier removal. Some of the stuff is completed, some awaits the regular close up for winter time regiment.
I still wanna do a photo shoot of the ducks...their winter putting on in the fall plumage is always so nice...maybe...maybe this year, eh? Take time out to click pics (smell the roses, capture their perfume to enjoy always!) of them.
Sometimes I see "fall" more as the fall down go boom time...hee hee...you end up wishing for winter...
"Please...please make it stop...winter please...please!"
I thought maybe something like a cameo type carving...but paper mache makes WAY better sense! Awesome and gruesome all at the same time...
I do that often with Christmas presents--you find the PERFECT present say two weeks too soon and break down a week later by giving it to the person BEFORE they go out and buy what it is...cause they needed it yesterday. Ha ha ha...then you need to go out again and get another suppose to be Christmas present...agh!
Not something I would hang on a wall behind the front door so when you open it, the person calling on you "SEES it!"
Yah...yah...yah! Woot woot! How wonderful for you. If there was never any payment in trying and failing...but to finally succeed and do so well...now that rocks, eh! Appreciate the success and use that to get you thru any future low times...not like we need those...so revel in it BABY!
Yes, dancing is good...good so long as there are no witnesses! Some of us (mainly MOI) should never expose others to our dancings!
"Oh my eyes!"
Very much so that he could be a chimera!
NO, I have not covered this yet and will need to! I will have to pursue this further because it only recently crossed my mind (in an off moment too...the light bulb goes on <<BING a DING dong!>>...chimera...need to take more pics of the half/half MDF male and investigate this further--probably ask Dr. Roy if this is an expression of some half/half thingmabob!).
I was showing my Dad Mr. half/half and muttered something about, "Maybe this roo was from a double yolked egg?" Now I don't EVER prefer to have poultry to have DOUBLE yolks (I know people that are thrilled with this but the breeder replicator part of me winces at this concept!). When you have hens making eggs with two "chicks" encased in one egg...for me it is trouble. Something is terribly wrong since more often than not (thankfully), the egg will not go full term and produce some monster bird. I hatched a four legged chicken (totally sci-fi) when I first had some barnyard mutts...inbred most likely and in terrible need of new blood but a chook was a chook to a kid and we were just plain happy to have chickens period. The four legged wonderment lived all of two days...the one set of feets (so dragon like I thought and was THRILLED that we hatched a DRAGON!) was tucked up on its chest.
So here we go...time to tell a tale that happened on Friday... An interesting one and I have photos...the small camera as in the pocket during the afternoon so I got the clicks too!
Rick just got a copy of this song for our driving tunes...obviously he thinks its very OK to be tough...to be tough and yet female...he don't worry about me too much...well OK, maybe a little because I tend to charge in without much recount for the repercussions that having an attitude might mean...consequences to my life & limbs! Nobody MESSES with me in regards to what I consider is mine to keep safe and sound....
Have I set the stage well for the recounting of Friday's adventures...read on and see what I mean! NO FEAR!
Tough Guys by REO Speedwagon
Spoken:
So it has been SIXTEEN years we are working on here...yeh, 16 years and never EVER have I come upon one of these. Now Rick figured sooner or later, with the area filling up more and more (more people always = Trouble...always!) all the time...yeh, it was gonna happen sooner more now than later...sigh....
So by the sheep pen...there is this THING...Foamy had let out one bark when I was at the turkey pens but had just I chalked that ONE bark up to maybe she was barking because that dang squirrel was dropping pine cones on her head again to aggravate her (tis the season to bug the dogs and pack away the cones!).... Needless to say even the sheep did not seem "ALL" that off in their behaviours either. This all chalks up to not necessarily being a GOOD thing either! No warning...has to make you wonder!
Yeh, that is the distance, less than ten feet INSIDE first of the perimeter fences right by the bale of alfalfa for the sheeps.
Calling this one Gerry Bruino (as no idea on gender but probably this year's cub and kicked out on its own by Momma bear).
Recall I worked at the Conservation Office on the West Coast...bazzillions of bear calls about how they "double bagged" their garbage and still the bear got into it! Agh!
He started walking towards me, licking his lips and I thought...OK...my pitch fork is one step away...I will grab that...armed and a most dangerous woman ready and able to defend her sheep...no messing with a shepherdess and her sheeps, eh!
At first I thought, it had no good fear of humans...I started lobbing 2x4 shorts that we use under the corral fence legs to keep them up outta the dirt...
Sorta sitting there pondering life...or looking at the sheep thinking if they might make a good lunch.
It was overcast and only one thirty in the afternoon...not like night when the creatures are locked up and tucked away safe like. DAYtime when things are suppose to be out...no birds though, it was thankfully much too damp from the snow melting going on.
See the wood chunk...that one made contact to the tete of the bear. He or she (it?) looked up at the current tree it was under and momentarily thought about going UP it...
"Uh...NO...NO WAY...you ain't sitting up in no tree of ours and hanging around so when I have to go run school bus you come down and help yourself to a sheep or wander down to the goats and munch & crunch them up...MOVE IT BRIUNO GERRY!"
Furry black bear butt turns and begins to amble along...with much encouragement by me...
Gerry does look at scaling the inner perimeter fence but thankfully (YES...triple fenced and this one does its JOB!) decides that it is better to head the other way which is OUT of our patch...
I believe it scaled the first two fences by climbing the trees on the perimeter of the property...like what is more natural than a bear to hit the trees, up and into the property simply going over the first fences because they were not fences when he was IN the trees...
So Gerry turns and goes up the tree beside the outer fences... "Good...good...go there!"
But he ends up sitting IN the tree...what I do not realize is the stupid neighbours...are in a pickup truck a few feet down the road and blocking the bear's safe exit completely way from our place...yeh, the same neighbours that are feeding this bear abundant (can you say 50 pound bags of it at once!) bird seed from a HUGE bird feeder...duh...bears LUV grain...bird seed is well, uh...GRAINS to a young bear out and about learning how to scavenge on its own! Agh...
So I notice the vehicle and yell at them to "GET LOST ALREADY!"
About then the bear WOOFS at me...not good...nope, not a good thing. He is warning me that he is already up a tree but its only next choice is not to flee but ATTACK! I instantly back right off and yell again ("GIVE THE $#@% BEAR SOME ROOM!") and finally they back the truck off...then the bear high tails it outta there...Poor thing...having experienced some weird smelly animals (goats, llama and sheeps) along with a way weird pyscho wood plank hucking nasty human with no good sense of fear for a black bear!
All reported to Fish and Game and we have spoken to a Conservation Officer in the area (I use to work typing out all these reports when I lived on Northern Van Isle)...we hope against hope that the idiots that have started this poor cub on the road of no return will stop their greenhorn ways but I guess in a way...it is OK too...having greenhorns to the wilderness ways is good too...sigh...hate having to admit that!
Last night, from 10 p.m. sporadically right up to 01:30 in the morning...fireworks. About four sets of shooting them off (grow up already!)...while it certainly disturbs OUR sleep here (we not only live here on weekends...we work here on weekends too!--Rick was off at 5 a.m. to work...agh!) it also upsets alot of our birds who cannot fly off when loud noises and flashes of strange lights go on. Whatever...I do wish they would do this type of thing IN the CITY during their work week and see how favourable that is received but well, whatever....grumble/grumble/grumble...
The BONUS part is that Gerry will not be around with all the fireworks...for sure I would expect these past few days have been trying on the bear and with the antics last night...should have high tailed it outta the area...or at least one would hope so!
On a side note...Rick said I should pick up some fireworks...fire crackers to deter the bear and did you know you cannot even buy fire crackers no mores. I did not--you can buy fireworks that blast off into the air to keep the neighbourhood awake and disturbed but you cannot buy those traditional Chinese New Year crackers? What gives? Oh yeh and on the topic of Bear Bangers...the moronic store in the village had no "PENS" to discharge those kind of noise makers...agh...but I do have two/three canisters of bear spray (stray dog deterrent actually since most bears prefer a little blast of pepper with their human meat parts lunches!) along with a small air horn! So I guess I can go get those if there is a next time...probably will be "a next time" I guess--oh well...
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
Is there cliff notes for genetics? Its information overload when i start reading about it....i think the chick on the left (silver) is male??? The one on the right (gold) would be female???
I am old school Bama--my suggestion is for anyone really interested in a kewl version of practical poultry genetics, that one invest (what, around fifty bucks I figure?) in Dr. Carefoot's book...all of 200 real to goodness honest pages of knowledge easy to understand with a sense of the most practical for those into birds. He teaches poultry genetics that hold value to real persons like us...in a manner that is both concise, logical and with a flair of humour to keep it fun.

- Creative Poultry Breeding, By W.C. Carefoot, MSc, PhD. Copyright 1985, Published by Veronica Mayhew in 2005.
If you go to my website there is a e-mail link to Veronica so you can purchase the book from her. I believe it is in its second printing and she is a fabulous woman outta England...totally awesome regal lady.
CanuckBock...do you ever get any rest? You have so much going on all the time....I guess you have to be really organized to get everything done? Really enjoy reading your thread and the time you put into it.
Well not this weekend...my father (that has visited us only once in 20 years--is here visiting this weekend) so we are doing two days of entraining and catching up on family time. My pen clearing out is on hold while we socialize. He is getting on so this could be the last time I see him in person. Gotta prioritize everything as to what is MOST important, eh?
Glad you like the thread and thank you for that!

Hey, Dude, I have been doing genetics self study. I found this site helpful.
http://sellers.kippenjungle.nl/page0.html
Thank you for posting this link Wisher!

Ha.... Every time my little boy sees me on here I get "Ducky? Ducky? Where ducky??? Quack quack!!"
Yes, I am always plugging the FTDucks. I see we have an addict in the makings...poor kid!

The first hit is free...agh! Then there is NO saving them...

Silver(left) and gold always make a hard lesson easier!
Seriously, this is amazing what you do, and trying to teach it to us too! (I totally agree with @BamaDude, this is information overload! And thanks Wisher1000 too for the link.)
I think I'd have to be very well rested to follow it though.
Speaking of genetics and such I found something for my coop I just had to share, I think you all especially will appreciate the subliminal message it will send my chickens. We are on the road (work, not play) and spent Labor Day in the mountains above Alamogordo NM., at an RV park. The owners were having a garage sale and gave this to me for my coop build, being "too weird" for them to sell, lol! (It was made out there by a local artist)
Thanks Tara , you are awesome!
I suspect you're using full advantage of clearer sky's today(according to Accuweather at least) to finish tucking everything up for the (early?) winter.
Good winter lull time (if the cold and dumps of snow are more reasonable this winter!) reading and seeing the way genetics affects our chooks and whatnots. The stuff will be here to be read and reviewed as per our own schedules. I have more to post but need time to have a clear head too...pitching poop is a good time to have an "outta body experience" and gives one time to think about what next to post and how to keep it simple (me stupid, eh?). LOL
Dump of noxious Coast snow but I guess that is what happens when whatever is in charge of these matters decides we don't really need to have FALL time before WINTER time! Lots of power pops here that day and lots of damage in the cities. We lost some branches but not too heavily hurt thank heavens!
Got the blankets I made all off and the snow sorta stowed away from the plants it was meant to protect.
The squash never made it...dismal but no matter...and the Scarlet Runners pretty much are toast too.
I expect with higher more seasonal temperatures, the carrots, beets, beans and chard that were protected will recover...but that is that for me this year. No more covering no matter what the temps will be.
It does have to end sometime and I am done and we can have the rest as DINNER! Potatoes, onions...yes, there will be more harvesting before the ground freezes to its traditional 15 feet deep...bwa ha ha...try getting potatoes outta that ground...ha ha ha.
Tucking time will take me time. I will keep at this until I cannot clear out pens any more and settle myself into thinking, "Yeh, it is what it is and it ends now!" because it freezes up solid. I may win and have all cleared out...I did get the Coop fer Sure and the Pheasant Cabin cleared out and restocked for winter bedding...not nearly as well along on the Duck Barn but I did fill another tote (that makes three thus far I think if my mental tally is right) but it is far too soft in regards to the tractor making any head way to haul that one away to the area we are composting in.
Fall agenda as per every year...we have over four tons of oats and wheat in totes to haul home for me to off load in five gallon pails into the feed room (every time we do this we discuss getting an auger and then I do it with the pails and we don't talk about it until the next year...hee hee)...ten to twelve tons of mixed pelleted rations to take off pallets and hump into the feed room too, 250 square oat straw bales have been ordered and will also need to be hand balmed on and off...I think that one may be a bit of a wrangler mess since we do currently have a 28 Chev one ton chassis in the way of a clear right of way with the one 22 foot trailer...so Rick may have to bring me pallets of bales I off load instead of parking the trailer right beside the Hay & Straw barn. Oh well...extra slice of Booberry pie for me, eh!

All the lawn ornaments can be hauled into storage in the greenhouse now and I did manage to get all the veg garden "ornaments" moved to the entrance way for easier removal. Some of the stuff is completed, some awaits the regular close up for winter time regiment.
I still wanna do a photo shoot of the ducks...their winter putting on in the fall plumage is always so nice...maybe...maybe this year, eh? Take time out to click pics (smell the roses, capture their perfume to enjoy always!) of them.
Sometimes I see "fall" more as the fall down go boom time...hee hee...you end up wishing for winter...

"Please...please make it stop...winter please...please!"
(Paper mâché) chicken (egg) embryo to show my chickens what their job is
![]()
(Or maybe how they'll end up if they don't give me fertile eggs???)
I thought maybe something like a cameo type carving...but paper mache makes WAY better sense! Awesome and gruesome all at the same time...

Oops. Gave it away too soon, oh well.![]()
I do that often with Christmas presents--you find the PERFECT present say two weeks too soon and break down a week later by giving it to the person BEFORE they go out and buy what it is...cause they needed it yesterday. Ha ha ha...then you need to go out again and get another suppose to be Christmas present...agh!

Now I see it - duh! I thought the stuff in the middle was tissue paper to fill it up or protect from breaking - hey I'm old and I don't see so well. Now that I know, I can clearly see the chick , looks like full term. NO wonder he gave it to you, it really IS weird.
Not something I would hang on a wall behind the front door so when you open it, the person calling on you "SEES it!"

Yeah, I've got my SFH eggs in the incubator day 1. Looking good. I'm trying a new way of doing it. To raise hatchability and lower mortality and deformities, I'm soaking the eggs in 1 tsp Ascorbic Acid (Vit C) in 1 liter of water for 2 min and then air drying before putting in the incubator. Then on day 16 I'm going to take the top off and let eggs cool down for 6 hrs. One time only. The dorkings will come on the 25th. Yes, busy. BUT my last hatch of White Plymouth Rocks was a bust. Only two were viable and hatched me some Barred not White.![]()
But the mother lode came through for me. A local buddy from BYC has really good White Rocks. So I bought 5 five mo old birds. One Blosi pullet and three JWIP pullets and a cockerel. I'm out of orbit on the buy. So beautiful, fluffy and blindingly white. BIG And that's why I'm happy dancing today.![]()
Yah...yah...yah! Woot woot! How wonderful for you. If there was never any payment in trying and failing...but to finally succeed and do so well...now that rocks, eh! Appreciate the success and use that to get you thru any future low times...not like we need those...so revel in it BABY!

That's why people are born with two feet - so they can dance![]()
Yes, dancing is good...good so long as there are no witnesses! Some of us (mainly MOI) should never expose others to our dancings!

Tara, just a thought on that cockerel with the mismatched feet - do you think he might be a chimera (two embryos that fused to produce one organism)? It looks to me like his feathers might be showing two different color patterns too; I have no idea whether that is normal in Booted bantams or not. A few members here have had a chimera pop up in their flocks. Apparently, in chicken chimeras, it isn't unusual for the cells of each embryo to be mostly found only on one side; there have even be a couple where a bird appeared to be male on one side, and female on the other.
Possible? (Or have you covered this, and I missed it?)![]()
Very much so that he could be a chimera!

This comes off The Coop and is that well known half female, half male chicken - split down the middle
NO, I have not covered this yet and will need to! I will have to pursue this further because it only recently crossed my mind (in an off moment too...the light bulb goes on <<BING a DING dong!>>...chimera...need to take more pics of the half/half MDF male and investigate this further--probably ask Dr. Roy if this is an expression of some half/half thingmabob!).
I was showing my Dad Mr. half/half and muttered something about, "Maybe this roo was from a double yolked egg?" Now I don't EVER prefer to have poultry to have DOUBLE yolks (I know people that are thrilled with this but the breeder replicator part of me winces at this concept!). When you have hens making eggs with two "chicks" encased in one egg...for me it is trouble. Something is terribly wrong since more often than not (thankfully), the egg will not go full term and produce some monster bird. I hatched a four legged chicken (totally sci-fi) when I first had some barnyard mutts...inbred most likely and in terrible need of new blood but a chook was a chook to a kid and we were just plain happy to have chickens period. The four legged wonderment lived all of two days...the one set of feets (so dragon like I thought and was THRILLED that we hatched a DRAGON!) was tucked up on its chest.
So here we go...time to tell a tale that happened on Friday... An interesting one and I have photos...the small camera as in the pocket during the afternoon so I got the clicks too!

Rick just got a copy of this song for our driving tunes...obviously he thinks its very OK to be tough...to be tough and yet female...he don't worry about me too much...well OK, maybe a little because I tend to charge in without much recount for the repercussions that having an attitude might mean...consequences to my life & limbs! Nobody MESSES with me in regards to what I consider is mine to keep safe and sound....
Have I set the stage well for the recounting of Friday's adventures...read on and see what I mean! NO FEAR!

Tough Guys by REO Speedwagon
Spoken:
So it has been SIXTEEN years we are working on here...yeh, 16 years and never EVER have I come upon one of these. Now Rick figured sooner or later, with the area filling up more and more (more people always = Trouble...always!) all the time...yeh, it was gonna happen sooner more now than later...sigh....
So by the sheep pen...there is this THING...Foamy had let out one bark when I was at the turkey pens but had just I chalked that ONE bark up to maybe she was barking because that dang squirrel was dropping pine cones on her head again to aggravate her (tis the season to bug the dogs and pack away the cones!).... Needless to say even the sheep did not seem "ALL" that off in their behaviours either. This all chalks up to not necessarily being a GOOD thing either! No warning...has to make you wonder!
Yeh, that is the distance, less than ten feet INSIDE first of the perimeter fences right by the bale of alfalfa for the sheeps.
Calling this one Gerry Bruino (as no idea on gender but probably this year's cub and kicked out on its own by Momma bear).
Recall I worked at the Conservation Office on the West Coast...bazzillions of bear calls about how they "double bagged" their garbage and still the bear got into it! Agh!
He started walking towards me, licking his lips and I thought...OK...my pitch fork is one step away...I will grab that...armed and a most dangerous woman ready and able to defend her sheep...no messing with a shepherdess and her sheeps, eh!

At first I thought, it had no good fear of humans...I started lobbing 2x4 shorts that we use under the corral fence legs to keep them up outta the dirt...
Sorta sitting there pondering life...or looking at the sheep thinking if they might make a good lunch.
It was overcast and only one thirty in the afternoon...not like night when the creatures are locked up and tucked away safe like. DAYtime when things are suppose to be out...no birds though, it was thankfully much too damp from the snow melting going on.
See the wood chunk...that one made contact to the tete of the bear. He or she (it?) looked up at the current tree it was under and momentarily thought about going UP it...
"Uh...NO...NO WAY...you ain't sitting up in no tree of ours and hanging around so when I have to go run school bus you come down and help yourself to a sheep or wander down to the goats and munch & crunch them up...MOVE IT BRIUNO GERRY!"
Furry black bear butt turns and begins to amble along...with much encouragement by me...
Gerry does look at scaling the inner perimeter fence but thankfully (YES...triple fenced and this one does its JOB!) decides that it is better to head the other way which is OUT of our patch...
I believe it scaled the first two fences by climbing the trees on the perimeter of the property...like what is more natural than a bear to hit the trees, up and into the property simply going over the first fences because they were not fences when he was IN the trees...
So Gerry turns and goes up the tree beside the outer fences... "Good...good...go there!"
But he ends up sitting IN the tree...what I do not realize is the stupid neighbours...are in a pickup truck a few feet down the road and blocking the bear's safe exit completely way from our place...yeh, the same neighbours that are feeding this bear abundant (can you say 50 pound bags of it at once!) bird seed from a HUGE bird feeder...duh...bears LUV grain...bird seed is well, uh...GRAINS to a young bear out and about learning how to scavenge on its own! Agh...
So I notice the vehicle and yell at them to "GET LOST ALREADY!"
About then the bear WOOFS at me...not good...nope, not a good thing. He is warning me that he is already up a tree but its only next choice is not to flee but ATTACK! I instantly back right off and yell again ("GIVE THE $#@% BEAR SOME ROOM!") and finally they back the truck off...then the bear high tails it outta there...Poor thing...having experienced some weird smelly animals (goats, llama and sheeps) along with a way weird pyscho wood plank hucking nasty human with no good sense of fear for a black bear!

Last night, from 10 p.m. sporadically right up to 01:30 in the morning...fireworks. About four sets of shooting them off (grow up already!)...while it certainly disturbs OUR sleep here (we not only live here on weekends...we work here on weekends too!--Rick was off at 5 a.m. to work...agh!) it also upsets alot of our birds who cannot fly off when loud noises and flashes of strange lights go on. Whatever...I do wish they would do this type of thing IN the CITY during their work week and see how favourable that is received but well, whatever....grumble/grumble/grumble...
The BONUS part is that Gerry will not be around with all the fireworks...for sure I would expect these past few days have been trying on the bear and with the antics last night...should have high tailed it outta the area...or at least one would hope so!
On a side note...Rick said I should pick up some fireworks...fire crackers to deter the bear and did you know you cannot even buy fire crackers no mores. I did not--you can buy fireworks that blast off into the air to keep the neighbourhood awake and disturbed but you cannot buy those traditional Chinese New Year crackers? What gives? Oh yeh and on the topic of Bear Bangers...the moronic store in the village had no "PENS" to discharge those kind of noise makers...agh...but I do have two/three canisters of bear spray (stray dog deterrent actually since most bears prefer a little blast of pepper with their human meat parts lunches!) along with a small air horn! So I guess I can go get those if there is a next time...probably will be "a next time" I guess--oh well...

Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada