Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[Opa]

I suppose I should feel guilty about not utilizing this beautiful day to have done something productive, but I don't. With the exception of making 2 dozen venison pasties, I did absolutely nothing. I don't think most people realize how difficult it is to do nothing. Unless you are extremely careful you can accidently do something and then you have to start all over trying to do nothing.

Old Man Rant Alert

Next Friday starts a 3 day holiday weekend and Monday, the 26th, is Memorial Day. A sad reality is that Memorial Day doesn't seem to have the same significance that it had during my youth. Back then almost every kid I knew father had served in the military, and almost every family had lost someone during WWII or the Korean Conflict. Now the military is all volunteer and the majority of today's youth do not feel an obligation to serve. The veterans of those distant wars are leaving us at an incredible rate and our veterans of more recent wars are vastly under appreciated.

When I was young Memorial Day was still call Decoration Day and our sacred fallen were honored on May 30th. In 1967 the name was changed to Memorial Day and in 1971 it was moved to the last Monday in May. This was to create a 3 day weekend for federal employees and soon everyone else followed suit.

I personally feel that this has made Memorial Day more about a long weekend for personal pursuits and less about honoring those who paid the ultimate price for our freedoms. With that in mind my daily ramblings this week will try to remind everyone where our thoughts and prayers should be.

 

[Farmer Pete]

I was finally able to get out and finish/clean the coop really good for the first time since winter. The chickens and turkeys love it.

 

[jerabu]

Anyone else getting lucky?

 

[aart]

Found these in the middle of my lawn....traded them for a quart of home made cream of morel and other mushrooms soup.

 

[fuzzybutt love]

I have felt the same about memorial day. We are supposed to be having a moment of silence- my uncles served and came back. It is still a solemn day, as a lot of soldiers do not. Family's bawling and we whip out the weenies and go shopping?! Sigh.

 

[Opa]

Sadly, once the immediate family of a veteran is gone their graves will fall into disrepair. Yet we all have benefitted from that veteran's sacrifice. There are 8760 hours in a year. Take just a couple of those hours and go to a local cemetery. Look for a veteran' grave and pull the weeds from around it. Give him those few moments of your time and respect, for he gave his last moment for us.

 

[suwahsen]

Opa, thank you for the reminder.

 

[SillyChicken]

we enjoyed half of them last night...

 

[Living the Simple Life]

Good morning all! Can't believe that Chickenstock is getting so close. I think the lack of warm weather has messed with my internal calendar as I am also having a hard time grasping that this weekend in Memorial Day. Was saddened to hear there were communities who were cancelling their parades due to lack of participation :-(

@Opa sad to hear you won't be joining us for CS. You, Hope and Granny will be dearly missed. We hope you enjoy all your time with family and have safe travels.

All the other "regulars" who won't be able to attend will be missed as well. @taprock my kids will certainly miss hanging with Van.

I think we are going to bite the bullet and get some meat rabbits. The butchering is the part that makes me hesitate. I am not normally as woozy person, but the rabbits give me pause...I am suspecting because we have pet/4-H rabbits as well.

We have a white male guinea who needs a new home. Pat is a wonderful protector and is not loud at all. He will sound the alarm but even then it is not the typical guinea scream. Let me know if anyone is intersted, we can bring him to CS.

 

[Candy442]

Iamfivewire (Brett) and his dad finished building the Hoop House that can house up to 20 layers, 50 meaties, or even a few turkeys. It is designed to be moved frequently to fresh grass. (It does not have the tarp over the top yet). Very neat plans that we modified just a bit...we made two doors on each side to custom fit and used 1/2 " hardware cloth 48 " tall instead of the 1 x 2 cage wire on the plans.

We plan on using it also as a cold frame to start our plants and extend the growing season as well as winter run for chickens. Very versatile!

If you are interested the plans are located here: http://www2.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/ASC/ASC189/ASC189.pdf




Now I did request it be very predator proof....but it seems they need to go back to the drawing board