Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Shadrach]

Drizzle all day. In and out of the coop extension. I spent a couple of hours with them this morning, mainly to make sure they had food and exercise and then went around to my eldests until 5pm. At 7pm they had had enough and started making their way to roost.
The chick with the grey head patch got a proper whack from Carbon this evening; fully justified from what I saw.

Carbon laying an egg as I cleaned out the coop.

Henry impressing everyone with his excavating prowess. That little crater took as long as it took for me to reach into my pocket and get the camera out.

I discovered another overlooked courgette. I just put them in the run.

 

[MaryJanet]

I love the shade table! I recall you making it but I don't think I've seen it so clearly until now.

 

[Shadrach]

It's true that society asks a lot of its universities and academics. External boards and committees, internal boards and committees, supervision of doctoral students, teaching and inspiring 100s of undergrads at once, recruiting and coordinating large teams of sessional teaching staff, supervision of capstone projects, writing, research, winning grants, publishing papers, editing journals, reviewing papers for other journals, organising conferences, following up on those few undergrads who cheat instead of embracing learning. All while maintaining ethical professionalism and while juggling timezones and travel commitments. It's all in a day's work. Or rather, a month's work.

Then there are the toxicities that creep into such a high pressure environment. Usually rivalry caused by envy leading to shady behaviour or the withholding of opportunity. For example, I have often heard people in STEM ridiculing research in the humanities. Why do people in STEM consider themselves qualified to judge? Were their degrees or PhDs in the humanities? No? Then they have no grounds on which to assess work conducted in the humanities.

On the other hand, there's often a lot of cordiality among disciplinary research colleagues who are based at other universities.

My point is that a scholarly life is demanding in ways that are not obvious to outsiders. If you haven't lived it, don't judge it.

Oh, I wholeheartedly agree. What I was trying to point out is some, if not many academics become managers. Only a few that I know of still carry out research in their field of expertise. Lots take up teaching positions if they can find them. My brother for example would rather be digging through old manuscripts in Spain to discover more about the period of history he is interested in. Instead he is, or rather was considering he is now on strike, trying to do much of what you've written above, which in my opinion is a waste of his talent and knowledge.

The same has happened to doctors of medicine here in the UK. They are so overwhelmed with forms and meetings and commitees that seeing and treating the sick, which is what they trained to do, has fallen to a far back second place.

 

[MaryJanet]

Oh, I wholeheartedly agree. What I was trying to point out is some, if not many academics become managers. Only a few that I know of still carry out research in their field of expertise. Lots take up teaching positions if they can find them. My brother for example would rather be digging through old manuscripts in Spain to discover more about the period of history he is interested in. Instead he is, or rather was considering he is now on strike, trying to do much of what you've written above, which in my opinion is a waste of his talent and knowledge.

The same has happened to doctors of medicine here in the UK. They are so overwhelmed with forms and meetings and commitees that seeing and treating the sick, which is what they trained to do, has fallen to a far back second place.

Underfunding would be one of the causal factors. It's such a waste when experts can't exercise and extend their expertise instead of teaching or administration. There are plenty of newly completed doctoral students who miss out on teaching opportunities because someone who'd rather be submerged in manuscripts (for example) is obliged by economic considerations to do the teaching.

 

[fuzzi]

In my view the people who have had the biggest impact on our perception and knowledge on other species behaviour are people like Gerald Durrell and the couple who wrote the book Born Free

It was Joy Adamson, can't recall her husband's name. I loved the movie.

 

[Shadrach]

It was Joy Adamson, can't recall her husband's name. I loved the movie.

That's the person. I didn't realise I had put that post up with another unrelated post.
I was going to name a few more but I'll just add one more, Victoria Roberts. None of the people I thought of that had extensive knowledge on animal behaviour are/were academics. Having watched my niece during her PhD studies it became apparent that the time spent studying a particular species or a particular topic on a species was so restricted there was no way she could achieve the level of knowledge as the examples I've used above and many of the people I consider to be chicken experts. My Finnish friend who is studying landrace chickens in Finland gave up his university studies because they didn't allow him the time to actually study the chickens. He now knows an incredible amount about the subject but has had immense problems getting his knowledge into print and into academic circles. He spent years living with the chickens, years, not a six week field trip. He has tried repeatedly to get work published but gets refused because it's not the right format, or he doesn't have the right qualifications etc etc.

 

[fuzzi]

Oh, I wholeheartedly agree. What I was trying to point out is some, if not many academics become managers. Only a few that I know of still carry out research in their field of expertise. Lots take up teaching positions if they can find them. My brother for example would rather be digging through old manuscripts in Spain to discover more about the period of history he is interested in. Instead he is, or rather was considering he is now on strike, trying to do much of what you've written above, which in my opinion is a waste of his talent and knowledge.

The same has happened to doctors of medicine here in the UK. They are so overwhelmed with forms and meetings and commitees that seeing and treating the sick, which is what they trained to do, has fallen to a far back second place.

I work as administrative support for physicians. Their paperwork is overwhelming, the patient load is very heavy, and the bureaucratic system makes their work almost impossible. They keep trying, though. And one can tell by words and actions which ones still care about their patients.

I don't particularly like most of the scientists. They tailor their work to what they know will win grants, funding. It doesn't matter if the research is going to accomplish anything for good, they do what will get financial support.

 

[MrsNorthie]

We had some high winds and sheets of rain.

We are fine.

I'd rather deal with a hurricane than a tornado.

I am glad you came through fine! We have tornadoes occasionally, we had one, luckily a relatively weak one, go right through the middle of our property, we had minimal damage. I prefer hurricanes and the risk of small tornadoes over earthquakes.

 

[MrsNorthie]

Well, the reason those nuts are insanely expensive here is because the trees do not grow in a humid wet rainforest climate. That's why I'm focusing on growing trees that produce nutritious nuts/seeds appropriate to the climate here.

Anything that a person buys that is imported costs considerably more because transport and distribution is more expensive than growing the actual food. As a cacao farmer (cacao is the base ingredient in chocolate) who also processes and ships a finished product this is something I know a good deal about. Dried cacao beans get a local price of a mere 90 cents per pound on average. By the time they reach a market in the US, Europe, or Japan, the same beans without any further processing will cost $9 - $12 per pound.

Nor do apples grow here. Nor pears, peaches, apricots or figs -- although those fruits do grow higher up in the Andean Sierra. Instead we have papaya, guayaba, many varieties of lemons and oranges, tangerines, pineapple, etc and many fruits Global Northers have never heard of like arazá, borojó, jabicotaba, salak, and inga. We have at least 8 varieties of banana growing on the farm and 5 varieties of plantain, plus yuca (cassava), air potatoes, and taro.

People are often shocked to find out that it's a struggle to grow things like lettuce or onions and you can forget about growing cauliflower or broccoli or brussel sprouts. All of these things require cooler or drier weather the north experiences in spring and fall.

There is abundance here, but it's a very different selection and requires some adjustment of expectations and taste to enjoy.

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Jabicotaba (not cherries)
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Naranjilla. A tart tomato relative.
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Salak. Aka snakefruit
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Breadnut.
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Chicle.

That is amazing! We are sub-tropic so we can plant some exotic things, but mostly the standards. I love getting outside and and digging in the dirt, it is therapeutic, like spending time with the chickens.

 

[MrsNorthie]

I work as administrative support for physicians. Their paperwork is overwhelming, the patient load is very heavy, and the bureaucratic system makes their work almost impossible. They keep trying, though. And one can tell by words and actions which ones still care about their patients.

I don't particularly like most of the scientists. They tailor their work to what they know will win grants, funding. It doesn't matter if the research is going to accomplish anything for good, they do what will get financial support.

I worked with some amazing doctors in Arizona, they were great. We worked long hours, but we always put patient care first. The clinic was bought out by a big hospital group, and they tried to push the focus to profit and paperwork, and most of my docs ended up retiring or moving on to smaller clinics shortly after I got fed up and left.

The difference in perception of Academics may be down to differences between the US and the U.K. Our universities are more known for being party schools and not their actual academics. I think we have lost a lot of integrity in our education system due to money. :-(