The Front Porch Swing

[enola]

I am sorry to hear about your husband's father. Hugs to your family. You are right, the family will enjoy meals next month and be happy that some one is thinking about them.

My father died when I was 10. He crashed his truck because he was driving while he was drunk. It took me years to forgive him for that. Meanwhile I missed him with all my heart. It has been decades I still miss him. I remember all the people crowding into the house, bringing all that food, trying to get me to eat, telling me it was OK if I cried....... I just wanted all those people that I didn't even know to go home and leave us alone! I don't do funerals. Only family members that I am really close to.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

I fear snakes. I've been know to freak out if I see one on TV. Dad just told me there is a garter snake curled up on the welcome mat. So. Obviously. I'm never leaving the house again. Ever.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Someone shoot me, please. I've been assigned the task of researching all "organic" and "soy free" and "corn free" poultry feed choices as the members of the buying group we sell eggs/meat to is favoring the products from other ("organic") sources. I tried to do this project once before, and gave up in frustration.

There is one "popular" brand of "organic" or "_____ free" poultry feeds that only has prices available for 25 lb bags of feed, and then it's only for some of their products. In order to earn the right to the price of 40# bags of feeds I need to jump through a lot of hoops. And they seem a little vague about if their ingredients are actually tested to be ORGANIC. This is on top of requiring about 15 clicks on each product to get to the nutrition/ingredients label.

With all the fraud in the Organics industry, I just do not want to pay a premium price for a feed that might as well be dryer lint for all the healthy nutrition it provides. But I do want to sell eggs ...

 

[TexasLisa]

Even up here where we expect a snow storm in late April, and our favourite pastime is complaining about the weather, we have had enough of winter!!! It' s been a high of 0f over the past week, and lows at -40 (doesn't matter f/C!). Enough Already!!!


In other news, my DH's father passed away yesterday morning. I guess I suffer from what I consider too much practicality, but fortunately haven't shared it too much with DH. You see, his father had stomach cancer and has bee in the hospital for the past 2 months. His last week was full of hallucinations and lots of pain. This past weekend he was sedated to prevent him from pulling out IVs, falling out of bed, and generally hurting himself more (he had no idea what he was doing). We were told on Saturday morning that he probably wouldn't last (likely going into organ failure).

DH is one of 6 kids, and his dad's wife had another 4... DH insisted that we had to all go up and visit to support everyone. It seemed to me that having 10 children, their partners, their kids, and other friends camped out in a small town hospital, playing the game of supporting someone who has no idea that any of you are there is an exercise in absurdity. Yes, his wife needed support, but did she really need about 50 people there as support, or would it be better spent giving each person a day or two over the next couple months?

The problem with these things (and I know because my son died 5 years ago) is that people mean well, but they forget after a few weeks and that is when people need support the most. So, call me insensitive, but I would rather bring a few meals and just hang out quietly in a month or two's time than inundate my husband's step-mother now. And, I believe that DH's father had a great and full life, and was lucky that he was relatively healthy until shortly before he passed away (through Christmas). Everyone has a time to be born, a time to glow, and a time to go, and Yesterday was his. It was his time. He done good! XO.

Now, we don't have to sit around to wait for him to die any longer. It's like watching the grass grow but with less of a positive outcome!

(And now I will wait for the expected slaps telling me to grow up and be more supportive - I am supportive of my husband, it would be terrible if my father died. I just don't think sitting around for someone to die is very useful...)

I am sorry for your loss. Be yourself. Your husband knows you and will understand. I like your idea of taking meals later.

I fear snakes. I've been know to freak out if I see one on TV. Dad just told me there is a garter snake curled up on the welcome mat. So. Obviously. I'm never leaving the house again. Ever.

Sorry you don't like s-n-a-k-e-s. (didn't want to scare you). You can now tell your buying group you can't research because there is a s-n-a-k-e on your porch.

O Bee, where art thou? Weren't you suppose to get your hair cut today???

Lisa

 

[Beekissed]

I am getting a rifle for my birthday........ getting ready to go hillbilly on some dogs in my neighborhood.

My neighbors have started turning their dogs loose when they see my car missing from the driveway. I discovered this fact when it snowed last week. I could see their tracks all around the barn/coop. Followed the tracks straight back to their driveway........

Get barefoot and get back to yer roots, girl!

Get all jacked up on those marauders....quietly. Like you're guarding a still and would rather the law not get involved.

I'm feeling a little smug at the moment because I wrote to some companies to tell them I found their retail websites lacking in useful information, and I've already gotten two replies. One company even updated their website a bit, and promised to work on making some of their product details more "user friendly." I only wrote to them yesterday.

It's nice to have an impact.

Good for you!! I never follow through on such things so it's always good to hear of folks who do....like the Million Moms group. Love the work they do!

Some dang people are so ignorant. They tick me off more than their dogs do! I had this problem about five years ago then me and a neighbor had words last year AND I see a huge problem brewing again about a half a mile down the road. I saw one dog limping down the road a week or two ago. Somebody probably already tagged his hiney. I hate to have to shoot a dog but somebody and their dog(s) is not going to run my place! You know, years ago dogs and their owners weren't so stupid. A chicken killing dog was killed because the chickens in the yard were FOOD. People couldn't run to town and buy meat from the grocery. If they didn't grow it or buy it from a neighbor they didn't have meat to eat. Now dogs are worshipped in this country and everything else is far beneath them to a whole lot of people. Mankind gets a little more backward all the time.

That's where we are....those chickens are our clean source of meat when it's not deer season and the deer are getting more and more scarce and smaller in size around here.

Sure, we could buy our meat from the store but we should have the right to choose not to do so...and we do.

I know what you mean. Do you guys remember Michael Vick, the pro football player that was involved in dog fighting, etc.? He spent 4 years in prison. Now what he did was very wrong, but another player Donte Stallworth was DUI and killed a pedestrian. He received a month in jail, 2 years house arrest, and lifetime loss of his drivers' license. Does that make any sense?? Not to me.

I agree!!! Human life is way down on the totem pole now, when the people of this Earth are worshiping the creation instead of the Creator.

You would think that you could talk to people about it but where I come from that is asking for trouble. Some redneck would do something really stupid to pay you back if anything EVER happened to their dog. Last year when I was have trouble with a neighbor's dog coming around that had already killed another neighbor's chickens, I told the man that I had chickens and he needed to keep his dog away - then it was back shortly. Then I explained to him that if his dog got in my chickens I would shoot it. He said that if I shot his dog "IT WILL BE WAR!". And years ago this same man was on the receiving end of a neighbor's dog killing his own chickens and he collected money for it. I also know for a fact that his son killed a dog that tried to get their chickens back then. BUT NOW it is okay for his dog to run the neighborhood killing other people's chickens and him not put the dog up. And that is one of the more decent neighbors. LOL

Right there is why I never talk to these people any longer. Didn't work. It never works. The only thing that really works at all is the SSS. And I do mean SILENT.

Even up here where we expect a snow storm in late April, and our favourite pastime is complaining about the weather, we have had enough of winter!!! It' s been a high of 0f over the past week, and lows at -40 (doesn't matter f/C!). Enough Already!!!


In other news, my DH's father passed away yesterday morning. I guess I suffer from what I consider too much practicality, but fortunately haven't shared it too much with DH. You see, his father had stomach cancer and has bee in the hospital for the past 2 months. His last week was full of hallucinations and lots of pain. This past weekend he was sedated to prevent him from pulling out IVs, falling out of bed, and generally hurting himself more (he had no idea what he was doing). We were told on Saturday morning that he probably wouldn't last (likely going into organ failure).

DH is one of 6 kids, and his dad's wife had another 4... DH insisted that we had to all go up and visit to support everyone. It seemed to me that having 10 children, their partners, their kids, and other friends camped out in a small town hospital, playing the game of supporting someone who has no idea that any of you are there is an exercise in absurdity. Yes, his wife needed support, but did she really need about 50 people there as support, or would it be better spent giving each person a day or two over the next couple months?

The problem with these things (and I know because my son died 5 years ago) is that people mean well, but they forget after a few weeks and that is when people need support the most. So, call me insensitive, but I would rather bring a few meals and just hang out quietly in a month or two's time than inundate my husband's step-mother now. And, I believe that DH's father had a great and full life, and was lucky that he was relatively healthy until shortly before he passed away (through Christmas). Everyone has a time to be born, a time to glow, and a time to go, and Yesterday was his. It was his time. He done good! XO.

Now, we don't have to sit around to wait for him to die any longer. It's like watching the grass grow but with less of a positive outcome!

(And now I will wait for the expected slaps telling me to grow up and be more supportive - I am supportive of my husband, it would be terrible if my father died. I just don't think sitting around for someone to die is very useful...)

I was a hospice nurse and I cannot tell you how many times I wished other people felt just like you. It is guilt that drives people to show up at the death bed and funeral in droves but were absent all the time the person was ill. And when the family really needs them later? Can't be found...they "did their duty" and went back to their busy lives.

I've heard it so many, many times how families really need the support months and even a year later more than they needed it at the death and funeral. When those clocks tick louder in the house and a holiday or anniversary comes up and no one is there to celebrate it with anymore, that's when they need a visit and help.

Someone shoot me, please. I've been assigned the task of researching all "organic" and "soy free" and "corn free" poultry feed choices as the members of the buying group we sell eggs/meat to is favoring the products from other ("organic") sources. I tried to do this project once before, and gave up in frustration.

There is one "popular" brand of "organic" or "_____ free" poultry feeds that only has prices available for 25 lb bags of feed, and then it's only for some of their products. In order to earn the right to the price of 40# bags of feeds I need to jump through a lot of hoops. And they seem a little vague about if their ingredients are actually tested to be ORGANIC. This is on top of requiring about 15 clicks on each product to get to the nutrition/ingredients label.

With all the fraud in the Organics industry, I just do not want to pay a premium price for a feed that might as well be dryer lint for all the healthy nutrition it provides. But I do want to sell eggs ...

You might want to do some education for your buyer group instead....bugs and worms are not organic any longer...one cannot control the emissions from the passing vehicles, the air pollution that comes down with the rain and soaks into the soils, there to be ingested by the insects.

Feeding organic feeds to free range flocks is all a sham..a label and a smart marketing ploy to fool money out of the idle rich who follow these food trends like buzzards follow a gut wagon.

If your farm is not certified organic, you can't free range and still be considered organic, so feeding chickens organic feeds is throwing money down the toilet. But I'm betting they want those eggs from free ranged chickens.....

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

If your farm is not certified organic, you can't free range and still be considered organic, so feeding chickens organic feeds is throwing money down the toilet. But I'm betting they want those eggs from free ranged chickens.....

Absolutely. So true. And the birds are "vegetarian," either, which is one request I sometimes get. All this is why I never seriously considered Certified Organic feed. Also, when we start adding our own wheat to the mix, it won't be Certified Organic.

I'm not a fan of GMOs, not at all, and I'd like to avoid them. And I'd like less RoundUp sprayed on the crops. If possible. But you can't just switch feeds and claim "Organic" or even "organic." Playing with that "O"/"o" is what a lot of backyard egg sellers do. I don't think it's ethical.

But other sources are preferred even when they say "as of yesterday-ish we've been paying more for Certified Organic feeds ..." And so I've been asked to research.

I'd maybe consider switching feeds if there was some certainty the feed actually contained the ingredients listed on the label. But lots of "Certified Organic" feeds don't test out to be what the label claims, and that's what stopped me last time. That limits my options by a lot.

 

[lovingmyhens]

I fear snakes. I've been know to freak out if I see one on TV. Dad just told me there is a garter snake curled up on the welcome mat. So. Obviously. I'm never leaving the house again. Ever.

Go out the back way!!

 

[Beekissed]

Absolutely. So true. And the birds are "vegetarian," either, which is one request I sometimes get. All this is why I never seriously considered Certified Organic feed. Also, when we start adding our own wheat to the mix, it won't be Certified Organic.

I'm not a fan of GMOs, not at all, and I'd like to avoid them. And I'd like less RoundUp sprayed on the crops. If possible. But you can't just switch feeds and claim "Organic" or even "organic." Playing with that "O"/"o" is what a lot of backyard egg sellers do. I don't think it's ethical.

But other sources are preferred even when they say "as of yesterday-ish we've been paying more for Certified Organic feeds ..." And so I've been asked to research.

I'd maybe consider switching feeds if there was some certainty the feed actually contained the ingredients listed on the label. But lots of "Certified Organic" feeds don't test out to be what the label claims, and that's what stopped me last time. That limits my options by a lot.

That's where it sticks in my craw too...the ethics of it. When I visited Joel Salatin's farm and saw his "pastured" broilers I had to laugh and it was then I stopped reading his books...many birds stuffed into a 10x10 box, standing on trampled and poopy grass while eating continuous grain feeds is not my idea of "pastured" and he full well knows it. I was disappointed and a little sickened by it, as I was by the overstocking and poor health of layers in his Racken House, the dead rabbits found there, his rude and dishonest attitude towards the people on the tour, the lack of distinction between the eggs being sold as to which were pastured and which were gathered from the birds confined to the Racken House...all were sold as pastured, etc.

I learned a valuable lesson that day... and will never have agricultural heroes ever again. You can't believe what you read in the books and on the websites...especially when there is money being made.

 

[lovingmyhens]

I have always shared the bed with the dog's. I usually have one at a time. Started with my Boston Terrier named Kitty. My very first puppy to raise by myself. She slept in the small of my back under the covers. When shed move around and wake me up I would take her outside to do her business. Then back to bed. I NEVER had an accident in the house. And She never cried at night... My Aussie cross "Barbara Anne Strieshound" Annie for short. I called her that because the had a long nose Eye liner and was very very sweet and smart. Was an older pup she only slept with me for a while till I was sure she was potty trained. After that she chose to sleep on top of the covers occasionally. She preferred the cooler spot on the floor. Annie had her own entourage.... I would go to a horse show in another city and people I could swear i never met would say HI Annie and give her a pet. The Greyhound thought the bed was interesting..... hed hop up if I asked him... make a nest watch tv with me for a while then hed get down because the floor was cooler. He was three when i got him. My latest girl Rosie slept with me on occasion too. but prefered the floor and her own bed too. She was two. But I will NOT allow cats in my room. They dont sleep at night they patrol or play or run relay races up and down the hall or reach under the door if locked out and play with the door bumper.... OR stand on the pillow and look down at my face..... Or Poke my face with their paws. There is a whole series of Simons Cat cartoons.... OMG funny deb

Oh my gosh that's hysterical!! That is my cat Bella to a tee hence the reason she is booted outside before bedtime regardless of the weather. Because this usually happens around 3-4 am

 

[Beekissed]

Here ya go, LJ!