The Old Folks Home

[ozexpat]

I had to interject and share, since my daughter seems so excited.

This is her FB post.
"I'm so lucky. living! in Koh Rong Island, Cambodia."

She texted this morning that she has her own beach bungalow, and is trekking through the interior jungle across the island tomorrow with 2 girlfriends to a secluded beach.
She said they only have electricity from 6-10 PM.
Really, isn't that all you need?

I imagine beach pictures will be forthcoming. It might have to wait till she gets back to the mainland.

Once upon a time (1985) I stayed on an atol of Lombok called Gili Trawangan. It was the most picture perfect little island with amzing coral, white sand beaches and snokelling.

Pak Majid's hotel has a dorm for 6 bucks a night including 3 meals a day. On the second day I moved into a bungallow with an English guy - five dollars each. It had electricity from dark till 12 midnight and cold cold beer. A great place for 2 or 3 days. I was actually saddened by the travelers there that had been holed up for two weeks on the island. With so much to see in Indonesia, I thought it was a waste to just hang out on the beach. A visa was just 60 days.

Your daughter is doing it right.

I ended up traveling along the island chain to Flores and Komodo Island. We sacrificed a goat and hung it in a tree along a dry river bed. It was amazing to see those massive lizards consume the goat. The pictures were incredible.

I stayed a month in Indonesia on that visit. I spent $1000 in country all in. It was my first adventure traveling solo and one of the best experiences in my life.

 

[chickadoodles]

Congratulations!

Thank you.

 

[ozexpat]

I just cant help myself.

Body weight change is pure math.

Body weight change = calories consumed - calories burned.

Calories from 1g protein or carb - 4
Calories from 1g fat - 9

2 tbsp of butter contains 204 calories. 24g fat, 14g of which is saturated fat and 70% of recomended daily needs
1 cup of brown rice containes 216 calories and 15% of the min fibre requirements

If you are like me - you gain a few grams of weight each day - I am no poster child for nutrition.

I am however a great defender of science.

While all this anecdotal intercourse on the wonders of low carbs and paleo are interesting, they are yet to have scientific merit. There is no proven fact in numbers of statistical significance that it is good for you and some science suggests that diets of that nature are detrimental.

Here is an column article from a respected peer-reviewed site.



There is no argument that most fast food is not as well balanced as most home cooked meals. There is argument that too much saturated fat will effect your brain.

 

[ronott1]

I just cant help myself.

Body weight change is pure math.

Body weight change = calories consumed - calories burned.

Calories from 1g protein or carb - 4
Calories from 1g fat - 9

2 tbsp of butter contains 204 calories. 24g fat, 14g of which is saturated fat and 70% of recomended daily needs
1 cup of brown rice containes 216 calories and 15% of the min fibre requirements

If you are like me - you gain a few grams of weight each day - I am no poster child for nutrition.

I am however a great defender of science.

While all this anecdotal intercourse on the wonders of low carbs and paleo are interesting, they are yet to have scientific merit. There is no proven fact in numbers of statistical significance that it is good for you and some science suggests that diets of that nature are detrimental.

Here is an column article from a respected peer-reviewed site.



There is no argument that most fast food is not as well balanced as most home cooked meals. There is argument that too much saturated fat will effect your brain.

Thanks Oz!

I read the "News" version of a recent study and the Story said that Middle Age people need to cut Protein and eat Whole Grain food. Older people needed to cut the grains and eat more Protein. Also, it was not clear exactly what middle age was and when old age started. I gotta know when I need to stop eating whole grain and start eating a lot of meat

If that were true, I do not know if I want to do all the work and complete life style changes based on my age! to live to be Old.....It is too much work LOL.

 

[Bunnylady]

I read the "News" version of a recent study and the Story said that Middle Age people need to cut Protein and eat Whole Grain food. Older people needed to cut the grains and eat more Protein. Also, it was not clear exactly what middle age was and when old age started. I gotta know when I need to stop eating whole grain and start eating a lot of meat

If that were true, I do not know if I want to do all the work and complete life style changes based on my age! to live to be Old.....It is too much work LOL.

Oh, yeah, the time to start eating lots of meat is about the time you haven't got any teeth left to chew it with . . . .

 

[chickadoodles]

Quote: Oh, yeah, the time to start eating lots of meat is about the time you haven't got any teeth left to chew it with . . . .

I agree it is to much work at my age to even try to change the way I eat. When my dad was my age his doctor told him that his cholesterol was a little high to cut back on his bacon and eggs.

My dad had never ate breakfast, but after that appointment he started eating breakfast "Bacon or sausage and eggs" every morning for the next 20 + years!

And he lived to be 85, so how much did his cholesterol shorten his life span?

So now that my doctor has told me mine is a little high guess what? I am not changing my habits now.

 

[Hangtown Farms]

I just love this shot. I have been removing bits of flotsam and jetsam from the waterfall rocks to improve the stream drops into this or that pool and became entranced with the growth in the mosses. Oooooh.


We were absolutely flabbergasted to see a street sweeper swoosh the roads out here. C'mon! STREET sweeper? I had passed it on Mt. Aukum/E16 earlier in the day and was wondering what the heck it was doing out here... We don't have streets out here - they're all ROADS and Perry Creek Rd is one of those .... Forget what it's called when pea gravel is imbedded in the slurry. The sweeper flung the gravel everywhere. It made three passes at that corner, flinging gravel into the Pub parking lot. A real "Huh?" 45 minutes for us local folk.


My "watering hole." Still waiting for some BYCers to show up for a good draft brew, glass of wine from local wineries, or made-from-scratch meals. Or a dart game. That's a real, wood-fired pizza oven at the front of the place.

And here's the sign for the hardware/etc. store where I sell some of my eggs. The sign is much fancier than the establishment.

beer beer. hey I'm your most local bycer lol

 

[kingfrodo]

Oh, yeah, the time to start eating lots of meat is about the time you haven't got any teeth left to chew it with . . . .

I agree it is to much work at my age to even try to change the way I eat. When my dad was my age his doctor told him that his cholesterol was a little high to cut back on his bacon and eggs.

My dad had never ate breakfast, but after that appointment he started eating breakfast "Bacon or sausage and eggs" every morning for the next 20 + years!

And he lived to be 85, so how much did his cholesterol shorten his life span?

So now that my doctor has told me mine is a little high guess what? I am not changing my habits now.

I totally agree! slightly high colesterol runs in my paternal side of the family....but the youngest member to die in five generations was 98. My 17 y/o DD knew her great great grandparents. They only just died a couple years ago.

I'll keep eating my bacon and eggs too!

 

[ozexpat]

I eat eggs most days. not so much bacon. i dont need the calories

high cholesterol is essentially genetic

i do take statins and aspirin but no need for antihypertensive with bp at 130/65

 

[Hangtown Farms]

Flighty, skittish...means they are AWARE of their environment...won't find them all napping on the roost...up and at 'em. Do they ever go setty (thinking a non-setty breed like Leghorn origins perhaps) as I find having a clutch of eggs and raising a brood really chills a chicken girl out and makes her real dreamy to be around and handle. Being a Mom...yer mind goes to mush and sedates/calms one out...bwa ha ha....

What kind of weights...I see cocks at 8 pounds, hens at 5.5 pounds...is that about right or is that a stretch for now? Too bad not recognized in NA yet. Any real organized group working on them; five persons for five years?

I find the combs fascinating on Penedesencas. Got me all guessing what genetics are involved. Single comb with several "lobes" at the rear...Carnation or King's comb...Do you happen to know the genetic formula for it?

I am guessing workings (He gives more serrations in a single comb and makes it a tad larger too though Hèrissèe does lower sperm life expectancy), maybe Duplex (D "split comb" causes the back to divide) and Sigrid Van Dort says "side sprigs" which are "legal in the Spanish Penedescenas fowl, it a characteristic of the breed." She also says it takes 2 months to show up on males and longer on females. Is this true then? You cannot see the spilt in the end of the single for a time?

How prevalent are the proper King's comb expressions in your lines.

Not familiar with this breed and thought instantly, white eggs but WOW...even with white in the lobes, DARK eggs. Kewl and yeh, you got your work cut out for you in this breed!

Love the varieties I see them being...Créle, Partridge, Wheaten and your Blacks. Going with the self-black (Black Penny) will let you concentrate more on the other attributes like dark egg colour and maybe that spectacular gender specific comb style if it is a fickle thingy. I see the females end up with a droopy comb like Leggyhorns do. Those things in themselves might mean you gotta double mate them...males upright comb, females with the comb over...ha ha ha.



Warming up now, so we got snow. Saying plus ten (50F) by the weekend...agh...snow to ice to mud...spring may be sprung along with daylight savings time!



I decided yesterday that I could not stand it any longer and rousted a few of the F3's outta the Duece Coop for pickies, even at -25C was a whisk outside CLICK and back in...

T\this is Pewter's first hatch, she's on her second hatch and this boy is already crowing.

I personally figure some chickens are ROCK STARS...yes, leave me to my dementia but you look at him, look him in the eye and YOU tell me he is not confident, self-aware and knows what he is all about. You tell me this bird brain is dull and I'll give you a poke in the eye for it...hee hee....

​

Bro W used a very special Columbian male he produced in the first year of creating the Chantecler...I do believe I am on the right track...following in the originator of the breed's footsteps.





This one pictured below is from the second F3 Chantecler bantam project hatch I had this winter...two whites...now how blocky is this one White? Widdle block of tasty firm chickeness...no, not tempted to chew on a leg quite yet but that build sure screams MEAT! Poor thing... already drooled upon...but can't help myself...meaty chicken...

See the l00k I am getting... "Who's meaty there fat lady?"​

I decided to treat Rick and I (no real reason) and bake a quick coffee like cake. Recipe includes an EGG...so wow now...where EVER shall I ever get one of those?? An egg? What species of egg??

Fruit Cocktail Cake

1 cup Flour
1 cup Sugar
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 EGG
1 - 14 oz / 398 ml tin of Fruit Cocktail (including juice)
Brown Sugar for sprinkling on top / Butter for smearing on pan and then flouring / Cam for dousing on warm cake

Mix ingredients. Butter and flour a pan. Pour mixture into pan, drop pan gently a few times to remove bubbles so cake does not fall during cooking. Sprinkle brown sugar on top.

Bake at 350 F for 30 minutes (stick wooden toothpick in, comes out clean, it is cooked--careful not to burn it).

​

Serve with cream if you like (seniors need our CALCIUM!). Feel free to BURP!

When one gets older, we start breaking more and more of the rooles. Rules of conduct, rules of being civilized, rules of proper upstanding persons. Can you tell I have been wearing purple for ever???

Cakes are not for special occasions--who said that!
The fact you woke up and can move freely, now that IS an occasion to celebrate, eh?

And speaking of dessert...who ever said that dessert had to be eaten last at supper. We often have dessert BEFORE the meal...if you wait till after the main course, often you are too full or worse, Rick has dozed off in his chair or I have forgotten to tell him there is dessert and he's gone and taken his teeth out. This way if you have dessert FIRST...you get to enjoy the good things in life...not sleep through them or be unable to consume them.

So remember, always break rule #1, eat dessert FIRST at every meal...

Well OK...let me re-say that...maybe not at breaky but surely SECOND breakfast one can have jam or jelly on the toast...right? Did I say RIGHT old persons? Right...so if we all band together, nobody can say we are not right, right?

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

Tara do you know any black penedesenca breeders in Spain? we are trying to find some up there to bring down. its hard finding rare breed sites there though it seems.
I love the penedesenca. They are so alert and heat hardy. Very healthy birds and lay nice eggs that vary from as dark as you will see to a nice medium brown with a terra cotta tone.

I feel they are hands down the best chicken you can own if you have property and live in hot parts of the country. Draw a line from Northern California to Virginia south and there you go.
Very underated and extremely misunderstood. The only breed I would equal is the Empordanesa.

They're frequent setters. I only had 3 raise a clutch last year but once I had 9 pullets sharing a community nest and 8 of them went broody within days of each other. The lone girl out was lonely and didn't know what was wrong with her friends.

Here's one of my cockerels. Long and lean but looks just like the processed birds in Spain that are renown for flavor and have an annual festival to celebrate them. They also keep the head and legs on at the market so one knows that they are getting the real deal they are paying $50 for.



Jason has done a great job of getting the club/website rebooted. Organized group? IMO there are probably only 6 or so people that have had them that long and not all varieties.

IMO the carnation comb is fairly dominant. The white lobes, less so.







You probably know more about genetics than I but I'm trying to learn. I think it will be easier for me since I'm only working on black feathers.

The side sprigs start showing up within days on some of the cockerels.
Some of my hens have very floppy combs, some are more upright. Some flop too much, some not enough. Most of the roosters are appropriate. I'll worry about the hens combs later.
I have some issues with white mottling (mostly in hens) the occasional copper hackle in a rooster. Those flaws have been in the breed in Spain for a long time though so I'm not freaking out about it.
I'm trying to gather the funds for Sigrid Van Dort's books on feather genetics and genetic extremes.
I actually e-mailed her and she said carnation combs weren't in her book and she wasn't real familiar. When did you get her info about them?


On the recipe front

I'm not a vegan but I had an amazing lacto-ovo vegetarian sandwich today.
alfalfa sprouts
red onion
avocado
English cucumber
tomato
arugula
white cheddar cheese
pumpernickel rye




I think the idea of the experiment of shipping pre-incubated eggs is to see if it works. I also think the darker, thicker eggs don't lose weight as fast so I weigh rather than worry about humidity until the last couple days.

Guy they are looking great

Have you tried t he sanding method that CHookschick recommends?? I have wondered about other methods of removing the paint that does not involve shaing the eggs. For me that is the difficult part = holding the egg still while sanding. A shipped egg is already fragile, sanding seems like more abuse. Wet and rub??

all you really ned to do is hatch a few roosters