kittenmmm's blog post - A Lighter Side

Just to let y'all know, Snoopy is tough...she's the one who escaped a ride to the "processing facility" and ended up at the vegetarian's house. She was eating for Wolf last night and getting on her knees so that's a good sign. We'll be helping her along for the next few days but if there's any chance of her recovering she will.

Sorry if I bummed everyone out with the last blog. It certainly wasn't meant that way. It's just another day in the life over here. You learn to adjust to that. My first year here I was a wreck everytime I lost something. I would blame myself and cry or just get depressed for days. I've learned to accept things that happen in this world though and I think it's actually made me stronger and more appreciative of the positive things.

On to lighter things....I picked up almost 3 dozen hatching eggs yesterday so I'm pretty excited about that. I got the incubator going and I'll put the eggs in later today. It's always a good idea to let the incubator run for 24 hours to make sure everything is set ok and the temp is holding steady. It takes 21 days for the eggs to hatch so I should be seeing some lovely little reds towards the end of February. This weekend wolf and I will clean up in the milk house and get everything set up properly for when the hatch arrives. Cross your fingers...hopefully the eggs are fertile and weren't too cold before they were collected.

For those of you who enjoy blogs I highly recommend Tilac Girl's. I had the opportunity to look at her profile and blogs yesterday and I was very intrigued. She's an interesting person and she writes some very thought provoking entries. She also has some lovely lingerie pictures. Of course I love learning about other people and their cultures so don't take my word for it...go check her out yourself.

Today is visit Mom day so I'm off to RI in a bit. I want to get out there early because my son has a half day today. He's old enough to spend some time alone but I hate leaving him out here on his own for too long. Anything can happen here and we only have the one neighbor to speak of.

For those of you who are into informing yourself of governmental intrusion into our lives I suggest you learn about the NAIS (National Animal Identification System). The proposal suggests that by 2008 ALL owners of any type of livestock will have to have their stock microchipped so they can be monitored via GPS by the federal government. Think about that for a minute....that means if you own so much as one horse, a couple of chickens or even one...ANY type of livestock...you would have to have it microchipped and allow the federal government to monitor your property at any time. It also pretty much spells the end of the family farm or farmsteader. AKA...Pauline with her geese, me with my chickens etal, Strawberry and her horse. The theory behind it being to keep our food supply safe. Ahem..MY food supply is safe...it's on my property, raised by me.

In addition, it would require all owners to report, within 24 hours, every time an animal leaves the property, is killed, dies, etc.., It would require all vets to be mandatory reporters. If you call a vet for an animal and it's not chipped they are required to report it. First off they would have to hire someone just for me...I would be calling every 5 minutes..."my chickens are at my neighbor's house under her bird feeder", "my chickens are back home now", "my chickens are back at the neighbor's house"..."my goats just got out...they're down the street in the woods"..."my pigs just got out..they're at the other neighbor's under the chestnut tree"..."oh wait, the chickens are next door again"

Personally I can't see it. They want to monitor livestock more closely than they monitor guns. Just a pet peeve of mine...I think we already have too many laws, rules and regulations as it is, most of which aren't even enforced. But, that's just my opinion. Feel free to come up with your own after you educate yourselves.

Pondering Kitty