Blogging angst, chicken angst

Thought I'd share this image.

British infantry advances through their own poison gas in the Loos Salient, September, 1915.

Haunting, no?

https://youtu.be/BKszzj-UMUs

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Oh dear, oh dear. What to do?

Word to the wise -- always check the rafters for high level bombers.

I was watching a Sargon of Akkad video last night and he was commenting on another persons u2b channel, pointing out that the person did some very good stuff but also a lot of garbage.

"I really try to make top-notch content," said Sargon, "I don't want to waste peoples time."

Oh $#!+. Am I wasting my readers time?

Yep.

I'm presently looking into the whole "what to do" thing. Hew tightly and with sharp focus to a defined post thesis might be a good start. I tend to just throw $#!+ at the page and see what sticks. If I look at it from a readers perspective a lot of it is a wast of time.

We'll see what happens. I'll be as surprised as you if I make tangible improvements in my blogging efforts.



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A good portion of the chicken flock flies over the chicken yard fence each morning. The escaped birds do their thing throughout the day, often going back and forth from the enclosure many times. In the evening the birds outside the wire put themselves back in and go roost in the chicken house. Evening is bedtime after all.

All of this is fine, with (so far) a single exception. The dogs leave the birds alone, we've had no daylight predation, and it's a joy to see them scratching around. Lovely sign of spring and a moving picture of successful domestication/eggricultural production.

Except they've been scratching in and around the tree nursery and tulip patch. Mom doesn't want them doing that. The choice is to let them do their thing, confine them to the enclosure, or fence off the "berm" where the tree nursery and tulip patch is located.

In my view they probably aren't going to hurt the trees or tulips. But I might be wrong. So while I'd prefer to go with option a, I'm gonna have to execute option b or c.

Option b is too much work. I'd need to build a high, covered enclosure. I could do it but prefer not to expend the time and resources to do so. Besides, we all alike to see them out and about doing chicken stuff. Except when they do it on the berm.

So  option c it is. A couple of steel posts, some pencil posts, chicken wire, some kind of bodged "gate" to get in and out. An hour or two of labor and use of resources we have on hand. A pain in the ass, and the berm will be fenced off which will take away from the beauty of the tulip crop. But the chickens might kill the tulips and the trees. Probably not, but they might. So fence them out. But, however, if the birds can fly out of the enclosure, they can surely fly into the fenced off berm. Will they? Good question.

No clear cut best solution. Too many competing and conflicting goals. So my approach is basically "let's try option c and see what happens." It's a dynamic system and it's going to be what it's going to be.

I should probably say that all of this is much ado about little. In the big picture of the ranch we can loose chickens, trees, and tulips at essentially zero cost.

However, we all enjoy the chickens, trees, and tulips, and they are quite important to Mom.

'Nuff said.



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At a slight tangent (I know, I know), yesterday I mentioned broogle maps mislocating the ranch house by 3/5 of a mile. I shared this fact via email with siblings and one response was this:

"...when you consider how remarkable the gps and navigation thing is compared to 20 years ago maybe we should expect a few errors."

That's great, but there are two problems. Firstly, four years ago broogle maps put the pin right on the house. Broogle is regressing. Getting worse. Instead of doing their stated job and making their stated service available, they are "saving the planet." It's basically an organism in the early stages of tertiary syphilis. The whole thing is mad as a hatter and getting worse. It won't recover. No cure for ideological tertiary syphilis.

The more frightening problem is my correspondent's utter and complete certainty about the world. The kind of certainty that just shuts out conflicting information. People who behave like that are some scary motherfuckers. They'll happily justify genocide in a heartbeat, all the while "knowing" how fine and noble and altruistic they are.

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The other morning B'rer Bunny was enjoying his perch in a trailer load of straw bales.

Happy to have been of service!

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And finally, advice on teevee service providers all the way from Kimball, Nebraska.

Mom's internet has been fixed btw.

Be well and embrace the blessings of liberty.