It's been so rainy that it's been pretty dark. The hens are really sensitive to light: more sun, more eggs. My middle school kids' Cross Country coach paid for two orders of eggs and when I came in to work today, my coworker put her empty box on my desk with a note saying, "Please refill". I have enough to fill 1 1/2 orders - yeah, by Monday, I should have enough to fill both orders, and still have some for Sunday breakfast. I need to get more hens.
The issue is that day old chicks need light for about 4 weeks - and they need to stay in the laundry room for 3 of those weeks. It is cute to watch chicks in a tub in the laundry room for about a week - then they get stinky. And once the feathers start to replace the down, they aren't all that attractive, either. Still amusing, but not very good looking. I think chickens are endlessly amusing. They are so incredibly stupid; just watching them brightens my day. I hear turkeys are even stupider. I would raise a few just to see that, except they have to strictly be kept away from chickens to avoid illness, and with turkeys at $6 at Safeway near Thanksgiving, it doesn't make sense economically.
Speaking of the economics of meat. I always have my British Lit I students read Jonathon Swift's "A Modest Proposal" (1729). It never fails to absolutely gross them out. It works very well at Halloween. One kid claims to have had nightmares based on this satire which proposes that the poor Irish should sell their children for slaughter in order to improve their economy. No matter how often I explain satire, there are some kids who just focus on the absolute mercenary quality of enumerating cuts of meat and glove leather that could be taken from a 12 month old child rather than on the inequities which caused Dr. Swift to write this piece.
On the other hand, every time I look at Minnie the lamb, I think of lamb chops. I wouldn't want to eat this particular lamb, but I do get visions of lamb curry.
No comments:
Post a Comment