The Gospel Bird and Folk Dancing:
Thought for the Day:
Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable. Sidney J. Harris
A Weekend Review:
It was a quiet and introspective weekend around the Manor Public. Friday while still feeling the residual effects of NLT, I had volunteered to help a friend who is living large Luddite style in a sod homestead in rural Indiana. Yes, one of those people with advanced degrees, who is in love with the idea of a self sufficient lifestyle and organic foods. They are a non-Amish family who is ok with pooping in an outhouse.
What can I say; I have a diverse group of people I count among my friends.
One I would like to say in their defense is that at least they are not vegetarians, or at least they were not before we started our task. They had decided that they wanted to “harvest” their growing chicken population which at the start of the day numbered 49 healthy chickens, all of whoms lives had been well lived.
I myself am not a fan of chickens having raised them as a strapping youth, I know them to be dirty and vial creatures.
I had instructed them that we needed a butcher kettle, a strong clothes line, 20 pounds of paraffin, and 10 used car tubes. Instead of an ax he wanted to use a samurai sword he bought at a local fair when he was 13, I brought my meat clever just in case.
Now I should add at this point that I had been assured of the fact that he had done this before and that he would be ready when I got there. I was soon to find out that neither were the case. His experience with butchering chickens involved watching his great grandmother do it once when he was five, lets just say skilled he wasn’t.
Upon my arrival, I found that instead of a butcher kettle he had a turkey deep fryer and only 10 pounds of paraffin. I being a man skilled at performing in less than ideal situations, with less than adequate equipment, with remarkably unprepared individuals took charge.
I started him cutting 14 inch pieces of innertube and his wife in making 6 inch loops out of bailing wire that they happened to have on hand. I started the paraffin melting, and strung the clothes line tightly out in our work area.
In my friends defense they at least had already caught the chickens and had them loaded into what else but chicken crates. Now some of you might have helped butcher chickens before, but it’s not a 10 on my scale of fun ways to spend a Friday afternoon. As a result, I find a system that is both quick and effective to be best. And one thing I am known for is systems thinking, granted most often in how to defeat a system, but still it is a skill I have.
I pulled the first chicken out and shoved his little head through the cut tube, and then I put the wire around his little neck and tightened it so he couldn’t get out. I started on the second, the third and so on, till I had 10 chickens all trussed, at which point my friend suddenly lost the taste for use of his samurai sword differed to me, so I chopped their little heads off, and hung them on the clothes line to drain. After about 15 minutes I then reenacting a extreme gay porn I once saw and removed their organs by hand, then washing their insides thoroughly with a garden hose, kind of like a chicken high colonic, saving the kidneys, hearts and gizzards, also saved were the necks and the brains, each in a different Tupperware container, filled with salt water.
I then started them on the plucking, which I find to be the most un-enjoyable part of butchering chicken, after making them do it twice (attention to detail is after all my hallmark), I then showed them what the melted paraffin was for, I dipped the chickens in and hung them once again on the clothes line, this time just with the wire. When the paraffin hardens, you pull it off and it takes off the pen feathers, so they are nice a smooth just like at the grocery.
Rinse them off once again, soak ‘em in salt water for about a half and hour and then just toss them in a freezer bag and into a coolers and there you go, fresh organic chicken.
You didn’t think Tyson grew them in plastic shrink wrap did you? At least these birds had a life of being chickens vs. an industrial farm.
I then left them to there own devices; you see I had other plans in the evening. My Flower had picked up some steaks and made me dinner, so after a shower and a full meal, I enjoyed the company of my marital bed.
Early to rise, I taught a class for someone. As you the reader know I hate teaching Saturday morning summer classes, but soldiered on I did. The class went well, it was a subject I don’t know a great deal on, but I am good a bull shitting and I find anytime I can talk about string theories to a captive audience enjoyable. After the class, a woman came up to me, a very hot sexy woman, white mini-skirt, tank-top, blonde hair, tanned and she said coyly….
“…you don’t remember me do you?”
Now there are few things that will make a married man’s blood run cold, one of them being this statement. Thinking, why yes, I have been known to find myself over served at various watering holes, however, I am sure I would remember sleeping with a 19 year old co-ed.
I being a thinker, said… ummm, no I am sorry, I don’t. With a big smile she gave me a hug and said “I am Sunshine!!!” My first thought was, why yes, you are, my dear, but somewhere the name echoed deep in my event filled life.
It turns out I dated her mother for about a year, when this girl was 6. Well, she lets just say she had changed a lot since 1st grade, man…talk about feeling old. To make matters worse, her mother and step-dad we coming to pick her up and she wanted me to stick around and wait on them. Some quick thinking on my part and a few imaginary appointments, and I was out of there, leaving her with my warmest and most heart felt regards for her mother and the asshole she married.
After that, I went home shaken not stirred, my god I thought, I really am getting old. My loving Flower thought it was one of the funniest things she had ever heard. There is something to be said friends, for having a supportive wife.
Later in the day, we went to a Macedonian BBQ in the northern part of our fair city. Were made to feel members of their primitive tribe by under going “A Man Called Horse” type rituals. To include learning a dance while members of the audience threw knifes at my feet. I Thank-God for my cat like reflexes.
We left the party early, and by early I mean early Sunday morning. I being the designated driver, since has my Loving Bride put it “it was her fucking turn” and what a turn she had, I had never seen full-contact croquet before, and from the shocked looks of many faces neither had anyone else. My Flower is nothing if not competitive. Let’s just say, she didn’t wake-up until 3:30 Sunday afternoon.
I had to go and help my brother Sunday afternoon, much to Little Kevin’s dismay; he wanted to meet me at the Rugby Bar Sunday afternoon for a NASCAR-Good-Bye-Little Kevin-Blow-Out, before he left town. Fortunately, after 14 phone calls I was able to get across to him I was already blown-out and an hour and a half away.
So, to you Lil’ Kevin, I bid you safe journey and all the happiness & joy you deserve in Phoenix. For evening supper I made pork chops (I made a new recipe and it kicked ass) and fresh peas, with homemade bread. I read for a bit and then turned in early.
All in all, a simple weekend for a simple man.
Today’s Bill:
SONNET 148
O me, what eyes hath Love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight!
Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote
Love's eye is not so true as all men's 'No.'
How can it? O, how can Love's eye be true,
That is so vex'd with watching and with tears?
No marvel then, though I mistake my view;
The sun itself sees not till heaven clears.
O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,
Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.
Quote for the Day:
Contrary to general belief, I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who got there first.
Peter Ustinov
I remain, much like chewing on tin foil:
JQP esq.
Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable. Sidney J. Harris
A Weekend Review:
It was a quiet and introspective weekend around the Manor Public. Friday while still feeling the residual effects of NLT, I had volunteered to help a friend who is living large Luddite style in a sod homestead in rural Indiana. Yes, one of those people with advanced degrees, who is in love with the idea of a self sufficient lifestyle and organic foods. They are a non-Amish family who is ok with pooping in an outhouse.
What can I say; I have a diverse group of people I count among my friends.
One I would like to say in their defense is that at least they are not vegetarians, or at least they were not before we started our task. They had decided that they wanted to “harvest” their growing chicken population which at the start of the day numbered 49 healthy chickens, all of whoms lives had been well lived.
I myself am not a fan of chickens having raised them as a strapping youth, I know them to be dirty and vial creatures.
I had instructed them that we needed a butcher kettle, a strong clothes line, 20 pounds of paraffin, and 10 used car tubes. Instead of an ax he wanted to use a samurai sword he bought at a local fair when he was 13, I brought my meat clever just in case.
Now I should add at this point that I had been assured of the fact that he had done this before and that he would be ready when I got there. I was soon to find out that neither were the case. His experience with butchering chickens involved watching his great grandmother do it once when he was five, lets just say skilled he wasn’t.
Upon my arrival, I found that instead of a butcher kettle he had a turkey deep fryer and only 10 pounds of paraffin. I being a man skilled at performing in less than ideal situations, with less than adequate equipment, with remarkably unprepared individuals took charge.
I started him cutting 14 inch pieces of innertube and his wife in making 6 inch loops out of bailing wire that they happened to have on hand. I started the paraffin melting, and strung the clothes line tightly out in our work area.
In my friends defense they at least had already caught the chickens and had them loaded into what else but chicken crates. Now some of you might have helped butcher chickens before, but it’s not a 10 on my scale of fun ways to spend a Friday afternoon. As a result, I find a system that is both quick and effective to be best. And one thing I am known for is systems thinking, granted most often in how to defeat a system, but still it is a skill I have.
I pulled the first chicken out and shoved his little head through the cut tube, and then I put the wire around his little neck and tightened it so he couldn’t get out. I started on the second, the third and so on, till I had 10 chickens all trussed, at which point my friend suddenly lost the taste for use of his samurai sword differed to me, so I chopped their little heads off, and hung them on the clothes line to drain. After about 15 minutes I then reenacting a extreme gay porn I once saw and removed their organs by hand, then washing their insides thoroughly with a garden hose, kind of like a chicken high colonic, saving the kidneys, hearts and gizzards, also saved were the necks and the brains, each in a different Tupperware container, filled with salt water.
I then started them on the plucking, which I find to be the most un-enjoyable part of butchering chicken, after making them do it twice (attention to detail is after all my hallmark), I then showed them what the melted paraffin was for, I dipped the chickens in and hung them once again on the clothes line, this time just with the wire. When the paraffin hardens, you pull it off and it takes off the pen feathers, so they are nice a smooth just like at the grocery.
Rinse them off once again, soak ‘em in salt water for about a half and hour and then just toss them in a freezer bag and into a coolers and there you go, fresh organic chicken.
You didn’t think Tyson grew them in plastic shrink wrap did you? At least these birds had a life of being chickens vs. an industrial farm.
I then left them to there own devices; you see I had other plans in the evening. My Flower had picked up some steaks and made me dinner, so after a shower and a full meal, I enjoyed the company of my marital bed.
Early to rise, I taught a class for someone. As you the reader know I hate teaching Saturday morning summer classes, but soldiered on I did. The class went well, it was a subject I don’t know a great deal on, but I am good a bull shitting and I find anytime I can talk about string theories to a captive audience enjoyable. After the class, a woman came up to me, a very hot sexy woman, white mini-skirt, tank-top, blonde hair, tanned and she said coyly….
“…you don’t remember me do you?”
Now there are few things that will make a married man’s blood run cold, one of them being this statement. Thinking, why yes, I have been known to find myself over served at various watering holes, however, I am sure I would remember sleeping with a 19 year old co-ed.
I being a thinker, said… ummm, no I am sorry, I don’t. With a big smile she gave me a hug and said “I am Sunshine!!!” My first thought was, why yes, you are, my dear, but somewhere the name echoed deep in my event filled life.
It turns out I dated her mother for about a year, when this girl was 6. Well, she lets just say she had changed a lot since 1st grade, man…talk about feeling old. To make matters worse, her mother and step-dad we coming to pick her up and she wanted me to stick around and wait on them. Some quick thinking on my part and a few imaginary appointments, and I was out of there, leaving her with my warmest and most heart felt regards for her mother and the asshole she married.
After that, I went home shaken not stirred, my god I thought, I really am getting old. My loving Flower thought it was one of the funniest things she had ever heard. There is something to be said friends, for having a supportive wife.
Later in the day, we went to a Macedonian BBQ in the northern part of our fair city. Were made to feel members of their primitive tribe by under going “A Man Called Horse” type rituals. To include learning a dance while members of the audience threw knifes at my feet. I Thank-God for my cat like reflexes.
We left the party early, and by early I mean early Sunday morning. I being the designated driver, since has my Loving Bride put it “it was her fucking turn” and what a turn she had, I had never seen full-contact croquet before, and from the shocked looks of many faces neither had anyone else. My Flower is nothing if not competitive. Let’s just say, she didn’t wake-up until 3:30 Sunday afternoon.
I had to go and help my brother Sunday afternoon, much to Little Kevin’s dismay; he wanted to meet me at the Rugby Bar Sunday afternoon for a NASCAR-Good-Bye-Little Kevin-Blow-Out, before he left town. Fortunately, after 14 phone calls I was able to get across to him I was already blown-out and an hour and a half away.
So, to you Lil’ Kevin, I bid you safe journey and all the happiness & joy you deserve in Phoenix. For evening supper I made pork chops (I made a new recipe and it kicked ass) and fresh peas, with homemade bread. I read for a bit and then turned in early.
All in all, a simple weekend for a simple man.
Today’s Bill:
SONNET 148
O me, what eyes hath Love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight!
Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote
Love's eye is not so true as all men's 'No.'
How can it? O, how can Love's eye be true,
That is so vex'd with watching and with tears?
No marvel then, though I mistake my view;
The sun itself sees not till heaven clears.
O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,
Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.
Quote for the Day:
Contrary to general belief, I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who got there first.
Peter Ustinov
I remain, much like chewing on tin foil:
JQP esq.
posted by John Q. Public esq. at 2:20 AM
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