Archive for the ‘Newsletter’ Category

Brrrrrrrrr,

Now the chickens don't actually say this, but one can tell that there is a certain discontent and disconnect with standard chicken reality patterns. There's the random feather loss giving one the sense of being around poultry that should not, under any circumstances be touched, as well as the dreaded slow down in egg production that accompanies the time of molt. There are eight species of chooks of varying ages on board  at the moment and they all display slightly different patterns. As of now, the Speckled Sussex have already put on their winter feather coat (with the exception of Smarty Pantz) and are all puffed up and struttin' around like Snoop Dog pimpin' 0n the strip. The young leghorns look the most mottled but continue to squeeze out an egg or two as though compelled through genetics to deny their instinct to just stop for awhile. Sound familiar?

The book on this stuff is all about photo period. In natural settings these little feathered freak shows heave a cluck of relief, feel the weight of laying being lifted and praise whatever chicken deity that particular species praises for the fact that the painful ritual of expanding their egg holes to a hundred times their intended width has ceased, (the leghorns made a puja with photos of Foghorn Leghorn surrounded by egg maker, incense, Kentucky bourbon and mongoose toes, the rhode island reds scratched out a picture of Colonel Sanders under their roosts so they can shit on it every morning. The Americaunas just stand around complaining to each other that they are discriminated against for laying blue eggs.

And of course there's the anxiety. The anxiety of wondering whether or not the little fuckers will ever start laying again. Day after day of hardly any eggs. Weeks drifting by without any sign of increase. People at the farmers market seriously spazzing over the fact that we've sold out of eggs in the first half hour. It is, of course, about as rational as the caveman wondering whether the warm weather will ever come back when winter has settled in. I know this, and yet........................

Mzzzsss. Faloley is now in Bangkok giving the girls of Nana District lessons in the art of manhandling. She'll be cruising Asia for a couple of months causing as much trouble as possible and can likely be seen jumping fences and climbing fruit trees for exotic stash.  Look for the devaluation of the dollar to begin soon.  She's threatened to return to Maui and stay with us for awhile on her way back to Portland where she will be applying for work as a lifeguard at a car wash. We look forward to seeing her and hearing her tales of travel. Nurse Natalie arrived a couple of weeks back to fill the void, and fill it she has with her solid work ethic, soft spoken ways and Venusian charm. Her two week "hows it goin" orientation has ended and she has decided to stay on for a spell. So, along with Caley Nightingaley and Josh "too tall" Green, the farm is humming.  I am indeed a fortunate fella.

Got a new banana, papaya, edible hibiscus patch going in. This is a minor major project and the kind that the wwoofs always enjoy because its something different and requires a group effort and altered mindset. It will be modeled on the one in existence for the past year and a half which has proven to be a bigtime source of  fruit and vegies. Main thing with bananas is to know how tall the varieties you're planting get and to plant them far enough apart. After that its a matter of trimming leaves, mulching, regular watering and keeping the clumps to no more than about five to seven plants each.

We'll be using the dwarf apple, cavendish and Williams varieties as well as both pure Thai and Thai Solo cross papayas which seem to be fairly resistant to the ten bajillion diseases that feast on papaya leaf, skin and flesh. These areas provide good food production, grow out into wind breaks and privacy barriers and when mature, act as perfect hideouts for wwoofs who want to ditch work and burn some herb.

Is there any point in following  politics anymore. Isn't it a little like watching re runs of re runs which because of the fact that you know whats coming, disappoint you even more?  The voice know as reason has been systematically replaced by one slogan after another touting a future of green hope and legalized dope. I've got a shirt that I wear to the farmers market from time to time. It says GROW SOMETHING. Not a bad place to start.

So the other day I was surfing the web and decided that it was time to re enter the world of first person shooters and I figured that I would go with the original Quake because even though the graphics are crude compared to the today's games, it is still arguably the best pure shooter ever made, weighing in at a mere eight megabytes of disk space. So I googled my way to a bit torrent site which offered a free download and promptly invited a nasty little worm into my garden.

Since then, my little Shuttle has been acting like a paranoid schizophrenic, balking at every command and taking painfully long to decide to load a program or even which program to load. Then there's the freeze up which has been happening almost every time I'd get on the web. Finally the much dreaded blue screen message telling you that you better make arrangements with the nearest mortuary. Not good. Now I'm no slouch when it comes to tweaking a brain dead computer back to life, but I had to consult genius boy to make sure that i'd covered all the bases. His diagnosis, get what you need off it and bail.

So, after beating back the penny pinching scrooge bot that usually rides herd over my impulses to spend, I picked up a spiffy little laptop and went through the time honored tradition of transferring data from a dying piece of modern technology to a shiny new recipient with so much hard drive space that the pictures and documents transferred felt as though they had just been catapulted into outer space. I felt a little like a Tibetan monk coaxing the silicon soul of a terminal hard drive out into the light to free itself of its virus riddled prison with the constant sound of a c.p.u. grinding out redundant commands and gumming up the works a little bit more each and every day . As of this writing, I still haven't figured out how to migrate the address book  on my email program, so this blog may take awhile to get out.)-:{

The point of this little tale of woe is that my new computer came with a remote control. That's right, a remote control. I thought, you're kidding. But then I realized that if you're watching a movie or listening to music with your laptop sitting five inches too far away to tweak manually you can pick the teeny thing up, point and press and soak in the feeling of radical laziness. But the insight into laziness isn't the point. The point is that I now have five remote control devices (not counting my car key). There's the dish, the tube, the dvd player, the Bose and the computer. I feel so debauched. Its as though my remote control footprint has crossed the border of good taste and necessity. For penance I intend to fast for 32 days focusing primarily on that part of the brain which is capable of transmitting energy patterns adequate to the task of  controlling electronic devices.

Can one claim sustainability without such skills? I am my remote. My remote is me.

"Are you really gonna fast for thirty two days unky jp?"

"That's right little fella, that's right."

"Can I have your junk if you croak?'

"I'll get back to you on that little fella."

The more you show, the more we'll grow. Peace, Jp

Yesterday, the vog was so bad that my eyes wept sulphurous tears. West Maui became an apparition in the toxic mist. The winds out of the south being in cahoots with Kilauea and its relentless belching of partially digested magma tar-tare. We live in a stage four geofart zone. This is sobering news.

Statistically we are more likely to develop respiratory complications such as  hot vog drip, crumble jaw, donkey whoop and epoxy mucus.  Because of the high mercury content, neural networks could experience crashes and rerouting which would require the downsizing of various life functions not vital to survival, like those icons on your desktop that rarely get used.

So don't be surprised if you start forgetting what comes after seven, or the name of your dog or where you parked when you went shopping at Krispy Kreme, or why you were shopping at Krispy Kreme. Don't bother consulting your doctor. Their judgement has long since been impaired.

We are, of course beyond grateful for the karma that dropped us in the outpost that is Maui. At the same time it is one of those wonderful ironies that in order to be here we must  endure an inkling of what it might be like to be stuck in Satans waiting room, getting ready to interview for an entry level position and weeping over the scent of the receptionists body odor.

Clearly we don't need all the brain cells we are given so no sweat, and neural networks are easy to build. Go take a math course or crochet a birdcage, memorize the first thousand numbers in the Fibonacci series or write a song in a language you don't know using notes no one's ever heard. Toss in a little Gotu Kola and Ginko Biloba and shazayumm, good as new and on to the next challenge as the merry goes round.

Speaking of which, the pace of life at the Rancho continues to involve routines that take us ever closer to a subject/object synchronicity. Feeling like the moves we make support the vitality and productivity of our little project and gently and joyously urge us onward to ever deepening perceptions and connections to the whole, being human thing. Turns out that acts of selflessness light up the same part of the brain as acts of satisfying sexuality. So go fuck yourself.

The farmers market in makawao has got all the elements of the world in microcosm. There's a bunch of ex-patriated haoles gathered together from various parts of "never goin' back there again". There's Uma from India and mamasita from Whatamala and Gabriella from Brazil and tita from Paia. There's coconut boy and the guy with the live plants. There's neo hippies and bruddah uncle. One can make the rounds and leave with shopping bags brimming with everything from plant material to lush green vegetables to organically grown tomatoes to honey to fruits of multiple and rare varieties to home made soaps and freshly sprouted seeds and the mouthwatering samosa's of Uma.

The Rancho welcomed nurse Caley a couple of weeks back and turns out she plays guitar and uke, writes songs and sings like a freakin' angel. Her voice can be heard ringing out (and I know she's holding back) in this little grassy parking lot, bordered on one side by a building and on the other by Baldwin avenue, leaving two sides adjacent to vacant lots with grass and tall trees. There's a big avo and a lychee that overhang the back fence line and a tangerine tree that produces fruit sour as a spinster on a man-rant. We're gonna bring some percussion instruments this week and see what we can whip up.

Speaking of which, we've been whipping up new House of Yumm treats. Thanks to Dinah's can do attitude, tinged ever so slightly by the notion that we're all doomed, we began experimenting with dehydrating the white sapote, which is the fruit that bears the most poundage of any in the orchard and has three fruiting seasons.

Sure enough with a little experience a process emerged which made it easy enough to dry the buggahs, an so we sent some money through cyberspace, got a slick little commercial unit, an jus' li dat, in bizzness.

So far the biggest hit is the Banana Buzz Bar, otherwise known as turd wafers. Its just bananas mashed up with raw cacao powder and extruded in wide strips on to the backs of naked tourists at little beach. There they sit until almost taffy like at which point they are peeled off, cut into three inch squares, dipped in a mild solution of salt water and psilocybin, bagged up and sold at the farmers market or wherever covert Philipino cock fighting can be watched.

We've had some success, but mostly the process has opened up an enormous area that deserves, nay requires study. That of Food Science. I'm mostly a hit or miss kind of person in the kitchen. You won't find fancy tools or cook books or measuring devices. Would probably be mashing the bananas by hand over a bowl in the sink with the look of mighty Joe Young rubbing one out if my step sister hadn't sent me a Cuisinart food processor (a miracle on par with the Sham wow, by the way).

Along with these exotic extrusions, we’ve also been managing our excess papaya, atemoya, mango and sapote in addition to the occasional fruit leather roll up blends that we intend to market as vegan spliff holders. You can burn the herb as you chew your way through a sweet satisfying dessert. The beginning stages of  a new enterprise are always the most creatively exhilarating. We're looking to the newly sanctioned medical user demographic. High munchie potential.

Speaking of which, I was chatting with Dinah the other day and she was sitting there on the couch, legs all akimbo in her shorty shorts and a few seconds went by and she said, "why are you staring at my crotchel topography?" And I said, "because of the glowing fuchsia aura, flecked with gold particles which seem to dance within and radiate out to about here (I indicated a spot about fifteen inches above her tummy). And also because your vagina is reciting Hamlets famous soliloquy in the nunnery scene:"

To be or not to be – that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And, by opposing, end them. And so on...

"Don't you hear that," I asked. She demurred in an off handed and casually sexy kind of way as she slowly crossed her legs. "That better," she asked, batting her eyelashes.

"Still glowin' and the speech is just muffled, I said, but that's o.k. because whats really interesting here is that you've taught your vagina to recite Shakespeare. Your splendor is beyond measure."

She looked at me deep and wagged her index finger slowly as she lowered her head to mine. All at once her finger came to rest across her lips and she said, "Ssshhhhhhuushhshhhh!"

Then I woke up and ate a goofy smile for breakfast.

The more you show, the more we'll grow. Big kiss, Jp

Late last night in the living room, dimly lit with a candles flicker, the serenity was punctuated only by the barely audible  hum of a small swarm of fruit flies hovering over and feasting on a few tangor peels and some lilikoi pulp that got tossed into a bowl in the sink. Tiny wings flapping frantic, fanning the incense. A thought floated by.....

The number ten is the only number that contains within itself the two digits and only the two digits upon which all of computer binary code is based, 1 and 0. It could be argued that the first year of the century contains those digits as in 01' but that would be poppycock, pure and simple.  So what, you say?

If this humble combination of digits is capable of generating the entire world of computerspeak , might this not be the year to install  new operating systems, upgrade to more sustainable configs. and apps., flash our own BIOS's? Too fringy? O.k., if only for the symbolic certainty of the fact that there is only one year per century that ends with a 1 and a 0. If only for the fact that these are the only two digits which when combined neutralize each other rather than add to or subtract from each other. Ever ask yourself why the pocket protector geeky types chose 1 and 0 instead of say 2 and 0. Neither have I, not that bored yet but I'm just saying.

Nothing in the established political, economic and corporate order of things is changing to the extent to which waves of constructive transformation can take place any time soon. It is still very much an individual and tribal struggle to find our way through Madison Avenue's take on the word sustainable or the u.s.d.a.'s ever morphing definition of organic to an understanding that grows with shifting lifestyle choices and the new skill sets that enable and enrich those choices. Ten start again.

Congratulations are in order. Only once in the history of hosting wwoofers has anyone been elevated to the status of Executive Assistant. This, of course was the Keekster, now working on her masters degree at the only university in zeh virld devoted to the study of organic farming.

Nurse Dinah Foley has been in residence for three months now. While young by chronology she arrived as prepared, if not more so than any to come before her. Cruisin' light with money to spare. The term "hit the ground runnin'" comes to mind. The complexities of farming single crops can be daunting. The grasp of systems diversified by design takes a whole 'nother part of the brain.

Three months is really no time at all, but enough to feel what mojo lies beneath. Executive assistant status is awarded to those who have shown enough of a grasp of whats going on here for me to say, "going traveling now, see you in three months". For a certainty the fine work of Bubbha Mahalo's puts him within this category as well, but him gone, she exude magnetic heat of huge pile of smoldering ragamuffins, me born year of Pig. Everything work out fine.

So it is now Executive assistant Dzzyna Falolee. Reborn with a new kanaka name resembling that of a refreshing tropical cocktail. Here are some insights into her nature. Today, she captured, cuddled, nurtured, bonded with, felt the pain of separation and released into the wild a rooster name of Charles. She knew that my definition of complying with the neighborhood No Rooster rule meant headless dancin' and tasty bits. Already having with intent, witnessed the slaughter of a few ducks and Charles' cousin Skeedaddle, she pled her vegan case for the pardon of the regal and velvety feathered ruler of the road island red roost. So, stashed away cleverly in a layer pellet feed bag Charles was given the ultimate gift of free ranging freedom. He is now pecking his way to order in an undisclosed location having been given a new identity under the auspices of the poultry protection program (feather dye job, taught to walk with a limp).

Her favorite game is Scrabble. She doodles far out sketches while engaging in conversation. She sings in the garden and writes songs with lyrics for our time. She scampers up trees like a monkey. She says things like "word" and fu'shizzle and scrilla.  She's a natural born percussionist. She pops out creative ideas a plenty and she has carved her initials in the heartwood of Rancho Relaxzo. I'd like to give her flowers but she would think that was gay. I'd like to write a song about her but there's only one word that rhymes well with Dinah, and I don't know her That well.

You may see her behind the counter at Grandma's brewing the joe and serving up the grinds. She'll be the one oozing the energy that tickles your beauty bone.

I was playing chess with my humunculus the other day and it told me that my moves were contrived and telegraphed my whole approach to the game. It told me to play it fast and loose like Eddy Felson after a J.T.S. Brown, no ice, no glass. It told me that this whole fooferah over being concerned and doing the right thing was for pussies. It reminded me that the clock is ticking and that like a chicken that has only so many eggs to lay, _____________(your punch line here). It toyed with me until i shoved a coat hanger up my nose and crushed the little fucker..........again. Sometimes its hard to resist the blaze of glory approach. I'd hate to say I'm getting too old 'cause that would pretty much screw the pooch. Welcome to the razors edge.

Anyway, Munkie and me made up and continue the work of maintaining balance in a world off its rocker. I'm pitchin' the responsibility embraced by fun approach while he staunchly adheres to the "only the best and later for the rest" model of dispassionate conservatism. He's a cute little critter in a horrifying sort of way.

Oh yeah, these days we can usually be found selling our goods at the Makawao farmers market on Wednesday. Its across from rodeo general and runs from eleven to five. Its a nice scene, especially when the weather holds. This week we've got two kine banana, two kine oranges, tangelo's, lemons, papaya, white sapote, longan, atemoya, lilikoi, acorn squash, salad greens, froozies, pesto, dried fruit, eggs, honey and a partridge in a mango tree, and if you know the secret password, I'll slip you some hot pepper tincture. Hope to see you there.

"Hey unky jp, didja make any revolutions for the new year?"

"You mean resolutions, dontcha little fellah?" "Whatever, didja?"

"Matter of fact I did, but if I told you it would lose all its power, like passin' gas in a gale."

"You ever gonna trust me, unky jp?" "Probably not, little fellah, probably not."

The more you show, the more we'll grow. Peace, Jp

Oh farewell,

And a wicked weird little year its been. Full of illusions befitting the big top and nearly bereft of anything resembling a meaningful shift in the staggering inequities in class and economic status found worldwide. The industry that is war continues to plunder and pillage. The suppression of environmental stop gaps continue in the name of corporate profit. The devastating realization that Tiger Woods  probably isn't the second coming, or the third or fourth for that matter. Life strikes back.

Fresh off the climate summit at Brokenhagen and the passage of the senate insurance care bill we twitter on the brink of "what now" and continue to live as though we are somehow immune. Shot full of the superiority vaccine we strut to the beat of our own opinions as though having them makes them fact. And as to facts, if you must bring them up do so with an apologetic tone so as not to offend the delicate sensibilities of the lying scumbags who while beating their chests in protest will also condemn the facts on the basis of unacceptable presentation. Thus ends a new blog feature: The Gnome Chompsky moment of irony.

"Wow, that's neat unky Jp. I thought you were really pissed there for a minute."

"Not at all, little fella. A little frenzy talk is tonic for the soul. Like the olive in a Martini."

I met my godson when he was one week old. He had a shock of dark hair, soon to turn blond, a wayward cross eyed look, arms that reached out in a quest for discovery and fingers that held my pinkies tight. He reclined in the cradle formed by my lap as we swapped pheromones. He had a gummy little grin that was set off by practically anything.

In a moment I'll never forget, I began gently bouncing him in my lap. His response was a startled little look followed by the stiffening of legs and a waving of arms in some imitation of a conductor leading a symphony of spastic mutants. He added a dash of toothless squealing. So little attention for such an awesome response. I was bowled over by the sense of love, pure and simple, asking nothing, expecting less and amazed by the connection.

So it has been for over twenty years now. So many memory bubbles. I remember when we sat together and figured out that we had reluctantly said goodbye to each other around two hundred times before he got to move in with me. I remember Wood Valley and Turtle beach where we would do our explorin' up in dry stream beds and  ocean tide pools. And the time when he stuttered for a couple of months at around age four. It was all you could do to hold back the tears. I just thought, too young to be strapped. Turned out to be a bit of unfinished wiring in the old noggin and he was good as new.

I recall his first day of school with snappy clothes and combed hair. His secret places in the woods behind his backyard on the big island that he would share with me. Stories of brave adventures and the slaying of dragons were tossed about liberally. We built legos together and constructed small ponds in the backyard as habitat for the tadpoles and water bugs  we'd catch on our weekend outings. He had enough Pokeman cards to choke a t-rex. When Quake came out, we did nothing but play for months. Bleary eyed and plagued by demonic dreams, we grimaced and laughed  our way through the first person shooter world of adrenalin pumping action. Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoowah. Good times.

I recall these things because at years end when the heart quiets and the mind turns reflective, my young son helps me remember. To remember how central to any sane appraisal of life is the virtue of loving in a way unconditioned by events and able to withstand the maelstrom. Thank you, my brave young warrior for giving me the experience of parenthood. Thanks to you too mah, for showing me the way.

Oh yeah, the crater. Its been a few weeks since ms. Faloley and I traipsed our way through the meditative space that is Haleakala. In brief, the weather was perfection, the company was lovely beyond measure and the overall effect was to have our soulful fuel compartments topped off for the next however long and be reminded of the fact that that place ROCKS. That's right, no five part recap. I will say that the experience is always akin to a spiritual awakening in that there is really no way of describing the clarity and peace within which one is embraced.

The year in farming. Ta Dah. Pretty freakin' good. Learned alot. Mostly about how much i don't know, and yet people consider me an authority of sorts. Deep kimchee. Ramped up to broader marketing strategies as well as expanding value added items to House of Yumm menu. Sprouting seedling plants useful for fuel production i.e. bio diesel, ethanol, and methane. Enjoying it all more because hey, i'd be an idiot not to. We celebrated our relative success in the realm of poultry productivity by cooking up a few holiday turkeys for the chickens. They moved slowly at first, approaching and sniffing then backing off, with one finally taking a peck. At that point they descended like a school of piranhas on spring break. Ate everything but the turnips and the bones and the vegan stuffing that nurse Dinah made.

Political observations: wouldn't vote for Sarah Palin but rank her at about a seven point four on the MILF scale. Getting tired of the talking heads. Glad Peter Ortzag found a babe. Our geopolitical aspirations are doomed. No way out. Ohmygod. No way out. Unless...........what if, one bright sunny morning we all went to our mailbox and found that the government had sent a perfectly measured dose of ecstasy to each and ever adult (over twelve) in the nation with instructions to launch in sync with each time zone and tune in to Turner classic movies to view an HDTV version of "Field of Dreams", after which well, use your imagination. If we all collected our tears, we could raise the level of the oceans to combat global warming. Totally cool. But really and c'mon, blowing the lid off the current memadigm is the only way out. So lets get crackin'.

From mohawk and missy and smartypantz and buddi and runterella and lahki. From the Rhode Island Red choir and the Leg horn section. From the mangoes hanging and the atemoyas plumping. From the dew kissed greens and all the space in between, we wish you all that you wish for yourself.

"Hey, what about me, unky Jp." " Oh yeah, and from the little noodge too."

The more you show, the more we'll grow. Peace out, Jp

Ohhoho,

Its been said that turkeys raised as meat birds for the holiday season are so dumb that if one happens to be hanging out under a rain spout or a roof line during a downpour it will, rather than move a foot to the left or right, either drown or commence to cussin' in Chinese. My question would be, "does the dumb get consumed with the drumstick?" Heck, I just cooked up a pullet that decided to turn cockerel, thus sealing his fate and within minutes of the onset of digestion felt like  buying a pouch of chaw,  a pair of overalls and a shotgun after booking a flight to Mississippi. Don't know if there's a connection.

I do know that this blog is in some small way tied to the behaviour of my feathered buddies because I feel increasingly that writing this stuff is akin to the process of laying an egg. You know, the ideas flow in random patterns through the caverns and sluice-ways formed by the convolutions of grey matter packed into my skull, and somehow make their way into ideas which coalesce to words and phrases, actions scurrying around like some crazed chipmunk  stocking up on food for the winter, not realizing that the mushroom it just nibbled was an Amanita and that it's been mistaking tree bark and animal turds for nuts.

All of this fractalized electronic flotsam darting around synaptic highways and acting like a hen gathering the ingredients for an egg from its own chemistry lab. And like yolk, white, membrane and shell appearing quixotically from the ass end of said hen, so too these blogzzz issue forth from the noosphere and park themselves in the nests that are your brains.  Oddly enough, now that the little darlings are beginning to molt and laying less as the photo-period diminishes, so too has the writing slowed down. I am slave to the pulse of farm life and surrendered to my dharma.

Interesting time of year, this autumn to winter transition. We've seen hardly any measurable  rain since August and the hillsides are a burnt out dirty blond. The scent of deer is strong throughout the old orchard and signs of damage appear daily. Its the equivalent of some biker dudes stopping by for a friendly rape and pillage. I say friendly because they know not what they do. They're just four legged knuckleheads in search of sustenance who've made the Rancho a hot spot on their map of local watering holes. Serves me right for having a pond and trees begging to be browsed and rubbed by fuzzy antlers.

On the other hand, I'd gladly tear out the jugular of each and every one of them with my teeth and stand watching with perverse pleasure as warm blood spurts hither and yon, altering the hillside like some demonic Jackson Pollock painting as legs do the deer version of kicking the bucket, except that I can hardly take a bite out of an apple for fear of my teeth falling out. The spirit is willing but the gums  are weak.

The only real solution is to fence the buggers out. I'm salting away my spare change. Cheapest way is eight foot t-post  about ten to twelve feet apart with deer netting stretched and zip tied to the posts. This would allow for the planting of a living fence consisting of multiple species growing on the inside of the netting which would, after about a year or two, form a live, species rich, productive barrier for privacy and pesky feral quadrupeds. Every now and again you'd have to walk the fence line harvesting mulberry, brazil plum, lilikoi, surinam cherry, jaboticaba, coffee, papaya, banana and such, but that's why the great Spirit invented Wwoofers. Thanks and praises.

It's true that from time to time I make the mistake of thinking I'm normal. It occurred to me the other day as I was examining the contents of my fridge that a compare and contrast moment was in order. First, its a counter top model making it less than half the size of a "normal" fridge. Second, it has no freezer because I take my scotch neat. Last but certainly not least, the contents, which on that particular day consisted of two eight ounce tubs of home made pesto, a bag of garden greens, half an avo, an r2e2 mango on the chill,  a pitcher of yard juice (lilikoi, lemon, maple syrup, water and hot pepper), some hemp oil, Mai Ploy sauce and a half bottle of ghb that Doc Bebockboc gave me for when the leghorns start munching on each other. He said, "just put half a cup in their drinking water and they'll be huggin' the roosts within minutes." I usually take it myself instead. It's ten p.m., do you know what's in your fridge?

A friend who's on island called the other day and was talking about hiking the crater so I checked the calendar online and to my surprise, found the ninth and tenth open at Kapalaoa and Paliku cabins. He said he couldn't make those days because of prior engagements, so I snagged em'. Nurse Dinah who, because of her diminutive pulchritude and sassy smarts is  rapidly making her way to executive assistant status will be wandering through the caverns of quiet with the sound of the wind and my creaking joints to keep her company. I always enjoy doing the trek with a first timer. Lives change in that temple of nature. The moon will be dipping under the western ridge line early, setting the stage for stars to be gazed. I'm kvelling.

How about this for a new system of taxation. Everyone figures out what they owe based on income. Then they are given a form listing the various government departments, federal, state and local at which time they designate what percentage of their payment goes to what department. So if you're a peacenik you can put zero percent next to the dept. of defense and if you believe in diplomacy you can lavish it on the state department. That way everyone would at least feel like they had a say in who gets the juice.

I guess it doesn't really matter much since the alien overlords have reached a tipping point in the placement of gmo'd humans in strategic positions of power throughout the governments of the world and are poised to initiate phase one of their plan to loot our most precious resource, water, which they use for the hydrogen fuel that powers their world. A world run dry and a race in desperation. They wandered from galaxy to galaxy to find this little blue gem with its life giving cargo. Since Obama is a galactic centrist, look to the privatization of water as key to his success. And since it will become common knowledge that aliens have been hybridizing humans, I predict that New Jersey will pass legislation allowing gay marriage. So sayeth the Sooth.

Check out the CSA tab for this weeks food stuffs. The honey is harvested and bottling has begun. Yumm's the word.

The more you show, the more we'll grow. Peace, Jp

Oh wow,

I went to the post office the other day and there was this letter in my box with no return address and my name and p.o. box "written" with letters and numbers cut out of various magazine articles and pasted to the envelope. Kind of like the letter one might get from a kidnapper or cereal killer (cap't crunch, is that you?). I opened it up carefully and held my breath so as not to roil up any anthrax powder. Found three dollar bills inside with exaggerated smiley faces doodled on Georges puss. Someone actually sent me money for a couple of laughs but was too embarrassed to identify him or herself. There was the slightest floral scent on the envelope, so i'm thinking either female friend or Grimes has finally come out of the closet. Have you ever watched him walk?

What with the holiday season officially upon us and Thanksgiving rounding the corner into the home stretch, I've been feeling my way through farm life with a bit more deliberation. While its true that taking life at an increasingly leisurely pace comes naturally with age, this is more of a shift in perception that seeks a closer look and ever more integrated objectivity. Even in the expanse of five acres and miles of trails, daily routine is inevitable. Patterns of behaviour, however satisfying leave me seeking that which remains hidden, sequestered in the folds of a new leaf flush, roaming around just beneath the surface of the soil, clinging to the roots of a water lettuce plant or just hidden in plain sight.

Its that old quantum field thingy. You know, the Heisenberg theory that shows the thing perceived to be altered by that perception and thereby inextricably linked in consciousness to that perception. Run that one out a few more yards and the notion that we are directly connected to the "creation" of everything we see, feel, think and aspire to know and achieve, gains some gravitas. And if we are really just creating it as we go along then should we not tread lightly with eyes wide open and ears pinned to the wind?

So a guiding principle emerges as I swim through this soupy amalgam of consciousness. Hush up, listen up, tune up and stop putting up with that which attempts to demonize, confuse or otherwise interrupt lifes luminous flow. Thats right, no more mr. nice goy. Time to take names and kick toosh. Time to take out the gahbidge. Time to let em' have it, baddabing baddaboom, right in the kishkis. No more fuck around.

Speaking of which, its looking like Barry O. is digging his heels in a bit. Being boldly assertive in a commander in chief sort of way. One can only hope that he has been laying back, spocking the scene, calculating the odds with the intent of lapping the field with ground breaking direction.

Kind of reminds me of the time I was at Proctor Academy for young horned toads and it was Thanksgiving break. There were three buses that would come pick us up and run us down to Boston airport to catch a shuttle to New York or wherever. There was always a betting pool as to which driver would get us there first and the perennial favorite was big Lonny.

Lonny was the jovial type incarnate. Fit in the drivers seat like a pile of hot buttered flapjacks on a plate just a little too small. Had the stump of a stogy plugged into the right corner of his mouth. No-one remembered seeing him without it. Talked out the left side. His eyes were Santa wise and his crooked smile and bulbous nose  conveyed a fun loving kindness.  When you drew his bus you knew you'd catch the earlier flight.

Now it was my first experience with Lonny so I didn't know what to expect. I mean how creative can one get with a Greyhound? So we're on the back roads down from Andover to Concord where we pick up the interstate and Lonny is at the back of the pack on a one lane road, so I'm figuring we're screwed because we'll get on the highway in that order and once on it, its anybodies race to take.

The sign for the interstate appears and reads, "Concord exit, one mile". That's when Lonny starts grinnin' big. The other buses commence to picking up speed while Lonny appears to be laying back, nay even slowing down. What the fuck? As the exit approaches Lonny is geared all the way down as the other buses veer gently to the right to pick up the on ramp. The guys on our bus begin to chant Lonn-ee, Lonn-ee, Lonn-ee, very softly at first. At just the right moment, Lonny smooths it into second and punches the grey whale toward the on ramp.

That's when I began to understand. The on ramp was fairly steeply uphill and as the other buses were gearing down to take the hill, Lonny was building momentum in the flat. He was chewing on the stump of that stogy and as the guys chanted louder, he let out this squeaky little laugh. Totally unexpected. Lonn-ee, Lonn-ee, Lonn-ee. He smoothed out another shift and mounted the hill like a jackrabbit in heat, and just as the other buses had wheezed their way onto the interstate, clinging to the right lane, Lonny burst forth from the ramp directly to the passing lane and left the others in the wake of his hysterical little high pitched giggle. The chant was now through the roof. He pumped it to Boston in time for us to down a coffee and a Camel before the flight where we savored a steady stream of  coffee and Camels.

A flawless strategy,  rendered like a Renoir. Nothing less would have worked then and nothing less will work now. Best of luck to Barry and the very cool Woman by his side.

Today, we bid a fond fare thee well to nurse Kaylee and the  Mighty Jeremiah, a.k.a. Bubba Mahalo's & Mongo Hana hou. While it has not been a rarity to host bright young men and women from the world round, it is not often that one spends a half year making himself nearly indispensable. It bears mentioning that in that entire time I saw not one look of consternation over anything.  Always at the ready and affable; helpful to a fault and content in his own skin (of which he shed fifteen pounds).  For awhile there I thought, "too good to be true; he's gonna lose it for sure. One of these days he'll crack and like some circus geek, bite the head off  of a chicken, shed his clothes and go running around the property with blood dripping from the corners of his mouth chanting,  I'm Jeremiah Steven and my mommy loves me."  But nooooooo, he's the real deal.  Thanks man.

We're takin' down four to five dozen eggs a day now and the girls are looking hap,hap, happy. Even this one tiny leghorn that we culled out of the group and put with the other "permanent" free rangers. We call her Runterella and scrawny barely describes it. And yet, in a few days time she is already looking less freaked out.  She's joined by Mohawk and Emmy, a beautiful Muscovy couple that has figured out how to escape duck world quickly and without notice, a Lakenvelder name of Lahkee that refuses to be confined, and of course the ever endearing  Smartypantz who thinks she owns the joint.  The Ameraucana's that we got in July should be kicking in around February/March with the blue/green offerings at which point phase one of the great poultry puzzle will be in place. With successful scalable models come sustainably productive systems.

Happy Thanksgiving all.

The more you show, the more we'll grow. Peace, Jp

Oh my,

Its been one full year of bloggery. Time to pay the piper. For all of you who failed to read the fine print embedded in your cybercontracts, the charges are as follows: A buck and a half per laugh (up to and including guffaws), five bucks for each time you spluttered out a mouthful of food and a sawbuck for any liquid that has exited your nose. If you've forgotten the count, just go to the archives and read them again to get a rough estimate and send your remittance to the Rancho Relaxzo Retirement Home, a limited liability corporation headquartered in the Grand Cayman Islands.

With the funds taken in this year it is the intent of the R.R.R.H. to create a nest-egg/slush-fund devoted to the ideal that no old timer should go without scotch, weed, opiates, psychoactives and a semi-annual trip to the Angel Witch in Nana district, Bangkok. It may not be terribly social, but its security. Now pay up, or I will give my associate Vincent "boombatz" Cardinalli a call and instruct him to deal with yooz accordingly.

As huge breakthroughs go, we had one. Its been nigh unto five years since first noticing a leak in the pond. We let it drain down until several holes were patched. We crossed our fingers and filled it, only to find that a leak still lurked. Thoughts of new liners, transferring fish safely, refilling without killing the fish with county water parade like some hopeless drunk in that region of my mind marked "not now".

Well, a couple of weeks ago I noticed that the water hadn't gone down in days and figured it was time to send Commander Jeremiah out in the inflatable to cruise the edge and have a looksee. Sure enough, about half way around, he found a hole that had been made when first installing the liner almost twenty years ago. Apparently the patch had come loose and led to five years of the pond looking half full but feeling half empty. Visions of mounting expenses and increasing fish kill faded like a pecker in a pickle jar.

We filled it up last week and it sure looks purdy. It does appear to have gone down an inch or two in the last week which may indicate some slow seepage in addition to normal evaporation, but nothing that about six bucks worth of water won't replenish. Its as though a toothache that I'd gotten used to living with has gone away and in its place, minty fresh and pain free.

Duck world is now officially finished (almost) and our gang of muscovies have mostly settled into a life of spacious confinement punctuated by regular furloughs into the orchard to waddle the range freely,  stretch their wings and peck their way to order. Ol' Doc Bebockboc said they're the healthiest ducks he's seen in a long while. He and nurse Sally came by the other day to pick up some food and shoot the poop. They patched things up with each other with Sally promising not to freak out over the thought of the Doc with someone else and the Doc agreeing to have his eyes surgically removed. Seems fair.

Harvest time approaches. The orchard is dripping with multiple varieties of fruit, plumping up and coming ripe day by day. We'll be in the heart of it within a month with white sapote, longan, atemoya, avocado, starfruit, citrus, mango, banana and papaya looking good. The egg count is moving upward on what appears to be a very similar pattern to the dow jones industrials average.

The chooks appear to be able to send out subliminal signals to their feathered friends in the other enclosures, letting them know how many eggs they produced that day. This is a ploy to keep the farmer guessing, as they will withhold eggs from time to time creating dips in the production curve and leading to mild, but frequent anxiety attacks. I remember what E.S.P. Leibenlobe, pHd. told me about controlling the emotional surge. He said, "sink of it ass zo it vas a carrrrtoon perzon, zis liddle emojun off yuuurz. Ant zen, chust blow itup. If it comes beck, chust blow itup again. Zooner or lader, it vill go avay. Yah, you vill zee."
I use an all purpose image of Wiley Coyote whose priceless expressions upon realizing that he's a goner are beyond words really. Now, I couldn't give a hoot how many eggs we get as long as we're paying for the feed and eating as many as we want. Booyah.

Yup, harvest moon coming up. Can't help but remember the time when my old pal Augustus Marune  (a.k.a. Guth) showed up at my place with full moon lit, mostly out of his gourd. He was half covered in mud with leaves and twigs sticking to and out of him. He had the look of exasperated exhaustion you might see on a woman twenty hours into labor. He was panting and a bit more wild eyed than usual. He kept mumbling something underneath his breath that sounded like "worms and herms, worms and herms." I took him to the bathroom and drew a hot tub for him. "Get in man, have a soak and we'll talk."

I first met Guth back in the late seventies when he was a legend among growers of the good herb. He was notorious for his zeal and his love of Woody Guthrie whose tapes he played endlessly on his travels from patch to patch. That's not why we called him Guth. His name was actually Gus, but he had a serious lisp and we just couldn't help but goof on him.

As a grower he was into it, big time. He had patches everywhere from Hana to Kapalua, sea level to five thousand feet, cane fields to rose apple forest. He was on the move all the time, planting, nurturing, chasing pigs away, harvesting, drying, trimming and selling. Of course back then it was a once a year affair. None of this sea of green all year round nonsense. Where's the challenge? Back then growing was for the tough. Those willing to brave the weather, the wilderness, the copters and the slimy two legged rat ( Rattus ripoficus). Those strong enough to pack in sixty pounds of supplies and live on guava, mountain apple and urine.

He emerged from a steamy bathroom with a calm and somewhat invigorated look. He was naked with an almost empty pint bottle of vodka in his right hand. Apparently it had been in his back pocket when he entered. "Tho thorry, man. I didn't know where elth to go and I'm freaked out." "Hadn't noticed", I said. He smiled.

I pointed and said. "dick, hanging out." " Oh thorry, man. My clothes are trashed from runnin' through the jungle. You got thom thtuff I can wear?" "In the bedroom; take your pick." He came back out wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that read, "dislexic Devil worshipers sell their souls to Santa."

"So what", I asked. "Oh man, all my patcheth on the north shore have been theriously wormed and half of them are going hermaphrodyke" (thats what he called it). On top of that its like raining every night and the pigth have been total wankerth. I gotta go back out potht hathte to at leatht take down whats thalvageable. I mean, I thtood out there the other day between showerth and watched as the meretht touch made a big, beautiful bud crumble to shkeevautz (he liked that word although he didn't know what it meant). And the poop trails. Oh my god. The butterfly larvae work their way down the bud eating and pooping and itth the poop that getth you. The poop attractth mold and funguth which works its way through the bud and renderth it a math of grey worthlethneth." He was talking really fast now. "Then, on top of that this one thtrain is going hermy on me and I'm out there with the tweethers yanking male flowers for fucking hourth."

I said, " lets say you lose half the north shore. How much healthy chi-chi ya-ya stuff do you have coming in?" His eyes went skyward as the inner calculator kicked in. After a bit he looked at me and said, "dry, maybe a couple hundred poundth". I looked at him with a wistful smile and said, " shut the fuck up!" He said, "no, really, everything elthe lookth primo." I said, " here's an idea. Lets go get a pizza and another bottle of vodka and call it a wash". He smiled big and said, " you know what man, your right."

We got pasted and slept it off. The next day, sunshine flooded the north shore and Guth pulled in two thirds of the sticky sticky. Good times.

The more you show, the more we'll grow. Peace out, Jp

Oh 'scuse me,

Is being a blackish, left handed Leo with a penchant for perspicacity and a list of sort of accomplishments all it takes to grab the Nobel gold ring on this wacky little merry go round? 'Cause if it is, then Dave Chapelle, step right up and claim the cake brother, because laughter is the universal language of peace. Come to think of it, our last two democratic prez's have been left handed Leo's. Charismatic, smooth talkin' slingers of snake oil, capable of the most refined presentations of flim-flammery carefully crafted to dazzle the public into believing that there's something to believe in. O.k., I'm glad I got that off my chest.

'Cause here's the thing, if you really still believe that whatever watered down version of part of a promise made during a campaign designed to give the appearance of sincerity is a credible beacon, lighting the way toward a better tomorrow, then c'mere, i've got a great deal on a map to Shangri-la that I got from a guy who's sister partied with the Kalu Rinpoche who handed her the tattered parchment after bearing up to unspeakable pleasures, all the while smiling serenely. O.k., I feel better now.

And by the way, there's nothing more powerfully disruptive than an idea whose time hasn't come which is, nonetheless, being promoted as the next incarnation of the final incarnation and the beginning of the end to suffering on Earth. Of course my heart swells with pride over Barry's sweeping endorsement as ambassador of peace and that America is once again looked to for its leadership role in dishing out smiley face t-shirts and "What, me Worry" bumper stickers. This should go a long way toward quelling world wide unrest, economic collapse, environmental chaos and Tom Delay's stress fractures.

Here on the farm we tend to think of "living sustainably" as meaning the process by which externally required inputs are reduced to the point of elimination (ideally) and that the design, in fact generates a surplus of products on a number of levels which are cycled back into the community. This creates more efficient models requiring ever fewer external plug-ins while growing a populace increasingly well schooled in the day to day realities of sustainable living.

Scalable designs that reduce our dependence and increase our productivity are the inevitable result of a well networked and educated community. After awhile, its not that hard to see how these things could be done throughout communities, counties, states, regions and nations to gradually reduce our need to seek out sources for food, fuel, medicines, clothing, shelter etc.. It is the work of a generation if co-operation world wide happened right now, so don't hold your breath.

Water is another issue and one which revolves around the debate as to whether it is a public resource or a commodity to be owned and doled out by wealthy profiteers as is the case here on Maui. Nice to know that rain is still free, for now.

Here's an idea for reducing our energy dependence. There are eight hundred million obese people on planet earth. That means eight hundred million of us that are twenty five pounds or more overweight. One pound of human fat is the equivalent of 3500 calories. By comparison, one gallon of gasoline yields 31,000 calories. This means that if we got to all the obese people and sucked out their fat we would have over two trillion pounds of grossgoo, or the same number of calories in a bit more than two hundred billion gallons of gasoline.

At present, the world uses about eighty million barrels (forty two g/p/b) of oil a day. Each barrel refines out to about twenty gallons of gasoline. That's one point six billion gallons per day or five hundred eighty four billion gallons a year. Harvesting human fat could reduce that footprint by thirty percent, require much simpler methods of refining and smell like Mcdonalds meets krispy Creme, when burned as fuel. Eu-freakin'-reka.

Oh, and by the way, this would be a renewable resource, since people will continue to stuff their donut holes, pack on the pounds and provide gobs of fuel for generations to come. The whole meaning of "fat farm" would be turned on its head to denote a place where people go to overeat in ways that would gross out Aki Bono, then relax, decompress and provide the raw material to power up _______ (your favorite third world country here). Imagine the sense of gratification as one see's ones fat being bottled up for shipment to Madagascar, with the promise that it will be used to provide electricity to three new schools in Antananarivo. Brings tears to my eyes.

O.k., lets go one step further. All newborns could be tested for the genetic marker for obesity and immediately begin a diet of butter filled fried malasada's, strawberry malts, scooter pies and Lipitor. Large residential communities powered by sun and wind could be built in the vast stretches of prairie that is the Texas outback. These isolated communities would be home to the grossgoo-donors who would grow up with other grossgoo-donors, be revered for the crucial role they play in society and never have to lay eyes on skinny, sexy folks so as to maintain the illusion captured by the community motto: "In flabbo delictum".

Harvested twice annually, these hundreds of millions of grossgoo-donors worldwide, would live out their lives encouraged to go with their genetic flow, be appreciated for their gift to society and bring new meaning to the words, dessert cart, which in this case would be a fleet of r.v's circulating the community stocked with every goo-zoo known to man and playing "Chantilly Lace" as they cruise the streets. The lyrics are altered to read:

Straw-berry cake, with a chocolate glaze,
whipping cream, hangin' down.
Jiggle in her walk an' a giggle in her talk,
Make the world go round.
Ain't nothin' in the world like a big fat girl,
make me act so funny, make me spend my money,
make me feel real loose, like a chocolate mousse,
Oh baby that's a' what i like.

The more you show, the more we'll grow. Peace, Jp

Oh thanks,

to Sherry for throwing her annual Halloween/B-day bash. Same beautiful location as the last party up in Olinda. October 25th, 2233 Olinda road. Pot luck. Dress to scare. Prizes awarded for blood and gore, best slutty look, best Einstien imitation and showing up buck nekkid. Starts at 5pm and ends when someone can't stop saying Booowaaahahahahahhhhaaaaaa...........

Also to nurse Lindsey for writing in and suggesting that I post a link to the blog page and send it out to the email list so that the latest edited offering of mental flotsom, bubbling to the surface with distressing regularity is but a double click away.

Here's a quick tutorial:

Click here to enjoy (or disparage) this weeks blog, www.ranchorelaxzo.com/blog/ , and hey, while your at it, why not check out our selection of farm fresh delectables and House of Yumm scrummies at www.ranchorelaxzo.com/c-s-a/ .

"Is that it unky Jp, its that easy?" "Thats right little feller, even a tiny tard like yourself could do it."

So you can keep reading it here, or take the leap through cyberspace and find yourself immersed in our moderately captivating and spell checked website. Soon, however, you will have no choice in the matter. Such is my hunger for control. Yes, momentary control of your funbone. No matter how hard you try to resist clicking on the link you will be compelled like a moth to the flame, a compulsive gambler to the game. an ego to the promise of fame.

Think Muddy Waters, delta blues, moderate to slow

Da dada da daow (guitar), ch-ch chih, ch-ch chih, ch-ch chih, (high hat)

da dada da daow

Well i woke up dis' mownin',

da dada da daow

Bout fo' fitty five,

da dada da daow

Some stars still out twinklin',

da dada da daow

an a booger in my eye,

da dada da daow

I'ze feelin' mighty happy

da dada da daow,

Jus' to be here alive,

da dada da daow,

If I didn't know better,

I'd think a grown mans s'posed to cry.

Cause I'm a doit farmer, baby.

Won't find no clean under These finger nails....

ch-ch chih ch-ch chih ch-ch chih

Yes I'm a doit farmer darlin',

an' I'm thinkin' of blazin' me some trails.

Yeah, I was about to bed down when that came to me. Such is the life of a permaculturist wandering the fringes, guided by acid flashbacks and an urge to prove Aeschylus wrong. I've got a couple a' few more verses for that bluesey selection and will be featuring it with twelve other musical epiphanies on an upcoming album called "Blue Bakers Dozen", to be released on the "Get outta Hear" label.

I had Doc Bebockboc roll by the other day to check out Duck World. He's a wealth of information and a great source for poultry tranquilizers when the chickens get too feisty. We were wandering around, talking about this and that. Got to the gate at Duck World and moved it aside. The ducks were down at the lower pond (big puddle really) and when they heard us come in headed our way in the hopes of big bipeds bearing food pellets.

We had a plastic cup full of feed because doc wanted to get close to them without chasing them down. We sat by the upper pond and waited for them to come crowding around us. Doc put a handful of feed in his palm and was pounced on by a half dozen ducklings. It gave him the chance to gently probe here and there and look closely at their features for any problems. He declared them to be in fine fettle although I sensed that he was not.

Problem was, he had hit a snag with nurse Sally and was a bit down in the dumps. He just wasn't really "there". So I coaxed it out of him. Seems he had run into an old flame and shared a moment of spontaneous huggyness in front of Sally which led to a look akin to what a frozen daiquiri brainfreeze feels like. So here he is, on the backside, trying to be attentive but hardly succeeding when I spot what appears to be a perfectly ripe r2e2 mango hanging on a tree by the knucklehead asylum. I said, "scuse me, I believe I see something that will make you feel better." I walked over to the tree, gently squeezed the already softened and colorful fruit which popped off its stem with the lightest touch, and into my hand .

Now the Doc is a mango aficionado, and if there's anything short of Absinthe and Laudanum that will sidestep a funk its tasting a perfectly ripe specimen, fiber-less, juicy and melting, erasing all that is wrong with life and leaving in its wake a moment in the eye of the storm which is our collective existence. A brief pause. A moment of clarity, soon to be swallowed up in the chaos that can brand affairs of the heart.

I strolled back over to Duck World and closed the gate behind me. I sat beside him by the smaller of the two ponds as he played with the youngsters and did that kind of shaking his head while mumbling something to himself kind of thing. Pulled a pocket knife and made a couple of mango rosettes. I handed him one and we toasted a time when peace of mind would be considered baseline, not benchmark.

I've been a bit like the kid in the candy store with the water. These past couple of months since we got the ag rates back I had to fight to beat back my inhibitions until finally I just gave in and started watering the crap out of everything. We've even resurrected a privacy corridor between the pond and the road whose trees withered in the drought of the late 90s. We'll be planting Ice Cream Bean, white guava, mulberry, allspice, clove and cinnamon with a couple of brazil plums here and there for the heck of it.

I'm so used to a state of stasis that moving to more complexity is almost hard to accept. Odd how so much of life is defined by the limitations imposed by "others" and liberated in a gush of novelty. Now that our well has come in, we plan to gush on into the foreseeable future with the gardens radiating, poultry plumping and fruits growing sweet and juicy. Can I get a big Shamalama? Lemme hear it........

The more you show, the more we'll grow. Peace, Jp

Oh kwaa-waaack waaack,

In the short time since last we last traipsed through the farm, we have been graced with twenty seven ducklings. Here's a brief history: two years back, Ty and I answered an ad pinned on the door of the feed store offering muscovy ducks for free. Just come catchum'. Big yard, fast moving birds, not an easy task. After a mild asthma attach and several near misses, we managed to coral a male and two females. Stuck em' in a garbage can, covered it up ( nightynigh ) and headed home.

The following year, one hatch out of fourteen ducklings. Ten out of fourteen made it, so thirteen ducks. This year around the same time in June we saw sixteen appear from the underbrush where mama duck had kept them safe and warm. Only six made it ( Mohawk, Duck Vader, Worm Gear, Stompy, Gizzard and Frinky) . So nineteen ducks.

Now, my best laid plan included building the flock to around thirty ducks that mostly ranged free, browsed the weeds, contributed to the essence of the duck ponds by pooping them into fertilizer tea and could be husbanded in such a way as to keep considerations of population in hand. My observations told me that they hatched out in June. Happened two years running. I remember the wild, albeit short lived mating sprees taking place throughout the summer, but thought nothing of it, as though the ducks only fired live ammo in the spring and blanks in the summer. Duhh.

So lo and behold, three more hatch outs in September, all overseen by the One who Nurtures, Casandra be thy name. We've not lost one. There are two goofy looking runts that are still all but featherless with feet bigger than their heads. If they stay that way, we're hoping to mate them with a hairless cat and call them Coatless Catucks. The perfect green pet. Gives you eggs and meat, eats weeds and kills rodents. And no grooming necessary. We'll make a fortune, be able to leave the farm with woofers and travel the world, bartering with desperate people for goods we can resell for enormous profits to the customers of hedge fund brokers. Sorry, went off on a little tangent there.

Now we have forty six ducks, and I wanted to cap the population at thirtyish. So we convened an emergency session of the council on what do we do now and as the first stop gap measure we put forth the proposition that funds be set aside from the Cayman Island account for Duck World. An ambitious project, garnering the skills of professionals worldwide and costing in excess of two hundred dollars. We'll float a junk bond.

It encompasses some four thousand square feet, has the shade of an Inia tree (built in), pathways, pond(s) and tall grass clusters with plenty of nooks for perfect nesting places. We've relocated the younger flightless little beauties along with their moms and all seem to be adjusting well. We have compensated them for ripping off their native lands by agreeing to lower their lease fees and upping their food ration by six and a half percent. We expect a counter offer soon as they bargain like Cambodians over a ripe Durian.

A bit of research will tell you that the Muscovy is considered to be one of the premier eating ducks in all the universe. They are prized for their lean meat and rich flavor. Without going into detail, I can tell you that this is true (sorry Marta). Faced with the need to thin the population, opting to fill the freezer with enough to keep the numbers in tow and us fed, is looking better than putting them on Craigs list.

I hope to get to the point where my understanding of their mating cycles allows me to harvest the eggs as necessary and let the remainder hatch out for food or to replenish an aging flock. Its always good to keep the killin' at a minimum, eh. If enough's as good as a feast, then too much can be worse than a famine. Somebody smart said that.

By the way, they're cute as the dickens and make lovely movable yard ornaments (no batteries required) for those of you who have gone "green" but are still really kinda clueless. You should get one, just to tell your friends you have it.

O.k., what else. Oh yeah, coming up on the end of year one of this farm stuff blog and if nothing else, it proves that the discipline drawn from the wellspring of demented creativity has reduced my need to masturbate by twenty seven  percent which will lead to the extension of my life by one hundred and forty two days. Days which I will spend on a morphine/mushrelessdee drip with Ty reading me Shel Silverstein poems and Kurt Vonnegut novels with the occasional screening of Field of Dreams for a good spiritual breakthrough kind of cry. I should be so lucky.

I'm thinking of discontinuing the email list and suggesting that you visit the web site to check in on the blog. I would do this for a several reasons.

A. Its a minor pain in the ass to transfer the email to the website.

2. I can easily edit the website post for those of you who love to critesize my spleening.

C. Every time one of you monkeys goes to the site, I become engorged with power.

D.Those of you living in the vicinity can check the c.s.a. page for weekly menu's .

5. Google rating.

So, consider becoming a member by pressing the DONATE button at the top the page to pledge your support in favoring the cause of Republicrats and Democans everywhere, and if anyone can figure out what that is, lemme know.

And finally, as if that weren't enough, the Obamascopic regime has populated the U.S.D.A. and dept. of Agriculture with Monsanto trueblues. In fact, the same one that criticized Michelle for not using pesticides on her white house lawn garden has just been given a high post at the usda. Its comforting to know there is a pesticide czar working on food safety, huh? "Waiter, another scotch please. Fuck it, just leave the bottle."

The more you show, the more we'll grow. Peace, Jp