Reading the signs

In ancient Rome, augurs tried to read the future by looking at the entrails of sacrificial animals or the flights of birds. These days we tend to rely on things like polls, which is probably just as well. The results of the latest WV MetroNews poll are pretty interesting. Respondents were asked about their approval of President Trump, Governor Justice, Senator Capito and Senator Manchin.

In it, Trump's approval isn't as high as you might think it is (or as low as you might think it should be, depending on your viewpoint). It looks like Gov. Justice didn't do himself a whole lot of favors even among Republicans with his switch to that party during Trump's WV visit.

Senator Capito's approval rating is the lowest on record, which may or may not have something to do with fears related to the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which, for all its flaws, has brought health coverage to around 225,000 West Virginians. At this moment, it looks like Senator Manchin is riding high, with more Republicans, Democrats and Independents holding favorable rather than unfavorable views. Of course, it's way too soon to tell how all this will play out in 2018 and beyond.

You can read more here.

Digression: when the ancient Greeks didn't like the results of auguries from entrails, they sometimes kept sacrificing animals until they got some guts that promised good news, which is kind of like commissioning more polls until you get one you like.

The Romans weren't much of a sea power at first. They would sometimes seek to read the future by seeing is the sacred chickens would eat before a fight. When the chickens wouldn't eat before the battle of Drepana with the Carthaginians, one commander got into trouble by throwing them into the sea and saying "Let's see if they'll drink." The Romans lost that one. Take home message: don't mess with chickens.

I'm not big on omens, but things would have to get pretty bad at the farm for chickens not to eat.

The quality of mercy

A suspect has been detained in the case of the murder of Mama-san and six of her chicks, whose story was celebrated here before the crime took place.

I seriously considered the ultimate penalty against the offender, although I guess technically by the rules of evidence I would need further proof that it was this raccoon and not another one who did the crime.

At this point, I'm leaning towards telling it to "go (far away) and sin no more."

However, none of this would have happened if Arpad the Magnificent was still alive.

It's a sad fact that when the good guys go, the predators move in.

How to pick up (literal) chicks

A great deal of time spent on the farm has to do with what I call animal politics, which is the intricate web of relationships between the (four legged or feathered) animals and between animals and humans.

One example is the Darwin game which we play with the indeterminate number of chickens. In this game, the humans want the eggs to eat them, while the hens hide them to reproduce. I'm not sure how much of that is conscious on either of our parts.

The latest winner of the Darwin game is a gray hen who laid her eggs in a niche in our garage. She sat on them long enough for them to be viable, which meant I couldn't use the punching bag in the garage for three weeks so as not to disturb her.

The eggs hatched night before last, which meant I had to get Mama-san and chicks into a safe chicken tractor. I tried shutting them up in the garage but the little Houdinis got out. Then I looked for them to no avail with a flashlight after dark.

In the morning I found Mama-san sitting on the babies. I thought I'd put a box over the lot and then get them in the tractor somehow. She did not concur.

Instead, she flew at my face several times while the chicks scattered. Which led to plan B. I put the chicks I could find into the tractor and waited for their peeps to attract the mother. Then I rounded up the stragglers.

All but one. I heard some peeping underneath a huge BMT (big metal thing) in the garage. Too heavy to lift and not enough space underneath

That's when my long past fire department training kicked in. I remembered when we were practicing auto extrication how we used pieces of wood for cribbing to stabilize the vehicle so you could get the people out. A pry bar and some scraps of 2x4 later and the mother and child reunion had occurred.

I think there are eight of the little buggers now with Mama-san in a fairly safe place. Haven't gotten a lot of gratitude from her though.

I realize that crows and other tool-using animals perform more complicated feats every day, but this was pretty good for me.

The big three

The Gentle Reader may perhaps recall my campaign to update the WV state motto from "Mountaineers are always free" to "You can't make this **** up." Here is another reason why:

A friend of mine recently sent me a link to a story about a person sentenced to prison after a car wreck that left chickens, marijuana and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) scattered on Interstate 79. If memory serves, there was an AK-47 on hand as well.

In my friend's words, "He had it all...and lost it."

(I seem to recall that in the wake of the accident a WV game began where people would come up with their own list of three random things scattered on the interstate, but it would be hard to top the real thing.)

Arpad's aristeia

"Aristeia" is a great Greek word that often comes up when talking about heroic epics like the Iliad. It comes from the work aristos as in aristocrat and means the best. In the context of epic, it refers to a hero's best fight or most glorious day on the battlefield.

In the Iliad several characters had aristeias, including Diomedes, Patroclus, Hector and Achilles. A full scene begins with the hero strapping on his greeves or leg protection and his cuirass or upper body armor, grabbing his shield and sword and various accouterments of war and proceeding to open up a can on the enemy. Often, this can opening is preceded by a lengthy boast about the hero's lineage and deeds.

Arpad, our recently shaven Great Pyrenees (above) had his aristeia last night. Or really this morning.

Around 4 a.m., we were awakened by the unmistakable sound of chickens in distress. The Spousal Unit ran out with a flashlight and I followed with the 12 gauge. Arpad was already in the chicken house. The flashlight soon revealed that a possum had climbed the walls of the chicken coup to where they roost. It was not the best place for me to deploy my artillery.

Arpad only barked once for a change but tried his mightiest to climb the walls. He is a genial goof most of the time but is fiercely protective of the other animals on the farm.

I dislodged the possum from his perch with a hoe and Arpad swooped in like the angel of death. It was over in a flash. When it's my time to go, I hope I die as quickly as that possum.

He killed it a couple more times for good measure. If he had a chariot, he may well have dragged its body around Goat Rope Farm the way Achilles dragged Hector around Troy.

Sic semper possumus may well be his motto.

He's a good boy. I think of him as My Sweet Little Angel Baby From Jesus In Heaven. Possums, however, may have a different opinion.

Tiger mom, revisited

Once upon a time, there was an orphan baby chick. It tried to seek solace from other hens, but only got pecked. As for the father, roosters aren't big on parental responsibility.



This baby obviously needed a mother. We found one, a badly mauled stuffed tiger toy, in our dog's abundant toy box.



The baby thrived. Here's a look at the happy family today.

FOR MASOCHISTS ONLY. Here's a whole slew of recent articles on the BS of Ayn Rand.

IF YOU WANT TO READ ABOUT MORE BAD IDEAS, here's a slew of info on Paul Ryan's budget.

PRIVATIZATION. Here's a look at its dark side.

TROGLORAPTERS, ANYONE? If you need  a cave spider fix, click here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Fowl play

It occurs to El Cabrero that farming is a kind of game or series of games between humans and the plants or animals they deal with. Generally, the humans want things to stay in or go to certain places, while the latter want to transgress.

One popular game among our poultry population at this time of year is the hide-the-eggs game. Usually a few hens each spring manage to hide a clutch of eggs long enough to hatch them.

This spring, one chick was apparently separated from its mother and needed rescue. We tried putting it with another mother and chicks, but it got some nasty wounds after being pecked at.

(Chickens don't seem to good in the intra-species solidarity department.)

As a result, we now have an inside chick, probably a baby rooster. He thinks the Spousal Unit is his mother and is a pretty demanding brat. Because of his inordinate fondness for cheese, we've given him the name Wisconsin (Whiskey for short).

All we need is another tenant on the Island of Misfit Toys.

Got chickens?

El Cabrero for once was on the cutting edge of a hot new trend. From the New York Times:

As Americans struggle through a dismal recession, many are trying to safeguard themselves from what they fear will be even worse times ahead. They eat out less often. They take vacations closer to home. They put off buying new cars.

And some raise chickens...

I think we're looking at the convergence of virtue and necessity. Lots of people are understandably squeamish about our industrialized food system, which isn't sustainable in lots of senses. Many have been inspired or at least made aware through books like Barbara Kingsolver and family's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle or Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food. And then there are the folks who doing things like this just to make ends meet.

El Cabrero became a footsoldier in the local food revolution the honest way. I got married. Things happen when you do that. My sister-in-law even wrote a book about chickens.

There are all kinds of benefits from having chickens around. One of the biggest for me has been the insight that roosters offer into much of the behavior of the human male.

UNEMPLOYMENT ACTION. Yesterday's post talked about how WV take advantage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to extend unemployment benefits to those who have exhausted them. To qualify, the state needs to pass enabling legislation by the end of the year. To make it reach the people who need it, the legislation should be made retroactive through June of this year. Here's more info about the option from the WV Center on Budget and Policy.

TOO MUCH TEA? This article from The Nation discusses the increasingly shrill and racist noises coming from the far right and its connection to the health care debate.

THUG LIFE. On that note, hard right groups are using thug tactics to disrupt public forums on health care reform. (Have they been talking to some people round here?)

SMALL BUSINESS. Here's Dean Baker taking a comparative look at the status of small business in the US and...horrors!...Europe in the context of the health care reform debate.

TRUE GRIT or what my maternal unit called stick-to-itiveness could be a major key to success according to recent research. I know from 36 years in the martial arts that one major secret of getting better is to keep coming back. There is much to be said for taking one's lumps.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

AN EDUCATED MAN

Statue of Carter G. Woodson, "The Father of Black History," in Huntington, WV.

The theme of this week's Goat Rope is Black History and its many connections with West Virginia. If this is your first visit, please click on the earlier entries.

The fact that people anywhere are celebrating or thinking about the history of African Americans this month is largely due to the efforts of Carter G. Woodson, who lived from 1875 to 1950.

Woodson was born in Buckingham County, Virginia to parents who were former slaves. He and his brother moved to West Virginia to find work in the coal mines and his family eventually moved to Huntington in 1893.

One thing that he particularly enjoyed as a young man was listening as friends read aloud from newspapers and books and discussed current events. He said

In this circle the history of the race was discussed frequently, and my interest in penetrating the past of my people was deepened and intensified.

Woodson eventually attended and graduated from Douglass High School in Huntington. He attended college in Berea, Kentucky and went back to Huntington to serve as Douglass' principal. He traveled extensively and continued his studies at the Sorbonne and the University of Chicago and earned his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1912. Although he wasn't the first African-American to do so, he was the first son of slaves to reach this goal. In addition to other academic posts, Woodson served as Dean of the West Virginia Collegiate Institute, now West Virginia State University.

Woodson was at various times active in the NAACP and collaborated with Marcus Garvey, but the passion of his life was the study and preservation of black history. In 1915, he was involved in the creation of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History and published several books on various aspects of black history, including the influential textbook, The Negro in Our History. He also founded the Journal of Negro History in 1916. He paid for much of his historical activities out of his salary as an academic.

He campaigned with eventual success to have the second month of February set aside for the observation of black history. It has since grown into the whole month.

Interestingly, Woodson's passion for preserving African-American history was picked up by a contemporary scholar with West Virginia origins, Henry Louis Gates Jr., who with Kwame Anthony Appiah edited the Encyclopedia Africana.

CANADIAN BOOGEYMAN. Opponents of universal health care love to tell horror stories about the Canadian system. Here's a little de-bunking.

CITIES are struggling to be more green.

THE CHICKENS of Goat Rope Farm have it REAL good compared to these guys.

COLUMBUS was guilty of many things, but apparently not of bringing lice to the "New World," Peruvian mummies indicated.

CIVILIZING THE SAVAGE TODDLER. This doctor claims to know how.

SURFACE OWNERS have introduced a bill to restrict the damage done by oil and gas drillers in WV.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED