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 thing that never changes

In a world of radical impermanence, one might be grateful for things that don't change. Or maybe not.

The WV legislature is having an interim session this week. I went yesterday to check some things out and ran into a good friend and sometime Goat Rope reader. For two years, he and I were part of a group that fought hard to get the legislature to pass a law that would let WV draw down $22 million in stimulus funds to expand unemployment benefits to people who need them but can't get them under current rules.

The window to do this closes in the first half of next month. During the last regular session, we gained a few yards but lost for no good reason other than the ideological opposition of business groups and the politicians who do their bidding.

He was there to try for one "Hail, Mary" pass that would be only slightly less miraculous than the bodily Assumption of the Virgin into Paradise, i.e. persuade a legislative leader to put in on the agenda for a just in time special session.

Ever the optimist, he pointed to several things that had changed since this winter. First, the state's unemployment insurance fund was solvent; second, the state has a major budget surplus; third, WV's unemployment rate has stabilized.

"Yes," I said, "but there's one thing that hasn't changed: nobody gives a ****."

HITTING THE CEILING. Here's economist Jamie Galbraith's take on the debt ceiling mess.

MARCELLUS. About 100 people attended a protest yesterday at the state capitol calling for regulation of Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling.

YOU KNOW THAT LIST OF TOOL USING ANIMALS? We need to add blackspot tuskfish to the list.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED