ChickenScratch

Follow the daily aspects of a city boy turned Chicken Farmer. after pursueing the American Dream for 30 years, The author finally bought a small farm in the middle of southern Tennessee. Quite a diffrent look from Chicago that is for sure.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Carmel Tomato Fest

I hope you enjoyed reading my little chatter. thank you for stopping by, Have a Nice Day



Here's is a great place for organic Seeds And Info>

http://store.tomatofest.com/?Click=2455

Canned Vegetables

Anyone notice the price of canned vegetables lately... prices are slowly sky rocketing where the common person cannot afford them....

Generics are now selling from 35 cents up towards 1.00 a can.

With this in mind, we have started several seedlings and will try and squeeze in several others into the plot down the road.... The home garden on the property will also increase....

Planning on planting: Peppers, tomatoes, squash, melons, pumpkins, potatoes, jicama, onions, and several other trial herbs and vegetables.... Going to scratch the earth wherever we can this year to enlarge the gardens because of the uplifiting prices....

Are we headed to another collapse in the economy.... Gas prices are continuing to rise and now foods and staples....

Monday, February 26, 2007

I hope you enjoyed reading my little chatter. thank you for stopping by, Have a Nice Day


I love this seed company"

http://www.store.tomatofest.com/?Click=2455

They have the best variety of heirloom tomato seeds....

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Chili Head Central Forum

I hope you enjoyed reading my little chatter. thank you for stopping by, Have a Nice Day


Chili Head Central.............is a consise forum devoted to everything pepper.

Boards include..... gardening, cooking, travel, and humor....

Check it out, We love this site.


http://www.pepperphil.proboards102.com/

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Sad News

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Sad news on the Chicken farm tonite........

Our Pomeranian Gizmo died this afternoon...... Combination of heat stroke and not being able to revive em in time. Gizmo was an inside dog, but we let him play outside about an a hour a day.

Our temps all the last couple weeks were in the high 90's, today it didn't get much past 87'....
This is a real shame, he would of been three years olde in November... We will miss him ever so much.

It's a shame but you really don't miss someone till thier gone. And poor Gizmo I will miss. This lil s*** was a real stinker, he would bark at about anything, and he had the greatest set of ears, he could hear a truck coming a 1/2 mile off and start barking. He was one of the best doorbells around. He would dance on his hind legs to beg for a snack. Dang tonite sux.

Our loss will be great because he and his character cannot be replaced. It was one of the sadest things that any farmer can do, is to bury a beloved animal. I cried while I dug that hole tonite. I'm crying as I type.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Chicken Scratch 8 Ball Part 3

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I pulled out of the surgery ok I guess, I have been on again off again wearing a c-collar for the better part of three months now. My neck hurts, alot some times, and I have not been able to work.

Social Security states I am disabled. The Doctors say that also. So maybe I am. I cannot lift my arm over my head on the lefthand side. pain is constant until I try to do something then it's worse.

I can hardley walk without staggering....I know something is wrong.....


http;//www.cafepress.com/?pid6066034

Chicken Scratch 9

I hope you enjoyed reading my little chatter. thank you for stopping by, Have a Nice Day




I really like the stuff here... check em out.

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Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Chicken Scratch 8 Ball Part II

Things went towards the better. I had a good job as a counselor, I liked my job and I had a small apartment within walking distance of work. The apartment was 400 a month all utilitys included, gas, water, electric, and cable

Sadly I was attacked one day at work. I was pushed over a chair arm and pinned to the floor by a client, who proceeded to hit me in the face approximatly twenty times, he eventually got off of me only to kick me in the face another few times. I continued to go to work even thou I didn't feel that well.

I eventually lost my job after being set up by a crooked boss. I lost my job over shower shoes in the cafeteria, and one late group. This boss was an idiot, I will tell that to him to his face. I was a dedicated employee who had worked there for five years. A shame for sure.

I married my third wife Chris in October of 2002, we moved to another county and bought a small farmhouse on a few acres. The move was to get me closer to work at another facility. I liked this area, we are close to the Tennessee river, a prime recreational area. The house needs a little work, but the area is quiet and pretty.

We had one of the worst neighbors in the world, I do believe this man is lower than pond scum. And to this day I hate him, and that is that. Our realtor sold us the house not telling us that the septic tank was on the neighbors property. He falsely sold us the home knowing well that this was so. So if you ever decide to purchase a home in Perry County Tennessee Don't buy the home from the realtor on the square. Call the better business bureau first and inquire.

We bought a new septic tank, even thou the nasty neighbor threatened the contractor who was hired with bodily harm, I eventually had the work done by someone else. So we settled in.

In 2003 I bought a few chickens, Mostly Rhode Island Reds, and some Leghorns. I never owned a chicken in my life. But now I was a chicken farmer. The back end of a garage had an enclosed room in it, which I converted into my first coop. Thru the winter we fed em, and them chickens got alot bigger.

In 2004 I bought from the 4-H show the Grand Champion Flock of 6.... They were Black Sex -Links... I put them in this coop also, but to my dispair these chickens were very peck-oriented and proceeded to kill off all the other birds.

I built a coop outside in 2005 and was ready to move the birds out to this coop when the winds of Hurricane Katrina came thru and knocked down the coop. I was rebuilding the coop when after feeling tired I quit for the day. Chris wanted to go out to ear so we went to a restaurant on the other side of the river.

On the way back from the restaurant I felt extreme pain in my left side, and asked my wife to get me to a hospital..... In the emergency room, the attending doctors made a decision to life-flight me to a larger hospital. My left side was completly numb, I had loss of speech and movement. After a long helocopter ride which almost took an hour, I found myself in another emergency room 75 miles away. My wife who drove arrived at the hospital about 10 minutes after I did.

I was mis-diagnosed as having a stroke by the doctors, mis-diagnosed by the paramedics in flight as having a heart attack. And I was held overnight for observation. Seems I had a pinched nerve that shut down my left hand side. If you can imagine somebody taking your left arm and pulling it thru your right hand side, that's what I felt like.......

I went thru numerous tests and was finally released. I was refered to an orthopedic surgeon who confirmed that I had a pinched nerve, and three discs in my neck that were breaking up......
This was in Sept. 2005.......

Somewhere towards December I was bitten in the neck by some sort of spider. Inflamation and infection spred and an operation which I desperatly needed was postponed. I was to have 3 discs in my neck replaced C5, C6, and C7....... This was a direct result of the beating I took years earlier. eventually the spider bite cleared up. After two months of Anti-biotics......

My surgery was finally scheduled for April 17, 2006.............



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Chicken Scratch 8 Ball

I hope you enjoyed reading my little chatter. Thank you for stopping by, Have a Nice Day

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Now For something totally diffrent.

Life has been diffrent since I have been laid up, can't sleep most of the time so I stay up very late and either watch the TV or sit here at the puter and surf alot. I started this blog with the intention of seving up a comedic answer to everyday boredom.

In the next few blogs I hope to achieve the goal.

When I was living in the Chicagoland area I really didn't enjoy it, gees you could hear the neighbors toilet flush in the middle of the nite. And if he cut the big one, you were even pleasured with the essence.

I knew I had to move.

I had every intention to move to Northern Wisconsin, I had friends that were buying property near the town of New Miner, a place we always went on fishing and camping trips. I had plans to move there by the time I was 30, then 35, then 40...... But that never materialized. I do miss the area.

That area of Wisconsin is beautiful, it was an area that I had frequented since I was 12, My father's godmother lived there and almost all our vacations were spent there. Odd but a coincedence.

Finding the funds to move up there were non existintent. Every time I found a good job I lossed it, Times were tuff living in Chicagoland, and prices were high.

So how does a city boy turn Chicken farmer. Well my second wife, was from Tennessee, and even thou we had a house in Lockport Il, we just had to move to Tennessee, so the house was sold and we made the move to Tennessee.

Sure I vacationed in Tennessee before, I liked it and I was due for a change. So we packed up as much we could in a u-haul truck and headed south. we rented a house for a year , and had the opportunity to buy some land with a building on it that was already a restaurant -bar. So we bought it. We were in business for a year when the ex wife decided to lose interest in the venture. First we were ripped off by her brother, a so-called partner, then by her sons one after the other.

Towards the end, my ex-wife drained our account of over 20 thousand dollars, buying things that she just had to have and getting tired of them and giving them away without even consulting me. Her sons one by one moved in, leeched off of us, and eventually distroyed what little marriage we had left.

Ny ex would take off for weeks at a time to be with her girlfriends. eventually I found out she was Bi. The last straw was when she took the money for the electric bill and went on a weekend with one of her girlfriends. Her luck I found out where she was two weeks later. She was re-cooperating from stepping on a catfish. My love for her was growing slim.

I kept working, trying to pay bills, she forced me into a bankruptcy, and eventually moved in with her girlfriend -lover. I was disgusted and broke, I really hit rock bottom.

Thru work I met a great girl who was a great friend. We talked about everything and enjoyed each other. Eventually the two of us made a mistake and fell in love with each other. I was seperated and she just went thru a divorce.... I was looking to file for mine. I borrowed two thousand dollars and filed for divorce on the grounds of abondonment.... The ex, the witch she was filed a counter claim on infedility... Trouble was I was faithful to that witch til the day we separated.

Didn't matter thou, she won on a faked hardship plea. She and one of her other lovers faked documents to have her claim disabled. This other woman owned an insurance company and filed three forms of insurance denial. I guess it is who you sleep with huh. A judge, another ex -lover of hers was appointed her attorney because she had no money... In other words I got screwed.

All I got out of the marriage was my clothes. My ex even thou court ordered to diversify all holdings fifty fifty took it all, stole my car, and put me on foot. I got the bottom of that shaft for sure. I continued to work and pay her rehabilitation alimony but I wouldn't give up. I was tuff and even thou I had nothing I kept going on.....................

Monday, July 24, 2006

Chickens & Elephants

Sad news from the other day, it seems that a 36 year old handler was killed at The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald Tennessee...

Hohenwald is the next county over from where I live now. And I did live in Hohenwald for several years after My move down to Tennessee from Chicago, Illinois.

The handler, a woman moved down here because of her love for the endangered Elephants from her home state of Maine. This is a sad event for sure. My heartfelt sorrow goes out to the fine woman, her family and to The staff at the Elephant Sanctuary.

More on the Sanctuary and thier efforts to save these Elephants.


www.elephants.com

Chicken Scratch 7

Well, another day in the 100's, dang it sure has been hot around here lately. Been pouring a ton of city water to the garden, just to keep em alive.

Been pulling peppers and green beans, but not much else. had a cucumber, pepper salad the other night. tasted great.

Been very hot and the chickens are drinking gallons of water. they take all i can give em. Chickens have just like humans the ability to have heatstoke, so making sure they have enough water is very essential.

They have been constantly laying in this heat and I am proud of the girls.

The holler I live in has been quiet lately . maybe I should get out there and kick a few stones huh?

I saw a TV advertisement about that new movie about the twin towers, I am sorry but I hope I am not the only one who thinks that this is totally politically incorrect. That movie should have never been made. I wonder how many other people will end up getting sick over this movie.. bad Move Hollywood.

Chicken Farmer Learns New Hobby

They say they can't teach old dogs new tricks, but they sure can teach em to old chickens.....

We want to start a new hobby making candles, recently during a power outage, I searched all over for candles, Found a few fragrant ones and lit em up. Sitting in the dark for awhile got me to thinking about the pleasant smells and how easy it would to give these things to people who enjoy them.

So I sat for awhile and thought that my new hobby would be to start making candles. So I now declare my new hobby... Chicken Farmer and Candle Maker.

I know that I really know nothing. The last time I made a candle as a school project we melted crayons in one of mom's pots and got yelled at for ruining the pot.

So there has to be better ways of doing this. The following link has some supplies to get anyone started:


http://www.tncandlesupplies.com/idevaffiliate/idevaffiliate.php?id=119


I found an awful lot of nice things in this site, Give em a try.

Chicken Farmer