TGI...S?

I know!  It's Saturday and I didn't get a chance to do my TGIF posting.  My friend, Mitten, is in town (she's from Michigan, the Mitten state). So here's my posting!

How Am I Trusting?

I'm trusting my limits.  And I'm learning that I actually have more limits then I thought.  This mostly comes with my job.  It's hard working 6 days a week, 10 to 12 hour days.  But I am doing it, though sometimes a little begrudgingly.  And I have a steep learning curve here.  I've never worked with sheep, I haven't really worked in a strict beef or pork operation.  I know what I know, and I know what I don't, and what I don't I am patient with myself and learn about them.

How Am I Grateful?

I'm grateful this week for good friends who I can always call and talk too.  This week (and most weeks) I'm grateful for The Monster Librarian.  Our friendship only goes back a few years, and we have had our downs, but without those downs we won't be nearly as close as we are today.  We talk multiple times a week, and it's wonderful having a person who's going through the same things as you - moving to a new place, becoming a manager of a dream job, and the difficult task of working on yourself.  If only we weren't a state apart, which compared to where I grew up in New England, we're like 8 states apart.

How Am I Inspired?

This week I'm inspired by forgiveness.  It's a powerful tool that you can keep in your toolbelt, as one of my rugby coaches says.  Feeling at peace with what has happened in your life, feeling at peace with someone who has hurt you, or feeling at peace with not living up to your own expectations takes a lot of weight off your shoulders.  It's a hard, long road to get there and it takes practice, but it's worth it.

How Am I Practicing My Faith?

Pretty much everyday with my job.  There are many things out of my control - like when I'm suppose to be moving into a new house (then I can finally have my cat!), trying to get two days off a week, gaining the trust of people around me.  It's frustrating, but I just refocus my energy in what I can do.  I know I can do my job, that's the only thing I can control.  So I put my energy in that and soon everything else will follow.   

Dorpers!

Today was exciting!  We got a handsome new ram.  He's beautiful!  A little spunky, if you are comparing him to Uggs and Guinness, our two old Romney rams that we have.  The coolest thing about Dorpers, and the main reason why I got them, is because they are hair sheep.  This means that they shed their coat, instead of your typical sheep where you have to sheer the wool.  Yay! No sheering!  Well, in a couple generations anyway.  

Dorpers are meat sheep, and produce a tasty, lean meat under pretty tough conditions.  Bred in South Africa, they are really tough sheep (most sheep are known for being pretty fragile).  The Dorpers are a little more worm resistant, produce lambs that gain weight fast, and are fertile little buggers.  Most sheep you can only breed once a year, but this sheep you can breed twice a year if you were organized enough.  There are two varities - the Dorper (who has a black head) and the White Dorper, who has a white head, making them all white.  

Take a look at the pictures!  

 

Alligators?

I found this article on NPR.  This chicken farmer got alligators to eat dead chickens.  Read on.  

Plucky Former Poultry Farmer Goes Wild For Gators

by Philip Graitcer

October 8, 2012

Just outside of Camilla, Ga. — about four hours southwest of Atlanta — up a dirt road called Alligator Lane, is one of the largest alligator farms in the country.

"We've got about 20 chicken houses, and we've got about 100,000 alligators on the farm," says owner, Mark Glass.

That's right, 100,000 alligators and they are in big demand in Europe's high fashion industry.
Right now, it's hatching season.

"Actually there's one of them on the floor running around now," Glass says, as a black and yellow striped alligator, about 5 inches long from head to tail, scurries across the floor. Glass picks him up.  "Yeah, that's one that just hatched, that's him barking," he says. "And they will bite as soon as they hatch."

Glass started out as a chicken farmer. He bought a few alligators to help dispose of dead chickens because burning and burying the birds was getting too expensive. But Glass soon learned that taking care of alligators cost money, too — they needed a lot of attention and they are ate more than just dead chickens.

Glass began raising alligators commercially, for their hides and meat.

At first, he kept them in an outdoor pond, but that almost had near disastrous results. Once, after releasing about 750 alligators into the pond, he took a closer look at the fence.

"I finally went and picked up an alligator and carried him to the fence and set him down, he walked right through the fence, and I was like 'Oh no, these alligators aren't as big as I thought they were,'" he says. "We had to quickly get all the hardware stores in town to open up, we bought all the chicken wire that existed. We didn't lose but one or two."

But it's quiet on this alligator farm — no slapping of tails, no splashing, no Crocodile Dundee. The alligators spend their entire lives indoors in barns where everything is controlled, including food, climate and water temperature.

They spend their lives in semi-darkness, so they won't be too aggressive, because when they fight, it's bad for business.

"The industry we are selling the alligator hides into, the Louis Vuittons, the Hermes, the Gucci, Prada, Chanels, they want perfect premium skins. No scars, no blemishes, no scratches," he says.

It's hard to imagine that these prehistoric-looking reptiles, swimming around in a smelly pond on a South Georgia farm, may one day grace the arms of the world's beautiful people.

"We grow them to somewhere between 3 1/2- to 6-feet long," Glass says. "The small hides are 3 1/2- to 4-foot and they go into the watch strap market for the high end watches, the 5 1/2- to six-footers go into the women's handbag market."

Glass never imagined himself as an alligator farmer. But he should have had a premonition: 20 years ago, he proposed to his wife at a Florida vacation spot called Alligator Point.

Courtesy of NPR http://www.npr.org/2012/10/08/162514260/plucky-former-poultry-farmer-goes-wild-for-gators

Forgiveness

I found this and thought it was beautiful.  Forgiving yourself is so essential your lifetime.  We all make mistakes, we all don't like ourselves at one time or another.  But hanging on to that anger, hurt, sadness, fear, shame, guilt, doesn't allow you to move on. 

"Today I recognize my past does not dictate my future, and I am now free to be who I always wished I could be."

 

TGIF

Happy Friday!

How Am I Trusting?

I'm trusting people who are honest this week.  Honesty is the most important aspect of a human being for me.  And I tend to loose a lot of respect for people who are not honest.  And I feel like in order to be honest with others you have to be honest with yourself.  And if you can't be honest with yourself, then how are you living your life?  

Anyway, today I helped a coworker (I'll call him Deere because he always wears a John Deere hat) talk to our boss about how our boss reacted to him today in front of everyone.  I was shocked to witness this behavior by our boss, and jumped in the cut him off from beating Deere with words.  I talked to Deere later today and encouraged him to talk to our boss about how that made him feel.  Deere did, and our boss appreciated it and apologized.  

How Am I Grateful?

I'm grateful for honesty (there might be a theme here this week).  Last night Lakes and I went out.  It was WONDERFUL.  We both had so much fun.  Lakes and I have worked together for 3 years now, and have formed a very lovely relationship.  We are able to work together well, be grumpy around each other and not take offense, tell each other how we are feeling that day, and then go out and have fun and not think about work.  Last night when we went out, we promised that we'd always be honest with each other about how we are feeling about our job and our feelings about how each of us is handling our job.  It feels good knowing that we are going to continue our honest relationship.

How Am I Inspired?

By honesty!  How I feel when I'm honest with another person and with myself, is such a wonderful feeling.  Separating it from the reason why I am being honest, I'm always happy that I am honest.  Because like I said, if I'm not honest then how am I living my life?

How Am I Practicing Faith?

Don't mistake that I'm rude or negative in my honesty.  I practice empathy in my honesty - that's important.  Even though honesty is one of the most difficult things to do, I have faith that I am doing the right thing when I'm honest.  

  

Sullivan County Oysters

Our 14 little piglets had to get the old castration and the first iron shot on Wednesday.  The operation went surprisingly smooth.  We had to move their momma, Diana, into another pen, then we just grabbed the piglets and went far away.  When I first got to this job, I had to castrate piglets that were 3 months old.  Talk about HORRIBLE.  But, 7 males handled themselves well.  Some screaming and one bite landing on Lakes' forearm and that was it. 

Then we went back to Diana...

She apparently wasn't as happy as we thought.  We locked her in her original pen and quickly tossed the piglets back in.  She didn't really want anything to do with us yesterday, but was better with me today when I went to say hello.

One nice thing that we discovered about Diana is that Diana is the Roman Goddess of the Hunt, Goddess of the Moon, and also the Goddess of Birthing.  How fitting!

"When Pigs Attack"

This story so sad.  Momma Craig told me about this today so had to see if it was true.  A poor man in Oregon went out to feed his pigs and was found later dead by his family.  This article talks more about incidents when farm animals did hurt or kill their owners.  It's hard to remember sometimes, that these mostly docile-looking creatures can do serious damage. (Courtesy of Slate.com) 
 

Pig Bites Man

How often do livestock deliberately kill farmers?

By Brian Palmer

Updated Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2012, at 11:40 AM ET

An Oregon farmer was eaten by his hogs on Wednesday. The 70-year-old Vietnam veteran had gone to feed the animals in the morning, and his family found his dentures and scattered remains in the hog pen several hours later. Authorities are trying to determine whether the pigs deliberately killed the man. Do livestock intentionally kill their owners?

Yes. Cattle kill approximately 22 Americans per year nationwide, and the animals deliberately attack their victims in 75 percent of those cases, according to a 2009 study. About one-third of bovine killers have a history of aggressive behavior. Swine likely kill fewer people than cattle do, but there are no reliable data on this question. The CDC’s mortality statistics group together all mammal attacks apart from those perpetrated by rodents, dogs, and humans. The death count in the mammal-attack category averages about 73 per year, including cattle-related mortalities.

There are, however, plenty of anecdotes suggesting that swine are willing and able to kill humans. British pigs seem to have a particularly aggressive streak. In 2006, a 650-pound swine pinned a Welsh farmer to a tractor and bit him until the victim’s wife scared the attacker off with a water hose. The same year, a pig foraging in England’s New Forest—a hunting ground where farmers pasture their swine—caused a horse to throw its rider, then mauled the prone woman.

Livestock display an alarming ability to coordinate their attacks. A herd of cattle circles up to confront a perceived threat, with their backsides in the center of the circle and their heads lowered. They may even paw the ground, like a bull facing a matador. Of the 21 cattle-related fatalities in the Plains states between 2003 and 2008, five involved multiple animals swarming the farmer. Pigs are also known to attack cooperatively. In 2007, a sow in Norfolk, England knocked a farmer off his feet, enabling the other pigs to bite the man.

If confronted by an agitated pig or cow, back away and get behind a barrier such as a tree. It also helps to carry a large stick as a weapon and to make yourself appear larger.

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