On the Hunt in the Chicken Pen

In the middle of June I was home with strep throat, strep as an adult is not the ice cream picnic it is as a child, but I digress. I was lying in bed and heard our chickens get all excited. The chickens have a flock warning sound that makes all the other chickens run inside or under trees. Usually it is the fledgling hawks learning to hunt, so normally I will let my dogs out to run the perimeter of the chicken run to keep the hawks from diving bombing and taking away a chicken or better yet, kill one and then sit in the pen and slowly pluck it. This process sounds so macabre but it is part of nature and living in a forest area one of the inevitable dangers when you raise poultry. I was thinking the dogs had done their job now I could go back to sleep, the phone rings it is the neighbor saying there is a bear up a tree with a chicken.
I quickly jump up and go to see, stopping to grab the phone to call my husband we call with exciting wildlife reports. His first comment was, “I hope it is not one of my favorites.”
Sure enough, up a tree with three big dogs at the base looking up is the cutest baby bear you have ever seen, just like a teddy bear. He was the size of a cocker spaniel and just observing the scene below. I called in all the dogs and the little guy ran down the tree and into the woods… My son and I were checking things out when we noticed a half grown chick on the outside of the pen (of course it was one of the favorites) but the thankfully it was wobbly but alive. We put it in our special pen where we can closely monitor him. He has a cut on his back and had fallen about 15 feet from the tree but amazingly seemed ok.

We all went in and relaxed and an hour later our little friend was back in the run, this time all the chickens were safe in their chicken house. When he saw

Up in the Tree

us, he again ran off through the woods. I called the Division of Wildlife to report him. The story in our neighborhood was that two cubs had been wandering around without their mother, no one had seen her at all and there were many sightings of the cubs. One of the cubs a few weeks earlier had been trapped and sent to a rehabilitation ranch because he was very underfed and dehydrated, but they could not catch the second cub. We had seen him about that time and unlike his sibling he looked very healthy his coat looked good he had weight on him and he was dining on dandelions and was very car smart. The division of wildlife had been looking for him because they know that if these little guys raise themselves they develop very bad habits, like eating chickens and trash, and then they become the problem bears. If they get them to a rehab they learn what they are supposed to eat and they don’t get used to humans. Because as cubs they are so cute everyone takes their pictures and do things to draw them in to get to see them, and then they create a problem bear.

Part 2 of 2 published Sept. 6th!

Unique Endcap at Tashman's!

As consumers are venturing into green they are looking for what is green and what works. Nowadays you are beginning to see a growing number of stores highlighting Green products to the customers with prime retail space such as endcaps and at eye level. It shows the growing value of green products to the consumer marketplace! Check out this link to Tashman’s blog, a store located in West Hollywood, CA.  Next time you are in a local pet shop, hardware store, or vac shop look around and see how much retail space the green marketplace has influenced, and if you don’t see Unique’s products, grab the manager and tell them how great they are!

If you haven’t been reading or keeping up with popular news, you probably haven’t heard of the now 19 year old Washington native who had been evading police over the past 3 years while pulling off robbery after robbery and escape after escape. Must be one really smart kid, he stole a $450,000 yacht, three airplanes, and committed hundreds of other burglaries in Canada, the Caribbean, and all over the US. Are you kidding me?

Finally the kid was caught in the Bahamas, after stealing another boat. Heck if I was making it in the Bahamas I’d just lay low a while and enjoy the location, but apparently his addiction to stealing was too much. Apparently though, it now looks that people want to either make him rich, or his family rich with book offers, and maybe even movie offers . . . the same family that includes a mother who said that she thinks it’s neat what he’s doing (see comment here).  I’m glad that in this time that many are struggling to make ends meet in a honest way, that these people may get some big bucks.  It’s sad, but I’m glad he’s caught and now all of his fan clubs can get on with their lives too! I guess I’m not helping the hype by writing about him either though . . .

Hmmm Cardboard Coffins? Thanks, but I'll pass.

Many people live their lives trying to make leave an impact on this world, but apparently some are now wanting to leave this world without leaving anything behind.

A coffin maker in Arizona is making coffins that are “green” and to go along with that you can also be buried in a location similar to a nature observatory where pretty much only your body is allowed to go into the ground.

Apparently the Green bandwagon doesn’t have any bounds!

Check out this article about this new green burying trend.

For those of you who are sports fans, this day is a holiday of sorts.  It is the kickoff of the March Madness NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament!  I’ve heard different statistics on the number of man hours lost at work every year during these first days of the tournament, and they are pretty large.  This year I’m in a couple different tourney pools, so I definitely have a vested interest in the games.  It has been quite the eventful start to the tournament with 11th seeded Old Dominion beating 6th seeded Notre Dame, an upset that I had picked!  As I’m sitting here in the office typing this I’ve got my CBS Sports Update app up on my IPod Touch keeping me updated on all the scores!  The introduction of the smartphones and iPod Touch now allow me to simple glance down and see all the updated scores around the country rather than having to keep up multiple windows to follow the action!  I love technology!

My bracket took a small hit with Vandy losing and Florida dropping the ball in double overtime, but I’ll get a boost with the Old Dominion upset and the looming Saint Mary’s upset.  With 2:30 left SMC is up by 9, come on boys hang on!!!  I’m also watching the (5)Butler-(12)UTEP game  closer, hoping for the upset, currently UTEP is up by 2 with 3:30 left in the 1st half.  I love this time of year, and this level of competitive basketball can’t even be seen in the NBA!  I can’t wait to see what the rest of this month holds, hopefully it pays out!

My New Toilet Cleaner!!!

I read somewhere that you could use Tang to clean toilets, Right….. I am always looking for safe ways, to try to clean the toilets in my house.  But really, Tang, I figured I’d give it a try.  I also have several friends looking for a good method to clean toilets. Because we have well water, mineral buildup can be a big issue.  Yet I also have a septic and therefore don’t want to use a harsh cleaner because you do not want to kill the good bacteria that are down there doing their jobs.  So I thought for $2.00 what can I lose?

I poured a generous amount into the toilet and just let it sit for a few minutes then scrubbed it with the brush let it sit awhile longer and then flushed. I was very pleasantly surprised. It did a good job! It did not get all the minerals, but I have to resign to myself, that every couple of months I have to go at that with gloves and a pumice stone. One of the big bonuses with the Tang is the great smell, no yucky chemical smell, just a nice light orange scent.

Next, I tackled the kitchen sink, again I don’t like to use cleansers because most of them have bleach or if no bleach then they smell horrible. I prefer something safer and more gentle, but of course it has to actually work!  I sprinkled it around and let it sit a few minutes then gently rubbed with a sponge. It even took out the metal marks from pans that get on the porcelain, the sinks looked shiny and clean plus smelled great. I know it is the citric acid that is makes it work, but it is now going to be a staple in my bathroom and my kitchen.  Never would have thought I would use Tang more to clean than to drink!

What do you think of this sport?

As a wrap-up to this year’s Olympics that ended a week or two ago, I’d like to highlight a sport that baffles me.  Curling has somehow grown a fan base by providing an exciting atmosphere filled with pushing a rock, frantic ice sweeping, and a strategy that seems like a convoluted form of frozen shuffleboard . . . cleaning style. Yet more and more people seem to be interested in this sport, the attention that curling gets only seems to grow with each Olympics.  This year I was amazed to see fans decked out in their team’s colors, with painted faces, screaming frantically at all the most crucial points of the match (is that the correct term?).  I even had a couple friends saying how they couldn’t help but get into the sport, even this was said with some sense of shame though!

I watched one the US matches against . . . I don’t even remember now, but I watched for about 45 minutes and I picked up some of the rules and scoring, but I still have much more to learn.  Unfortunately I just don’t know if I can passionately get behind this sport!  Who knows!  Maybe someday especially if they find a way to incorporate swords, body armor, and full contact!  Can you imagine the little sweeper guys going at the ice with their brooms, and then suddenly out of the corner of the screen a big Russian comes hauling by taking out a sweeper!  Now that’s the definition of exciting!  Just a few thoughts for next Winter Olympics!

Smile, buddy, those glasses just fetched 9 grand!

The legendary JoPa (Joe Paterno, coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions football team) recently had a pair of his eyeglasses sell for $9,000 at a charity auction. The lucky couple? Kevin and Michelle Coppola. Now they will spend the next 7 months panhandling with the glasses on, to pay it off. Just kidding. Thankfully this was for a charity auction, thus offering some redeeming quality to the amount spent on the glasses. Maybe I should spend the next 25 years wearing the same shirt and it might sell big on e-bay someday. I’m sure my fiancee would love that . . . “honey, I know it stinks now, but someday I may be a manufacturing legend of natural cleaning products and it might be worth millions!!!” And hey I could always use bacteria on it to remove the bad odor! All teasing aside, good for the charity. Good for the Coppola’s, who were Penn State alumni, and can now revel in the glasses that are so thick they could be bulletproof. And good for Joe Paterno who is now officially locked in college football history as the coach with the most expensive eyeglasses!  ESPN’s Page 2 covered this story so if you want to see more, it’s right here.

Could Cheese Help Vonn Get Another Medal?

You’d never guess the latest healing remedy being used at the 2010 Olympic games!  Cheese?!?  CNN Health reports that American alpine favorite Lindsay Vonn has been wrapping her injured shin with cheese to help “limit the inflammation.  See article here.”  Um . . . cheese?  Why haven’t we figured this one out before!?!  Not only is cheese a perfect topping for chili during the wintertime, or the mandatory ingredient for nachos, but now cheese can be used in place of your household ice pack.  Talk about a reusable resource, use it as your ice pack for swelling a few times, and then eat your “ice pack” for dinner, now that is recycling at its best!  But hey if Vonn can pull out a medal on that injured leg, my next move will be to invest some major money in the cheese market, because we’ll see more and more athletes sporting a stylish cheese wrap.