Ninja Cow Farm LLC

So we finally have this raptor guy convinced that we need to do something with the bird. I tell Miguel to put a box over the bird and he sends me back this.

When I send this picture to the raptor guy, I think he finally believed that the bird was injured. He said he’s have someone there in about 30 mins. In the meantime I called SWMBO who was home schooling the kiddos and told her there was a meat eating bird in a box in front of the house if the kids wanted to see. Boy did they!

School immediately became a bust for the day. The kids all wanted to see the bird. The Princess (and all the kids) recently saw the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and now proudly owns a “Save Ferris” t-shirt, which makes her the coolest 9 year old I know.  With this background, she promptly named the hawk Ferris. I thought it was an awesome name since we were working so hard to save Ferris. Save Ferris, get it? Eh, oh well. Moving on.

By this time, the raptor lady was arriving and it was time for Ferris to actually be saved.

Turns out the bird had a broken leg and something wrong with his wing. He couldn’t fly and he couldn’t walk. He was a juvenile, this being his first season. The mortality rate for hawks in the wild is about 90% their first year so Ferris, despite his injuries, will most likely get a better chance at life than most of his peers. Sometimes when bad things happen to you, it brings about good results. I’m sure he wasn’t too happy through this whole experience, but now he’ll go into recovery and be released back into the wild probably next spring. In the mean time, we’ll likely go take the kids to see Ferris in recovery so they can check up on him.

Just another day on (or in the case for me) off the farm.

I was out of town yesterday (more on that later) and I received a text from Miguel that we had somebody new on the farm. He wanted to know what I wanted to do about it.

Miguel said he was hurt and could not fly. Well heck. These things, besides eating chickens, are Federally protected. I grabbed my trusty smart phone and started looking up Wildlife folks. I wanted to talk to a State agency because they are locals and generally more helpful but I figured this guy was Federal so I’d start with the Feds. I found the local number for the US Fish and Wildlife folks and a voice mail answered that rattled off the NC state agency number and a number in Atlanta for the Feds. Oh well, I tried.

So then I looked up the State wildlife crowd and as expected I had a nice lady on the phone in about 30 seconds. She emailed me the number for their “raptor specialists” and wished me luck. Two numbers actually for two different people. So I called the first guy. I told him who I was, what was going on, and the state folks had given me his number. He spends a few minutes trying to convince me that the bird is actually ok, it’s just sitting over food. I said that my guy who is actually looking at it is smarter than the average bear and can tell the difference between a hungry animal and an injured animal. Then he tells me he’s actually going to the beach so I could I call the other number they gave me.

Sure.

So I call the second guy. I tell him I have a picture of the bird and he says to send it over. I send the picture above and he calls me back and says, “That bird is sitting on food. That’s the classic pose of a bird over food.” I explain again that being farmers and all, we can tell the difference between feeding and dying. Reluctantly he says to throw a box over the bird and he will send a volunteer out.

We’ll see how that goes in the next post.

In case you haven’t heard of the New England Journal of Medicine, it is a very prestigious peer reviewed medical journal. The opening line of the wiki page about it says, “The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) is published by the Massachusetts Medical Society and is among the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals^[1] and the oldest continuously published one.^[1]“

This article doesn’t read a dryly as I thought it would so don’t let the beginning put you to sleep. It also doesn’t read as scientific as I thought it would based on where it’s published so read everything with a grain of salt. Lastly, the New England Journal of Medicine, while over 200 years old and very prestigious, isn’t without some history of political bias although it’s very limited and well in the past.

With those caveats in place though, here is some interesting information from a respected source on GMOs, crops, and herbicides. If you don’t want to read, there is also an audio interview link with the author.

And finally, if you want to see a rebuttal, here is another opinion piece published on a blog by someone who spends his time dealing with weed control. He of course claims that the first article is biased and incorrect.

Happy reading.

On the left you can see the front of the shirt. On the right, you can see the back.

These are the same shirts you see me wearing when you come for a tour. Well, mine aren’t pink, but everything else is the same, down to the manufacturer. We ordered in a bunch of new shirts in all sizes both adult and children’s sizes. They are $20 each and we will have them in stock till we run out.

We also have our license plates available for those who want to represent as they drive around daily. These are the same plates we have on all of our farm vehicles. They are also $20 each.

As we work on our displays in the newly revamped farm store, we’ll be putting these swag items out for your viewing and shopping pleasure. Of course, I have to build all the displays first, so I’m not sure which month it’ll be before that happens. It will most likely be cold. Until then, ask me if you are looking for some swag. I have it, it’s just not displayed correctly yet.

I remember distinctly someone telling me that once I sold my business, I’d be bored in 30 days. With a farm, I won’t be bored in 30 years!

As of this morning, there are zero broken links in the queue of our website broken link checker.

As far as I can tell right now, everything that should be live is live, and everything that should be not conflicted has been fixed. If you see something broken, please let me know.

Oh the joy of the interweb. I don’t even know how many hours that took. But it’s back and now I’ll go back to posting stuff that is going on.

Thank you for your patience.

Just to let you know that I do in fact know the pictures are missing from many posts. We are working diligently (been up since 1:30am) on getting everything restored and will post something once the full recovery has been accomplished.

Update from 8:06am.

I’m uploading a few hundred more photos. Almost everything that is current is fixed and as these upload the older posts with broken links should fix themselves. In an hour or so things should be back to normal. In the mean time, everyone has shown up for work so good bye computer, hello farm work. It’s time for Miguel and I to spend our first day working on our new leased farm!