The Chicken Has Flown the Coop' " and of course, the fact that no one likes chicken except for those who like chicken. The only solution I see for this is what I call the "Pig Farm" approach. This is a small pen where you keep a few pigs, no more than 4 or 5, feed them well, and let them live their lives in total comfort. When a person eats a piece of pig meat, or decides they want to eat more, you could just send them to the pen, and they would love you for it, probably. I say "would love you for it" instead of "think you are cool," as people hate being called cool. That, and it's not really possible to send people to a pig pen. But that would be nice, don't you think? Monday, December 15, 2008 I'm thinking of putting a post up for a special "Farm Animal Sunday" to talk about what a farm animal might really want. As it turns out, a lot of this is hard to figure out. You'd think they want some kind of thing, but it never turns out to be so. The pig gets a lot of love and attention, but never does it want to do anything else. The chickens get exercise, some tasty treats, a place to sleep, and a few laughs from people. The cows get to be cows and if they do get to eat meat, it's a nice meal with some friends. But that's it. I went out one day with my camera, and got some nice pictures of the cows. They wanted to act like cows, but not for long. These cows, though, just wanted to kick it old-school and roll over and go to sleep. Then I'd come in and get some nice shots of cows doing their thing. I did get a few good ones, though. It was a nice experience to wander around a small farm and see the cows looking so relaxed. When it was all over, I was able to just walk out with the camera and shoot the cows a few more times. I'm gonna do more of this when I can, if I don't get too busy doing other stuff. Saturday, December 13, 2008 I know that when I was younger, there was something my parents did that was a little strange. It wasn't anything as obvious as being into polygamy or witchcraft, but it was a little bit of both. The thing was my parents' idea of what was "normal." When you got older, you grew out of the things you were doing, but for some reason my parents kept on doing it. I have no idea what their logic was. For me, at least, it was the idea of raising a goat. When you were really little, you were cute and furry, but when you grew up, all you could do was eat with them. And eat with them we did, at least until we went on a vacation to California. That's where it all went south. In California, we happened upon a petting zoo and a couple of petting zoos. There were goats there, so we got one for my brother, myself, and one of my sisters. We named this goat "Skeeter." She was fun and cute and all that, but she was just a goat. The goats we knew were all a few years younger than us and there were no kids around to care for. It was just us raising Skeeter. We took her home to our apartment in San Francisco and I'll be honest. It was just too much. A goat was never meant to be inside of a house. She was loud and smelly and the kids hated her and she liked to get into things and... what's wrong with you!? No one would ever want a goat inside their home. I think it's important to say "house," because it's a very important part of this story. You know, I was always told to be thankful that we had a house, but even then I didn't want one. I was really glad that we had a basement, so I would have a place to keep things I didn't want in the house. It just wasn't the house that I wanted to live in, though. I just couldn't see myself living in a house where there was a hole in the floor and my little brother couldn't reach the top of his head. That's one big reason why this decision to raise a goat never really made sense to me. Anyway, Skeeter made a mess and that was another thing, because if you want someone to eat with you, it's not so great if they are covered in poop. For the first time, I can say, I was embarrassed to eat with Skeeter. Skeeter was always a great guy, but there were times when I felt that it would be easier if he wasn't there. When we returned from California, I decided it would be best to get rid of Skeeter. I thought this would solve my problems, but it did not. Once she was gone, I realized that Skeeter was, indeed, good for something. Skeeter was a symbol of what is wrong with the world and how we treat animals. She was a sign of what we should have done as a people. Our first instinct should have been to help her. When you do something wrong, it's very hard to fix, but there is one thing that you can do that can help others. That's our ability to feel bad for ourselves and do things to fix the problems we caused. I started thinking about all of this when we went to the shelter to get a cat for my wife. We were shown this kitten that had been hit by a car and then it had gotten sick from something. It was blind and couldn't walk, so they decided to put him down. It was so sad to think of this baby going down the highway in a car and getting hit by a driver. This was an animal that didn't ask to be alive and we should have been helping them and taking care of them. It's a shame that we can't help all animals because we might be able to prevent some of these problems. I say "we" because I'm not the only one who can help animals. I'm not a doctor or scientist or even a policeman. I can't help these animals by doing anything in the world, but I can think and feel and talk about it. Animals need a voice, and I hope that my voice can make a difference in their world. I have another idea. If you have friends or family that are reading this, please pass this on to them. You don't need to get them to agree with what I am saying, just to share this with them. If you really want to, you can pass this on to some strangers too. You can tell them to do whatever they want with it, and I'll even understand if they tell you to piss off. In a small house, with no one else around, how do you have a Christmas celebration? When you do decide to have a party, what are you going to do? Maybe you should think about these things. That's what I did when it was time to have a Christmas celebration at my place, and that's how I ended up with a cow being forced into the kitchen. Now that's an interesting idea. The only problem is, there's no place for a cow in my house. It doesn't have any of the essentials. So I was thinking that we should give the cow to everyone else, just so everyone can get into the Christmas spirit. I don't really know the rules, but we might be able to put the picture of the cow into the party so everyone will just accept this. I'm sure that's what everyone wants. We can find something that's bigger than the cow and put the picture on it and then we'll have some more fun around the dinner table. I'm not sure that the dinner table is where the cow wants to be, but that might be okay. There are more people that I would like to help get into the spirit of Christmas. I will take time to think about this more, but in the meantime, just give everyone the picture of the cow in a frame and make sure that it's big enough for the whole family. I hope I will get my cow this year and that all my family and friends will have a good Christmas. Saturday, November 15, 2008 I was just thinking about something that I wanted to talk about. The new blog has been a lot of fun to write, and I've had so many fun things to talk about. I'm thinking of doing more of these weekly or bi-weekly posts, as they keep me going. There were a few times when I had a feeling that it was time to move on from a particular topic. I don't mean a topic in the way that we talk about it here. There are some things that we all have in common, but there are also some differences that we all have. We all know that our views are what make us different and our opinions the things that are different. This is why we all have some things we believe and others that we don't believe. It's a good thing to have ideas and beliefs, but in doing that, you can easily get stuck with things that might not be what others are interested in. Some people might think that it is important for everyone to get along and live in harmony, and they believe that this would make the world a better place. Others might believe that this is impossible