The Clock

I made this clock for my Dad over 30 years ago. This past year, with both Mom and Dad passed, it was returned to me, but it was not working. 

I put a new battery in, but it didn't turn. So I started looking for a new clock insert. The face is 8" diameter requiring a 3.125" mounting hole.

The place I originally ordered it from doesn't carry any inserts over 4" in diameter now. I found another place which had an 8.5" face, but it required a 7" mounting hole. 8.5" would have looked too big, and of course would have required some reworking of the mounting hole. The same store had a 6" face with the proper mounting. But, I think 6" would have looked lost on the clock - and besides, the beauty of an 8" face is that it can be seen easily from across the room.

What to do?

Well, I put a new battery in again and then tapped it a couple times. It has been keeping good time since!

Oremus pro invicem!

Taking care of chickens?

Fox News has an article  today about the increase in people buying plans for DIY chicken coops and chickens.

In the article they quote Kate Murphy, animal preserve caretaker at Hoyt Farm Town Park in Long Island, New York. She cautions:

"Owning any animal is a lot of work, but chickens are a huge responsibility," she said.

"You must take into consideration that your feathered friends may be around a while," she long while" she said. 

"If you are like most Americans and looking to raise chickens for fresh eggs, hens can lay eggs for two to three years at the most and then enter retirement, which they most definitely deserve, because egg laying is brutal on the hen's body."

Murphy said chickens "need love" once they're done laying eggs.

But perhaps the biggest commitment is financial, according to Murphy — who noted that avian veterinarians are "not cheap."

Let's take this one point at a time. 

1. Chickens are probably the easiest of homestead animals to take care of after you have the coop set up. You water and feed them. You collect eggs.

2. What chickens need after they "retire" from laying eggs, is a good pot to cook in!

3. An avian vet? I am sure there are some people who will bring their laying hen to a vet, but I have never met one of those people.

Oremus pro invicem!

Early man to older man

I have been reading (for a year at least?) Wendell Berry's "The Need to be Whole".  I read this passage the other morning:

I am unsure how much I have felt of the settled and sustained hatred of the feuding families of old, or of the haters of "the deep state" or "the new Confederacy," but when I was young and could spare the energy I felt plenty of personal dislike and anger, which I enjoyed very much. I learned eventually that such emotions use up a lot of energy and so are weakening. They also are powerfully distracting. They distort one's sense of what is real and necessary and valuable.

This was clearly me. I was full of anger and energy "fighting" the left when I was young - and I enjoyed it. But it was weakening and a bad use of my energy - which I needed to be a good husband and father.

Oremus pro invicem!