#cheepy’s mother

[doweesig]

Birdo and the Birdos 🎀

[chickenpeep77]

Naptime for sleepy cheepies. These are the Jersey giants and buff orpington babies from the feed store a while back

Also got a new batch to take care of. Their mother had twelve so I took a few for myself.

[goat-slice-art]

I guess you are my little Cheepy, come here!

[continent-of-wild-endeavor]

Farm log 4/1/20

Our baby chickens and turkeys are two weeks old today. Grow babies grow!

The turkeys have been sprouting WINGS real fast, though they can’t do much with them yet, and have figured out the roosting bar. They would like to EXPLORE, but they are still too little, so we continue to confine them, and they spend a lot of time looking wistfully out the window.

The chicks are learning about roosting as well. They mostly still sleep together on the ground under their heat lamp, on warm nights and cool ones, but during the day I’ll often find them on the edges of the wooden box, or surprisingly high up on the ladder. They can even fly a little! They are very cheepy all the time, and not particularly happy about me coming around.

Both types of birds got a chunk of sod the other day, to explore and play with and eat bits of grass. I think they enjoyed them; I’ll replace with fresh soon.

Sadly, we lost another chick yesterday/the night before. One of the brown leghorns. I don’t know why, just that I found her splayed and dead in the morning, in the middle of the sleeping area, though nothing was visibly wrong with her. She’ll go to our snake guy, so this isn’t entirely a waste, but I’m still bummed about it. Up until now we’d only lost the one that we had to put down the first day (maybe shipping trauma - 50 birds in a small box is a lot - or deformity, we’re not sure, but his legs didn’t work right and he was struggling to breathe evenly) so I thought we were doing well, and the older they get the sturdier they are, so I was surprised to lose one for no known reason on day 14. Still, we have more than we ordered, as we started with about 54, so we’re still ahead on actual future birds. See, if you order more than a few birds, they chuck a couple extra in the box at the hatchery, to cover expected losses. So we are still doing a little better than the expected loss, or so I tell myself. I am making a point to check on them a little more often - I’m home anyway, after all - to see if I can spot any problems as they arise.

Also in new life: 5 baby bunnies born two days ago! From my girl Poppy. She’s reliable and a good mother, even if she doesn’t have the biggest litters. She’ll have one more before taking a summer break. Blossom is due any day, /if/ she’s pregnant. I failed to immediately make a note of whether I actually bred her or not, and promptly forgot, but at least I remembered to write down the “add nest box” reminder for myself afterwards.

There are four buns in the tractor, ready for processing any day, and another litter waiting to take their place. I need to build another tractor! They really enjoy grazing, and though it must slow my growth rates down some, it also saves on storebought feed. And mowing.

I have been noticing a trend of smaller-than-ideal litter sizes lately. Mostly 5 or 6, when I’d like to be seeing 8-10, ideally. Is this inbreeding depression? All my current rabbits are related, more or less closely, but is it enough to cause that, or do I just have a line of small litter size does? I believe this will be helped when I bring in an outside buck for crossbreeding. I may get an AmChin from a local guy, though idk if his rabbits have the stats I really want (growth rate, heat tolerance, litter size, breedback rate) bc he doesn’t seem to track that, really. Or I may keep looking for another source, for a NZ or Cali buck. Not a lot of $ for that these days, but I’ll make it work.

[paganchristian]

A baby mockingbird singing in this high-pitched cheepy voice to its mother, practicing flying lessons with her and wanting to be fed, which we saw one day at that walk by the sparkling polluted water.  It makes me think, of the cuteness, the brightness, the liveliness, vitality, and yet also vulnerability, of the world, of people, human  nature and culture in general.  But while it makes me think of that it also makes me think the vulnerability is also strength, as they say.  There is at least some strength in vulnerability, safety in numbers, and security in humility, the rock bottom is the place from which we can stably ground ourselves, and see just like the place the water flows is the lowest and the most widespread, covering a flat area or a deepest crevice, water flows so.  To spark thoughts from quotes I’ve read, but don’t try to get right or even eloquent, sure I’m stumbling over words, poorly worded.  Quotes by J. K. Rowling and Lao Tzu, about rock bottom and the low, flowing nature of water, the unconquerable, submissive, malleable, shapeless water, any shape water, morphable, mercurial, infinitely creative, substance-less, spineless, simple,..  essential, vital, life force, well I don’t know, think I carried the quote into too much wordiness, got away from what Lao Tzu said, probably though of course in the Tao Te Ching he says many things and I only recall snippets of this or that and not like I rad it all, mostly too incomprehensible for real life for me, and even more of that bound, cornered feeling of judgment and assumption, morals I can’t apply or make sense of, like most religious things, but I found a book that helped me a lot more which as 365 Tao by Deng Ming-Dao and then I was getting all of his books I could until something I read cast some uncertainty on some things related to all that, or some of his books maybe, but not that I know, and I still like the books.  I’m not here to criticize, argue or debate, just vaguely tell about my own personal journey and what has shaped it, mostly to try to make sense for myself and let associations and memories and new angles spark new possibilities.

The world feels so loud, hyperactive, productive, bright, light, over-positive, over-confident, overly self-assured, narrow-minded, happily so, oftentimes, or reactive, happily reactive, wrapped up in a reactive stance, full of facts, knowledge and prestige, arrogantly so, or full of doubt, credulity, confusion, self-loathingly so, naively, and very much lost, very much easily ready to just follow whoever looks like they might know better or maybe to reject anyone who doesn’t conform into one’s comfortable simplistic ideas (that though, one thinks are complex and complete, not simplistic at all), and all these things wrapped into one, or sometimes just one or the other.  Often rushing, rushing, competing, showing off, look how busy I am, busy with work or busy with play, but busy always, look how active and productive my life is.  Or even not busy with work or play, but busy with the opposites, whatever those are thought of as being,.. so busy studying or learning or thinking or being creative and insightful and intuitive,...  Or, busy being spiritual, busy meditating, or even if it’s said to be lazy being spiritual,... laziness embraced and glorified, look how Zen and without a care I am,.. look at me.  Look how transcendent and blissful or peaceful and content and accepting of the mundane tedium I am,..  But it’s not like I’m above all that busy-ness or busy-being-lazy-ness  I’m prone to some of this, much of this, depending on the time, the events of my life, the conditions, just like the Buddhists say, that conditions make a person who they are and the wheel of life, Samsara keeps us stuck, and we aren’t better or different than others who seem worse, because in the wrong set of conditions we would be the same.  

Anyway, that pretty much covers everything, all those ways of being busy, even being busy as we just “Be” and not busy doing.  Everything has to fit somewhere in there but it’s more about how balanced it all is, how authentic, how real and true and appropriate for the situation given, and that shows if it’s a good kind of busy-ness or a good kind of way to just Be, or not, how much and when.  And it’s in the eyes of the beholder, and we have to subjectively say what feels right, even if another can see we’re harmful but if we don’t see it only we can choose and judge and no one really knows how maybe it’s the best for us even if it’s harmful since we can’t cope and find another way but there are benefits despite the harm, maybe benefits we absolutely need and can’t do without, so yeah...  All of that may be true, but still, I need something far, far more than relativism in my own individual life situation right now.

But still I have to see, how can I try to get a handle on all this,... The world feels so ephemeral, so slight, slippery and slipping through my fingers while my own life I try to hold my loved ones, God, and my family, and shape them so they will have a ledge to stand on and not just be sucked up into the wheel of Samsara and suffering, but not either be fooled into thinking they have transcended it when in fact they’ve just dissociated from reality in a harmful and delusional way, as I think that some of these spiritual things can be, or else entrenched themselves into an arrogant and reactive stance, narrowing their views, beliefs and values to feel better than it all, even if they appear to be very active, engaged in moral causes and practices.  How can I keep this from happening.  Or how on the other hand, can I keep them from slipping into nihilism, relativistic extremes and confusion?  

I see what has helped me after my own long many years and decades even of struggle.  And it’s not like I’m beyond reproach, at all.  It’s not like I’m beyond being disrupted and pulled off my fragile ledge of security and goodness that I’ve found, however very imperfect it is still.  I know it’s still precarious, but it’s something, and how could I wish or hope I might pass it on to those who I love and stabilize it for my own self so I won’t lose it irretrievably or so I hope.  

How when my whole path has been almost like one of extreme contemplative isolation?  That is not even possible for most people nor would they ever choose it if it was, for most people, because I’m not like most people at all.  What do I have to offer that they want to take, that they can use and see in such a way to benefit and not be harmed or led astray?  What like that do I have?  I want to give books, I want to give my own writings and the books of others.  I want to give practices.  But none of those things feel as if the others would even take the time to immerse enough to deeply see the insights in them.  None of them feel like they’d be given much thought at all, necessarily.  Maybe with my daughter, but she’s too young to see how she’ll become when she’s older, and for now she is far from being able to absorb them at her age, of course, almost ten years now.  Though they began training religious people at a very young age in many cultures, traditionally, but does that mean I could without doing harm or would it be just more of the things that are causing me so much grief and confusion in religion, that I’m just now hoping that I’m finding a way out of that tangle of mistaken ideas and correcting it?  So even if I could teach her from a young age, certain things, what things?  Is there a precedent of such new and open minded ways to teach kids from a young age?  Or would I have to forge my own unique open minded set of ideas to teach her? 

I don’t know but I want to teach her enough before she is beyond the age of being very influenced by me any more and she gets so whirled up in the mire of rush and performing for others, competing and impressing and fitting in and consuming the many ideas and pressures and judgments and crises that are presented as fact, and she has to then see what to believe or consider or ignore and there is only so much time to do any of that while you’re growing up, getting closer and closer to adulthood, trying to find your place to live in the world, when you’re grown up, trying to find friends and people you can count on when you are and adult, hoping to find love one day, a lasting love, as many or most are, and so on..  most get so caught up in this whirl of confusion or alternatively, in stagnation, escapism, just coping just to get by, with all the stress, and not really becoming wiser or growing, because it’s all they can do just to deal with the confusion and pain and it’s just scraping by in life, maybe even stuck in such a position for the rest of their whole lives.  But of course, making the best of it they can, putting on a happy face and being brave because why complain if we’re all in the same chaotic sea, in the same or similarly insufficient rafts, life boats, why complain if this is all life seems to be?  And so it felt for me for decades, except my particular lifeboat felt a little or a lot different from many, because I was so very introverted, isolated, contemplative and just inclined to do and consider differnt ideas and practices than the vast majority of people.  But still for so long, I was lost, and still I am still so precarious.  

I just want to find how to reach people, how to find a place and a way to fit in the world, and belong and be safe in the larger structure and order so  that it doesn’t dash me to bits.  And I just want to find also a way to pass on my knowledge, and insight, practices, healing, bliss, wonder, beauty, grace, goodness, that I’ve found to those who I love, at the very least, if no one else, if I can’t reach any farther than that, at least to someone, the ones most likely to be able to receive it, it seems, because they do have a lot in common with me, they are open, loving, caring, wise, thoughtful, in many ways, about things that I feel are often rejected or ignored by most people.  They aren’t totally open, or I could just share it all and it would be obvious, but still they seem much more open than most anyone, in reality.  Many are open in theory but not in practice, open to talk but not deep talk, open to ideas but not complex elaboration of the ideas, open to accepting but not to engaging or really understanding, so I feel on the outskirts of every open-minded seeming community that goes into the deeper things.  Even among them I feel excluded and ignored and rejected to a great degree, unwanted, irrelevant.  But with my own family, it’s different.  We aren’t just family, with all the ties, the life history, the love and hope, and continuity and always being there that that usually implies, to some extent.  We are also close, loving, much in common, understanding so much, nonjudgmental, open minded in so many ways far beyond the norm of society at all generally.  Even when the coldness, anger, bitterness, and avoidant resentment and self-loathing can all be there, with my closest loved one, besides my child.  And even with my child, still so young, dreamy, flying from one thing to another, active, distracted, as children often can be, seeking excitement and chaos, freedom, play, imagination, spontaneity and impulse.  I do not feel it’s really my place to try to redirect such bold and free and active impulses, yet it feels to me that I worry if it will take her away from the more contemplative path that I feel holds almost all of the wisdom that I could offer.  But children aren’t contemplative generally, are they?  And to try to make her go on that path too early might be wrong, so what age and how?  And maybe is it right, ever, if she isn’t inclined towards it?  How can I see if she is inclined towards it, how can I see if she has that gift and that sort of personality or whatever?  Because I think maybe it could be there, just latent, untapped, and how can I see if it’s there without trying to push her into this or give her too many practices that would unintentionally shape her and take her from her own natural gifts and true personality?  I feel my own personality was shaped away from who I was meant to be and ever after I felt lost, depressed, and in no way will I ever do that to her if I can help it.  But it feels like maybe there are some ways I can give here these opportunities and see if she is able to absorb them well and fit in with it all well and enjoy and thrive in it.  Maybe.  Just enough of these practices and ideas, and not too much to where it shapes too much her so impressionable childhood mindset and nature.  

As for my relative, can I ever find a way to reach them?  Can the rush and skating on the surface that most people look to me like they’re doing, when I see them, can that ever really be reached by me?  If I could write a whole series of books on all the things that would help them, and it had the cure, but they are never going to sit with the material enough to deeply perceive the truths in them, and it’s not just books you can skate through, but you have to really sit with them and return to them, turning them over and over , over time, seeing different angles and things you didn’t even notice at first, looking and looking again and again, over much time, many breaks, patient and slow and peaceful,... and if they will never even consider such a thing, and look with extreme skepticism and resentment on the mere ideas of such things, looking on such slow contemplation with arrogance and scoffing at it, supposed wisdom is seen as foolish, arrogant, and out of touch with realty,.. and indeed I think that often spiritual and philosophical ideas are truly out of touch, arbitrary order, unnecessary rules, deluded, narrow-minded so I see how they can assume such things about it all.  But is there a way I can reach them with these things that are only reached through deeper contemplation or s it just like I’m a deep water creature who can’t swim up there to where they are?  And if I tried to show them what you can only really experience in the deep they will not see it the same way, will just laugh at it and swim on by.  And yes, yes, I know this sounds very arrogant of me, to be talking about deep and shallow.  I don’t think they’re altogether shallower than me in every way, though>  I think that in some critical ways, they might be much better people than me, maybe.  And I don’t like to judge.  There is just so much that you can’t know or see of another’s experience.  But this is how I perceive the reality of it- that some ideas are deep and gradual and contemplatively accessed, and some are not, and that some people are inclined or willing to look at the deeper or more gradually, intuitively processed ideas, and some are not.  And you can’t reach those who won’t consider the deeper, gradual, obtuse, mysterious things,... Or you just can’t reach them with those deeper, slower, intuitive ideas.  A world of riches might be totally beyond them, till if they ever will open to the idea in more than a theoretical sense and really dive in and live there.  Their lives might not let them live there anyway, caught up in the rush, chaos, need, problems that feel urgently like you can’t escape and they take all your attention...  And they may  be far less able to concentrate and focus mentally, even if they had the free time and energy to spend on it.  Most people don’t read a lot of complex books and find them extremely painful to read.  I don’t even read a lot of them myself, because they’re too long-winded and detailed dry and arrogant-sounding and stuffy for me.  Or they seem too hard to believe and too hard to follow, too out of touch with my lived real experience of my life.  But some of these deep complex books and other things I read online, or audiobooks (sometimes much easier for me to process more quickly and pleasurably than reading certain kinds of books, if the voice and tone of the narrator conveys a lot of interesting content, that the text in itself doesn’t, for me) ,.. Yes, some of them I can read.  Some I do find great wisdom in and thankfully I have read just enough to give me immense benefits.  I know if it wasn’t for these authors much more brilliant and wise than me I would never have made it far in my life.  Self-destruction would have consumed me, delusion would have run my life.  But many can’t read the books and things I’ve read and can’t contemplate and arrive at the insights which have saved me from self-destruction.  

I know that talking like that might make me sound arrogant, but it is just how reality appears to me, when I perceive the facts and appearances of things before me.  It looks and feels to me as though so much goodness is trapped in books and things most people will never even be able to deeply think about because it feels too painfully boring to them, to ever tolerate.  

What then can you do but let go and hope there is another way they can find grace, mercy, goodness, in shallower waters, a way I don’t understand myself, a way I don’t live, a way I don’t know how to share because I don’t understand.  I’m not the one to help them, am I, unless I could ever come to be shown such things.  Then they’re a depth I can’t understand.  But I have to let go and give it to God or the universe or randomness and chance, or whatever it is, because sad as it could be, it feels totally beyond my grasp, unless prayer and metta meditation and energy work helps.  

[darkcloud-kcalifornia]

Alright, episode one has the live action “Neatness Counts” and the cartoon “The Bird!  The Bird!”

 The live action segments really didn’t take long to start resorting to celebrity cameos.  And over use of laugh track.  Really, there’s not much to them period.  Anyway, this one has a celeb drop by to hire the Mario Bros. to unclog her sink before she heads off to a party, only to get increasingly messed up by the brothers’ bungling.  But it’s okay, because she was heading to a “sloppy party” and this saved her from having to get a costume.

 “The Bird!  The Bird!” has the princess mention Toad saving her life hundreds of times.  I really have to wonder just how danger prone this princess is.  And what she considers saving one’s life.  It’s also kinda funny that this early into the series and they’re already making Cowardly Luigi jokes.  I wonder, was there anything in comics/manga before this that hinted at that, or was this the start right here?  I mean, it wouldn’t be the only thing they made up.  I don’t recall Birdos flying in Super Mario Bros. 2.  Anyway, King Koopa (as he was known back in the day over here) has some fairly effective troops in this episode.  The intentional bombomb-caused avalanche probably would have killed the heroes if there wasn’t a random door in the side of the mountain to an empty cave. I also have to wonder if that Birdo’s little Cheepy is going to be okay, given how near-blind and insane his mother is. For that matter I wonder if the writers had any idea what a Birdo looked like.  They certainly seemed to think they were writing a bird rather than a dinosaur thing.  Oh well.

 The moral of today’s tale:

Always wear appropriate clothing when mountain climbing (and shame on you Luigi).