Rockie's Spur-Rings??? The Farm Report 02-01-2019

Rockie's Spur-Rings??? 

The Farm Report 02-01-2019

Drum roll; Fanfare! The naming contest has been closed and a winning entry has been selected. The new names for the two new roosters will henceforth be: The Two Jerks. Roosters are in fact, usually jerks.

This isn't actually Rockie, but it looks just like him. He was a Barred Plymouth Rock rooster. He was very unusual in that he landed with us here at Oakdale Farm, and we allowed him - extremely bad attitude and all - to live to almost 4 years old. That is very unusual, and that will probably never happen again here. The older roosters get, the meaner they become.

"But he was just a harmless little farm bird," you say. Baloney! He was a nasty back-attacker with spurs that had grown to be dangerous daggers! If you look closely at this pic, you can see 'em sticking out on the back of his legs. He had taken to running up behind me, then jumping up and kicking the bejabbers out of me. He drew blood! If he hadn't been so comical, he would have met the soup pot ages earlier. He reminded me of Fred Allen's comic character, Senator Cleghorn. Warner Brothers named a cartoon character like him Senator Foghorn. Both would have been appropriate for Rockie. He was loud and self-important.

Well how much of this baloney can a guy tolerate? Me? Not too much but some. After one serious sneak attack, we caught him - my neighbors and I - and tied him up in a fruit tree upside down. This is embarrassing for a rooster, but harmless.

He was hoping his hens hadn't seen his humiliation. A guy's gotta save face in front of the girls, you know.

Well, he wasn't ready for the soup yet, but I was ready for him to stop kicking me and drawing blood. So, what would you do if you were a professional furniture restorer who had access to some very fast setting epoxie putties? Probably just what I did. We made little epoxy stick-on boxing gloves to cover the needle sharp points of his spurs. He could still punch, but he couldn't stick 'em any more.

After we let him down, he strutted his new spur-pads for the girls like he had thought of them and ordered them custom made from Amazon. It was a great idea, and it did buy him the rest of the summer parading as the Grand Sultan at Oakdale Farm. Eventually though, he kicked off the boxing gloves and proceeded to sharpen his spurs to an extra fine point. The last time he kicked me, the spur stuck in my shin bone. I'm not kidding; he actually stuck that spur point into my bone. I still have a bump where it landed.

So, his last act ended his game. Here is the evidence. Now for those of you who are playing along here trying to make sense of where I'm going with this, you need to understand one of our family traditions. Beginning at least with my Grandma Chlorus, and maybe before that, we have always had an artistic challenge to see what creative things we could make from unusual stuff. It was about this time that my sister, Beth, said, "So what are you going to make from those?" I think she was sorta kidding, but hey! Challenge accepted, Sis. One of my readers asked what I meant by 'Spur-Rings' last time. So here it is.

Chicken spurs are like little cow horns. They are like pointy strong fingernails. They are hard and sharp - with a bone section inside them.

One of my professional turning mentors was a fellow in England named Bill Jones. He was a 5th generation ivory and hardwood turner. He made most of his living making the most beautiful and extravagant chess sets you've ever seen. They sell for thousands and thousands of dollars. Although he was at the top of the ornamental ivory and hardwood turners' level (and that is THE top level of turners) he referred to himself as a 'Bone Grubber.' He hated waste and could turn bone into something that looked like ivory. He was my teacher. Cutting off the material I wanted was the next step.

Knowing the anatomy of the spur, I just cut down to reveal the bone segment at the end and mounted 'em on my lathe.

A little later, and with a contribution from Rockie's hens, Hey Presto!, and we have Beth's Christmas present, Rockie's Spur-Rings. Who wouldn't want some. So that's a long way to go to tell you that The Two Jerks will not be expected to get old enough to produce this wonderful animal byproduct. But that's the point. It will be soup sooner rather than later, I'm afraid, for them.

Outdoors, it is just awful weather, so I've been indoors thinking about being outdoors. I came across these logging pics the other day and thought you might be interested. I made a heavy duty 'Not Much For Pretty, But Hell For Stout' table to fit up to my log splitter. I needed this because I was going to be splitting some really big rounds.

Like this! This is one of the last large logs from the fabled Red Elm trees. They once grew like weeds in The Timber at Oakdale Farm. Disease and change have pretty much eliminated them from the scene. As a firewood, it is unparalleled. It burns like coal. Literally. It 'coals' down into pieces that actually look like coal, and it gasses off and burns as hot as coal. It is wonderful wood. 

The tree produced these two logs as the trunk. It was a huge tree! Honey Locust has pretty much replaced it in the woods. Pignut Hickory has also come in. 

Why am I sitting indoors thinking about outdoors? Here is why. The actual temp was -22F the other morning. That and winds strong enough to blow limbs out of trees, and you're talking cold friends. Real Cold! In fact, if you're reading this and you're not from here, they closed the United States Post Office (Remember, they are the ones who always liked the motto: 'Neither rain nor hail nor sleet nor dark of night will stay these swift couriers from their rounds' or something like that.) The United States Government closed the United States Post Office in ALL of Iowa and ALL of Minnesota because of this storm. If you are from here, you already know that - and you know why. BRRRRRRRRRR!

Inside though, we have green and growing. We always plant some spring bulbs in forcing pots every fall. It is super easy to do and just about now, when you're ready to crawl into a warm corner and sleep it off until spring, you can bring out a pot of flowering bulbs and enjoy the show as they grow and bloom. A wonderful side effect of these hyacinths is the aroma. It is almost narcotic. I have these near my big comfy chair where I have coffee in the mornings. When the sun finally does come up - and it does a little even in winter - the light triggers the blooms into action. I'll be sitting there enjoying a nice cuppa, and all of a sudden, my nose tells me the hyacinths are firing off perfume again. No wonder the bees can find 'em outdoors.

So other than the obvious, all is well at Oakdale Farm. I'm soft, warm and flexible. Hope you are too.