Fighting Fire with Fire, Part 2

Posted on January 4, 2018 by Skid

Share this post:

More educational political satire, first released for Just Sayin’ Caledon

***

Actually, the sky is not falling over Caledon‘s backyard hens, but free-run egg enthusiasts should not go blindly into that food coop.

After Henny Penny pressed the panic button, we managed to track down the residential chicken coop fire story and it turns out it came from one of our favourite sites, My Pet Chicken. Jordana, their wonderful Customer Service Supervisor, informed me that the article in question was “written by one of our employees after a heat lamp caused some dust or lint to catch fire in their coop.”

She went on to add, “As far as heating a coop, it is generally not advisable, not only from risk of fire but because it makes it difficult for the chickens to acclimate to the outdoor temperatures and could lead to other health concerns. My Pet Chicken offers safe alternatives to heat lamps to help keep chickens warm enough, but not too warm. These include the Cozy Coop Heater and the Sweeter Heater.”

Rather than getting a price from My Pet Chickens, I directly contacted the Sweeter Heater supplier, and this is what their representative, Holly, told me: “Thank you for your interest in Sweeter Heater! The cost of our smallest heater (11”x11”) is $127, plus a $15 shipping & handling fee for our Canadian friends. This is in US currency and does not include any duty. Basically, we ship the heater via UPS to customs, then they take it from there. We have many Canadian customers!”

Holly was very enthusiastic, as indicated by her exclamation marks, about supplying Sweeter Heaters to Canadian friends in Caledon. If you decide to go this route, be cautious of the foul and outrageous prices charged by UPS for shipping, customs and duty fees. Let’s be realistic here, even given the extremes of our recent cold snap, you may need to moderate the heat in your coop for only a few days a year, and not at all in a mild winter. Considering the very little time you may need to moderate a severe temperature drop, the 60W reptile basking bulb in a guard cage hanging from the ceiling of your coop is a safe and economical alternative at $20. The choice is yours, chicken lovers.

And remember, the lamp that started the fire in the My Pet Chicken employee’s coop story was a 250W heat lamp – not recommended under any circumstances for small residential coop heating, and even known to be responsible for fatal house fires when improperly used. Once again, it is hoped that the caregivers are more intelligent than the chickens.

Get ready for your feathered friends this spring by reading Gail Damerow’s newest edition of Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens, get your FREE resource kit from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs at ag.info.omafra@ontario.ca – everything you wanted to know about backyard poultry titled “Keeping Your Birds Healthy” : and visit the My Pet Chicken site for their tips and tricks and fowl stories.

As for those poor hens that got BBQ’d in the My Pet Chicken coop fire, reflect on the immortal words of Rooster Cogburn in True Grit:

“The ground is too hard. If they wanted a decent funeral they should have got themselves killed in summer.”

***

Skid Crease, Caledon

*cartoon from climatedepot.com

To Integrity and Beyond

Posted on January 3, 2018 by Skid

Share this post:

A New Year’s social commentary

***

Vizzini: He didn’t fall?! Inconceivable!

Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

These quotes from The Princess Bride could just as easily have been about the word “integrity” – it does not mean what many of us think it means.

Integrity is defined by Webster’s Dictionary as “the quality of being of sound moral principle; uprightness, honesty, and sincerity.”

Integrity comes from the Latin integritas, meaning complete and entire. It was the word the Legionnaires would listen for when they struck the armor above their hearts to test its material wholeness. If the Centurion heard a solid ring, he would shout “Integritas” indicating that the armor was sound and that the soldier was protected in his service of the community.

According to the historical researcher J.D. Kern, the less than moral Praetorian Guard, the Roman emperor’s equivalent of the Nazi S.S., changed this ritual to a “Hail Caesar” indicating their devotion to a man and not to an institution and its code of ideals. In modern times, this bastardized tribute to integrity was replaced with “Sieg Heil” in 1930’s Berlin or “Heil Trump” in 2016 Charlottesville. Integritas had lost its integrity.

Let us propose to take back the origins of this wonderful word. The synonym for integrity is ethics, which means “morality, morals, decency, principles, values; a code of right and wrong, a categorical imperative. Let us further propose that we demand integrity from ourselves, our family members, our community leaders, and the professionals with whom we deal for education, health care, news, and appliance repair.

Now, keep in mind, integrity can be a double-edged sword. If you define integrity as “firm adherence to a code of moral principles” then Donald Trump could be said to have integrity – he has not wavered from his code of “Lie, sue,

and attack until you win!” From his perspective it would show a total lack of integrity if the Donald told the truth.

We often take the moral high ground with the phrase, “Speak Truth to Power!” The truth, it appears is dependent upon one’s perspectives and code of ethics, or lack thereof. Fundamentalist religious terrorists and mercenaries could be said to possess integrity, as we said of the Crusaders during the “Holy Wars” of the Middle Ages. If you were Christian, these men were heroes; if you were a Muslim Saracen defending the Holy Lands with integrity, the Crusaders were barbarian savages.

If the truth is all about perspectives, then integrity is a moving target, as difficult to achieve as going beyond infinity.

That phrase, “To Infinity and Beyond” comes from Buzz Lightyear, the Toy Story character who is shouting to everyone that he can do the impossible. Perhaps “To Integrity and Beyond” is an impossible dream. If one person’s commitment to truth and integrity may be perceived as another person’s road to hell, then everything is relative.

In the end, we can only judge those measures of truth and integrity by our own beliefs. Perhaps others do not share what we consider to be our search for intelligent dialogue and fact-based reports. Perhaps some see as “true” what we see as incendiary “Breaking News” and sensationalized gossip and innuendo and alternative facts and truthful hyperbole.

I asked a wise mentor years ago, what I could do as a young teacher to make the world a better place. He responded simply, “Teach your students First Aid. Then they will see others as people they can assist and protect. They will see themselves as people who care for others.” It sounded so simple, but he was right.

We still struggle with that level of care. Call us judgmental, but when we see a bully threatening someone, when we encounter prejudice, when we see someone in need of first aid, do we intervene or walk away? What is the shade of integrity that moves our values into action? We realize that all cats are grey in the dark, but sometimes we just want to see the world in an easy choice of light versus darkness, good versus evil, “us” versus “them”.

As my mother used to say, “Sometimes there are just bad people in the world. Karma will thin the herd.” Sometimes, we have trouble waiting for Karma. We dream longingly, every once in a while, about the hungry, impatient vulture sitting in the bare tree branches of a Gary Larsen cartoon, “Patience my ass! I’m gonna kill something.”

Perhaps when we ask our elected representatives. our media spokespeople, our fellow citizens to show us “Integrity and Beyond,” we are asking them to do the impossible. Perhaps, but it’s worth a try. I

Like the ancient Legionnaires defending Rome, it’s worth the quest this New Year 2018 to rediscover the true meaning of integritas. iAnd it would be so much easier if we all learned First Aid.

***

Skid Crease, Caledon

Fighting Fire with Fire

Posted on December 31, 2017 by Skid

Share this post:

This political satire was first prepared for Just Sayin’ Caledon

***

There is a new horror story in Town … BEAKS! Just when you thought it was safe to walk back into the coop, it turns out that those pesky Backyard Hens are pyromaniacs at heart, just waiting for the chance to turn themselves into rotisserie sacrifices for Colonel Sanders.

In Part One of this trilogy, titled Get Crackin’, Henny Penny and Chicken Little had squawked about the Backyard Hens waging biological warfare on Caledon.They raised fears of salmonella poisoning wiping out our children and avian flu spreading to our factory farms and wiping out our economy. That turned out to be false. The proverbial Fox News in the chicken coop, so to speak.

Now, in Part Two, Henny Penny is back at it again, this time raising fears of Caledon burning to the ground from unattended chicken coop heaters. Henny Penny reportedly found a story on her favourite Backyard Chicken site on the dark web. Some person improperly heating their coop sadly lost their pet chickens in a fire that nearly spread to their house. Note to self: 1. Don’t build your residential coop close to your house. 2. Don’t heat it.

Fortunately, Rooster Cogburn researched fire safety in Ontario, Canada and found the following: zero fatalities from backyard chicken coop fires. Turns out the number one cause of fires is home cooking, especially those deep fat fryers used for southern fried chicken and chips. In fact, cooking, smoking and arson were the top three causes of house fires, with heating equipment, electrical malfunction and candles coming in at the end.

You are, therefore, in greater danger of burning down your house and the Town by cooking your chickens than getting fresh eggs from them. Fortunately, your chickens, in a properly built coop, don’t need winter heating. The exception being their water supply. That, of course, you will make sure is on a Ground Fault Interrupter (GFI) circuit.

Chickens can withstand cold winter temperatures, especially our hardy Canadian breed, the Chantecler. Also, lighting and heating their coop over the winter will only force them into egg laying in the season when the girls should be getting a break. If the nest box area is insulated, the floor covered with deep shavings, a little passive solar input for sunny days, and the ventilation properly situated, your hens will be just fine. They are, after all, wearing down jackets. Keep the door to the run open in the daytime, because you’ll find them out playing in the snow – nobody likes to be “cooped up” all winter.

In a really cold snap, like the one we are experiencing now, a single 60watt red light bulb (available from any pet store as a reptile heat bulb (about $20.00 for a 2pack) will do the trick. NOTE: Do NOT use a white light bulb which will throw off their winter diurnal cycle and force unseasonal egg laying.

Do not do stupid things, like heating the coop with candles, or a wood burning stove, or an open filament electrical heater, or a gas BBQ. It’s to be hoped that the caregivers are smarter than the chickens. Most of us in Caledon who are interested in backyard hens won’t be starting up until the spring, so we have months to prepare to do it properly. For those who need to see it in action, visit the Albion Hills Community Farm this spring where the two model demonstration coops will be open for viewing. For those wanting more information now, contact Ontario Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs for your FREE resource kit on backyard poultry titled “Keeping Your Birds Healthy” : ag.info.omafra@ontario.ca

Note to Self: order a resource kit for Henny Penny…

Above all, please remember the old adage: good research does not mean pressing Google on your computer screen and going to the first site that appears. If we did that, everyone with a headache to diagnose would have concluded that they have a tumour, or meningitis, or subdural and epidural hematomas, or cerebral venous sinus thrombosis. Oh, my! And please remind Henny Penny: If you play with fire, you’re likely to get burned.

***

Skid Crease, Caledon

‘Tis the Season

Posted on December 15, 2017 by Skid

Share this post:

A few weeks ago, my wife and I joined up with the Caledon chapter of the Bruce Trail Association for their annual Pot-Luck Walk and Talk. I had the good fortune to be asked to give the late lunch talk and share stories from over forty years of hiking the Bruce Trail with students and family

The morning hike included the chance to reconnect with some old friends and meet a lot of new ones on our Forks of the Credit journey that morning. One of those reconnections was with Sally Moule, a fellow teacher from North York in the heady days of Outdoor and Environmental Education when our students could actually experience the Bruce Trail.

Conversation turned to getting ready for the holiday season and we mentioned that we would be looking for a balsam fir tree the next weekend. Well, as luck would have it, Sally and Dave Moule run the Hockleycrest Farm on the east side of Airport Road, about 4.5 km north of Hwy.9. Beside a wide variety of cut-your-own and precut trees, they also have assorted boughs, baskets and wreaths available. And “all proceeds go towards the Bruce Trail’s Conservancy Program to secure, protect and maintain a continuous corridor containing the Trail along the Niagara Escarpment.”

Not only that, but their woodworking son, Rick, turns and carves custom wooden bowls and utensils, one of which will stirring my bourguignon this weekend. Ah, the joys of hiking outdoors – a reconnection with friends that blessed us with a tree, a spoon, and a Trail protected. All from accepting an invitation to a pot-luck luncheon.

Only one week to go until we celebrate a Wonderful Winter Solstice and a Happy New Year! May yours be healthy and happy and filled with peace.

***

Skid Crease, Caledon

Jerusalem and Palestine, Israel and Trump

Posted on December 11, 2017 by Skid

Share this post:

On the evening of December 7, 2017, I had the honour of interviewing Mr. Nabil Marouf, the official representative of the Palestinian Delegation in Canada. Now, had the League of Nations and the United Nations followed through on their promises to the people of Palestine following World Wars One and Two, it would have been a different interview. I would have been speaking to the Ambassador from Palestine in his office at the Palestinian Embassy in Ottawa. But as our Canadian First Peoples know all too well, the promises of colonial powers are often ephemeral.

When I spoke with Mr. Marouf in Ottawa, he was absolutely clear in Palestinian condemnation of the unilateral decision by the Trump administration to declare Jerusalem the Capital of Israel, and to announce that the American embassy would be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

“This is a clear violation of International Law,” Mr. Marouf stated, referring to the United Nations Declaration 181 that has proclaimed Jerusalem an Internationalized City.

He was absolutely correct. In fact, at the end of World War One, the League of Nations, the precursor to the modern UN, had passed Article 22, that declared Jerusalem to be the capital of Palestine. However, global colonial guilt over the Nazi genocide of the Jewish people, and the refusal of good Christian nations to take shiploads of Jewish refugees into their ports, resulted in a different outcome.

When ethnic cleansing by Jewish terrorist organizations in 1948 drove 10,000 Palestinians out of their homelands, the new UN declared them to be “refugees” and not a “people” This is why the word “complicit” is the word of the year.

My first question to Mr. Marouf was on his reaction to the Pronouncement of the Canadian government, from Prime Minister Trudeau and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland: ‘‘Canada is a steadfast ally and friend of Israel and friend to the Palestinian people. Canada’s longstanding position is that the status of Jerusalem can be resolved only as part of a general settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli dispute.

‘‘We are strongly committed to the goal of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, including the creation of a Palestinian state living side-by-side in peace and security with Israel. We call for calm and continue to support the building of conditions necessary for the parties to find a solution.’’

Mr. Marouf’s response was unequivocal, “We deeply appreciate the support of Prime Minister Trudeau and the Government of Canada as expressed in the statement by Minister Freeland.” He felt that Canada had a clearer understanding of the historic roots of the conflict, with East Jerusalem being the Holy City of Palestine and many of the world’s religions, and West Jerusalem being under Israeli control.

The annexation and illegal occupation since 1967 of East Jerusalem by Israeli forces has been condemned by the United Nations and the international community. Despite UN Resolution 242 calling for the withdrawal of occupying forces, Israel seems committed to defying International Law and the pursuit of a just peace, and to the slow extermination of the Palestinian people.

When I asked how the Trump decision was going affect an already volatile situation in the Middle East, Mr. Marouf was passionately clear: “This decision has created a unified rage in the Arab world. East Jerusalem contains the Old City with the Temple Mount (the Haram esh-Sharif), the Western Wall, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock and Church of the Holy Sepulchre. These are some of the holiest sites of Judaism and Christianity and Islam.”

He hesitated a moment, and then concluded quietly. “This decision goes to the heart of my people.”

To the heart and through the heart. After our interview, we agreed to meet again in Toronto to review what the coming weeks would bring.

I write this with the distinct feeling that President Trump has no idea what he has unleashed, but peace in the Middle East will not be one of the outcomes. I tried to place myself on the prayer mat of a devout Muslim, in the shoes of a father living in the Gaza strip. How would I view this arrogant, unilateral decision by the enabling power of my occupiers?

“Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!” or “Give Peace a Chance.”

William Shakespeare John Lennon

But above all:

“When you speak, speak with justice.” (Quran 6:152)