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I don’t know who this person is, but his diaryland diary is well worth the visit.

I have a knack for being at the right place at the right time. This knack has been especially useful in helping me live the life of luxury on a pauper’s budget. Case in point: Friday night I was flipping through the AM stations on the car radio and ran across an ad for an auction of professional restaurant and bar equipment happening the next morning just north of town. Knowing I’ll likely need a professional kitchen some day (if I want to sell cheese and other prepared goods anywhere other than the black market), I decided to go. Besides, I told myself, maybe I can find a stand mixer for a reasonable amount. When I got there, I saw that the majority of the items was junk, and most of it wasn’t even kitchen and bar equipment. Mostly it was trashed furniture from an old high school that got demolished last year. But among the items was a grungy KitchenAid 5 quart mixer, as filthy as it could be. I walked around with the crowd (twelve strong, and all restaurant owners) for two and a half hours, waiting for the mixer’s turn. When we got to it, the auctioneer bundled it with several tables of miscellaneous junk, including the tables themselves and opened the bidding at $100. Before he could continue, I offered thirty for the mixer alone. He looked around, accepted my offer, and solicited bids from the others. Nope – already got three – he can have it. He took my thirty, and now I’ve got the $370 mixer I’ve been scheming over for years now. It’s mighty grimey, but it works well.

If you want to send the President a few books for Christmas, use his Amazon.com wishlist for gift ideas.

As is typical, Randy and I are on the same track. He got the jump on me, though. His blackberry wine is already bubbling, while my blackberry mead is still in the design stage.

The El Defensor Chieftain has a slightly longer article on Bonita. Marjorie found a brief obituary in the Four Corners newspaper.

Country Life in Georgia in the Days of My Youth, by Rebecca Latimer Felton, 1835-1930. This seems to be a facinating account of life on the frontier. Western Georgia was, at the time she starts her story, on the very edge of the settled United States. I’ve only skimmed this, but it looks like a good read.

When I get a farm, I plan on selling more than just vegetables and eggs. Fresh cheese, chile sauces, and other canned goods would greatly help bring money in. But, to sell these kinds of things, you have to satisfy the state, and more often than not, these laws were actually written by large commercial operations, such as the large dairies, with the intent of keeping the little guy out. Georgia is no exception. Even the limit on egg-selling is shockingly low – more thn 40 dozen a week and I’d have to have everything the large outfits have. 40 dozen may sound like a lot, but 70 hens in full production would pass it. So, should I sell certified organic free-range eggs at $2.50 a dozen (the local going rate), my egg income would be limited to about $400 a month. In Georgia, it appears, there’s no allowance for dairy products at all.

The lab results are in, and it appears my rooster died from lymphoid leukosis, a once-common poultry retro-virus. He probably contracted it at conception from his mother. It can spread to other chickens through contact, though that’s rare. I will have to watch the others, though. Unfortunately, the exterior symptoms are subtle to non-existant, and the disease is untreatable. Most chickens fight off the virus, but those that lose the fight always die with tumors in the liver and other organs. I notified the hatchery, and they’re looking in to the problem on their end. The chicks were vacinated for Marek’s disease, a more prevalent and nasty virus, but not for lymphoid leukosis. Meanwhile, much like amphibians, my number one hen has switched sides to become my new rooster. Yes, I thought that was odd, too. Penny is my favorite hen. She was always by my side in the garden, eating the grubs and bugs I found for her. She’d let me hold her with hardly a stuggle. She and the rooster were childhood best friends, but when the rooster matured, he preferred the company of the early-maturing white hen to Penny. A couple weeks ago, the rooster was crowing mightily in the yard and I heard a tiny, whispered echo crow. Several times. I looked around, and there was Penny, mimicing the rooster. He’d flap his wings, puff up his chest, and let one rip. She’d flap her wings, ruffle her feathers, and in the faintest possible voice she’d cockle-doodle-doo. I thought it was pretty cute, but it made me wonder. Was she mimicing, or was she an extremely slow developer? Once the rooster died, though, everything changed. Her comb tripled in size in just a couple days. Already the largest bird, she filled out even more. Her crows changed from a whisper to a yell. And now she’s mating with the other hens. So now… she’s our rooster. Penny – short for Pendleton?

For a while there, I was afraid they were fading away, but this last week the Brunching Shuttlecocks were back in full force. And today’s bit ranks with the best they’ve ever done: Your Roommate Plays The Indigo Girls.