alligator farming in south Georgia

I was driving back from Decatur last Monday afternoon, a week ago. after taking the Birthday Surprise to Chattanooga.  And listening to public radio.  There was an report from  a small town in southwest Georgia, about a local man who was farming alligators. He reportedly had been in the chicken business, raising hens in barns to sell for processing.  And bought several alligators to put in  pond that would be the solution to dispose of the number of number of dead fowl were creating a problem. He gets more alligators, and then eventually turns from being  chicken farmer to being an alligator farmer.

When he was interviewed, the farmer reported that when he first started in the alligator raising business, he found the little ones he hatched out were slithering out of the enclosure he made for them - at a remarkable speed, which caused him to race around to every farm supply place in the area to buy all the fencing he could find, and quickly install a smaller gauge wire to keep all his 'stock' from escaping. He also mentioned that they are by nature very aggressive, and will bite from almost the instant they hatch out of the shell. This means do not let anything get near them that looks edible, especially small pink wiggly things like fingers.

I wondered if he had installed the gators in the long low buildings he was using for the chicken raising business, when he also reported the 'gators had to be kept in very low light conditions to keep them from being 'agressive', which I assume means chewing each other up. It is bad business to allow them to act on their baser instincts: the thing they were designed to do which is gnash their teeth and claw things: as this makes the skins less marketable/valuable for buyers. The skins, if not flawed by the alligators doing what comes naturally, are in great demand by high-end designers for belts, watch bands, purses, other leather goods.

I am actually getting somewhat queasy about all this while typing.

And then I was listening to the same show another afternoon a couple of days later and some irate caller had complained to the 'All Things Considered' staff that raising alligators in a dark environment was cruel and inhumane. What? They aren't 'human'! They are pre-historic, massively carnivorous reptiles.

The caller was probably wearing an alligator watch band while she ranted. And then I got to wondering what the farmer who got 'gators to take care of all the chicken caresses would get to get rid of all the unwanted gators. Then I remember that the (formerly known as) chicken farmer also reported there was a very good market for exotic meats - so I guess the new enterprise is paying off fairly well. Enough so I am nearly certain he will not be concerned about the people from PETA picketing on the dirty road that leads the the Camilla Alligator Farm.

reading while driving...

Admittedly, I do a lot of reading when I am on the road - don't freak out: it's all 'Talking Books', a term I heard when I was kid. Living at home, with a grandmother a half mile up the street, who was gradually loosing eye-sight. Though she could not see well enough to enjoy books in print, she  continued to read at an astonishing rate through the beneficence of the Library of Congress. The government not only supplied the recorded books, they also provided the record player for her to use to listen to all the latest best sellers. This was of course at the beginning edge of the era of cassettes that made music so portable and well before the introduction of compact discs for recording sound. Can you remember those big black vinyl platters and sound that had to be 'read' with a phonograph needle? Me neither - I'm not That Old!

So... I do a lot of reading, anything that looks interesting when I browse along the shelving at the library that has hundreds of Talking Books, mostly in boxes that are smaller than the print version. They will usually take about eight or ten hours to finish, with ten or more discs of unabridged reading. Completely eclectic topics - whatever looks good, since I have recently been surprised to discover: if it's not interesting or written to appeal to me once I get started - I'm not compelled to read something I don't enjoy. This is astounding, as I have historically read any number of books I did not enjoy... Crazy? Probably. Just never had the thought: close it, put it down, return it to the library- unread!

Some were forced upon me during my years of education, and some (one very recently I picked up when desperate for reading material) that I just needed to know how things worked out. It was a remarkably lame book, but I forced myself to finish it just to get it over with. And another I confess to skipping over two-thirds in the middle, and reading the end to assure myself that guy got safely home. Even though they were fiction, I accidentally got so involved with the characters I had to know that everything worked out at The End.

I'm reading one now about settling of Australia. I never thought much about all those English criminals that got shipped to the supposedly 'unsettled' continent when the prisons in UK were overcrowded. Then read a reference to a book that was considered a definitive story of those years. It sounded really interesting, so I requested in print from the library, found that it was a huge tome, and read twenty pages, then returned it. (After discovering a friend had a copy that I hope to 'check out' when I get ready to start it again.)

I remember my parents talking of how they enjoyed getting CDs from Cracker Barrel and listening when they would be traveling, going all over the country seeing the sights. And since I have begun to do so much traveling, going all over the country (not as far afield as parents), I have really enjoyed the books I Read While Driving. Plus the joy of learning a truly vast amount of mostly trivial information when I tune into public radio.

flying low, shirt-tail flapping...

I am pretty sure I unconditionally swore I would not make the trip to Quitman/Valdosta again in one day. But I did. And took a nap going down and coming back: I know - not a smart way to travel, unless of course, someone else is driving... ha, ha, ha.

When I have made that six-hour-round-trip in the past, I would be up before daylight, on the road, watching the sun come up over the woods and fields of south GA. I love it this time of year, when the goldenrod is blooming and the cotton is ready for picking.And would start back north so late in the day that the things I did not see due to darkness in the early hours, I would not see due to darkness in the falling night.

Today it was unusually, remarkably, densely foggy. Very unusual. Not just in low places, but everywhere for the first hour of the drive. Dark and swirling fog are not a good recipe for safe driving, but it was uneventful. The only difficulty was with the guy who is so careful and conscientious the trip was nearly an hour longer than usual. Mr. I Drive The Speed Limit Everywhere, All The Time. So it's a wonder we are not still on the road. I had planned on a pretty tight schedule, so I would get back home in the daylight. And have been puttering around in the yard, trying to wet things before I leave town again for several days over the weekend.

We went to Valdosta to visit his daughter in the hospital. She had surgery on Monday, and has been inching along on the long road to recovery. She will be out of work for eight weeks, and though in lots of pain, and severely sore, did say she was thankful that she would not be at work over Thanksgiving - and will not ever be lifting, dragging, tossing, hauling fifty pound sacks of pet food again. Her hubby said that he was hoping that her employer might notice that she was not there taking up the slack from all the things that were currently not getting done. Not her responsibility, but things the management should be doing, though they don't.

I was confounded, astounded, astonished to hear her Dad say to her as she was lying in bed, trying not to cough, waiting for the next morphine injection that he thought knee replacement surgery was worse than having your sternum cracked and heart by-pass done. I did the slicing motion across my neck to try to get him to shut his mouth - and I am sure he could not understand he should zip it. Could this be another example of  'guy thing'?

happy birthday to you....

Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I found it highly amusing.

Sweet youngest daughter will celebrate the 28th anniversary of her birth tomorrow. I had asked her sister if she would ride with me up to see her and take her out to lunch on Oct. 9, but the girl in Decatur had to work on Tuesday, so I told her to mark her calendar and we would go up a day early, which would be more likely to be a surprise than showing up on the actual day wearing party hats and blowing tooters.

Then I thought: would it not be hilarious if we had a big box to surprise her when she opened it up? Oh, yes!
So I went to the appliance store last week, flattened a washer box, and put it in the back of my car. The bottom was already cut out when I got it, so we could just hunker down and put it over our heads. Went to the Just-A-Buck store and bought rolls of wrapping paper (baby Muppets) and covered the box. Also got those little conical hats with elastics (that kids always pop their necks with, bringing the festivities to a screeching halt with buckets of tears). As well as a pack of those little tooters you blow in the mouthpiece so they unroll and make the bleating sound. (They used to have a feather glued to the end so you could blow it in someone's ear and tickle them - but China has got too cheap to put the colored feathers on any more - or they are raising naked chickens.)

I got up this morning about 4:30 and got to Decatur before 7:00. We left Decatur about 9:15 to be sure we would arrive in Chattanooga before noon. There was a small quantity of sneakiness involving the husband and co-worker/BFF at the office. We were so cramped up, squished under the box, and giggling, it probably looked very suspect - plus the flaps on the top would not stay down, due to my party hat. I'd wanted the friend to be standing by with a camera to catch the expression on her face when we popped up out of the box: but she was behind instead of in front, and only caught the two of us, with party hats, askew and tooters extended at their full unfurled stage, bleating wildly.

So after we went to lunch and embarrassed her as much as possible without getting escorted out of the restaurant, she agreed to 're-stage' the surprised expression for the camera. We got back in the box, nearly as amused with ourselves the second time, and had an instant replay with phone cams. at the ready. I'm not smart enough to include photos here: that's what I have tech.savvy daughters for!

I think she was surprised, as well as thoroughly amused. She readily tells all that she got her strange sense of humor from her mom, so hopefully it was more toward the entertaining end of the scale, rather than mortifying, and if not: 'You get what you get' with your genetic history, it's a package deal, sweetie...

wandering around middle GA in the dark...

I went to central-middle GA last night. With my cohort, who suggested we could want to go to the Emmaus candlelight at Camp Dooly (which as you might assume is in Dooly County, some where in the dark, south of Vienna, possibly near Cordele?.) She had been a number of times, and said she knew the way well enough to find our way back home. So we decided that this weekend would be the one for us to go. It was pitch black dark when we got there, going nearly due east, and probably not very far from hitting Interstate 75 highway that bisects GA south of Atlanta.

It was a really sweet service, and I am glad I went. The camp sign indicated that it was founded in 18-something or other, so it has a long history. I assume was started as a Bible camp/retreat for area churches. The dang trains run right through the camp (probably all day and all night!)- and you cannot hear or even really think when the locomotives hauling freight cars rumble through. So even though I did not hear every thing that was said, I pretty much got the jist of the proceedings. Having 'candlelighted' at the Pine Eden retreat, and knowing that the event is pretty much the same world-wide was helpful.

We pray, celebrate communion, and then light candles before the pilgrims come through. Everything is seen by only the light of hundreds of individual candles. Each candle held by someone who made the trip out there in the woods, in the dark. Just to honor what those people who have retreated for the weekend are doing.

I actually saw a couple of faces I recognized as people who come to Candlelight when the Valley group has a Saturday night service up in Harris County. It's really a very gratifying experience: for both the men/women on their Walk, and the people who show up to light candles, showing their love and support for the event.

Drove 170 + miles and got home at 11:00 p.m. - well past my bedtime!

punching the clock...

It's pretty unusual for me to be on the schedule to work at Publix on a Saturday, with nothing in the way of 'special events' such as prom-time, pre-holiday chaos,  or a big wedding that swamped my co-worker. So it was sort of odd for me to be working on Saturday. When I got there and started asking questions yesterday, it was revealed that the produce dept. manager was taking the weekend off. I assumed since he is the guy who makes out the schedule, he had deliberately planned for going to the big football game: Morehouse vs. Tuskegee Institue annually played here in Columbus at Memorial Stadium.  I think they put on half time show that is worth the price of admission - which is definitely the only reason I would attend, as I care less than nothing about watching men mistreat each other for any reason whatsoever. No vicarious violence for me, on the perfectly manicured field, arena, ice, TV, movies,or anywhere.

But as I inquired and pried more information out of the other produce guys, it turns out the manager guy thought he should have the weekend off because he will be in a training class all this week. I guess it is in Atlanta, as that is where the district offices for GA are located, and  think he is going to be learning how to be a more effective/irritating department boss. Due to absences, we are sorta short-handed, and there was a young man from another store there on Sat. doing the cutting from the fresh fruit coolers. He might be in his thirties, works part time, and interested in getting a few extra hours of pay.

As he was getting finished up with what he needed to do around noon'ish, he started cleaning up the table, floor where he was working. It's a very messy process: cubing wet, sticky stuff like watermelon and pineapple to put in bowls, cutting up fruit ahead, to have enough to fill the cooler, and be fulling stocked for the next day's opening. Plus trying to guess how many customers will buy the product before the end of business. Sort of like shaking the Eight Ball for answers, getting: 'try again later', or 'more to come', really indeterminate and vague stuff along the lines of 'who knows?'

But when he said 'I always clean up after myself', when I told him I would hose it all down when I got finished with what I was doing, I thought: 'What? Where did he come from?' So I asked him if he liked to cook, and he proceed to tell me what a smart, creative, useful guy he is in the kitchen (remember - this is a self-professed 'cleaner-upper'), so I asked him if he wanted to get married.

I am sure he was wondering: 'What? Where did she come from?'.

I told him I was too, when he said he was married, but that I thought there was no harm in prospecting. That I was not really in the market for another spouse, but I had already decided that the next time (if there is a next time!), it would most definitely be to a guy who readily agreed and demonstrated a desire to be a cleaner-upper. As well as one that either liked to shop for groceries and putter in the kitchen, or wanted to go out to let someone else do all the work on a regular basis.

I probably scared him off - so don't think he will be looking to pick up any more random hours at the store where I work... which means he was probably not a good prospect anyway....

Amusing part is ME proposing: I never intended to get married both of the times I actually did.

but I did mean to work today...

After the most amazingly pleasant experience of substitute teaching on Wedesday, I was so enthused about spending the day with five-year olds, I got up this morning at 5:30 looking for more. I don't think it likely that everyone of the gazillion teachers in the county are all on the job ready for another day. So I guess all the people who wanted to find day-labor work got up at 5:15 to search online before the computer driven system began the process of filling vacancies at 6:00. The phone never rang - so apparently they have it covered. Without me.

I'm sure I can keep myself busy all day, with things I meant to do yesterday that didn't get done.

A number of plants in pots that I have been (more or less) faithfully kept watered for weeks, since it has been such a dry summer, needing to be put in holes.. I thought they would stand a better chance of surviving if I had them close by, in the shade, rather than putting them in the ground. Most look pretty good (except for the ones that don't, which means Murphey's Law is still in effect.) We've had enough rain recently that the normally un-diggable clay might be of the proper moisture/consistency to apply my shovel. Most of the things I have planted in recent months, the clay has been completely replaced with good healthy, enriched potting mix to try to give them a good start in growing roots to get established. Plus frequent waterings: 'it takes a village' to help newly planted flowers to survive a blistering summer with mostly insufficient rainfall.