I had some experience working with pheasants on Orin Bolin's game farm near Kankakee, Illinois, and I thought I had a better way to do it. The thing about pheasants is that they tend to pick on each other if they're the last bit crowded. Most growers solve this by clipping their beaks or putting blinders on them. That's fine if you're raising them to butcher but, if you plan on releasing them to the wild, it may inhibit their ability to survive. It's a tough world out there, and a bird needs all its parts and skills intact. My idea was to free range them like the old fashioned way of keeping chickens. You turn them loose in the morning and, when it starts to get dark, they congregate back in their coop where they will be safe for the night.
Well, it worked fine with the chickens that we kept for over three years. We lost a few early on, but most of them soon adapted to the routine and prospered. Pheasants, on the other hand, are more spooky than chickens. They can fly at two weeks, but that doesn't mean they know where they are going or how to get back. For some reason, they seemed to want to fly directly into the dog pen, which proved to be a one way trip. I tried it again after my last dog died but, without the dogs nearby to scare off predators, a fox soon learned that it could trap the birds in their coop before I closed the door for the night. What I need to do is build a sturdy pen, big enough so that the birds won't feel the least bit crowded. I think I can release them at six weeks, but not leave the gate open so they and the predators can come and go at will. The birds need to be either inside or outside but not both. Like I said, though, I haven't had the time or energy to build such a pen, and I'm not getting any younger.
The thing about the corn is that I want it to be there over the winter when the wildlife needs it most, but they won't let it last that long. That's why I like the rye, it's green for deer season, and again in the spring when the deer are hungry, but it's no good in the winter when it's covered by a couple feet of snow. Corn, if left standing, might stick out above the snow, if the deer let it live that long, but they won't.
Cops: Police work is dangerous, which is why they carry guns. Supposedly they are trained about when it's appropriate to shoot somebody and when it's not. Every time there is a police shooting, an investigation is launched, and the cop is taken off the street until it's completed. Generally, a cop is allowed to use deadly force if he believes that his, or somebody else's, life is in danger. I imagine that's a tough call to make in the heat of the moment. Be that as it may, the same rules and standards should be applied no matter what the race of the cop or the suspect. What some people seem to be saying is that a cop can shoot a White suspect but not a Black one. Every time one of these incidents occurs, it is assumed that the White guy was in the wrong and the Black guy was in the right, evidence not withstanding. Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty"?
Torture, let me say this about that: It sucks on all levels. Not only is it un-American and inhumane, it's generally ineffective. Torture a person long enough and he will tell you anything you want to hear, whether it's true or not. What good is false intelligence? I don't know how much truth there is to the allegations of torture during the Bush-Cheney years, but anybody who can be proven to have done, ordered it, or allowed it should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The fact that this wasn't done leads me to suspect that at least some of the allegations were groundless. Like most stories, there probably is some truth in it. The question is, "How much?" Somebody should investigate that.
Big news from the Vatican! I saw on the news this evening that the Pope has recently decreed that animals have souls and can go to Heaven. I am not making this up! Presumably he just meant Catholic animals, although the news didn't say that. They did interview a few other theologians who gave it mixed reviews. One guy pointed out that there is nothing in the Bible saying that animals do not have souls. He may be right about that, but I don't think it says that they do have souls either. I seem to remember you saying that, while you don't believe in God or Heaven, you do believe that you have a soul. So, what about your cats, do they have souls too?
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