Mon 23 Jan 2012
It is pouring rain outside and right now I’m sipping coffee and procrastinating for my 10:00 meeting about Price Changes. Glargh.
I *must* remember to return that last library book.
This weekend I drove to a rabbit farm in Pennsylvania where we are buying meat from for the cats. The night before, it had snowed 4-6 inches, but you couldn’t tell by the Ohio highway conditions. Once I crossed into western PA, the plowing got a little less thorough and the final rural road I turned onto wasn’t really plowed, but scraped and packed down into ice. I pulled into the driveway of the farm and a dog (a Great Dane I think) the size of my car came lumbering up to me. It was followed by a bulldog the size and shape of a riding lawnmower. Both were VERY friendly and I rubbed their stupid heads in greeting.
They were followed by Tracy, the owner/operator of the farm, who was very nice, although slightly astounded that I would drive out from Akron. She showed me the work area (which can’t really be called a processing center, as there was exactly one grinder and one packer), the CO2 room (for euthanisation of the animals) and the freezers before taking me out to see the pens.
The pens were handsome areas lining what I will call a longhouse, with a path between them. I wasn’t able to walk through the pens because the rabbits were littering (i.e. having babies) and were on High Alert (as we looked in, no fewer than five rabbits about halfway down the row were standing tall, ears poised). We walked to the next barn where there was a similar penned in area for guinea pigs (which were ridiculously and predictably cute) and also the indoor area for 50 head of GOATS. All of whom thought we were coming in to give them feed or treats or even attention, and very vocal about it. They were terrific.
Then we swung through the hen house (she keeps hens for eggs) and back to the freezers where our product was packed up. We talked a bit more and I bought some treats for Dook1. Tracy also gave me a dozen of her eggs and a bag of ground turkey to try on the cats because she was in a generous mood. I packed my goodies into the cooler and we said our goodbyes, and I returned home, where the rest of the weekend was generally low key and relaxing.
+E
1 Dook is Carmen and Rob’s dog. The treats were lamb ears and what was labelled as “pizzle”. When looking up “pizzle” one may find the term “bully stick”. Both are euphemisms for animal penis. Although “bully stick” might be one of the most descriptive penis euphemisms ever.