Free-Range Living

 'Small bucks ----- '
  
   The chick-chicks are coming through winter well here on the organic eco micro-holding (small smallholding) in the UK heartlands, although for a time Aggie, elder stateschicken, did look a bit sorry for herself, standing alone and looking somewhat 'tucked up' - the same sort of posture that can ocurr before a hen pegs out (i.e. dies). She's still here though, and quite perky, so it was probably the cold temperatures she didn't like. When it's very cold the poor things can hardly move when they're let out in the mornings, their bodies presumably numb with cold. This year, though, they've had the benefit of a hay-insulated sort of hutch within the chicken shed and seem to have fared much better, hopping out of the chicken house hatch quite lively on being let out in the mornings - and good it is to see them in good nick. There's only a mini flock - the three of them - with the two younger hens, Blackie and Beattie, the darker brown bird, a Warren, laying pretty consistently throughout the winter period, keeping the equivalent of two households going with fresh eggs, and with Aggie, a year older, having taken a bit of a laying break, after laying solidly for  eighteen months, just coming back into lay now.

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 They can't actually at the moment be called 'freerange' - a bit of a pity living at a 'freerange' establishment - mainly because of the two fox attacks that occurred when the chickens ran out afternoons into the paddock. At the moment they're 'confined to barracks', which is a sizable protected open run in which the chicken house sits, and which is littered with hay and/or straw to keep them in nice clean conditions. They don't do too badly, getting good chicken grub when they're let out in the morning, a feed of scraps - eg. waste bread, stale cake, crusts etc at lunchtime, which they love, and then later in the afterneoon, their favourite, greens from the veg patch - the lower waste leaves from the purple sprouting and curly kale plants, plus some pellets, all of the various feeds also acting as activities, needed when animals are penned up. And they don't exactly go hungry ---- Hopefully in the spring enough nerve will have been recovered to let them out again into the paddock, especially hopefully now it's really secure, there to 'freerange' away ---- They love making their own mini dustbowls in which to enjoy a dust bath, and then, wings akimbo, to lie there, soaking up the sun. Probably 20 - 25% of the eggs come from the non-bought sources of feed i.e. about 4 - 5 per week - a bit of a bonus,  and a useful, productive way to re-cycle food waste, albeit at the micro level.

'Big bucks ---- ?'

 There's just something very satisfying caring for animals and seeing them well looked after, thriving and enjoying life, and being able to follow their natural behaviour patterns, a satisfaction that presumably keepers of animals on a man-made industrial system and 'big bucks' scale, may well have to forego - ? (increasing trend in the UK of large herds of  dairy cows being farmed on the industrial scale, kept full-time indoors rather than being able to practice their natural 'roam grazing' behaviour). Reminds of the animal-friendly farm that was featured in these blogs a couple of years or so ago, where Soddy the retired giant boar pig was the affable 'meet-er and greet-er' to anyone arriving in the farmyard. According to the experts, this smaller farm should have been plastered with milking cows to be 'economic'( working on the common assumption that profits have to be 'big bucks maximised').

However D and J, who with their three children ran the farm , and were just about the happiest crew on the planet, weren't over interested in making pots of dosh, rather they enjoyed their 'caring for animals' - cows, heifers, beef cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, fowl and a handful of rescued donkeys - lifestyle they lead. Never a huge amount of money in the kitty, but enough - they were pretty good at 'cutting their cloth', going out into the cattle's kale field, for instance, to cut some for themselves, before kale became a fashionably chic veg; their domestic transport for instance was the farm pick-up. Whilst they weren't in the mass swim of being 'profit maximisers', being rather 'small bucks' operators, in terms, though, of the further dimensions of maximising animal and environmental welfares, their farm did score top marks, with all the animals being superbly cared for - they seemed to know too and responded to it.

 Soddy himself was a good example, now grown huge in retired older age, not least due to the high standards of nutrition on the place. In his role as 'greet-er amd meet-er' - he had free-run of the farm and farmyard, a 'freeranger' - he was the very essence of bonhommie, welcoming all farm visitors with friendliness, although his vast size must have put the wind up one or two. And not the only ones, for he certainly put the wind up a couple of intruders one dark night (as seen by farmer D), legging it hollering away as fast as they could, with a huge ghostly white apparition in hot pursuit behind them in the moonlight - Soddy had charged straight out of his open pen at them. 'Oh dear', said farmer D, 'I often have a chuckle thinking about it - they must have thought the devil himself was after them! Good ol' Soddy - how he knew I don't know, but know he did, that they were wrong 'uns, and there was me thinking that he was an unproductive mouth to feed. Not anymore, he was promoted to 'Head of Security' after that'.

 'In praise of 'small bucks' life ----- '

 John Lane, in his succinct book, Timeless Simplicity, Living Creatively in the Consumer Culture, writes as follows :

  'Success equals material success  ------- material sucesss and prosperity equals happiness ------- material success is the goal of every human being' ,

 suggesting that these are the founding, but limited, premises of modern (western-style) culture, the basis of society. To the 'freeranger' outlook, such edicts could well be at the least, somewhat suspect - ? They contain some pretty large generalisations for a start, and these 'edict assumptions' are seemingly based on the presumption that some people - the promotors of the edicts - are entitled to think and speak for others (presumably then assuming some degree of superiority - ?) Generalisations such as 'everyone's seeking happiness', and, 'everyone is chasing material success' would seem to be pretty large assumptions, ('to generalise is to be an idiot', as the saying has it - ?), presumably mean't to legitimise those for whom they do work, but ignoring any notions of 'human bio-diversity' - ?  The conclusion would presumably have to be that they are the tenets of a culture which appears to be trying to pressurise people to think and to behave according to certain patterns, (eg. wealth/money chasing to be an automatic goal for all - ?) which are then conducive to promoting such a culture, but in so doing take little account of individuals and their unique and varied collections of needs - ?

Whilst fairly obviously a degree of 'material viability' is necessary in life, some - many? - for instance, in spite of the cultural pressures, could well not be geared to simply 'chasing the dollar, preferring more the more multi-dimensional 'small bucks' approach to life, working for instance within an existing set budget, which in itself can encourage the forming of creative life-solving solutions leading to personal satisfactions ---- and then getting on with the important business of enjoying life and relationships, and 'living and learning', all of which might be more limited by any such fixed over-generalised money-orientated life take - ?  Such a take, when it's boiled down, could basically be an extension of the  notion that 'it's all about money' which could  be simplifying matters,  to an over-limited extent, some might say - ? It would also seem to come perilously close to opening the door for 'financial seduction', which in turn could have further negative-based implications, according to that time-honoured saying 'the love of money is the root of all evil'- ? Maybe the old boy Dorset farmer who many years ago now said, 'money be a good servant but a bad master', could have had a point - ?

'Big bucks non-ethics ---- ? '

 The author quoted above, John Lane, also describes a number of situations in which various people have championed a relatively simple, low-key approach to life, Lao-Tsu included, an approach which also usefully fits with the recently publicised notion that man is over-consuming, and using up earth's resources at a too fast rate, which doesn't make too much long-term sense - ? Such an 'economic' approach is obviously attractive to people who gain satisfaction, for instance, from using resources economically, frugally even at times, which seems to have an in-built aspect of security to it. 'Keeping something aside for a rainy day', and 'economy starts when the bag's first opened' are a couple of old-time sayings on this theme, now of course not so followed in these days of more liberal spending (and borrowing), and equally, of so many spending opportunities. Money-making can seem to be pretty prominent on the agenda in such 'big bucks' times, even to the point of firms employing legal but ethically-dodgy practices, which the 'on the max profit make' business mindset can presumably engender - ?

To quote a simple and seemingly quite widespread commercial practice, how, for instance, can the practice of charging interest on yearly charges paid monthly be justified - ? The quote here for car insurance from an outfit specifically geared to catering for the older generations, indicated that if the yearly insurance charge was paid on a monthly basis, then a whopping 29% interest charge would be levied. But no money is borrowed, and the service provided is being paid for as it is being used -? There's then no logical basis to such an interest charge, so hard to justify, and it rebounds unfairly on the customer. There are some more 'customer respectful' firms, which appear though to be in the minority, which do not make an interest charge for monthly payment, so hopefully people will use these 'ethically valid' firms more in the future, or at the very least, if possible pay the total amount in one go, which, though again means that the firm has all the money up front for a service which it'll then take a year to provide - again 'ethically dodgy' - ?

'Small/non-bucks lifestylers ---- '

 One couple for whom the delights of fast-flow money-driven mainstream life palled were able to sell their house and move to a six acre (2.4 ha's) site with mobile home accomodation. They produced organic vegetables then selling them via a market stall in a nearby town, and ran their 'eco lifestyle' operation with very few costs - they were off-grid with low power requirements, and with a two acre wood on site providing home-sourced fuel. They really were 'small bucks lifestylers'; their 'cash' economy was roughly half the size of that needed to pass the official poverty line, but living and working in their well-provided for, peaceful 'shangri la' and running their own little ship with precious little interference from any source, they lead contented, fulfilled, successful lives for many years, bringing up their family in such near-idyllic conditions. True, there wasn't too much in the way of flash living - they biked their produce to market, for instance - but then, they didn't need it. nor want it - in their eyes, they were already rich --- in many other non-bucks ways ---