I’m sitting here in my recliner chair with a warm glow stirring around in my being. Zee and I just finished watching a movie by the name of The Goodbye Girl that washed away all my normal worries for a couple of hours like when is it going to rain? Is the cattle market going to let me make a profit come this June? Is my brand new venture into the world of turning Chicken Pullets into hens that lay eggs worthy? I think it is for those that choose to have a real breakfast that features a truly range-raised egg. From a hen that was fed a drug free meal of ground corn, roasted soybeans, oats, ground limestone, kelp and then after they have eaten their fill and hopefully laid an egg they are then let out of their predator proof 10’ X 30’ cotton trailer. A cotton trailer that at one time hauled all the cotton in the San Joaquin Valley from field to the numerous Cotton Gins to be cleaned and made ready for your next t-shirt. Well, new and better technology came along and relegated the thousands of these well built trailers to be scattered like beer cans that litter every place that we humans think enough of, that it should be beautified with an empty beer can and if a scenic view is particularly outstanding, well that’s worth an empty 6 pack.

I didn’t quite know what I was going to do with a cotton trailer but there they were at one of the many junk auctions that I attend, to keep the ranch supplied with most of its needs for all kinds of stuff imaginable. I couldn’t help myself as I heard the auctioneer say “sold to Mr. Varian, one cotton trailer for $100”. The next day I still liked my trailer so over the next few months I bought 7 more.

Yes, I do believe I have found a way to reconstruct a cotton trailer into a home that any hen will say “who could want for more”. It would also create another income stream to help keep the V6 in the black and start a chicken fertilize program that over time will improve some of the depleted soils because of their many years of being cultivated and planted to raise Barley Hay.

It’s 10 o’clock in the morning and most hens have laid their egg so it’s time to open the gate to The Cotton Palace where a ramp shows them to a quarter acre electrified, fenced in area where the hens will spend the day being chickens, eating grass, insects and filling their crop with pebbles to help digest the other half of their diet. Then to poop a good share back onto the land as very high quality fertilizer.

So what’s this got to do with the Goodbye Girl. I think it’s important to spend little snippets of time away from no rain, cattle prices in the tank and chickens, because it’s good for the soul. So for me this very entertaining movie starring Richard Dreyfus and Marsha Mason that made its debut in 1977 was just the tonic to remind me “to always look for the silver lining and walk on the sunny side of the street”.

See Ya,

Jack