The Butter is an accidental comedian.
All I have to do is take a series of photos, and the jokes write themselves.
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Who knew having The Butter around would be this much fun?
Archive for January, 2021
The Accidental Comedian
January 24, 2021Whippoorwill Farms SC and Ellie the Egg Entrepreneur
January 24, 2021A Facebook friend mentioned that she loved Marissa at Whippoorwill Farms, and since I am a nosey noser, I did a little internet search.
Leslie and I had tried to buy some farm produce from another local farm and were basically told that they had enough for their family and they weren’t inclined to take food off their family’s table. We are not interested in taking food away from anyone, but this felt like a mixed message since they were advertising an organic garden with produce for sale.
Clearly a miscommunication.
So I found Whippoorwill Farms online but something seemed off. They were about 4 miles away. How could this be? This was too good to be true. What was the downside? (Spoiler: there is no downside.)
The PAY WHAT YOU CAN Produce Stand
Here’s the interesting part: they built a farm stand by the road and stock it with seasonal veggies and you just pay what you can. That’s right. If you can pay nothing – and we’ve all been there at some point in our lives – then you pay nothing. It’s an honor system. Just drop your money in the lock box bolted onto the stand.
So back in June we drove over to check things out.
We had seen this stand before on the way to Garnett. I thought it was some kind of school bus stop for local kids. Nope.
We snagged some cucumbers and made some amazing sandwiches with brown bread and Palmetto Cheese.
Did you grow up eating fresh vegetables out of the garden? Then you have also been ruined and cannot buy them in the grocery store. Well, maybe I should say that I can buy them reluctantly but not eat them and let them go bad right on the counter top. This is most probably an unnamed mental condition.
Things rolled along smoothly and we met the happy farmer Marissa, husband James, and daughter Ellie. You see, you can order food online and pick it up at the farm or at a local farmer’s market.
https://whippoorwillfarmssc.com/shop/shoppork/
We don’t eat a lot of meat, but we have started eating some sausage, ground pork, and ground chicken, because we can see how the meat is raised, sustainably and regeneratively.
The driving force behind the farm is Marissa. She’s gotten some well-deserved press through various media, like https://www.thrivingfarmerpodcast.com/marissa-paykos/ or https://www.locallifesc.com/small-farm-making-a-big-impact/ or https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.issuu.com/southernsoil/docs/02.issue.2019_final/s/91603. You can also check out her YouTube channel .here.
Our first actual meat purchase was sausage. We fried it in the skillet, and used the small amount of ensuing grease to sauté some veggies. Biscuits are optional. Iced tea is not.
I’m used to sausage that fries up with a lot of grease. There is a very small amount of grease in the Whippoorwill products because the hogs are harvested at an older age when the meat is leaner.
Marissa’s chickens have a natural diet that is supplemented with chickenfeed that comes in these dandy bags. I converted one of the bags into a tote. There are win/wins everywhere.
Back in September 2020, I had a doctor’s follow up appointment which confirmed my tentative lupus diagnosis. while at the doctor’s office, I got a Facebook alert that Ellie the Egg Entrepreneur was offering her fresh eggs at the Pay What You Can produce stand. Ellie, age 5, has her own flock of chickens that she feeds and maintains and gathers eggs.
It suddenly became very important after I left the doctor’s office that I drive immediately to buy some of Ellie’s Eggs.
For our Thanksgiving meal we ordered a ham. These hams are uncured, and we’ve never cooked an uncured ham. The baking thermometer was broken, and we used a recipe I found on the internet. The taste of an uncured ham is more like a pork roast. Who knew? Unbelievably delicious.
For Christmas I ordered a pork tenderloin. Again, using a recipe from the internet, we had success. We browned it in the skillet then baked it in the oven.
Two days later we still had pork leftovers. We sautéed more veggies and pork pieces and added cranberry sauce and Kalamata olives on the side.
So, local friends, go forth, shop, support, and uplift our friends at Whippoorwill Farms SC. There is no downside.
Covid Version 2020.21.02
January 16, 2021I got a company email the first of this week that the company’s employees would be receiving an email from one of two local hospitals to sign up for the Covid vaccine.
The email was supposed to be received within 48 hours. The employees here had already been surveyed by my employer as to whether we would like to have the vaccine or not. This survey caused a lot of debate among some people at work. Citizen1 is worried about what is actually in the shot. TDawg is worried about something she saw on Facebook. Alabama is worried about a reaction causing Bell’s Palsy. Peaches needs to talk to her husband. Techs OneTwoAndThree are vocalizing their objections to being “forced” to take the vaccine because it was said that the practice owner was going to “make us take the shot”, and they have “rights”.
I said, when asked, Give Me The Shot. I remember polio. You could get sick without it. You could die.
The email never came. Yet the doctor in the Beaufort office where I work got her email from a different hospital. Apparently the email was worded that she and her assistants were eligible to sign up. So she signed up herself and two of her technicians.
Let me reiterate that I am a “patient services” worker. Our office doors are locked and have been since last summer. We screen people and take their forehead temperature at the door. We are within an arm’s length of people.
Yet we were not deemed as assistants by our doctor. We are the first contact with people entering the office and they might not be there to see the doctor. They might want to look at glasses, or pick up meds, or pick up glasses or contacts, or make an appointment or pay a bill.
I could have had a vaccine this past Tuesday. I’m mad about being left out. So Thursday night I found a website for signups and requested to create an account. It’s all electronic. You request, you receive an email with a link to create your account, which was mildly complicated. You sign up. You choose the location and the date and time. The soonest was 2/4/21 at 7pm, so I grabbed it.
Last night I got an automated phone call that the appointment was canceled due to a statewide shortage.
To say that I am disappointed would be understating the indignation that I am feeling. This doesn’t mean that I don’t think that others in the office aren’t deserving. I don’t understand why the doctor wouldn’t choose to have a blanket immunity created for those who surround her daily.
I had sent the link to our practice manager who signed herself up and sent the link company wide. It turned out, that even though our company had requested through a special system that all its employees receive the email to create an account if they so desired, that system was crashing. I’m usually a good citizen and I wait my turn, but these are uncharted waters.
It’s coming for us.
Covid Version 2020.21
January 2, 2021People were not careful enough in 2020.
If you had a thanksgiving gathering, if you didn’t wear a mask, if you believe that this plague is a hoax, you are part of the enormous nationwide spike of new cases and deaths.
This thing is coming for all of us.
All of us.
Just because the clock ticked over into a new year? That doesn’t mean that we are home free. This is not an actual game with made up rules.
I work for a doctor. Her husband tested positive one week before Christmas Eve. He hates to wear a mask and denounced the virus as a hoax. Our office screens patients and takes their temperature before we allow them to enter our building. I feel like I am the first line of defense in protecting my coworkers.
I never considered the possibility that this thing is going to slip in through the back door.
So far I am fine, but every day I ask myself if my throat is sore or did it always feel like that. Are my ears hurting? Do I feel nauseous or is that fear?
Y’all, please be smart and be careful. You know what to do.
Jeff’s Journey
January 1, 2021We said goodbye to Jeff last week.
He was in failing health, in spite of having the best of all possible worlds.
Jeff and his 5 litter mates were born approximately on 4/13/2013. They were left by an unknown someone in a cardboard box turned on its side, tucked inside a new pet bed, on a local nature trail. Someone out for a walk the next morning found them.
The weather had poured all night long, and the heavy rains most probably kept the predators from prowling. The cardboard box was soggy but had kept them safe and dry.
Whoever found them took them to the shelter. The shelter called me to feed these babes, so fresh and young that their umbilical cords were attached.
I had them for a few weeks when the shelter called to say they had a nursing mother. She accepted them and they lived with her during the day and then I would keep them through the night. There were 2 females in the litter, and they passed away when only a few weeks old.
The shelter took them full time when they were weaned. A shelter environment can be hard in cats, and they got upper respiratory infections several times. The shelter management and staff were in flux, and they called to say that the kits had been treated 2 times and now had a third respiratory infection and they would not treat them a third time. I said I would get them the next day.
They’re been living at the colony ever since.
Jeff is an oddball. He’s shy and easily intimidated.
He doesn’t hang out with the other cats.
He always looked worried, almost haunted.
Over the last few weeks he’s looked extremely thin and was drinking a lot of water. I suspected diabetes, but what with my own medical issues lately, I couldn’t make time to go to the vet.
Christmas Day he stopped eating that morning and was unsteady. By afternoon he had disappeared and Leslie spotted him where he had backed into an animal burrow in the woods and was almost invisible.
We brought him in and I called the vet the next day. Jeff was almost gone.
Cats are stoic and they hide their troubles. The vet performed his deed, and Jeff was asleep forever, free from his cares and worries.
Sweet dreams, Jeff. I’m thinking of you.
The Tale of the Tort: in which we switch
January 1, 2021So the nice lady that has The Tortie decided that she couldn’t give Tortie what she needed. Tortie was living in a large wire kennel, meant for a dog, but suitable for cat rehab. Nice Lady wanted more for Tortie, who was not becoming any more sociable in spite of daily human/cat interactions.
The Two Jailbirds, brothers Jersey and Joey, were living in the Catbird Condo, that dandy open air lean-to that Leslie built. Pop-Up was living in the Jaxpety.
What if we let out the Jailbirds and put Tortie there?
Which is what we did.
The Jailbirds have been the best boys since their release. It was as if they, especially Jersey who wanted to kill Pop, had calmed down, and their status in the group had changed by being confined. And Pop was living in the Jaxpety condo so he was safe.
About a month ago, during the dark days and nights of late fall, I wondered what would happen if I put Pop in with The Tort? He’s non aggressive and she’s shy. It could work.
And he loves the high shelf by the door. It’s probably 6’ off the ground.
We added hay for bedding against the cold.
This looks like the best possible outcome for this group. We shall see.
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