As Autumn Begins and a 12-Hour Road Trip

I picked the first ripe bright orange pumpkin from the garden today and brought it into the house. As I set it down on the edge of my dark brown wooden dining table, my eyes caught the two warm fall colors together for the first time. Very autumnish. Just at that moment I thought how the land is now signaling that we are officially headed for fall. It is funny how the plants and animals here seem to know this even before I became aware of it. The summer season had changed her gown before I even noticed. I just started to be aware of the fact that in the last two mornings it is still dark when the alarm goes off at 6 am. This is one of the first things that brings my mind to the awareness that the summer season is officially winding down and will began giving way to autumn.

The equinox was actually on the 23rd of this month (at 9:04 if you’re counting). All across the nation, folks will be wrapping up their growing seasons as they say goodbye to their summer gardens. Labor Day weekend marks the beginning of this passage for most of the United States. I guess it’s time for me to toss my white sandals into the back of the closet, and start to look for some of my sweaters now.

We are lucky here in parts of California, as we will still be able to plant in the fall, and coax at least one more round of summer veggies before the winter frost sets in. I am always thankful we live here in Ventura County because we can grow at least some veggies and herbs year-round! Onions, spinach, lettuce, cabbage, garlic are great for planting this time of year! We currently have bell peppers coming out of our ears, and much squash still going strong. Some years past we have had long “Indian summers” where the warm weather has remained – one year we had ripe tomatoes up until November!

The roses are all putting off a lot of red growth right now as they gear up for their fall blooms. These are the blooms they will set their winter hips with to save energy in to get them through the winter months, so these blooms will be large and longer lasting then most of the spring blossoms. I like my rose gardens in fall.

The poultry are about through molting, and it has been a real chore to keep ahead of raking up all the feathers every week. Egg production is still strong, and we are still getting a lot of nice chicks hatching in both incubators every few days. The game bird season is over, but we did have two turkey poults that hatched very late this year. We are still getting a few quail chicks.

In the goat yard, we have weaned the babies, and it has gone well this year. I think the moms were ready for this to happen, even though the babies complained a bit.

We welcomed a new face here a month ago – a young herd sire to replace the two older bucks we lost over a year ago. Desert Sun’s Royal Demand came to us all the way from Desert Sun Pygmies in Klamath Falls, OR. Linda Colville has been a breeder and pygmy goat judge for many years and has a beautiful herd of animals there. I had owned a buck from her for many years and already know that this bloodline mixes well with mine. Although young at 8 months old, Royal Demand has already done well in the show ring, has good structure, strong caramel genetics in his pedigree, and to top it all off he has a sweet personality. What more could we ask for in an upcoming herd sire! The only trouble we had with this buck was the actual act of getting him from Klamath Falls, OR to Ventura, CA. The airlines charge over $300 to fly an animal in the baggage compartment so we decided to try a different way. Linda had a friend who lived about 3 hours away, and she was headed from Oregon to a pygmy goat show in Watsonville, CA on August 19th. We would be able to pick him up there the next day on the 20th. Watsonville is about a 5 1/2 hour drive from Ventura. Woo Hoo- ROAD TRIP! A very dear friend of the farm learned about our plans and decided to make it an exciting adventure for us. We were provided with a beautiful new rental SUV to use, and enough gas and food money for our journey. Christy and I packed up a cooler full of food and drinks, and we hit the road at noon on Saturday. We drove all day, stopping along the way every two hours or so. We took Mandy (Christy’s dachshund) with us and enough CDs to keep us entertained the whole trip. We left right around noon, took turns driving and oddly enough, got back to the farm just about midnight-twelve hours later, even after being a bit lost once or twice. We made very good time. The new guy has settled in to the farm well, and we are enjoying this new addition to our herd.  Welcome to Blue Hill Farms, Royal Demand, we hope you will be very happy here!

Faring the Fair

Today is opening day of The Ventura County Fair, located at beautiful Seaside Park in Ventura CA.  The 2011 theme is “The Bounty of the County”.  This year we were invited back to Uncle Leo’s Barn, an area of the fair set up for children of all ages to come and get an up-close look at a variety of farmyard animals from this county. The helpful staff is always on hand to answer questions and tell the stories of the animals’ lives on their respective farms. Since I was a city kid growing up, many of my first and fondest encounters with farm animals happened at our local fair, so this is something that I am always happy to participate in. I love to see the children interacting with the animals and wonder which ones of them will possibly someday become our future farmers of America.
Our adventure began just after supper last night when Christy and I accomplished the arduous task of collecting the selected animals (Kitty the pygmy goat and her 6 week old twins)  and systematically loading them into the back of the Dodge Dakota for the short ride to the fairgrounds. Kitty was not very keen on the idea (to say the least) and she would not budge an inch, and needed to be hoisted up and carried-she objected to this to such a state that we had to get a rolling cart to stand her in to get her the rest of the way down the driveway (the only thing that got hurt was her pride). Once in the truck with her kids, having located some feed, she calmed back down. The next stop was over to our neighbor Katie’s farm to help her load up her three Emden goslings into crates, and then everyone into the truck!

Kitty was not really very happy about having to share her ride with the poultry, but there was not much she could do about it anyway.  Total- three pygmy goats, three giant white geese, and three silly gals- needless to say there was MUCH squawking going on in the truck the entire ride to the fair by both humans and animals alike.
Arriving at the Garden Street entrance of the fairgrounds, we were ushered in and allowed to park right out in front of the barn. Some of the staff was there to greet us and help us unload. The geese were carried in their crates and the baby goats were scooped up in our arms and carried in without any problem. Then there was Kitty, who once again would not budge an inch towards the barn. Even just 30 feet seems like a very long way when you are on the other end of the lead of a stubborn animal that is determined NOT to walk for ANY reason we could give her. We tried to coax with a feed bucket, we tried to let her follow her two babies – nothing. She would not budge. In the end, Christy hoisted her up unceremoniously and carried her stubborn butt all the way into the barn and plopped her down in the pen. No small feat, as she must weigh 65+ lbs, has a full udder of milk, and had all four of her legs as stiff as iron and unbending every inch of the way. Not to mention the evil eye she was giving everyone or the unhappy grunts she was voicing at all of us the entire time. But as is the ways of most creatures, once she found the feeder she was content with the new digs. The display pen for the goats is set up with a tall wooden ramp with a platform at the top, and also has a big rubber tire for the kids to play on. The doe kids were not too sure about this setup at first, as they only have had logs to jump around on in their pen at home. Diana was the first of the two kids to be brave enough to try out the ramp but I was sure by the end of the night she and Tess would both be playing “queen of the ramp”. After fair notice to the barn staff that Kitty is clever enough to not only open up the latches on her pen for untimely escapes, but if left unchecked she may also let the others out as well, we went over feeding and care instructions.  We left the animals to settle in a bit and went out and turned up the main thoroughfare to stroll along and cool off from our struggle with Miss Kitty.

Although the fair was not yet open there were tons of people all around. Trucks were parked over every foot of the walkways and the place was bustling with activity. Vendors were setting up booths and unloading boxes, rides were being tested and everyone else seemed to have a bucket or a broom in their hands. Officials in electric golf carts were swerving by on all sides and last-minute touches were being put on displays everywhere. Halfway down the fairway we ran into the small livestock superintendent, Elzie Daniels, who we then had a nice chat with about what has been going on in everyone’s backyards and barns for the last year, livestock births and deaths,  and things we wished to purchase. It is always nice to run into old friends and catch up on each other’s lives. He even had some photos to show us of his beautiful Jersey calf born on the 4th of July. Congrats Elzie, she is a beaut!

We continued our walk all the way down to the main gate and then turned around and headed back to the barns to check and see how the critters were doing. We ran into a couple of 4-H kids bringing in their animals in the rabbit and poultry barn and after a few more short chats we did one last check of our animals before heading back to the truck. The geese had found the wading pool and Kitty already had her head in the feeder. The twins were bouncing on the big rubber tire and it looked like they just might be the hit entertainment of the barn this year. I know the children will love them. Things were all in place as they should be, and we are all ready once again to fare the fair!

Independence Day for Kitty

July 1st brought us a new moon in Cancer (feminine, moist and fruitful – the sign of motherhood) and with it came the birth of another set of twin does by our goat Kitty. It was her “Independence Day” from this heavy pregnancy.
Just for fun, early that morning we went out to the kidding pen with a seamstress’s tape and did some measuring. We had no idea that this would be the day we would welcome new life to the farm, it just happened. Kitty is 31″ from nose to tip of tail and stands 18″ tall at the withers. Then we managed to get the tape around the widest part of her belly and it was 47″- just 1″ shy of 4 feet around! That was one pregnant goat! She has looked like she was smuggling 2 basketballs around for at least the last 3 weeks, and we just kept wondering if she could get much larger. She did this same thing last year, so I was never really worried, I just felt sorry for the obvious discomfort she must have been feeling (not to mention really wanting to see the new babies!)

By 9:30 am she started to get “that look” in her eye and I knew that she was going into the early stages of labor. I made sure the birthing kit was at hand, and brought a stack of clean towels out to the kidding pen. It was now the time to watch and wait. I did chores around the yard, checking back in with her every 15 minutes or so. At 1:37 her water broke, and within a few minutes a beautiful little doe kid effortlessly came into the world (well, it was effortless to me, I’m sure Kitty was not thinking this right at the time.) Last year, Kitty took about a 20 minute intermission between the births, but this year she went right back into labor, so I wrapped her first little bundle of joy up in a clean towel and set her down in front of her.

We were not as lucky with the second birth. The proper presentation for birth is a diving position, – the two front feet first followed by the nose between them. Sometimes you can go with one front foot followed by nose, but better to have both front legs if possible. I knew I was in for a bit of trouble when I saw just a nose coming out first. What made it worse was the birth sack broke so the kid started to breathe – so no pushing it back in to try reposition it. The shoulders were stuck, and I had no time to try to go fishing around for a front foot. At this point I needed to get the kid moving so that it would not choke. I got out a large catheter, filled it full of J Lube and inserted the tube back up behind the stuck kid as far as I could into the womb, then injected about 8 ounces of the lube. I waited through another contraction, and then repeated the process. After a few anxious moments the kid began to move forward, and one more contraction freed the shoulders and chest. The kid was out a few seconds later sputtering a bit, but not really much worse for the whole ordeal.

After a quick towel dry, I set both the newborns down in front of their mommy for bonding, and listened to their tiny squeaks and bleats, answered by their mommy’s low knickers, in between her thorough grooming of every hair on their little furry bodies and faces. A quick check of Kitty’s udder to make sure both spigots were working, and the newborns were both up wobbling around and nursing in about 15 minutes.

I introduced them both to Nikki (our LGD) over the fence, so she would bond to them as well, and then I left the happy new family to go wash up the towels and equipment, and make some phone calls and e-mails to announce their arrival to waiting friends and neighbors, and well-wishers.

About a half hour later, I went back out to check on the babies, and I stood outside the pen and just watched for a while. Kitty was taking them on their first little tour of the pen and was just as proud as could be of her new little entourage as she stopped every few feet and cooed at them softly, encouraging them to follow her. It never will cease to amaze me that in just a matter of two hours, these newborn babes are up and walking and eating and exploring the world around them and everything is brand new in their eyes.  Truly a miracle in itself as far as I’m concerned. It always helps me to remember to look for things in a new way each day, and to try to see everything from a simple perspective. Each day as it comes, clear and new, bringing with it different situations and choices. I love to let these moments slow me down and unfold before me as I watch and listen. It keeps me in touch with what is important – life itself and the promise of the future it holds.  After all the times in life we must give heed to the things that go wrong, I love to revel in these times when things are going right, and enjoy each time they come my way – it is actually more often then I think it is, if I just take the time look for it. Welcome to the farm my dear little jewels, I hope you come to be very happy here – as happy as we are to have you.

Summer daze and a few very lucky chicks

The Summer Solstice is the day of the year with the most hours of daylight. In the Northern Hemisphere, it always occurs in June between the 20th and the 21st. The Sun will reach its highest position in the sky on this day north of the Tropic of Cancer (23o26′N). Even though we have been experiencing a certain amount of “June gloom” in our area, my thoughts are starting to turn towards long, warm evenings, mint ice tea brewed by the sun and setting up the hammock for lazy naps.

We spent this last weekend working diligently in the vegetable garden, digging competing weeds, planting out starts, watering all the crops in well and then applying a thick, heavy layer of mulch from the goat barn to keep all the root systems moist and cool. It looks like we will be getting a bumper crop of plums and grapes again this year and the pomegranates, bursting with their bright red flowers, are keeping the hummingbirds very busy these days. Most of the roses are repeating their blooms and the house is filled with their beautiful colors and fragrant essences. The smell of the Scotch broom in the riverbed behind us, blooming in its full bright yellow splendor comes across the back field on the evening breeze, sending our senses reeling. The plums from the trees are so sweet they almost hurt your teeth to eat them and we have even caught the dog raiding the blackberry patch a few times.

Summer daze is upon us!

All the poultry pens are in full production now and both of the incubators are running with full trays of eggs. We are hatching many nice chicks, turkeys, and pheasants and selling dozens of hatching eggs to people who want to try their own hand at it. So far all of the new poultry families that have bought our birds have reported success and here are some photos of some VERY lucky chicks that became members of the Shahin  family a few weeks back – what great digs they ended up with! WOW!!!

A Few More Pictures of the “Mutant”

Mutants, Beasts and the “Thing” in the Brooder

In the flurry of the spring egg setting season in preparation for Easter this year, some eggs went into the incubator that were unidentified. They came out of the Silkie pen, and were thought to be bantam eggs. The Silkie pen has a small flock of white Silkies, but also mixed in with the group are two white Frizzled Cochin bantam hens. The Silkie /Frizzle Cochin crosses are the only crossbreeds we produce on purpose here. The chicks come out with the soft feathers of the Silkies, but pointed in all directions like the Frizzles (like some one put them in the clothes dryer with a sneaker). We have coined the name “Sizzles” and they grow up to be very cute little chickens with good natures. The females make good little broody hens for people wanting to set eggs. They do not breed true, so you never know which traits you will get from crossing the two breeds. I have had some with the black skin or shanks of the Silkies, and I have had some hatch with 5 toes. Once I had one hatch with 5 toes on one foot and 4 on the other. They are all very cute in their own ways and it is always fun to see what the gene pool will come up with in each chick.
Other then the “Sizzles” I can tell right off the different breeds of chicks right when they hatch without a doubt-they all have a very distinct look that is breed specific.  Or I should say I could up until about two weeks ago.
Both the incubators were running at full capacity, and that translates into approximately 430 eggs. In the fall/winter months we only set eggs once a week, so we only have hatches once a week. In the spring however, we set eggs every day, and this makes for frantic mornings of tray-fulls of chicks being transferred into the brooders and a close watch that must be kept on setting dates to get the new eggs into the hatching trays so that the chicks do not hatch in the turners. Some mornings it becomes quite hectic if there are large hatches in both incubators at the same time. I like to check over each chick as it is transferred into the brooder for any malformations,  health issues or weakness. We have a separate ICU brooder for any small or struggling chicks to go into before they join the general population in the larger brooder.
On one of these frantic large hatch mornings, I pulled a large striped/speckled chick out of the hatching tray that had an unusually elongated head, and very strange speckled markings on its face. The only thing I could think of at the time, was that it must be a Speckled Sussex chick – they are the only chickens I have that are born with spots. It had come out of a medium-sized lightly tinted chicken egg, so I just left it at that.  I kept watching it in the brooder and every time I looked I would think to myself, “what IS that thing?”
When it came time to take the hatchlings to the feed stores, I left this one behind, as there just seemed to be something weird about the way it looked. A few days later when the brooder had just a few chicks left in it, I took a closer look to try to figure out just why it looked so strange and then it dawned on me – I have a trio of Ring Necked Pheasants in the same coop and this was an inter-species cross! A pheasant crossed with a chicken. I had been on a website years ago where they had some funny pictures of them. I remember there was the offspring of a male pheasant and a Barred Rock hen, and a Peacock crossed with a guinea hen as well. Rare and strange, but I guess it happens! I pulled it out this morning and sat down to get a really good look at it. I think my suspicions are right. It has no comb,  game bird markings on the feathers and is getting tall, but it also has the telltale dark shanks of the hybrids, and on one leg, just a faint bit of feathering!

There still seems to be little information on the web about these crosses, but from the bit I can find, only 6.5 of these eggs ever hatch, and the chicks are mostly weak and don’t tend to live very long, so this cross is more of an oddity, and does not really produce an offspring that has any real value to the poultry industry.

We will keep an eye on our little oddity for the next few months to see what he/she turns into, and try to figure out what to call it – a “Cheasant” or maybe a “Phicken”-?

Phicken? Cheasant?

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Yes, that old saying is so true, all the rain we experienced in April has done a world of good for the roses this May.
I had a 60 foot pine tree (that had a bad case of bark beetles) removed from my front yard last winter, opening up a huge area to full sun now. The “pink garden” (the rose garden with only pink shades of roses in it) that has always only had half a day of light, is now reveling in the sunshine and blooming like crazy. I have put a heavy layer of mulch  from the goat barn down around the roses’ feet to keep them cool and damp now that the days are long and warm. All of the heavy pruning I did back in February has paid off and the plants have good shape and nice air circulation all around them. A lot of the clones from last year are producing buds for the first time and it is rewarding to see these new varieties in the garden. Moonstone and Mint Julep are  newcomers welcomed in, as well as Secret and Topaz Jewel. I am still waiting for Butterscotch and Dream Yellow to put out buds. Here are some photos of some of my favorite ones so far…..

Butterscotch

Butterscotch bud

Eden

Chris Evert

Mint Julep bud

Tineke

Marans and the Giant Egg

I have a small flock of Cuckoo Marans chickens that I have been working with for the past four or five years now. I like this breed of chicken, not only for their gorgeous dark chocolate brown, almost round eggs, but for their calm temperament as well. The flock as a whole is a peaceful, slow moving group, and nothing really seems to bother them as they go about their days. To their credit, the 3 roosters in this pen have never given me a bit of trouble, and do not fight among themselves. Though I will still never fully trust a rooster of any kind (if you’re curious about why, read my book!)

Just as we were about to set the clocks ahead this year for daylight savings time, and there was an increase in the daylight hours, I went into the Marans pen one morning to collect eggs. I found two of the normal dark brown eggs in the box, but then there was something very strange in there with them. It was a huge egg with a very light colored, thin shell, like something a Sussex would lay. When I picked it up I was really surprised at just how large this egg really was. I have been raising chickens for a long time and have seen a lot of large and/or misshapen eggs, but this was about the biggest I had seen on this farm.

A friend of mine has a very sensitive balance that can weigh within a 100th of a gram, so I borrowed it and went about the task of recording this freakishly large egg with a scientific approach. I first weighed the other two found in the nest with it- they weighed in at 59.29 grams and 62.84 grams. The next day, I found another large egg in the Marans pen, it was much more normal looking than the giant egg, but it weighed in at 90.03 grams and had a double yoke when I cracked it open (there’s no picture of that one because it ended up as breakfast.)  The giant egg weighed in at 152.20 grams – over twice the size of a normal large egg! I also measured it to be 3 and 1/2 inches in length and 7 inches around, exactly. Ouch!

Next, I tried to candle the egg. I could not see the normal air sack at the top end of the egg, there just appeared to be a watery liquid in it. I could not see the yoke/yokes, which I thought was odd. To my surprise, when I cracked it open I found a perfectly formed whole other egg inside! The shell of this inner egg was dark brown and just as thick as they normally are.

In all the years of my chicken keeping, I have never seen this before, so of course I immediately started to research it. I found that what causes this oddity is when an egg gets backs up in the oviduct for some reason and then goes through the last few stages of production twice. Rare, but not unheard of. I just had to feel empathy for the poor hen who finally had to lay it!

More About Marans

This breed originated in western France in the town of Marans, and the word itself is both singular and plural – you have one Marans or many Marans. They do well in damp areas, having been developed in a marshy portion of France. Marans are a large, heavy breed that grows and matures slowly, with the roosters reaching up to 9 lbs, and the hens around 7 lbs. I raise the Silver Cuckoo color variety, and my stock has the feathered shanks like the original French birds (for some reason this characteristic has been bred out of the British lines.) The French recognize 9 color varieties:

1. Silver Cuckoo

2. Golden Cuckoo

3. White

4. Black Copper

5. Black

6. Wheaten

7. Black-tailed Fawn

8. Ermine or Columbian

9. Birchen

The Cuckoo variety is very similar in appearance to the Barred Rock, except the barring is not as distinct, giving it less of the striped appearance. The cuckoo pattern has all feathers marked across with black and white bands. This pattern is the result of the action of the sex linked barred (B) gene which is dominant.  When the males are homozygous for the Barred gene (BB), their color is lighter than that of the hemizygous (B-) females because the Barred gene produces the white bars.   In Cuckoo Marans, males are lighter in color than females–it is said to be possible to color sex them even as chicks with pretty good accuracy. If I stand back from the brooder and narrow my eyes a bit, I can pick out some of the young roos right away, but for the most part this is a breed that you really have to wait until they 5-8 weeks old to really sight sex. Even then, I did have a roo a few years who did not get his saddle or tell-tale neck feathers until he was about 4 months old.

Out Like a Lion – Update

Well, we haven’t floated away yet! I have a few doom and gloom friends (the doomies) who predicted this past week would bring earth shattering quakes and comets that would hit the earth with the super moon and equinox together. I bet them all dinner that this would not come to pass- needless to say I have not heard from any of them since. Hey, you guys still owe me!

Monday was spent moving the turkeys to a dry enclosure in the pouring rain and buying a trunk load of tarps. Tuesday we were blessed with Christy’s brother Tim and friend Daniel who drove all the way up from Pasadena to help put the fences back together and move the turkey pen to higher ground. Thanks guys, you rock! Also, a guy from the fence company came out to measure the fence lines and is still working on some numbers for us for the replacement of the back and side fences.

Somewhere in the middle of all the chaos of the past few days I remember going into the garage for something. I was soaked to the bone and chilly and glad to be out of the driving rain and wind for a moment. As I flipped the light on and went to the tool bench, I heard a familiar sound coming from one of the incubators. I stopped what I was doing and went over to check. Sure enough, there was a fuzzy little chick sitting in the hatching tray looking out at me. I pulled back the wet hood from my soaked jacket and pushed up my soaked sleeves, and unlatched the incubator door. I picked up the warm, brand new little fluffy ball of life, and pressed it against my cold cheek. I felt myself smile for the first time all day. It cooed softly and cuddled down in my hands, and closed its eyes. I could hear the storm raging all around us outside trying to destroy everything in its path, yet in here there was peace. In this small protected place new life was able to emerge, safe and warm. I stood humbled in this moment thinking of a scripture that I could not remember exactly, but it is something about being under the pinion of God’s wings. Being tucked up close to him under his wings, safe even in the worst of storms. I think he was trying to tell me in that moment that if we just learn to stay there, close to his heart, we too will be safe and warm, even in the worst of life’s storms. All we need is to come to him with childlike faith and he will keep us in the midst of the storms that seem to hit us from all sides. I placed the sleepy little newborn chick up into the nice warm brooder above the incubator. As I stood in the doorway on my way back out into the storm, I reminded myself once again that Scripture always tells us that these storms come to pass, they do not come to stay. We just have to learn to work through them, no matter how bad they seem at the time or what is going on around us in the world.
I just have to remind myself this storm will be over soon, and spring is already here- even if it does happen that it will be going out like a lion this year.

The First Day of Spring – Out Like a Lion

Sunday, March 20th brought us the spring equinox. I always heard the saying for March was “in like a lion, out like a lamb”, but where we are it can still be a decidedly harsh month. The fruit blossoms have been out for a week, and some of the roses have even put out their first blooms, but as of last night a heavy rain storm and a strong wind have been pummeling us non-stop. The storm keeps changing direction and seems to have blown at us from all sides now. I fear for the safety of some of the young rose clones, and tender blossoms, as this wind is strong enough to rip the heads right off of anything that has flowered in the last week or so. The animal pens have once again been turned to molten mud, and it has been necessary to put on the high rubber boots to go slogging through the muck. We lost some birds in the mud, and sections of the  fences have fallen over from the high winds. Parts of the solar panels were torn from the roof, and tree branches are coming down around us, and the septic tank in the back yard is slowly collapsing from the weight of the mud. To top off the high winds we received 5.2″ of rain in 14 hours. I am keeping my eye on a couple of trees that look like they might want to topple over. They said it will rain all week.

About a dozen water-soaked hens ended up being put in the greenhouse over night and my office had a Cuckoo Maran hen that picked the wrong day to be egg bound and two crates of unhappy pheasants pitching a fit most of the night – not understanding that they were in there for their own safety and protection. Try telling that to a pheasant who has been stuffed into a crate. Needless to say I did not get much writing done.

Yes, I know full well complaining about the weather will not make it stop raining, and yes I also know that compared to what other parts of the world just went through, I should feel lucky. I’m not really complaining, just stating the facts.