Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Things I'm Thinking About

I'm sitting here drinking on a Monday night. It's the last Monday night I can stay up to 1:43 in the morning and not feel the pain of sleep deprivation the next morning for a very long while. I go back to work next week and I have to become a responsible human once again. To entertain you, my loyal readers, I thought I'd let you in on a few of my thoughts.

I really fucking want to buy a bunch of guinea keets. I can't really explain why, but herding my son's ducks in and out of the back yard fence each day has really made me want to spend a hundred bucks on 30 baby guinea fowl to turn loose on my property when they reach maturity. My dog actually lives with my parents now. We couldn't keep him in the back yard so we let him stay at my parents' house with their dog. Now I keep my birds in the back yard so they're safe when he decides to visit. Anyway, guineas are fucking metal and would kick his effing ass if he tried to mess with them. They also keep the snakes away as well as pretty much every other member of the animal kingdom smaller than them because they eat them. I also want to eat guineas. Guineas are tasty.

Speaking of edible animals, I've been thinking about buying guinea pigs so I can eat them. I was talking to my friend Severo on Facebook last night (he messages me every single time I'm up past midnight now) and he said I should not tell anyone about this urge. I think that's stupid. Guinea pigs were domesticated by South American Indians entirely for their edible parts. I think roast cuy over a bed of quinoa pilaf would be pretty damn tasty. Anyone who thinks that's weird should really get out more.

I've also been wondering what I'll do if more than half of my son's ducks turn out to be male. Unlike chickens, ducks tend to be pretty monogamous, so I actually need more than one male, but if I have more than half of them turn out to be male, a bunch of those dudes are pretty pointless. They'll be pointless and I really do love fried duck livers. Would I be a bad person if I killed and ate my son's birthday presents?

7 comments:

Julie said...

I suppose it depends upon a few things.

1. How sensitive is your son? If very,

2. Could you slaughter them without his noticing?

3. Do you really want it badly? Because it takes a lot of effort to clean an animal for food prep.

I have duck breast in my freezer. It's a viable anternative. To eating your son's presents, that is. Can't help you with the guinea meat.

Jacob said...

He's not old enough to understand what was happening. He watched a hog get butchered at a festival in town last fall and was more interested than disturbed. Yes, we have a festival here where butchering a hog is part of the festivities.

Two is now irrelevant, but yes. He can count to something like 15 in English and to 5 in Spanish, but he's not yet grasped that one number goes with one object and the implications that come with that realization.

I've cleaned chickens, quail, catfish (have to skin instead of scale), other fish, squirrels and a deer (once). I can manage.

Still, I posted this more for the humor value than for any real plans.

Cj said...

poor baby ducks. i think that I will kidnap them and move them into the great pyrenees protection program...

A Free Man said...

How much did you have to drink?

Jacob said...

Two beers. I think the late hour had as much to do with it as anything else. Besides, this is the sort of thing I normally think about. I just don't usually write about it.

Chris said...

At the risk of being *too* practical, what else would you do with the ducks? I guess I subconsciously assumed they were destined to eventually be dinner, produce eggs or breed (or some combination of the three).

Jacob said...

Chris, you're letting your rural origins show. You forget that suburbanites and urbanites tend to think of ducks as just cute pets.

That being said, these are really just pets. I won't actually doing anything with them except buy food to feed them to keep them obese.