Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Basic Training VS Chicken Farm

If you hadn't noticed, I have changed the poll in the sidebar. It was a poll about the election, and if you watched it, Sen. Obama won the poll. I haven't checked the news yet to see if that matched the actual results of the election. What? Obama did win the election? WoW! 100 percent accurate with my polls so far! 

The new poll is on dieting. I have been thinking about dieting often lately, but not doing so well at actually following up on it with better eating habits. Usually I just wait until the end of the flock, and all my dieting issues go away. 

Normally, I can lose a lot of weight in the last two weeks of a flock because it is physically exhausting. My apologies to Drill Sargent Pennybacker from my basic training days as an MP, but some days on the farm (those last two weeks of a flock) are actually harder than most days in basic training were. Maybe I can compare the two:

In basic training I hiked and ran a lot. and no doubt about it, it was a lot of work and I got tired. However, in the chicken house I do several miles a day, but I walk back and forth at little angles trying to go forward. A good number of my steps have a chicken trying to hitch a ride on my foot, or trying to run between my steps, or pecking the back of my leg.

In basic I carried a comparatively light M-16A1 rifle in my hands during the longest and most grueling marches. In a chicken house I am carrying as many dead chickens as I can hold in my hands, or a bucket filled with the deceased so I can carry even more. When my hands are not weighed down with chickens, I have to wave them like a crazy person and  also clap them non-stop in order to scare chickens into moving out of the way. Believe me, they don't want to leave their spot.

In basic training I had mandatory lunch breaks even though lunches lasted for what seemed like 2 minutes. On the farm I wouldn't dream of eating at any point. The moment my hands touch the highly disgusting, germ infested steering wheel of the stinky  chicken farm pick up truck the thought of food vanishes. Except for occasionally when I think to myself, "I could really go for some fried chicken right about now". I won't go into why that thought comes up, but it involves me holding a chicken leg with no chicken attached. Back to my point; I never eat while working on the farm, no matter how many long, tiring hours I spend down there. 

In basic training I willingly crawled through mud. On the chicken farm I have fallen face first many times into wet chicken poop, never willingly. Luckily, I have never crushed a chicken while falling. Comparing the two wet sunbstances, I'd prefer to crawl in the mud.

Basic training only lasted 8 weeks, and the last two weeks of the flock sounds like it would be the loser in this category, but these last two weeks happen five times a year, which is ten weeks. Although it is broken up nicely with between flock work, and early flock work which is not at all as as difficult. Maybe I can call that one a tie. 

Being that I never did get around to explaining the diet poll, I'll have to make that another post on another day.

4 comments:

creative type dad said...

“I could really go for some fried chicken right about now”

That pretty much sums me up.

Anne said...

the fried chicken sounded good until you brought up the chicken poop. I may never eat fried chicken again :).

Preston said...

OMG basic training and chicken raising our two things I'll never do...but I can live vicariously through you! Uh, pass me a leg, please?

Ken said...

Some days this job makes me want to be a vegetarian and call up PETA to tell them I am willing to help their cause by offering them any inside information about the process I can give them to help bring down the industry and stop the killing. Other times I think, man, that would totally ruin my love for fried chicken. TORN, I tell you!