Todays study is on eggs.  Like yesterday, I was making breakfast this morning and I had two cut up chorizo’s in the pan cooking.  My goal was to break 3 eggs in with them, scramble it up and top with cheddar cheese and then toss it in the oven to melt the cheese.  Make one piece of toast to share with Sherry and add a glass of milk or orange juice to the table fare and enjoy.

As I was breaking the eggs into the pan with the ready to eat chorizo pieces, I thought…Bears Butt, you sure are a trusting guy to just break those eggs into that pan.  What if they are not good eggs?  What if the inspection process let one get past and it is contaminated with….whatever?

That got me thinking about the inspection process and off I went looking for how it is done.  What I found is that most of the inspection work is done using computers and scanning equipment that lets very few ugly things get past.  A person will periodically pick up one of the passed eggs and check it to make sure, but actually that person really isn’t doing a heck of a lot.  So, rest assured the eggs you are going to break into your pan is over 99% sure to be a good one.

I also found out that chicken/egg farms with less than 3,000 laying hens do not get inspected as well as bigger farms….does that make you wonder where your eggs are coming from?

A long time ago I was at a USDA meeting with lots of cattlemen, farmers and assorted other people who grow or produce something we eat and one old boy about my age now came up and started to tell me a story.  He said something like this…

You know lad, I’m a pretty big producer of beef cattle around these parts right now, I need to tell you that.  But I wasn’t when I first started out.  I came here thinking I could invest in a few cattle and suddenly I would be a rich man and I could expand each year until I had enough money I could sell out and go off and do what I really wanted to do, like fishing.  My first exposure to the cattle industry went like this.  I went into the bank and told the banker man what I wanted to do.  I wanted to buy 300 head of beef cattle and raise them up and sell them to the people and make a ton of money.  Then I’d buy 310 for the next year and do the same thing.  Each year expanding until when I did sell them I’d have the money to sell the land and get out of here.

You know what the banker asked me? (My answer was no)  He asked me “how many chickens are you going to raise”?  Chickens!  What do chickens have to do with beef cattle I asked him.  He calmly asked me how on earth did I plan on feeding my cattle?  And then went on to tell me I knew nothing about raising cattle and why on earth would the bank want to fund a guy raising beef cattle when he didn’t know anything about them.

Well this set me back a bit, he said.  The banker told me to go do some study and maybe even visit some of the cattle guys in the area and then once I had it all figured out to come back and we would talk some more.  And that is what I did.

What I found out from my visits to some of the larger cattle operations around these parts was that every one of them were raising chickens at the same time as the cattle.  They were getting the eggs and selling them and making some pretty good money at that.  But it cost them in chicken feed to keep them going and so most of them were having another guy operating the chicken side of things and footing the bill for raising them, but in trade they would get the fertilizer for free.  The fertilizer from chickens is some of the hottest fertilizer around and so it goes a long ways when you spread it over the land to grow the feed needed for raising beef cattle.

You see, beef cattle have to eat too.  And so, in order to raise 300 beef cattle for one or two years, before selling them, you have to feed them good high quality hay.  Each one of the beef will eat 1/4 of a bale of hay each and every day.  How many bales is that?  A lot.  And so I would need enough land to grow my alfalfa in order to raise those cattle.  Around these parts we get two good cuttings of hay and one that is mostly filler, but that is how it goes.  He said, I soon learned that I would have to have almost 4,000 chickens in order to fertilize the amount of land I needed just to grow the hay for my 300 beef cattle.  And besides that I needed to buy 500 acres of good flat, irrigated land in order to raise my hay.  Of course 500 acres is more than I would need for 300 beef cattle, but I had to start thinking ahead as my cattle business is going to grow.  With that I would have to start thinking about expanding my chickens as well.  More and more things kept coming into the equation.  And he went on and on about all of that.

When I figured he had told me about everything he had to say I asked him about him selling out and going fishing.  He looked funny at me and said, I’m broke!  All my money is tied up in those beef cattle and chickens and more land and equipment to cut and bale the hay and feed all those animals!  Nobody around these parts could ever think about buying me out.  I’m here for the rest of my life….and he walked away.

That is a pretty long story to lead up to why I am writing this story.  What I found in my investigation is THE ANSWER to the age old question of “Which came first, the chicken or the egg”?

What is the history of the egg?
“Eggs existed long before chickens,” according to On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee. “The first eggs were released, fertilized, and hatched in the ocean. Around 250 million years ago, the earliest fully land-dwelling animals, the reptiles, developed a self-contained egg with a tough, leathery skin that prevented fatal water loss. The eggs of birds, animals that arose some 100 million years later, are a refined version of this reproductive adaptation to life on land. Eggs, then, are millions of years older than birds. Gallus domesticus, the chicken more or less as we know it, is only a scant 4 or 5 thousand years old.”

Take it for what it’s worth!

Bears Butt

Dec. 11, 2012

I believe that each and every one of us has had or will have some divine inspiration come along in our lives.  Something that just suddenly appears or a voice is heard or just a gut feeling about what is going to happen.

I’ve been reading a life sketch of a man who helped settle Utah way back in the mid 1800’s…George W. Hill…anyway he was a devout LDS guy who taught a lot of Native Americans about the LDS faith and baptized thousands of them into the religion.  But, he had a lot of visions in his life as well.  These are the types of things I’m talking about.

And so as we progress in our daily lives we often will see a vision or a little devil sitting on our shoulder will whisper something in our ear, or we will see something in the twirling dirt or waves and it will be a sign of some sort.  We will pay attention to it because it was meant for us to see and follow.  We may not know exactly what it all means at the time, but there will come a time when the bigger picture will present itself and suddenly it will all make sense.

Today a little something happened in my life that just made me take a picture of it.  As strange as it might seem to you, the moment I saw it I had to capture it on my camera.  As Sherry was getting ready to go to work, I was busy making us a little breakfast.  We don’t usually eat a whole lot as we have learned as we get older, we just don’t need a whole lot to eat at any one time.  And so it was with breakfast this morning.  Some warmed up cheese potatoes, a small venison steak for her, a couple slices of bacon for me and one egg apiece.  A nice little breakfast.

I had everything ready except the eggs and so I wait until she says she is ready and then I cook them.  This is where it happened!  I broke the eggs into the cast iron pan and suddenly right there before my eyes was a sign!  I spun around and grabbed the camera from the bag on the counter.  The camera is always right there for those instant “gotta take a picture” moments.  I didn’t even have to look at it to find the snap that allowed the camera case to open…out came the camera, on it went and as I turned toward the pan, the camera came to my eye and snap!  I had it…the sign was permanently captured on my Fuji disc.  I was so happy.

I finished making the breakfast and served it up.  Sherry asked, why did you take a picture of the eggs?  I had to show her and so I got the camera and turned it on so she could see the sign I had taken.  She smiled and went back to eating without saying a word.

And so to you my dear readers of this insanity, here is the picture I took:

I hope you are smiling right now!  Have a wonderful day!

Bears Butt

Dec. 10, 2012

Beins as Christmas is just around the corner and we only have 2 more Saturdays till the big day it means that our shoppin days are numbered and gettin less and less as we waste our time looking at this stupid computer, but what the heck, I guess you aint wasting it all because of the site you are on.

It just wouldn’t be right if I didn’t share the real life story of my friend Soda Grizz on here with you.

A bit of a background about old Soda Grizz…see he is a might nice guy from a small town up in Idaho called Soda Springs.  If you ever go through Soda Springs be sure and stop by the natural soda springs that bubbles up out of the ground.  Take a empty milk jug with you too and make sure you dip it in the spring and fill the jug up.  When you get to where you are really going (cuz most folks don’t consider they are anywhere just being in Soda Springs), make up some cool aid using that soda water….your life will not be the same after that.

Soda Grizz is known all through the town of Soda Springs Idaho.  Everyone in town knows who he is, what he is doing, where he is right now and when the last time was that he was visiting the jail.  He is a nice guy, probably the nicest guy you will ever want to meet.  They occasionally make him sleep in the jail to show the real criminals in there how to be a nice guy…he is a mentor you know.

Well, I always have looked up to him and I listen intently to everything he has to tell me and this story is not any different.  I think you could learn the thing or two from this one as well.

Walmart.

Walmart employees are no different than employees at any other store around.  They have families, friends and likes and dislikes just like everybody else.  Well, the management of Walmart likes to make sure they get all the hours they can out of their employees and especially on Christmas Eve.  They make sure the little ones at home will have just enough visiting with their parents on Christmas Eve so they can live to tell about how mommy and daddy always was home on Christmas Eve…and not a minute more.

So, here it is Christmas Eve in Soda Springs Idaho.  Ol Soda Grizz had spent all his time working in the mines and didn’t have any time for shopping.  Now he finds himself faced with Christmas Eve and not one present has been bought.  He has his list that he had been making up all year long, he just hadn’t had the time to go shopping.  Every time he was ready to go, the local sheriff called on him to mentor some of the folks staying in his sleep over place.  Sometimes life deals you lemons you know.

So, Ol Grizz decides he HAS to go shopping and he is running clear out of time.  He goes to Walmart with his list.

Now picture the scene in the store.  The aisles are pretty much empty of customers, as it is late in the store.  The workers are getting excited to think their shift is almost done and they can go home and enjoy Christmas Eve with family and friends.  And suddenly the door swings open and in walks Soda Grizz with a long list in his hand.

He approaches the first clerk he sees and asks if she knows were he can find…and he reads the first thing on his list…she directs him to the place most likely to find that item.  He goes there in his slow gaited way and picks it up.  All the employees eyes are on him as now he is THE ONLY patron in the store.

He slowly approaches another employee and asks about the second thing on his list…she kindly walks him to the place to find that item.  Soon Soda Grizz has every employee in the store helping him find things.  The list is torn in several pieces with employees running helter skelter through the store picking up the items on their portion of the list.

Meanwhile Grizz is talking and telling jokes to the lady that is running the cash register.  The other employees are bringing the items to that line and the lady is ringing them up one by one.  Grizz is a very happy shopper at this late hour on Christmas Eve and gladly pays for the items as the other employees bring them.

Now you should be able to see just what a gentleman old Soda Grizz is.  He is smiling at each of the employees and thanking them one by one.  I’ll bet there has not been one other Walmart in the world that has had a single customer say thank you and  Merry Christmas to every employee working on Christmas Eve, than the one in Soda Springs Idaho.

A real heart warming story don’t you think?

Bears Butt

Dec. 9, 2012

There is always a lot of talk about long range shooting and of course I am one who likes to think I can “make that shot”.  A whole bunch of ethics is involved when taking those long range shots at game animals and I hope you don’t think I would like to wound an animal by taking that out of range shot.  But, in shooting paper, balloons, metal targets and the like, those long range shots are really fun.

There are long range shooting companies around the Northern Utah area.  One has a shooting golf course set up and you have 18 different targets to shoot at and they vary in distances.  One is out to 1,000 yards.

Another guy has a two day course he teaches that he guarantees you will group shots out to 1,000 yards by the end of the second and final day of the course, or your money back.

There is a shooting club that shoots mostly the old Quigley blackpowder cartridges and they too shoot out near the 1,000 yard mark.  There must be something magical about 1,000 yards.  And when you think about it that is 3,000 feet….with 5,280 feet in one mile…that equates to almost 6/10ths of a mile….for sure well over 1/2 a mile away…dang that is a long ways.

I could hit a target out that far with my 54 cal. rifle…….if the target was big enough.

So, with todays military fighting in very strange lands it has become a necessity to take down the king pins by shooting them at distances where they don’t have a clue that they are being aimed at.  We have seen the videos on the web of our guys shooting the “bad guys” out to 1,200 yards and more.  I’m glad these sharpshooters are on our side.  There is nothing new about the long range shooters as it was and has been done in nearly every war known to man.  Even if the weapon was a bow.  How about David and Goliath?  I’m sure David would have considered his rock throwing ability with his leather thong a long distance shot at Goliath’s head.

So, now someone has invented an aiming device that is sure to take the world by storm.   A scope mounted on your rifle that takes all the guess work out of your shot.  You first acquire the target and push a button…it marks your target and then you squeeze the trigger….the next time the reticle inside the scope crosses the mark you placed on the target, the gun fires and the projectile hits right where you marked it.  And they claim it is accurate to 1,200 yards!  Amazing.

I had a discussion with Wapiti last week.  He related a “gang banger” story about two rival gangs in one of our big cities shooting nearly 1,000 rounds (there is that 1,000 number again) at each others gang members and not one person was hit during the ma-lay.  Hard to believe isn’t it?  Later he was talking to a local police officer about it and the suggestion was brought up to teach those two gangs of people some “aiming techniques”…take a few of them out and maybe there wouldn’t be such a gang problem…..just a thought.

So perhaps this invention will do just that…just another thought.

After you view this video you too might come to the same conclusion as I have, is this a good thing?

It is in the right hands.

Bears Butt

Dec. 9, 2012

I knew they made them, but never thought about using them:

http://www.yourepeat.com/watch/?v=wht6OMKBdc4

Enjoy!

Bears Butt

Dec. 8, 2012

I just checked on my site status and there are only 8 states in the USA that have not had at least one person visit this site!  I think that is wonderful!

Come on the rest of the USA get with the Bears Butt Program!!!  😉

Bears Butt

Dec. 8, 2012

Current Utah weather, colder, 35 degrees, 1:10 p.m., snow level dropping down the mountain towards the valley floor.

Today is National Take it in the Ear day and for the life of me I can not figure it out.  So, watch this and maybe you will be able to tell me what the day is supposed to be.

Thanks!

Bears Butt

Dec. 8, 2012

National Cotton Candy Day!  What a wonderful thing to play with.  Cotton Candy is sticky, gets everywhere as you try and eat it and it melts so quickly in your mouth you aren’t really sure you just ate some.

Well, we just don’t have a carnival anywhere close by right now, so let’s see if we can make some at home.

Make sure it’s ok with the mom or wife or make sure you have LOTS of time for clean up after you try this at home.  Remember just how sticky it is when you are at the carnival…well this is the real thing and it’s going to be just as sticky and you are going to have it everywhere.  Maybe you should make a party out of it and you and your spouse just don’t wear any clothes while you are making this.  Then after you have made it and eaten it all, just go jump in the shower.  That would be the easiest way to handle it.

Enjoy the day for sure.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/videos/easy-homemade-cotton-candy/28833.html

Bears Butt

Dec. 7, 2012

Sometimes things happen by accident that can cause a whole heap of problems and I have just heard of one.  In this day and age you would think these things would have already been ironed out, but not yet on this one.

I heard about this on the Utah Wildlife Network Forum just this very day.  It involves the border between Utah and Idaho, not far from where I am sitting right now.

A little history:  Utah was made a state in 1896 and of course there needed to be a defined boundary of the extent of the states exterior.  After all Utah could have stretched all the way to the Pacific Ocean if the political powers had wanted it to.  But because of the nature of the people residing there, they wished they could contain them in as small a space as they could.  And besides, there wasn’t much good land West of Salt Lake City anyway, so let the boundary be way out there in the salt desert somewhere.  Let the Southern boundary be covered by the deep gorge that is naturally down that way and then because the Idaho territory had already defined  its Southern edge as the 42nd parallel, let the Northern edge of Utah be that same parallel.

Yes, there are some other adjustments needing to be made, but we can work them out later on.

So, the boundary between Colorado and Utah was defined and surveyed beginning at the point where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah all come together.  The four corners…Someone piled some rocks up there and said…this is it!

Then the survey guys started to head straight North from there…oops…they got off a bit somewhere when someone during the night tripped over the survey dealie they had been working with during the day causing it to point in a slightly Westerly direction when the work resumed the next morning.  Nobody was to the wise and so that border got all messed up and still is today.  That is not the point of this writing.  What is, is about to be divulged.

Just East of a point slightly North of the town of Portage, Utah on the East side of Interstate 15 is the point of this discussion.  It was said that the 42nd parallel would be the South border of the Idaho territory at the time.  That seems like a reasonable thing to be saying and for a surveyer to define and poke sticks in the ground marking such a nice straight line  that extends all the way around the earth, I might add, would be an easy thing to do.

BUT….right where I just pointed to is a mistake.  By whom?  I can’t say but I’ll tell you about it and you decide…I like things that happen and you decide, because it takes the blame off me.  I’ll tell you what I think later on.

Ok, so here are these survey guys called “Hansen”, they have been surveying for a whole lot of years and they know everything about the job they do.  They have specialists that do nothing but call the shots and others who run and poke sticks in the ground and they charge a lot of money to do just that.  On this particular surveying job they were high up on the mountain trying to figure out how to go in a straight line across a deep gorge and get exactly where they needed to be on the other side.  It’s rocky and craggy and filled with poisonous snakes and wild critters and so they decided to cross at a point somewhat sooner than perhaps their instruments were telling them they had to cross.  It was easier that way and safer too I might add.  (All of this is my speculation, because the instruments they had were the best of the best at the time even for 1896, the year the survey took place).  So, they poked their sticks in the ground and went on about their business and reported to the authorities their findings, collected up their cash and headed out the door.

But HOLD ON a minute here.  Something does not look right.  I’m standing on the 42nd parallel and it aint straight.  There is a crook in it right here in front of me.  And it goes to my right as I am looking due West along this 42nd parallel line.  What is going on?  I will need another survey company to come and check this out.  So I gather up another bucket of cash and call on a guy named “Sonnenkalb”, a German survey guy who knows EVERYTHING there is to know about surveying and he and his company have the “German version” of the best of the best in surveying equipment.  It has to be better than what Hansen had and he will make sure the line is good and straight and he will pick up all of Hansens sticks that were poked in the ground and everything will be a good as it can be.

So Sonnenkalb goes out and uses his vast knowledge to survey the 42nd parallel as best as it can be surveyed only it is now two years later than Hansens time at it.  The year is 1898.  What could have possibly changed in two years?  Maybe climbing equipment, or men with more courage than two years earlier.  Perhaps they were being paid more to do more daring things.  Whatever the reason, Sonnenkalb and his crew made their line really straight, long past when Hansens crew decided the snakes and critters were too much to handle if they continued to go straight, and they ended up coming across Hansens sticks poked in the ground and their equipment was telling them all was well and they had marked the 42nd parallel perfectly straight and so, this new series of poked in the ground sticks is THE place that marks the exact border between Utah (the new state) and the territory of Idaho.

HOLD ON AGAIN!  Ok, so I walk West along Sonnenkalbs line, I pass the place where the Hansens went to my right, but now Sonnenkalbs line is going to my right just like Hansens did.  What is with this?  Isn’t the 42nd parallel parallel?  How can something that is parallel with something else have a jog in it?  Mathematically it can’t.  Logically it can’t.  According to Martha Stewart it can’t.  According to my gut it can’t.

And so, the money divy-out-ers decided that two survey companies did the best they could to define the 42nd parallel and both of them have jogs in their lines, and they are not about to pay a third company to try and straighten out the 42nd parallel with sticks poked in the ground.  So now the dilemma.  Is the Hansen jog correct or is the Sonnenkalbs jog correct?  Here is what it looks like via Google Earth…the lines are approximate according to my survey eye….I think as closely approximated as both Hansens and Sonnenkalbs….of course in my humble opinion.

Let’s look closer at the issue:

Hansens line is the yellow one, while Sonnenkalbs is the bluer of the two.

A trapezoidal piece of ground that could put you into Utah, or it could have you paying taxes to Idaho.

I looked extensively at the internet and could not find where either state had agreed to which survey was the most accurate, however someone on the forum said that Idaho honored Sonnenkalbs and that was probably because Sonnenkalb was a company licensed in Idaho and the company president resided in one of Idahos favored cities.  On the other hand Utah had the Hansens licensed and living in their fair state.

I question now, why the two surveys were not just averaged and that piece of jog agreed upon by all parties concerned, but it has not been averaged and to this day the folks at the U.S. Geological Survey office and all their Geographic Information Specialists are accepting Sonnenkalbs survey as “The La One” that is the most accurate, mostly because it was “the last one done”, with no regard to the Hansen survey…was their any dispute handling in court?  Were the Hansens even brought in for questioning and given a chance to prove their survey is the more accurate?  I think theirs IS more accurate than Sonnenkalbs and that means a lot to me.

So, if my judgement holds true that Hansens survey is the more accurate and Idaho people think Sonnenkalbs is more accurate, that would make this trapezoidal piece of ground located in neither Utah nor Idaho and if I wanted I could go and claim it as my own state, make myself governor and grow a cash crop on it,  if I so choose…right?   The Trapezoidal State of Bears Butt.  No roads, No taxes, No nothing.  A right to work state where everyone is required to carry a side arm and speak English.

Maybe I should check the county records of each state first to find out if someone owns it before I go put up my sticks and begin protecting my borders.

Bears Butt

Dec. 6, 2012

Utah Wildlife Board meeting today…Wapiti and I are heading down to see if they assign the DWR my proposal to study…..More to come after the meeting.

Bears Butt

Dec. 6, 2012

1:15 p.m.

Wapiti and I had a safe trip down to SLC for the meeting.  It was already well underway when we arrived, but we got there in time for the RAC’s to give their reports.  The Northern and Central RAC’s reported what they did and both reported my proposal action item.

When the Wildlife Board got to it, they unanimously approved the proposal to the DWR as an action item and so it will be investigated and later brought back before the Wildlife Board for an action on their part.

When the meeting broke for a short break I was approached by Robert Byrnes, Northern RAC chairman and he explained the steps that will follow via the DWR.  He expects the proposal to be assigned to a DWR specialist who will begin the actions necessary to conduct the investigation.  We talked for almost the entire break time about the things needing to be done.  He said that when he hears of who the person is that gets my assignment, he will email it to me and then I can stay in contact with them about the progress.

So, things look pretty good to have antelope hunting on the list of animals to hunt with a muzzleloader beginning, quite possibly by 2014.

YEEEHAAAA!

Later, outside the DWR office we were met by Tye Bolter and Jason Lowe, who were both just getting to the meeting.  Tye said that before long he thinks the United Wildlife Cooperative will get behind my proposal in an official way.

Another big plus for support!

Thanks to all!

Bears Butt

Dec. 6, 2012