Posted on 03/03/2018 5:50:14 AM PST by RoosterRedux
Johan Land has a life that stands out even among Silicon Valley’s tech elite: He’s the lead product manager at Waymo (formerly known as Google’s self-driving car project), a job that keeps him glued to computer screens and fixated on the future.
Excelling at his work, Land said, requires an obsessive focus on it. But maintaining that passion — especially with his fourth child on the way — means knowing when to detach. Land’s secret to success: relaxing with a glass of wine in the back yard alongside his wife, kids and the family’s 13 chickens and three sheep.
It’s mindless, he said, but far from banal.
“It’s a fascinating thing to sit and watch the animals because instead of looking at a screen, you’re looking at the life cycle,” Land said. “It’s very different from the abstract work that I do.”
In America’s rural and working-class areas, keeping chickens has long been a thrifty way to provide fresh eggs. In recent years, the practice has emerged as an unlikely badge of urban modishness. But in the Bay Area — where the nation’s preeminent local food movement overlaps with the nation’s tech elite — egg-laying chickens are now a trendy, eco-conscious humblebrag on par with driving a Tesla.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Oh, crap - they're going to destroy an important part of basic prepping by making it "trendy".
(So, hey, look at me - I'm trendy....)
Silicon Valley MBA’s, discovering what every farm kid in America grew up with for the past 300 years.
Eggzactly.
I see what you did there!
They're putting a free predator buffet in their back yard. I bet 9 out of 10 neighbors DO NOT approve.
Difficult here. Coyotes and chickens don’t mix gracefully.
At least not for the chickens...
As you say...
Any sensible person who raises chickens knows they must have a predator proof chicken coop.
humblebrag
Great new word
“It’s a fascinating thing to sit and watch the animals because instead of looking at a screen, you’re looking at the life cycle,” Land said. “It’s very different from the abstract work that I do.”
I bet dollars to donuts that they leave the slaughter part out of the family show.
I think they are raising laying hens.
laying hens get old. you’ve got to do something with them.
Don’t you eat them too?
What? They don’t have a retirement plan other than—gulp—the table?
Trendy? Damn...it’s time to get rid of the chickens!
I wonder, how long before they're eating stuffed door mice raised on a diet of milk and follow dinner with an orgy?
Not as necessary as one might think if you mix your poultry. Mine come and go as they please, no fences, no permanently shut coops. They wander the area around the farm as they choose. Geese, turkeys, chickens, ducks, and guineas.
When I moved to my farm there was a mysterious rash of velocity poisonings. From there on a few big dogs roaming about have taken care of things for the most part. At night, if the ducks start murmleing but the geese are quiet then a cat snuck past the toms, a woodchuck got up for a snack, or a skunk is picking lost eggs up in the yard. If the geese start alerting also then its a fox or coyotes and you let the dogs back out for a bit. If the sound of pursuing dogs doesnt immediately fade into the distance then you have a person size or larger threat and its time for you to respond.
Its pretty rare that Ive had any sustained or significant loss. Foxes come for the ducks in the spring if you dont keep the dogs out. Marking your territory and you marking its den is pretty effective if youre having trouble catching it. A coydog showed up and went on a killing spree one year, it showed up in the middle of the day. The next day Pa said that the last he saw it, it had lost part of its back end. A horned owl takes a duck or small turkey once a year or so but that seems small compensation for helping me with the skunks through the rest of the year.
ping
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