Survival: Harvey the Hero, Nugget the Wise, the friendly flock

Winter is a cruel time on the farm.  We have had frozen duck ponds, and heat lamps on the rabbits every night.  We lost our sweet mother duck Norman the weekend after Thanksgiving.  It has been a particularly brutal winter for predators.  The coop that was built for our chickens years ago is in need of repair.  The chickens have never really used it.  They roost on top of it or on the rabbit hutches.  It is a cute sight to see.  The ducks have never used the coop, so we effectively have a big empty wooden box in our backyard.  We have always considered the risk of predators real, but have never lost so many animals as we have this year.  With money being tight and the weather being either bone chilling or completely wet we decided to winterize and rebuild in the spring.  Nature is testing us.

It was late at night.  Well, maybe it was early in the morning.  Carly and I were enjoying a rare night of playing video games when I heard her.  "Clock Bok Bok Bok" our old lady chicken, Nugget was sounding her alarm.  I saw through the back window that the flock of ducks was upset and on the move.  I shouted "No!" and ran to the door but saw nothing.  As I settled down into the couch I heard her call again, loud and intense, "Bok BOK, ACK!" Now Harvey was at my side. Carly was coming behind me and I threw the door open again.  Harvey darted out in a sprint and we heard a scream that sounded like neither cat nor rabbit.  With his long white canine teeth, Harvey charged a raccoon the size of a small dog.  The raccoon screamed again and took to the fence.  Barking and chasing he stood at the foot of a tree as I came running out with a broom handle in my hand.  Honestly, I have no idea why I was outside in the middle of the night in a bathrobe with a broomstick.  Racoons are terrifying.  I wouldn't want to engage one in hand to hand combat.  As I ran out, Nugget had run in.

  

Nugget is a wise old girl.  She molts every year at this time.  It is gross and inconvenient that she is lush and full in the hottest months of the year but then molts in the bitter months.  She is independent and one of our old ladies.  Other than Bobby, a chicken we just lost to a predator, she is my favorite.  With the bravery to run at a man running out of a door, she ran into our kitchen.  As I stood on our patio and continued to encourage Harvey like the boy from Where the Red Fern Grows I could hear that Carly was talking to the birds.  I could hear the sounds of quacks and the flap flap flapping of feet on our hardwood floor.  Nugget paved the trail to freedom for our flock of ducks.  I now had seven ducks and a chicken in our kitchen. 

Pandemonium and calm is the life of a duck.  Our ducks really are a flock.  When they are disjointed it is pandemonium.  There is quacking, flapping, and chaos.  Feathers fly, and the air is filled with noise.  But when they settle into their flock it is very calm.  Male ducks don't quack.  They make a low noise like the cross between a bird noise and a cat purring.  When the flock is calm they make the most noise.  Harvey was still out on the hunt as we watched the flock settle in the kitchen.  Carly marveled at how the males all surrounded the youngest female.  Their mother had just died a few weeks ago and I wonder if they felt some biological compulsion to protect their line.  Our older ducks were all on the outside.  I thought about our lost mamma duck Norman and confirmed my belief that she was protecting her flock and I missed her.  Nugget stood off from the flock, old and wise.  She tucked one foot into her body and tried to sleep.  Harvey gave up the hunt and was now fogging up the back door.  We decided to get dressed and go make a headcount for the other chickens and make sure the rabbits were fine.  Evidence of the scuffle was everywhere and we saw feathers all over the yard.  One chicken was missing.  Dreading the gruesome confirmation of death by raccoon we walked around the yard only to see a very scared chicken tucked and hidden into the corner of where house and fence met.  I'm certain that Harvey saved this lady's life.

 

So often in this farm experiment I look for the moral lesson in Nature.  As I feel embarrassed that I am not able to be a better steward of my birds is Nature forcing me to pay the toll?  Raccoons need to eat.  They are part of nature, but when I find a dead bird the next day it is hard for me to say that it is nature's to take, I want it to be mine.  Is the lesson that Harvey is an actual farm dog and his instincts to bark that we find so obnoxious were exactly what was needed to save the flock?  Maybe the lesson is that a flock is made to protect the weak, and that the loss of one of our ducks is not sad, just nature.  Or maybe the lesson is that Nugget survives because she is a wise old bird who refuses to be dinner.  The more I think though, the more I think there is no lesson.  Nature happens.  Life happens.  Sometimes the lesson is the experience.  It is watching life happen and knowing all that is around you a little better. 

Dear Henry

Dear Henry:

                You’ve only written to me a handful of times but I want you to know what you’ve done.  When I read Walden I was just another person.  All I cared to do was amass what I could to feel successful, fulfilled, and complete.  I read what you wrote me because I wanted to read American classics.  Nothing else has affected me like you.  The rest were all books.  You wrote me a letter.

                I wonder Henry, if you would see simplicity when you walked in my door.  You had the stillness of solitude.  I have a wife, kids, work outside the home, and college at night.  I will not trade them, but they are far from simplicity.  So I ask you, Henry, am I doing alright?  Every morning when I walk out to my car I watch my small farm clamor around me and I appreciate them.  I don’t curse the fir needles on my car.  I notice the grass turn from green to brown and back to green, finally to be covered under frost in the dead of winter.  I look at the fruit trees I planted and the simple garden and delight in their growth; then I look at the fir trees planted by God and realize how little I am master of Nature.  You see, you forced me to take heed of nature all around me.  Portland is my Concord, the pond is the cross streets of 179^th Avenue and Washington Street; that is where my house is, my cabin.  You understand.

                Henry, I have to say in all I have learned from you I have something against you.  In all I learned from you about simplicity I am burdened to achieve this feat.  The promises of convenience tie me down until I am eventually wrapped in a tangled net of empty assurances that my life will be better once I have their products.  I try to clip the web but it is so difficult.  So what I have against you is that you made me see that there is a hole in the net.  On the other side of that hole is a place that is full of God and Nature.  That humanity’s problems can’t be solved by wars and that the mere thought of claiming a country outside of the very place you live is futile at best.  I feel the net tighten and I put my finger in the webbing and tug.  Perhaps there are some that don’t see it as a net.  They may see it as a blanket and they wrap themselves in the warmth of consuming all the trappings of commerce.  I know I’m being strangled.  You showed me this burden, this truth.   Therefore I hold something against you.

                The truth is; I love you.  I can no more hold my burden against you than I could be angry at a botanist for telling me some plant I wanted to eat was poison.  I love you for telling me that I was poisoning myself and I love that you did it one hundred fifty years in advance.  I love that when I talk about you the people I love smile and the people I hate roll their eyes.  I wish we could save them all.  That simply isn’t going to happen; maybe I shouldn’t judge the saved and unsaved.  This is no religion.  If you were writing doctrine then I don’t want it.  I don’t want to make your words theology.  Eventually they would get dogmatic and cold.  I do want to tell you how I love you and your words. Thank you for they have changed my life.

Simply yours,

Matt

My Plea for Food: This Land is Made for You and Me

It happened on the way to the grocery store.  It is one of Carly and my favorite places to go.  Some use retail therapy to feel better about their self-image.  They spend money on a new outfit or gadget and feel a temporary rush of excitement.  This isn’t really our style.  We enjoy lingering through the grocery store taking the money that we have budgeted to make the most diverse, healthy, and exciting menus we can each week.  Going to the grocery store is a necessity.  Everyone goes, and their values and budgets are shown in each wire cart.  The problem is that not everyone has the budget to meet their values, or even most basic needs.  Eating is a necessity.  So on the way to one of our favorite places to buy our beloved groceries I asked Carly the simple question, “Do people have the right to eat?”

                She paused for a moment.  I felt her thinking as the air grew in tension and then she said, “of course.”  We decided that food stamps were an important program that was excellent for the people that needed it.  It also has been implied that food stamps are not a permanent solution for people.  I think that a universal food program should go above and beyond any existing system.  It should be for everyone.  Anyone who didn’t want it could use their benefit to donate to local food banks or other charitable organizations; or they could simply not use it.  We walked through caverns of food at the grocery store discussing how utopian it would be if those that didn’t have a dollar in their pocket could walk into a grocery store and at least get minimal sustenance without ever having to apply for food stamps.  We also agreed that something like this should have happened long before we ever had national healthcare.

In spite of the failure for national healthcare to take off we both believe that healthcare is the right of all people in a developing citizenry that has the wealth and conscience to take care of one another.  The constitution is clear in setting a societal framework for a better existence.  In our country we seek to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”  For the sake of our extreme wealth and existing infrastructure it only seems just for more people to have access to healthcare.  Given the fact that heart disease and cancer each wipe out nearly 600,000, disease is a major problem in America.  Obviously everyone dies eventually, so it is impossible to prevent all death; however how many of these deaths could have been prevented or better treated by having a more accessible healthcare system?  Additionally, the hunger problem creates the need to have a healthcare system that treats diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease, all epidemics in communities without access to healthy food.  If America thinks it is saving lives by having a military presence in exchange for an infrastructure that provides both food and healthcare we are greatly mistaken.  Consider a foreign enemy in comparison.  In 2011 only 17 terrorism related deaths occurred for private citizens and all of these happened out of the country.  Furthermore, to continue to use 2011 as an example, 566 military died in Afghanistan and 54 died in Iraq.  It seems clear to me that the common defense is not a foreign enemy but a culture that perpetuates disease by both lifestyle and inability to access the healthcare and food already available.

                But this blog isn’t about healthcare.  We already have national healthcare that is in attempts to be implemented.  It is good – well, it could be good and we should make it a value for our culture.  We have gotten our priorities wrong.  We need a universal food program.  It doesn’t take much to realize that there is a tremendous amount of people that are in unemployed poverty in addition to a huge amount of working poor in this country.  In 2012, 49 million Americans, nearly 15% of all households experienced food insecurity.  Insecurity!  We live in an environment where food is everywhere.  It is sold on the street and grows all over.  It rots on shelves and is refined into the snacks and treats we think nothing of.  As the richest nation in history we have 15% of our population insecure about how they might access their next meal, yet our attitude toward food is as if it were a given.  We live in a world that has the capability to feed everyone.  As the richest nation in the history of humanity it is embarrassing that there are people that are hungry inside our country and that we are not doing more to feed the destitute.  Globally we have the capability to produce 17% more calories than what the entire world needs to eat.  Today it is difficult to think beyond America. Things like national sovereignty and other arbitrary ideas keep us from extending humane policy throughout the globe.  We need to start somewhere.  Let’s focus on America.

                America could put food on everyone’s table without much in the way of security sacrifice or new taxation.  When you are born in the United States you are given a Social Security card; essentially a government insurance card that protects against disaster and insures a modicum of financial help late in life.  Why aren’t we doing this with food?  Let’s think of things this way, a national food plan wouldn’t insure that every person would be entitled to steak and lobster.  Consider this, if everyone was given a flat amount of food allowance per month, call it eighty bucks; then people could figure out how to eat and not be hungry.    As of 2012, 25% of American families spent less than $100 a week on groceries, meaning a family of four on a tight grocery budget could take advantage of a universal food program and need to provide very little out of pocket cash to feed their family.  In the same way that social security is available to all citizens, I believe that universal food should also be available and that there should be no sliding scale based on income.  For some, extra help would still be needed and I would want programs like WIC and food stamps to remain in place the way they are currently.  Universal food would be a program for everyone, regardless of income, and those that needed more would still have access to additional help.  Anyone that didn’t want it could easily donate it to local food banks or even international efforts to expand the work of feeding those in need.

                There are some very specific stipulations I would make if I were in charge of setting up a universal food program.  First of all, I wouldn’t only encourage people to go to farmer’s markets as the current system does, but I would make seeds and canning supplies also available.  Our society is far from agriculture after both the industrial and information revolutions.   Food has become something that is in a store.  In a few generations we have forgotten that food comes from the ground, or from the life of an animal.  The food that we eat is wrapped and packaged in ways that make it completely unrecognizable in nature.  It is as if we have forgotten that we were once part of an ecosystem.  By making seeds available perhaps we could have an agricultural renaissance, increasing the food supply and showing the value of food for those who have never seen things grow.  I would also penalize certain foods with an automatic tax against the benefit.  In other words, one could buy a head of lettuce for regular price on their universal food card, but if they wanted something highly processed like candy or potato chips then there would be a penalty that was charged in addition to the shelf price.  The penalty could be used to finance the food program or to finance national healthcare.  After all, it is things like highly processed food that causes many of our health problems in the first place.  By having a food program that not only feeds the hungry but discourages the populace from eating things that are killing them we would not only be “providing for the common defense,” from disease, but also “promote the general welfare” of every person’s right to eat a meal.

                With our tremendous wealth one might think that a program like this would be easy to implement.  National interests have convinced the populace that we are overtaxed, in spite of much evidence that supports the contrary.  With approximately 317 million people living in this country, offering $80 a month ($960 a year) to everyone is a pretty hefty bill.  In fact, it is a $304 billion annual bill.  I think that some more corporate taxation to fund this program is appropriate.  We could start with companies that make the junk food that fills the cupboards of so many American homes.  A 1% tax of core net revenue from  Pepsico alone would bring in $650 million.  That may only be a paltry $2 per person, but if Coca-cola, Nestle, and other major food processors were included in these figures revenue could certainly generate a number of dollars to help create such a program.  Yes, the corporations would likely pass the taxes on to the consumer but would it really wreck your life if you had to spend $1.69 instead of $1.59 on a 20oz. Dr. Pepper?  I would gladly pay more for the vice foods I choose if it meant that I would have a monthly food benefit and that my posterity would have it as well.  In all honesty though, taxation alone is not the answer.  We need to look at expenses that have become unnecessary.  The United States still spends $20 billion a year on maintaining our nuclear arsenal.  As a nation, we have dwarfed the rest of the world in nuclear armament and could stand to disarm.  How many times do over do we need to prove that we can blow up the entire world?  Cutting our nuclear budget could help us finance food without marginalizing our military power at all.  In fact, if we compared our military spending to the rest of the world we could cut our expense in half and still outspend every nation in the world.  In 2012 the United States spent $645.7 billion on defense.  The next closest spender was $314.9 billion dollars by the continent of Asia.  Yes, continent.  That means if we are concerned about nations like North Korea and China we are already outspending both of those nations and all other nations in the continent by more than double.  It seems to me that if we trimmed our military budget by half we could still be on the forefront of defense from a foreign enemy and provide for defense against disease and hunger.  $300 billion dollars for food divided between 317 million people averages out to about $80 a month.  Funny how that all works out.

                I can’t claim to be an economist, military analyst, or foreign policy expert.  I can however do a little research and see that from a cost-benefit analysis perspective, Americans are not getting the most out of their tax dollar.  The truth of the matter is that if cutting the military budget in half meant that veterans would lose benefits then I would be against that.  On the other hand, if a handful of soldiers lost their jobs because nuclear weapons were disarmed, I wouldn’t lose too much sleep.  We need to be a nation of feeding, not one of fear.

                Many people have thrown the word ‘socialist’ around with a negative stigma with the development of national healthcare.  I think that we should remember that having a social security card, calling the police when you are in trouble, calling firefighters when there is an emergency, and attending public school are all forms of socialism.  These are values that we have embraced over generations and to feel anything other than entitlement to receive them seems foolish.  To decry the entitlements of living in this country is to deny the value our culture has placed on humanity.  To make a mockery of those that need the general welfare is to make a mockery of the most vulnerable humans in our culture, it is regressive and unnecessary.

                In the end, I guess I like socialism.  I like the idea of the collective conscious having a collective conscience.  I like the idea that every person, regardless of income or age has the right to access food.  I like the idea that we could encourage people to eat better and grow their own food and take the first step to sustainability.  I remember being told, you can’t pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you don’t have any boots.  This is true.  I think a major component to the poverty this country suffers isn’t that people won’t get housing, food, and work – it’s that they can’t.  Or if they can get one, they may have to sacrifice another.  I’ve looked at my paycheck before and had to decide whether it would be rent or food.  Carly and I have had lean weeks in order to make certain that food was available when the kids came home.  We are not destitute; this is what people do to make certain that there is food.  It doesn’t have to be this way.  Conversely, we have the bounty of our yard, the provision of employment, and creativity to be generally fed.  I know that I have come into this life with advantages that others have not.  For the goodness of humanity I can feel nothing but duty and love to share my wealth and my table with those that have less and need more. 

                I remember hearing “This Land is Your Land” as a child and it felt like any other patriotic song.  It mentioned geography, “redwood forests, gulfstream waters,” very much like, “purple mountain majesties, for amber waves of grain,” just a song about America.  As I have grown the song has also grown in meaning and depth for me.  This land is my land, this government is my government.  The constitution does not say, “We the corporations,” or “We the military,” it doesn’t even say, “We the legislature” and yet we act as if these forces control our lives.  It says, “We the people.”  We are the government and yet we complain about the government and act as if we are victims of the state.  The government has become something far off in Washington when the actuality is that we have abdicated our power as the people to control the dealings of the state.  I have a better idea.  Let’s be people that have control of their government.  When the state does not follow our values then we should create our own infrastructure and our own system.  The fact of the matter is that we need to do both.  We need to demand both.  We need to move our values outside the state while also forcing the state to comply with what is best for humanity.  This land is made for you and me.  Let’s live as if it is ours and share it for the benefit of all.  Let’s share our wealth and our food and set an example of benevolence for the rest of humanity.

The Farm is hard... writing is hard

Let me tell you something folks, the farm is hard.  Writing about it is also hard.  As much as I want to be a sustainable, urban farmer, I even more want to be a writer that people want to read.  I want to learn from my own words and watch the world grow along with me.  I want to expunge all the words that build up, the things I learn each day, things I find fascinating.  Not because I think I'm going to teach you anything, because what in the world can I teach any of you?  How to have a rabbit warren?  A chicken flock?  How about a ten month crop season?  I can’t.  I am so excited to tell you all I have learned something; that I have grown.  Narcissism is a funny characteristic.  Unfortunately it is a thing that I find myself dabbling in.  It is easy to learn something new and then act like it is something I have known all along, something that I can benevolently share to all of you suburbanites who don’t have farms.  What a ruse.  Let me tell you folks, most every blog has come on the tail of a first time discovery, there is no expertise, we are learning and so excited to tell you what is happening.

                Today I looked out on an endless sea of ink wanting to make my words matter.  It is so easy to think that the things you say are important, that the art you produce is unique, that the music you play is special, in the end; it seems to have an air of meaninglessness.  Just like the seeds that never germinate or the fruit that falls on the ground and is never eaten so many good things are left to never sprout, never be consumed, left to fall by the wayside, left to give nutrients to the next season’s crop.

                Sure we have done new things on the farm, we have hatched ducklings, we have pickled our fall harvest, we have planted crops to overwinter, but we don’t have it all together.  Far from it!  We lost three ducklings to predators, we still, STILL, can’t keep our chickens contained and lost our fall crop to their beaks, our yard is a mess, and there is no reason to feign some expertise. 

                Most of our lives we spend time selling everyone else that we are the experts in our field.  The truth is we are just learning, and when we start thinking we are experts and stop learning then all of our creativity starts to grind into oblivion.  It is easy to lie about the things in which we think we are experts but in contrast it is easy for us to be candid about the things we find meaningless.  In the obscure Bob Dylan song, “On the Road Again” he says, “Don’t ask me nothing about nothing and I just might tell you the truth.”  I think this is where we find honesty in most people, when they talk about nothing.  Otherwise we are all in the midst of selling our expertise.  It isn’t wrong; it is just in our nature.  Humility is not a skill that comes naturally to most, but dear God does it make the world bigger and better than living out of our own understanding.  Our lives get bigger when we grow from the lives of others, this is farming.  We can’t fake expertise.

Plants grow and are harvested.  Animals grow and are eaten.  Seasons change.  But the churning of learning and growing does not die in the individual; it is passed through humanity, for growth in community, understanding in nature, and communion with God.  Posterity grows when we have the humility to learn and teach the humility for others to receive. 

Monday

                Most of the house is quiet at Rosefield farm in the morning.  “Most” is a tricky word.  If you brush most of your teeth then you haven’t done a good job.  If you washed most of the dish then the dish is still dirty.  Often the word most is equated to good enough.  This morning most isn’t good enough.  In a childless house there is really no reason to wake up before 7:00.  My alarm is set for 7:15 with the expectation of a push of the snooze button.  I start like a freight train in the morning.  I huff and blow steam, it takes a while for my engine to get going, nine more minutes is typically enough to get the coal in the engine and the fire of my brain starts to roll.  The farmer stereotype of waking at dawn is lost on Rosefield.  If I had my way we would work past dusk every night but wake with the sun high in the sky.  We like the night.  I like that our farm can be worked in the streetlights.  So we stay up late and wake late when we can.  With no kids in the house the early morning bustle that would usually be present is mostly silent.  Mostly.

                My 7:15 alarm had competition before it vibrated on my nightstand.  The obnoxiously angelic strumming of a harp had the opening act of an orange cat.  I could hear her thump up against our hollow core bedroom door. “Ow, Rowr, Ow,” was what she had to say.  My alarm went off and I hit the snooze to steal my nine minutes, to put coal in my fire.  It’s Monday, this train will be slow today.  “Ow, Rowr, Rowr, ROWR,” and thump, thump, thump.  The cat calls like a conductor insisting that I get up, that it’s time to go.  Cursing I toss of my blanket, I remind Carly of my love for her and I open the door to my orange nemesis.  Her eyes are brownish copper in her head like two pennies fixed on me, she walks ahead and then lingers, walks ahead and then lingers.  What once was the call of a conductor is now more the screams of a junkie.  I open the door to the garage where the cats are fed and she yowls and moans.  As I pour her food she purrs.  Her tongue laps up the cat food selfishly and I can hear the moisture in her mouth.  Her teeth crunch the food and clack against the plastic bowl.  I hate her.  My snooze goes off and I’m reminded that my nine minutes have been stolen by this damn cat.

                As I walk into the kitchen I set down my phone so I can let Harvey out of his new kennel.  Unlike his occasional morning pacing he seems at peace behind the closed door.  I swoop up his dish and squeeze the latch on his door.  Opening the fridge I scoop a generous portion for my obedient dog.  His long hair is brushing up against my naked leg and I feel the cold of his nose touch the back of my thigh.  The cool of the refrigerator and the nose to the back of the leg hardly wakes me up.  In his normal ceremony of “sit, go” the dog is fed.  A much more gracious recipient than his cat sister.  Damn cat.  My brain is a little closer to awake and I think of something clever for Facebook.  Where the hell is my phone?  Why didn’t I pee before feeding the stupid cat?  Or the dog?  My phone!  Top of the fridge, no.  On the breadboard, no.  Kitchen counter, no.  I can feel the frantic feeling of needing to pee after not going for about seven hours.  It is intense.  What about the stovetop, no.  Dear God please don’t let me pee my pants!!!  I look on top of the pantry and snatch up my phone.  Dashing to the bathroom I get some time to myself.

                After a shower I am ready to go.  There is no coffee, no paper, and no toast for me.  I don’t want a farmer’s breakfast; there is no reason to linger.  One more kiss for Carly and the other two cats follow me out to the garage where the orange one sits smugly over a food dish that is over halfway consumed.  I’m still disgusted.  The house is no longer mostly silent.  It is fully awake.  The outside animals, probably awake since dawn, have seen the motion of the house.  I can hear the birds before I reach the door.  Our big white duck no longer restrains her “gup, gup, gups,” exploding into a “QUACK ACK ACK ACK ACK ACK!!!”  Scooping a big scoop of poultry feed the selfish orange cat thinks she is being fed again.  She is wrong.  I flip the feed onto the ground and half a dozen birds descend on the ground around me gobbling up the pellet intensely.  Noise is everywhere.   All of the cats having eaten have wandered into the yard; the birds are making the sounds of eating while mixing in squawks and clucks.  To make certain they are not forgotten the definitive thump of a rabbit foot pounds the bottom of the hutch.  Again I return to the garage.  Again the orange cat thinks she is being fed.  A scoop of rabbit feed is distributed amongst hutches and cages.  It is finally done and the farm hums with life.  In a few hours Carly will get up and do this whole process again.  The farm wakes us up.  It makes us move.  It hums.  Silence is a precious commodity.

                People go to work to feed their family.  I feed more animals before I go to work than most people do all week.  It is common vernacular for someone to be known as a breadwinner or someone that brings home the bacon.  Feeding is important, it creates a bond and having dependents creates the appropriate pressure to work hard and provide.  It is humbling to be in charge of feeding the house each morning.  I don’t only buy the feed, but I put it in front of all their mouths.  It gives me something to work for.  The kids aren’t like them.  They are autonomous, partners in the family that take their responsibility when they are home.  I love that about them.  I respect them for that.  It isn’t like that for the animals.  The animals depend on us, on me.  I’ll wake up for their maintenance.  I’ll do it gladly.  Except for the orange cat.  I still hate her.