The Farmyard Five?

Today was an interesting day because while we were getting together for our lunch and learn Jasmine came over to us and asked if she could join us and I looked at Carmel and Carmel nodded and I looked at Petunia and Petunia nodded and I looked at Barry who was licking the fur near his bottom and his head was moving up and down as he did so and I took this as a unanimous decision and I invited Jasmine to sit with us.

We did not discuss many new things because we spent most of the time updating Jasmine on our conversations and she, too, was surprised that the humans eat so many of us and she asked about horses and I told her from my previous learnings that in some parts of the world humans did eat horses but not in the part of the world we are in so she should be safe and just check with me if she wanted to go traveling to other places. lol

But what made today interesting was that after our lunch and learn was finished Jasmine asked me if she could walk with me back to my shack and I said yes and oh boy did the chickens have a field day with that information but I paid them very little attention.

Jasmine let me know that Barry had been asking some of the animals if they thought he was a good leader and if they would like to hear him make a speech and she was not sure what to do with that information but she told him yes that she would like to hear him make a speech but then today when she also learned that I was going to be making a speech and it seemed like I did not know about Barry's speech she thought she should tell me about that previous conversation.

Barry, I know you do not read the weblogs so this is a question more for me to find the answer to than for you to reply. Barry, Barry, Barry... what are you up to?

This Is Us

I have been thinking a lot about my speech and I have been pacing this way and that way and I have been stepping so many steps that, if I do say so myself, I may even be losing a little bit of the weight that I have gained being a lazy turkey through the cold winter months.

The sun is shining today and the biggest thought about my speech is that this speech is for the animals here on this very farm. Today at lunch Petunia said something that keeps replaying in my turkey brain and what she said was this: "If we don't want people to eat us we first need to define who 'us' is."

And I thought this was very smart for several reasons and one of those reasons is that this goes beyond our little Farmyard Four group. I have been reading on google all the kinds of animals that people eat and so many of them are here on the farm and I bet the chickens don't even know how many chickens the humans eat because all they are interested in is the gossip and the latest fashions of the day and I think getting through to them will be the hardest because honestly sometimes I do not even know if they are walking towards me or walking away from me, that is how much they circle around in their little steps.

Barry seemed less enthusiastic about Petunia's comment and he is seeming less enthusiastic about me giving a speech and I think it is because his name for our little group got outvoted but also he is not on the list of animals that humans eat so I think maybe he is having a hard time understanding why this is such an important issue for Petunia, Carmel and myself.

We are trying to help him to understand but he did not say much today at lunch and he was the first to get up and leave after and maybe I should just have a chat with him one on one, turkey to cat, just to check in and see how he is really doing.

Wow

Today I was able to watch the speech called "I Have A Dream" by Martin Luther King Jr. and I watched it with the volume on very low in my shack but I cannot tell you how loud the words were in my ears.

I am not ashamed to say that I even cried a little bit.

That was a speech.

I am putting the finishing touches on my own speech and I think I will be giving it next week here on the farmyard.

I think the animals here on the farm need a voice and I think that voice should be mine and Carmel and Petunia agree and Barry doesn't say he doesn't agree but he also doesn't say that he does but that is three out of the four of the Farmyard Four and so it is enough for the motion to be carried and I have been forward as the speaker.

I am inspired now.

I only hope I can put together my words in such a way as to inspire others.

Twitter world I am back!

I am very happy to announce that the white string has returned and I am charging my cellular telephone as I write this and oh boy does that make me excited.

I also learned tonight how to reset my twitter password here on the new computer so I will be back on twitter and submitting tweets again soon.

I cannot wait to see how all my friends are doing and if you are reading my weblog please know that I have missed you all very much and I have some even more exciting things that are happening to tell you about in the next few days!

Sleep well my friends. I know that once my cellular phone has finished charging, which I am going to shorten to cellphone or cell from now on, I will sleep like a happy turkey as well.

🦃💓

I Have A Dream

I am very much missing my twitter friends and this new computer is taking some getting used to let me tell you but tonight I have read the "I Have A Dream" speech and I think I need to spend some more time on it because there are a number of words I do not understand but I do understand the main message behind the speech and this Mister Martin Luther King Jr. was a very very smart man.

Google keeps telling me to watch the speech but I cannot do so at night because the noise would most certainly wake up the man and the woman so when I can finally charge my cell phone I will find a time when the tractor is loud in the distance and I can watch it in the privacy of my own little shack because apparently it is not only a good speech but one of the best speeches of all time.

I am practicing my thoughts for my own speech and I am not ready to share them here fully yet but I will soon and would love your input when I do.

I hope you are all well. I am going to look up what a score and a creed is and what a New Hampshire is and what they might have done with the old one.

This is all new

My dear friends, the man and the woman have gone and got themselves a new computer and oh boy this evening has been a hard one for this old turkey. My patience has been tested and now I know what they mean when someone says you have the patience of a saint because I have that exactly.

I am lucky that I remembered how to get onto this weblog site but I cannot remember my password for twitter and will need to look at this another time as it is already so late.

And to make matters even worse, the white string that usually sits next to the computer is gone and the cellular phone I use has no more battery and so I cannot charge it without that white string.

If you are a twitter friend I hope you are okay and please know that I am okay and I hope to be able to fix these things soon.

Good night all you beautiful people.

The Old Tree Stump

There is an old tree stump back and behind the barn where you cannot really see it from the farmyard and today I walked over there after our lunch and learn and I hopped my turkey self right up on that stump and I could imagine that some of the animals here on the farm were standing in front of me and I was speaking to them about topics that are near and dear to this old heart and to the hearts of the Farmyard Four and they were nodding and they were agreeing with the things we were saying, things like we don't want to be eaten by people anymore.

Today at lunch we talked about making speeches and what that looks like a d how do you remember what you have to say and I have used google.com a little a bit (and by the way from now on I will shorten that to "google" or "googling" and when I use those terms just remember that I mean going to the website www.google.com and using it to search for my answers) and I learned a few things.

I learned that you can make cue cards to read from although that in itself presents some challenges. The same goes for the type of cards that someone in the back of the audience would hold up for me to read from.

Because I do not think either of those is a practical solution the best advice I found was to keep your ideas simple and organized in a way that you can speak to them naturally and then just memorize the topic headings in the order that you want to speak about them.

So, I am preparing a speech and could use a little help so if anyone out there is a good speech writing person any other tips would be very much appreciated from your old pal Goebbels.

Barry said to use lots of metaphors and none of us wanted to admit that we did not know what that was and when he left first after lunch we all asked each other but no-one knows and I have now googled it and I think I understand what a metaphor is but maybe you can help me know if I am getting it right.

If you are trying to describe something to someone and are having a hard time you can describe something else that is different from the thing you are trying to describe but it may be easier to understand and then the person can better understand your first thing.

An example I saw was that "life is a highway" and, once I googled what a highway was, I understood a little better what the person was maybe trying to communicate. Life is something that you can adopt little parts of and there is a lot of trash on the side of it. Metaphors are easy if you are a smart turkey.

I also googled what the best speech of all time is and it is the speech called "I have a dream" by Martin Luther King Jr. and it is getting late now so I will save reading about that speech for another day.

This turkey friend of yours is getting a few ideas these days let me tell you.

And I think we might actually be able to do something about them.

Forgiveness

Happy Saint Patrick's Day everyone! I understand this is a day where people who are not even Irish get to pretend to be Irish and it reminds me of how I was maybe pretending to be Irish on that dating site and that reminds me of Emma and makes me think of some of the not nice things I maybe thought and said at the end of that connection with her and all I want to say now is Emma, even if it is with bristolboi82, I hope you are well and that you are happy. 

We Are Officially The Farmyard Four

I have really been enjoying meeting with my friends every day for lunch and we had the idea that we should officially name our little group so that way if we are talking to other animals on the farm about some of our ideas they will know that we are an Official Group and yes I have capitalized this on purpose because I think Official Group sounds looks more official. I think it is the same if you capitalize anything because I mean if I were serving you lunch at a restaurant and the menu said the sandwich included cheese or Cheese would you not be more likely to order the Cheese?

Or maybe you would order the cheese anyway because from what I understand everything tastes better with cheese.

So the names we were choosing from were as follows:

The Farmyard Four

The Lunch Bunch

Barry and the Rest

Saints R Us

I will admit that I am sad that not only did Saint R Us not get any votes from my twitter friends but the others also thought it was too... now let me see... I have to google.com the word...

Ostentatious.

So we are not Saints R Us even though I am trying to lead this group towards a life of heroic virtue. Maybe it is too obvious now that I think about it. Maybe I should be more humble.

Barry and the Rest was, you guessed it right my friends, Barry's idea and none of us wanted to be the rest so it was down to Petunia's suggestion of the lunch bunch and Carmel's suggestion of the Farmyard Four. We talked about Petunia's penchant for pig cannibalism and decided that a name with a meal in it was maybe not appropriate given our recent learnings on the subject and so The Farmyard Four it is.

We have some big ideas of what we want to do around here and I cannot wait to share them all with you.

Cannibals

This has been a very disturbing night to the emotions of this turkey let me tell you.

It would seem that humans are in their very biology as I wrote about before wired to eat meat but they are also mostly wired to not eat other humans but every once in a while you have someone named Jeffrey Dahmer come along and he is just the opposite kind of wiring and if you don't know who Jeffrey Dahmer is he sounds scarier than a Dundee in my humble opinion.

I have also learned that animals can be cannibals too so when Petunia said she likes the smell of bacon it does make me question her a little bit but I am choosing to believe that she is a good pig and is not a pig kind of cannibal.

I saw some pictures tonight let me tell you.

I don't even want to write about it if I am being honest and if you want to know more you should go to google.com and type the word cannibal and well there you go. I do want my weblog to be a source of information for people but not that kind of information. I do not want to become known as that turkey's weblog about cannibalism.

That is all I have to say about that tonight my friends as I think I have read enough to give this turkey some nightmares tonight. Be kind to each other and don't eat each other.

The Eating Habits Of Humans

Well what a lunch and learn today my friends!

If you are just catching up on my weblog, every couple of days I get together with my friends here on the farm and they are Carmel the lamb and Petunia the pig and Barry the Barn Cat and we are a quartet and we have been discussing lately the eating habits of humans after we learned that humans eat each one of us except for Barry.

I did some research on google.com and I asked some twitter friends and here are the conclusions that I presented today at our lunch and learn.

A long time ago humans hunted animals to eat because they were like wild animals themselves and they did this for so long that eating meat became a part of their biology which, as Barry said today, is just as much a part of them as their arm or their leg or more accurately their stomach and their intestines and they needed to eat meat and so humans grew to need it from that biological level.

What google.com told me was that now though eating meat is tied more to the psychology than the biology which means the brain and not the intestines and as it turns out breaking the habits that someone has formed on a psychological level is much harder than on a biological level because the brain is the boss of the body and tells the body what to do and what not to do and what feels good and what does not.

The brain is also the reason why humans eat some animals, like Carmel, Petunia and me, and not others, like Barry, because they have formed sentimental and cultural associations with animals like cats and dogs and puppies and my friend Jasmine the horse, although some humans eat all of those too just not the humans where I am from, which adds a whole other level of complexity to all of this.

I also found out that there are animals that eat humans and I was in my head like "oh ho, so how do you like that feeling mister human" and these animals are polar bears and lions and tigers and crocodiles and there is a famous crocodile called a Dundee and he is from the place Australia I have told you about before and all I have to say to a human is how would you like it if a Dundee came after you and ate you?

Also I learned from my friend on twitter that sometimes people eat other people and google.com told me this is called cannibalism and this is a very dark topic and we did not talk too much about that today although I do want to learn more about it and I will mention it to the group at our next lunch and learn.

Everyone today was very interested in what I had to present and Carmel was so sweet and understanding and was saying that if humans cannot fight their own biology or their own psychology then maybe they should be pitied and helped and not shamed or hated.

I am having difficulty with my thoughts on all of this because I am still trying to lead a life of heroic virtue and in my mind that means not to wish any harm on any other living thing but it is also hard when there are other living things that want to eat you.

The most surprising comment came from Petunia who said that once she had smelled bacon cooking and bacon comes from pigs and she hated herself for it but she had to admit that it smelled really good and I think she might be a pig cannibal if a cannibal can be any animal that eats the same kind of animal as what it is.

I don't know about that but what I do know is that humans should be afraid of cannibals and lions and Dundees and I think if I am to learn anything about humans, knowing what they are afraid of is a good place to start.

Quartet

Today Barry the barn cat became an official member of our lunch and learn and now we are a quartet instead of a trio and Carmel and Petunia are happy about this because they like Barry a lot and I am starting to come around to his common sense and I think he has a lot of knowledge to share with us.

We took a break the last couple of days because I was just not feeling like a proper turkey and the first thing we discussed today at our lunch and learn is how whiskey is a dangerous thing and that animals should never drink whiskey and they thanked me for finding this out for them.

Barry mentioned to us all that he had tried wine once or twice and he found it to his liking but that he noticed that the humans tended to get very silly when they drank a lot of it and that they got angry when they drank the whiskey and it is observations like that that make Barry a valuable addition to our little quartet.

Also, Barry is the only one of us who the humans do not eat, which was the main topic of discussion again today within our little group.

I have decided to do some research tonight because we have the following questions to answer from our lunch and learn:

- Why do humans eat animals?

- Why do humans eat some animals and not other animals?

- What animals eat humans?

If you have any insights into these important topics I would love to read about them in your comments.

I put these same questions onto Twitter today too but then my phone battery did not last long and I am charging it now.

Hangover

To those of you who guessed "Goebbels the turkey" for both answers in my little quiz the other day please award yourself four points for each correct answer and congratulations because you are so smart.

That is the first thing I wanted to tell you and the second thing I wanted to tell you is that I had a very bad day today because I, Goebbels the turkey, had my first hangover, a hangover and yes you heard me right a hangover because I looked up from the computer after I wrote on my weblog and saw a cupboard and I said to myself "Self" I said "What is in that cupboard and why have you never opened it before?" and so I took a break from the internet and went and opened the cupboard and one bottle said vodka and one bottle said rum and one bottle said whiskey and while I do not know what vodka or rum are yet as I have not looked them up at google.com, I do know what whiskey is because I remember hearing about it in that chat room I used to go to and boy oh boy after feeling the way I did today I am glad I stopped Irish dating before things got way out of wing.

I drank about half the bottle while I was on the internet and I started to feel a little strange and I was finding the most absurd things funny and I will give you a for instance.  For instance, I went to a website that shows you pictures of people who have had too much whiskey and there was actually a picture of a man lying face down in what looked to be a back alley in a big city but off and to the right of him there was a sign that said "Tow away zone" and I laughed and I laughed and I coughed a little bit and then I laughed more and more because I think they should have left that little part of the picture out of the picture and then I felt bad for laughing at a man who was sick picture but then I would look at the sign again and the laughter would begin anew. I was not even afraid of waking up the man and the woman and, in hind sight, I blame the whiskey for my behaviour.

Today I had a hangover and a headache and I almost could not eat my breakfast but somehow I managed and I just lay in my little shack for most of the day and Jasmine came over for a minute but there was no way I could chat with her in my condition but she kept talking and talking to me and my head was hurting so I suggested to her that she should go and play under the tractor but I do not think she understood what I really meant by that because she said "I am too big to play under there".

So no whiskey tonight for this turkey because this morning I promised myself that I would never drink again and if there is one thing I am good at it is keeping my promises and that is a fact.

There, this has taken a long time to write and I am still very tired so I think I will go to bed early tonight and I am sorry if you came back to this site looking for daily poetry but I do not think I have it in me to write a poem every day so for that I am truly sorry.  Good night.

A Poem

there once was a turkey so sneaky
and he slept in a shack that was leaky
he loved eating food
it bettered his mood
and he dreamed every night of tzatziki

I will give four points to whoever can guess who this poem is about and another four points, which is a total of eight if you get them both right, if you can guess who wrote the poem and no it was not the man or the woman.

And I will give you a hint when I tell you that it rained again today.

Cold Turkey

When it is the middle of the day and it is raining and it has been raining since the middle of the night a turkey does not feel like going out for a stroll especially if that turkey could not sleep last night because of dreams about being on a boat in a stormy sea and there was water everywhere and maybe more water than even a camel can drink and the turkey was very wet and then the turkey woke up and was wet then too.

So when it rains like this and a turkey is choosing to stay in and nap for most of the day at the times when that turkey is awake he or she might be very bored and write poetry like this...

crashing and bashing and flashing about
the storm in my head has just been let out
and sorry to those people who get in the way
but I warned you I am having a very bad day

I know I am not the most poetic turkey out there, or maybe I am, but you get the idea I think because i was going for a lot of hostile imagery there which is why I chose the words ‘crashing’ and ‘bashing’ instead of other words and oh yeah they rhymed too.

I am still shivering now and I wish I could make myself a cup of tea but the first problem with that idea is that it would most certainly wake up the man and the woman and the second problem with that plan is that I do not know how to use the stove or the kettle or the water tap and I do not know where they keep the mugs so really a better plan would be for you to make a cup of tea for me and bring it over here but i think that would be impossible because I do not even know exactly where here is to be able to tell you where to go.

Also I do not know if I even like tea, so that is a third problem, but I have just read that it usually helps someone when they are cold and shivering so I think that I would like it and I just hope you all are well and are not cold wherever you might be tonight.

Happy Turkey Day

Hello my friends and if you have been reading this weblog you will know that there is a thing called Groundhog Day and this year the groundhog did see his shadow which means that there is going to be a much longer winter.

Well March 3rd is what I have proclaimed Turkey Day and if a certain turkey who may be well known is not hungry enough for his breakfast then that means that the opposite will happen and spring is around the corner.

Now I have been thinking a lot about my friend Biggun and the events that led up to his disappearance last November and I do believe now that he was eaten by the man and the woman and their family because I have only just realized that people eat turkeys and lambs and pigs and that we are just a food source for them.

My trio and I and the barn cat Barry today spoke a lot about how we are a food source and what our future will hold and it was quite alarming to this turkey to think that this is why I am living my life and maybe why the man and the woman have been feeding me so much lately.

Well, I can tell you today, that in honour of my friend Biggun I will not be eating my breakfast and if that means that there is spring ahead then that is what it means, but if all it means is that maybe I do not get fatter then that is okay too. It is okay to be fat and I have learned this but if me being fat is only leading to me being eaten, well then I must say that there needs to be some changes around here.

Jasmine came around after our trio plus Barry and she came to my shack and asked me if I was okay and I let her know that I would talk to her more after breakfast and I plan on telling her everything we have learned and bring her into our circle. She wanted to know more immediately and I could not share them with her and she understood.

March 3rd is Turkey Day and I think we are going to see some changes around here as a result and I am not just talking about the weather.

Barn Cat

Well today we had a special guest and I was actually a little nervous but it turned out okay and the barn cat joined us for our lunch and learn for the very first time.

We have taken a break the last few days because Petunia and Carmel and I are still struggling with our recent knowledge that our lives and everything we are doing to become better animals on the farm may mean very little if one day all we will do is end up in a human's stomach.

I have also been thinking about my friend Biggun and I think I know what has happened to him but I will talk to you about that in a couple of days because I think March the third will be a perfect day to talk about that if you remember what March the third is from my previous weblog posts.

But back to the barn cat and I have learned that his name is Barry and he came to us today while we were all together and he startled me at first but I was able to keep my composure much better than our first encounter in my little shack.

Barry is very interesting because he understands the man and the woman better than any of us and because he can come and go from the barn and go anywhere he pleases including inside the farmhouse whenever he wants.

He asked if he could sit and join us and Carmel looked at me and I nodded a little and she said yes and he sat, at a bit of a distance, and just listened to everything we were talking about.

When we were about to close off our lunch and learn and say goodbye he asked if he could say something and we said yes and he told us that the man and the woman are in control of something called a power dynamic and that if we ever wanted to change anything we would have to have some of their power and then he said he was looking forward to our next talk and we told him that we were looking forward to him joining us for it as well and that was that.

And I have been thinking about this idea of power all day and I do not know how or why or when anything is going to happen and I want to continue to lead a life of heroic virtue and to be a model citizen of the farmyard and it seems like this idea of  power dynamic is something your old friend Goebbels is going to need to study and learn about further because I think it might just be something I need.