I will use the space to ramble on about my collective interests...they are by definition eclectic.
eclectic (adjective) means deriving things from a variety of sources. The word 'eclectic' is based on Greek eklegin, to select.
A person with an eclectic taste in music likes music of many different types, selected from a wide variety of musical genres.
An eclectic approach would be one using a variety of methods of approaching/tackling/addressing/'dealing with' a subject/problem/challenge/task.
I think the word has appeal because it gives credibility to my scattered life and lifestyle.
I like many styles of music, food, drink, clothes, work, movies, people the list goes on and on. I do have strong opinions and take firm positions on areas of interest but am not one to commit wholeheartedly to a notion without serious study and observation.
Some of those study and commitment areas are fencing, cooking, farming, building and design, hunting, home, privacy to name a few.
Today my active interest is toward our chickens. We (Barb and I) have a flock of Color Ranger meat birds. These guys are eight weeks old and are huge, 3-4lbs each, and the flock eats at least six pounds of food per day as well as all the bugs and grass they care to consume. We moved them from the brooder box at three weeks and into a chicken tractor, an 8'x8'x18" open bottomed box that we slide to a new spot in the field every day. Keeps the chickens in and predators out.
I just picked up four killing cones from the local sheet metal shop and a 20 gallon stock pot from my neighbors farm for a scalder. I'll go into detail and share some photos later.
The cones are 11"dia. at the top and 3" dia. at the bottom x 18" deep. I had made a paper pattern and brought it to a local sheet metal shop. Great job by them, spot welded perfect cones, I folded the top edge with pliers and hammered the hem flat on the anvil. I wanted a safe edge, want to bleed the chickens not me.
Chickens go in head first, this restrains them with their heads protruding from the cone and allows me to cut and bleed them relatively humane and not so dramatic as flopping chickens around the barnyard. The principle thought being that a chicken that is bled will have better meat than one that has had its head chopped and heart stopped immediately leaving blood and clots in the meat.
From the cone they are dunked into 145 degree water to relax the skin and loosen the feathers and then tossed into the barrel plucker two or three at a time. That gives us naked birds and starts the detail work of eviscerating, washing, chilling and packaging for the freezer.
I'm not a big fan of the killing and butchering but it's a necessity if I am going to be honest about the food I eat and the quality I expect of it. I know I will not be saving money over store bought this year but I will enjoy the benefits of the whole process.
