IN THE BEGINNING....." here's a story not told yet.... by dictation .. :).
Most of you know my children and I were the company animal episodes where we provided animals for movies commercials television and anything anybody had in mind and basically I put them through college doing extremely weird things like chasing cockroaches up tables and some movie or another at any rate the time came but they were getting through with college and I was getting older and tired of getting up at 4:00 o'clock in the morning chasing chickens around Harvard square and I sort of fell into training dogs for service dogs------ in that process there were business E type things I had to do number one will figure out how to support myself and the project and two do things like file bylaws which Lu Picard down in Connecticut told me just copy hers -------so I did -----I have no idea what they say but It. kept the paper people happy
along about this time I had to have a board of directors which was supposed to be six people and I didn't know six people who could give me any advice on this stuff or at least advice I going to take but I did have to have these meetings s so Janine who was still in BU somehow------- she's always been able to come up with help for animal projects---- I could call her and say I need four people on the corner of Charles St at 6:00 o'clock tomorrow morning for $100 for the day and at 6:00 o'clock in the morning they would be. half sleepy college kids who were really quite bright and capable and they'd be standing there leaning on some pole.... and it had worked really very well for several years so I called on her to come up with the board of directors and I found that I could call together this board of directors if I promised them a square meal at the Ipswich Country Club and that's pretty much how I got my board of directors there ------- you just feed them------ the other thing you can do with really very intelligent um bunch of kids still in school if you can tell them that you will allow them to do their laundry which is another really big problem for kids in college and advanced college or whatever they call it masters programs doctors and things like that -------laundry is always a problem so somewhere along the line between feeding the meals and letting them do their laundry----- in the process I I had the advice of a bunch of very intelligent 22 year old people extremely cheaply------ that was a lesson well learned because it was one of those people who decided that the shatupon. program that I was trying to raise money with needed re formatting--------- I was doing it with paper tickets which was absurd and I was so pleased when I made $1000 it was terrific but this kid came up with the idea with it wasn't just one kid it was the group sitting there that it could be programmed etc etc i knew programming and yes it could be programmed and it is so one of them put together what we now know as the *chicken program had been using it for years------- um and that that concept came out of noticing that PhD students or masters students or whatever they were there was a definite need with them of a food-- entertainment and laundry I don't know where you put that in some sophisticated Harvard Business School program but that's basically how that worked
Along about the time that I got the chicken shlt program off the paper tickets and onto the Internet which to start with I thought was crazy but my advisory groups said that I was nuts so fortunately I listened to them somewhere along in there Charlie (of explore.org and annenberg foundatupn) must have found out about us somehow and came up the driveway ------ I remember some man asking me if they could put cameras around the property---- I was very busy that day and I remember answering as long as it doesn't cost me anything and I went about my business and I didn't pay any more attention till the camera program except to notice they were doing a very good job climbing trees and putting posts in cement -------at any rate the minute the cameras got in then the Internet program with the chicken brick problem that it really took off and instead of earning $1000 a month we were up over 10,000 and very shortly very close to 20,000 every month month after month for about 10 years and counting more than 10 years now because those cameras went in in about September 1st of 2012 that makes it almost 10 years
our followers are extremely loyal thank heavens because that whole operation got underway with the concept of inclusion instead of exclusion ------my impression on. fundraisers are people getting all dressed up---- going out to dinner somewhere for $175 a plate while having the silent auction and everyone getting this slightly plastered -----I can't say if that was ever my lot in life -----but I wanted to be running an outfit which was inclusionary if that's a word I wanted to include everyone---- not work on excluding everyone anyone ----to that end I made our chicken bricks $10'cause a lot of people can afford $10 -------some can't then that's fine---- I certainly could understand it---- I've been there. I remember in my career having a $40 charge at worthens market in Lynnfield. ---- that I just could not manage to get paid off so I knew what it was like the struggle over $10 -----so for the people who could not afford the $10 I still wanted to keep them involved so I suggested that they take their morning cereal boxes and cut them three inches by 6 inches and then send them to us for poo pickers. because that's what would fit in our back pockets and we'd be all prepared to keep the place clean and tidy------- so those people who couldn't afford the $10 a month I've been very good about cutting these poop pickers and sending them to us by the thousands which we use by the thousands and all those people if they themselves can't afford the $10 they seem to keep at each other when we come down to the final day of putting the chickens on the table oh nagging each other to go buy an extra brekker to so they get sold out and they have been sold out every month for the last seven or eight years and counting
sold out being the fact that there is a basic group of numbers 1 to 2100 that when they are sold out that constitutes our need for our payroll anything beyond that is more inclined to be the fund fund which is a savings account 4 items not necessary but interesting or fun and to have them go beyond that someone calls me the minute the 2100 gets sold out and I open the purple egg division of the shatupon society which is another bunch of numbers purple numbers where there's a separate award given for the winner of but purple division that winner is chosen by someone loftwing one minute boiled egg and tthe closest the yolk gets to the number determines the winner..
all this sort of evolved from the creative dinners I have had over the years with college kids wanting to do their laundry----- I also been very impressed with the concept of leaving yourself open to a different way of thinking because there are millions of people trotting along the normal highway ---------so if you don't want to trade with them which was not always successful , you better figure out something else and crazy acres has been something else -----and still remains something else..
We started with a very automatic need of trying to help people coming back from the war with horrendous injuries.. that mission statement got slid sideways into helping veterans or their families... because if we helped the family we were helping the veterans was the logic----- but in that process we discovered that these dogs did an exceptional job with young children and we very quickly started to keep our eyes open for a kids dog---- hence the pairing of Bella with George back 2015 I don't know well there have been several since and I do believe Children's Hospital is now recommending people get in touch with us about a service dog.
defining a need and solving it also has to include the fact that the various nursing homes and adult centers in the country are in dire need of entertainment which we could provide without any fuss at all by just wandering around with our big dogs so we started doing that and trying to figure out how to get them hooked up to the explorer cameras so instead of watching a black television set they could watch pandas falling out of trees sounds like a minor thing to some but that would be a world changing idea to a bunch of people sitting in a circle having nothing to do for 8 hours a day there someone comes and picks them up again there's a big need there there's also a need for basically what I would call just fresh air our farm has become a place for people to go to get away from everything else many of these people start some job around here so they stay useful well they basically are hiding from the rest of society and who could blame them This is why on the property we have a few odd things but don't quite match what the world would expect most notably a very fancy chicken coop made by a Carpenter who measures things actually he was a furniture builder.
Nowhere along line have we ever had a five year plan which would solve or satisfy the needs of any financial accountant-------- heck I don't know what's going to happen the next day but because I don't have a 5 year plan, I am available to take advantage of. whatever fool idea comes along and is taking advantage of the many foolish ideas that come along which has been so far success of crazy acres.
People who come here and volunteer are given refrigerator access to whatever we have whether it's dozens of free roaming chicken eggs or leftover chef meals------ there is a poem around here.
welcome guest be at your ease
happy to share with you such as we've got
the leaks in the roof and the soup in the pot
So I'm very sorry if the business world just considers the shatupon society a stroke of genius to be magnified and copied it's a little bit more than that in that it has allowed to develop a group of people who just are not trodding the same highway as the rest of the world many of these people are caring for loved ones or incapacitated somehow by means of geography or finances they're not part of the mainstream but they are willing to support us for $10 a month----fortunately there are few that support us with more than $10 a month but I would think are average donation it was around $20.
but the whole group looks after us too in that just yesterday someone sent us lanyards with a plastic thing for holding your name tag for dogfest--- fuegen-- a camera person-- saw them realize they were nice that we might need to know about them so she bought some and sent them to us --------that happens with most everything around here from cranberry relish the sneakers to tennis balls whatever if there's a need here and our camera people know about it I guarantee you within a few days we will have some in the mail which I open everyday at mail call and I open everything all the bills all the pluses all the minuses somebody has a nasty letter to write to us that gets read along with everything else there's a reality show at mail call 5 o'clock every day and that's what keeps our shatupon society going
