Welcome to
Ed and Cari's Chicken Farm
and Electronics Shop

Who are you guys?

Ed Shafer, wife Carolyn (aka Cari, CariAnneS), 5 cats, 2 dogs, about a hundred chickens, and a mother in the backyard.

I am occasionally an electronic engineer, but am taking some time off for a while. I kick around on the internet and do some programming and circuit-building for my own kicks, but for now my time is my own!

Carolyn is (was) an insurance investigator, but decided she wanted to stay home with me. (Go figure). Then she got the idea that there was more to life than me and the chickens, so she went back to work part time. In retail sales. She's on her feet 30 hours a week and apparently loves it.


Here's Cari! Ain't she sweet?

Yeah, well where are you?

We live on a 40 acre hilltop near Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The part of the state that is known as the Pine Belt, with good reason. A pretty nice place, we think. I was a little disappointed to find out that I couldn't build a pond here, but the ground is too sandy and won't hold water without some kind of heroic effort. I like to keep the pond project open as an option, but realistically the pond probably isn't going to happen.

Otherwise things are pretty idyllic here. We have wild turkeys that aren't too scared to come fairly close to the house, sometimes right outside the door. Plenty of deer (maybe too many - they are sort of rough on the fruit trees in spring), plenty of squirrels (they like to eat the outdoor furniture). Coons, possums, armadillos (yum!),herons, hawks, buzzards, moles, mice, and more. We really like it!

And don't forget the chickens ! We got our first chicks when we moved here in 1994, and have kept some ever since. So now what we do is work in the garden raising vegetables, and we fool with chickens.

I fully believe that Carolyn would like hundreds, and we are well over the hundred mark already. Three chicken houses so far (uh, well, 1 chicken shack and another that could more properly be termed a chicken palace, and the newly completed chicken cubicle). They're just keep on fillin' up! I've built a barn, too, although it is still somewhat unfinished. 30 feet by 40, pole construction with galvanized metal to cover it. Pretty much built single-handed by yours truly (which is why it is still unfinished).


Carolyn is fairly well-known among the chicken fanciers of the web. If you frequent the chicken groups, you may know her as Cari or as CariAnneS. She takes a large interest in things related to chickens.

You call yourself a programmer, Ed?

Sort of. Actually in my previous job, I started out programming in assembler for the 8051 microprocessor. I had designed some circuitry that needed a little more control than I could manage with gates alone, so I found myself plunged into the wonderful world of embedded programming. Wrote software to be embedded in little systems on little circuit boards to do specific tasks. It was an incredibly good way to get started, because dealing with the microprocessor directly, you really get an understanding of what is going on.

Then I did some programming in Basic for DOS, and decided that C was probably more useful so learned that too. And then tried my hand at a Windows program, and liked that pretty well too. Always fun to figger out how to do something you've never done before!

Actually most of what I write has been strictly for my own amusement, and my own use. I don't usually like to go to the trouble of tying up all the loose ends and making it pretty and that kind of stuff. But here are a couple I've been working on that aren't too user-unfriendly! Try 'em out if you like. It's all FREE !

Ok, so what about that doggone Barbeque, Ed?
It's been months and you still haven't given out that recipe!

Sorry, you're absolutely right! Head on out to the Barbeque page to get the specs.

If this is your first time here, we attended a family reunion in Selma, Arkansas, in 1998.

This was traditionally held on the Fourth of July when my great grandfather Munsey Dickson was still around. Now Paul Watson and John Doyle Watson have resumed the old tradition, and they cooked a hog in a pit just like in the old days!

Click here to see some pictures of the Barbeque. This time I promise there's some directions for do-it-yourselfers! It ain't easy, but it sure is good !

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