Y'know this list happens even though there ain't a coop to be seen.
Someday.
I'm in love with my Australian Shepherd and take out all my chicken-loving angst on him. He seems none the worse the wear for it :)
The April 2010 Chicken Wish List (and others that call to me from the Hatchery catalogue pages):
1. Salmon Faverolles
2. Blue Laced Red Wyandottes
3. Partridge Rocks
4. Barred (Plymouth) Rocks
5. Black Australorp
6. Welsummers
7. Easter Eggers
8. Silver Laced Wyandottes
9. Buff Orpington
10. Columbian Wyandottes
11. Buckeye
Geese:
1. Embden
Dove/Pigeon/Squab:
1. King Pigeon (for squab)
Of course, this list will be revised at a whim. Black Jersey Giants (chickens) still steal the show as far as my admiration when I see them at the local fairgrounds...gorgeous!
Friday, April 2, 2010
First Second Weapon
We're continuing to streamline what I like to think of as our Exit Strategy through this final push to freedom to relocate. We have more relocation options now than we did before, for various reasons, some being the changed circumstances of aging relatives and now grown children no longer at home. Debt retiring continues. I have a stack of student loan papers for an official burning, now that they're paid in full.
My camera's back in service, but one of those rotten fake "windows virus warnings" ate something in my computer to the degree that it's not allowing a lot of my programs to function or be recognized, including downloading my photos...argggghhhhh...and I don't have the know-how and $$ to figure out how to fix it yet.
BUT some of our other goals are underway.
We are cleaning up the house and property so that at the end of the year we can see where we stand and whether or not we want to put the house on the market. A lot of factors will be considered, but till then, we have a lot to do and being the slow and plodding people we seemingly are compared to our dasharound 20s and 30s, it may take that long to chip away at these things without a lot of stress. We have an ailing pushmower, a hoe, a shovel and a wheelbarrow. Jack did wonders in the physical strength department carving out test plots for some of our gardening experiments last year, but the war of the bermuda and the fact we're more or less in a neighborhood (albeit spread out) means maintaining the immediate yard in the manner to which prospective buyers have become accustomed :)
A lot of deep cleaning is commencing. Catching up with general maintenance is included. Disposing of ALL those 200+ 5 gallon buckets is happening slowly, and we'll keep some potted things in the black bins, and others will be cleaned out and brought indoors and used for storage.
We're going to see if we can sell, barter, and donate a HUGE quantity of our stored belongings that have been tagging along with us from move to move, the hope being to see if we can reduce it all down to our already few basic furniture pieces and only enough boxed things to fit (stacked tight) in a covered pickup truck bed or perhaps small pull-behind UHaul. The main goal with that is to never have to pay for storage no matter where we end up.
I'm looking in to what it takes to put some things on EBay or if it would just be easier to Craigslist most of it. Reducing our books is a real change for us...we both have bookaholic tendencies, and always will. But with the ease of borrowing from the library, we're having to get practical about space and mobility.
One unique thing is that we've allowed relocation out of Florida to enter the conversation for the first time. We have to pay special attention to staying warm in the winter because Jack's lungs won't take a lot of cold exposure, but as long as we have a way to stay warm, it may be less of an issue in a 4 season climate somewhere. At least it's on the table for more discussion. This makes me REALLY happy, as I have a lot of problems with the mold in this muggy climate. Either way, as long as we're together, it's all good :)
I like to feel a sense of forward motion and learn new skills. We now have a first second weapon for self defense. The first best weapon is always caution and good plain common sense as far as safety and prevention...removing risk if possible. My husband has the skills necessary for safe handling of a firearm himself, having been a rifleman in the Marines in the 70s. It's rather new to me, though, never having been in the category of Necessity before. I feel it is now, though. I now have a pistol of my own and am slowly taking the time to get comfortable handling it and learning how to care for it. I spent the first week getting the feel of it, learning how to load and unload it safely, getting used to keeping my trigger finger straight instead of touching the trigger during handling. It sounds like a little thing and probably is, but it's what I'm doing to make it feel "mine." I customized it with an inexpensive grip that fits my hand nicely.
Next up will be learning to clean it, that's for this week. Then to have some regular range time and take a gun safety class. Eventually, to feel confident enough with my handling of it to take a CCP class and keep up my range time so that I'll remain safe and this will be an asset for my future.
It feels like learning to fly a plane, to me. Now feels like the right time to be learning this step by step.
I also have begun my new "career" of writing. I have no idea what yet, but I checked out some different writing books from the library a while back and have made my way through them. A consistent piece of advice offered throughout is to "show up to work"...to write every day. I'm going to try for this at least 5 days a week, shooting for 2000 words a day, and we'll see where it goes. I have a lot of half formed ideas for characters and plots, as in writing novels or short stories, but nothing has materialized as a whole and I've decided that sitting back and waiting for it to become clear isn't going to help much. So I'm writing with the determination that somewhere in the midst of 40,000 words a month, something coherent may materialize. The writing prompts and suggestions from some of these writing books are helpful, too. At any rate, though sometimes I have arguments with my keyboard (it usually wins)when I am not sure what to sit down and begin typing, that is my only frustration...the actual writing is invigorating!
I also am going to resurrect some of my art that I've not picked up in years and years...I have no idea if I can craft anything aesthetic like I could Back When, but I'd still like to do some small things. I'm toying with the idea of pet portraits and candids, working both with photographs and different media...pen and ink, pastels, oils, etc. I'll attempt some commissions with the understanding that if the buyer doesn't like the finished result, they're under no obligation to purchase. I used to do that sort of thing now and then in the past, but got really busy when my daughter was young and never picked it back up. I'd love to have a small side income as my "butter and egg" money.
I had pics to include with this post, but can't find a way to download them due to virus probs. I'll see if there's a way from the library, but it won't be today.
We're still in the Week of Unleavened Bread...since we don't eat a lot of bread just now, it's not much of a change for us.
We have some papaya plants in pots, and I noticed that the big freeze didn't kill the malangas from coming back from their corms....there are little baby ones sprouting back now. I'm all tickled the false roselle/cranberry hibiscus, which had completely died back to the ground, is showing bunched groups of leaves at the bases. Cutting back the dead wood should be just in time for their renewed growth...I'm happy...I love those plants and hope to have them in any growing zone we move to eventually. The leaves are deliciously lemony and look similar to a Japanese maple.
We continue to economize by no longer eating out except once a week on a normal week. It took a while to adjust our shopping to buying mostly produce, but it eliminated the processed foods, which has been a big success. I'm estimating we eat about 50% raw and the rest are good balanced meals heavy on the fruit and veggies and good lean meats. I about souped myself out for now during the winter months...no more soup till I'm back in the mood. The warmer weather calls for lots of iced tea, mmmm.
We always have at least one spinach and berry/stevia lemonade smoothie (sounds weird, tastes great) daily, often adding in whatever mixed fruit I have left over from our other frequent "dessert"...fruit chopped small, topped with a few plump walnuts and drizzled with honey.
Jack has experienced a noticeable improvement in his endurance and in how he feels since we added chia seeds to the flax seeds I always grind and put into the smoothies. His job requires him to walk 6 plus miles per shift on inclines and descending slopes as well as stairs, and anything that helps him feel good naturally, it's a keeper. The hyaluronic acid (basic joint and bone supplement from the store) we take daily also continues to help us not have pain in our knees, which seem to be our weak points in the past. The changes in our eating have helped a lot, too. I believe we consider the changes we began making last November more of a daily necessity now. Getting those dark greens (for us, in the form of smoothies) and adding in the squashes, pumpkin, and sweet potatoes instead of high quantities of white starches really has made a difference. With the cost prohibitive nature of our acquiring real milk, we have nearly cut dairy out completely and I've noticed a big improvement with my sinuses since. I don't equate this with dairy per se, but rather with Big Ag dairy that won't ever have the same nutritional makeup as grass fed. So we drink water and tea :)
More stuff to type about later...just a quick update.
Hope to get that photo prob solved soon!
Have a wonderful weekend, and for those of you with the glorious weather like the kind we're having, enjoy that sunshine :)
Shabbat shalom
My camera's back in service, but one of those rotten fake "windows virus warnings" ate something in my computer to the degree that it's not allowing a lot of my programs to function or be recognized, including downloading my photos...argggghhhhh...and I don't have the know-how and $$ to figure out how to fix it yet.
BUT some of our other goals are underway.
We are cleaning up the house and property so that at the end of the year we can see where we stand and whether or not we want to put the house on the market. A lot of factors will be considered, but till then, we have a lot to do and being the slow and plodding people we seemingly are compared to our dasharound 20s and 30s, it may take that long to chip away at these things without a lot of stress. We have an ailing pushmower, a hoe, a shovel and a wheelbarrow. Jack did wonders in the physical strength department carving out test plots for some of our gardening experiments last year, but the war of the bermuda and the fact we're more or less in a neighborhood (albeit spread out) means maintaining the immediate yard in the manner to which prospective buyers have become accustomed :)
A lot of deep cleaning is commencing. Catching up with general maintenance is included. Disposing of ALL those 200+ 5 gallon buckets is happening slowly, and we'll keep some potted things in the black bins, and others will be cleaned out and brought indoors and used for storage.
We're going to see if we can sell, barter, and donate a HUGE quantity of our stored belongings that have been tagging along with us from move to move, the hope being to see if we can reduce it all down to our already few basic furniture pieces and only enough boxed things to fit (stacked tight) in a covered pickup truck bed or perhaps small pull-behind UHaul. The main goal with that is to never have to pay for storage no matter where we end up.
I'm looking in to what it takes to put some things on EBay or if it would just be easier to Craigslist most of it. Reducing our books is a real change for us...we both have bookaholic tendencies, and always will. But with the ease of borrowing from the library, we're having to get practical about space and mobility.
One unique thing is that we've allowed relocation out of Florida to enter the conversation for the first time. We have to pay special attention to staying warm in the winter because Jack's lungs won't take a lot of cold exposure, but as long as we have a way to stay warm, it may be less of an issue in a 4 season climate somewhere. At least it's on the table for more discussion. This makes me REALLY happy, as I have a lot of problems with the mold in this muggy climate. Either way, as long as we're together, it's all good :)
I like to feel a sense of forward motion and learn new skills. We now have a first second weapon for self defense. The first best weapon is always caution and good plain common sense as far as safety and prevention...removing risk if possible. My husband has the skills necessary for safe handling of a firearm himself, having been a rifleman in the Marines in the 70s. It's rather new to me, though, never having been in the category of Necessity before. I feel it is now, though. I now have a pistol of my own and am slowly taking the time to get comfortable handling it and learning how to care for it. I spent the first week getting the feel of it, learning how to load and unload it safely, getting used to keeping my trigger finger straight instead of touching the trigger during handling. It sounds like a little thing and probably is, but it's what I'm doing to make it feel "mine." I customized it with an inexpensive grip that fits my hand nicely.
Next up will be learning to clean it, that's for this week. Then to have some regular range time and take a gun safety class. Eventually, to feel confident enough with my handling of it to take a CCP class and keep up my range time so that I'll remain safe and this will be an asset for my future.
It feels like learning to fly a plane, to me. Now feels like the right time to be learning this step by step.
I also have begun my new "career" of writing. I have no idea what yet, but I checked out some different writing books from the library a while back and have made my way through them. A consistent piece of advice offered throughout is to "show up to work"...to write every day. I'm going to try for this at least 5 days a week, shooting for 2000 words a day, and we'll see where it goes. I have a lot of half formed ideas for characters and plots, as in writing novels or short stories, but nothing has materialized as a whole and I've decided that sitting back and waiting for it to become clear isn't going to help much. So I'm writing with the determination that somewhere in the midst of 40,000 words a month, something coherent may materialize. The writing prompts and suggestions from some of these writing books are helpful, too. At any rate, though sometimes I have arguments with my keyboard (it usually wins)when I am not sure what to sit down and begin typing, that is my only frustration...the actual writing is invigorating!
I also am going to resurrect some of my art that I've not picked up in years and years...I have no idea if I can craft anything aesthetic like I could Back When, but I'd still like to do some small things. I'm toying with the idea of pet portraits and candids, working both with photographs and different media...pen and ink, pastels, oils, etc. I'll attempt some commissions with the understanding that if the buyer doesn't like the finished result, they're under no obligation to purchase. I used to do that sort of thing now and then in the past, but got really busy when my daughter was young and never picked it back up. I'd love to have a small side income as my "butter and egg" money.
I had pics to include with this post, but can't find a way to download them due to virus probs. I'll see if there's a way from the library, but it won't be today.
We're still in the Week of Unleavened Bread...since we don't eat a lot of bread just now, it's not much of a change for us.
We have some papaya plants in pots, and I noticed that the big freeze didn't kill the malangas from coming back from their corms....there are little baby ones sprouting back now. I'm all tickled the false roselle/cranberry hibiscus, which had completely died back to the ground, is showing bunched groups of leaves at the bases. Cutting back the dead wood should be just in time for their renewed growth...I'm happy...I love those plants and hope to have them in any growing zone we move to eventually. The leaves are deliciously lemony and look similar to a Japanese maple.
We continue to economize by no longer eating out except once a week on a normal week. It took a while to adjust our shopping to buying mostly produce, but it eliminated the processed foods, which has been a big success. I'm estimating we eat about 50% raw and the rest are good balanced meals heavy on the fruit and veggies and good lean meats. I about souped myself out for now during the winter months...no more soup till I'm back in the mood. The warmer weather calls for lots of iced tea, mmmm.
We always have at least one spinach and berry/stevia lemonade smoothie (sounds weird, tastes great) daily, often adding in whatever mixed fruit I have left over from our other frequent "dessert"...fruit chopped small, topped with a few plump walnuts and drizzled with honey.
Jack has experienced a noticeable improvement in his endurance and in how he feels since we added chia seeds to the flax seeds I always grind and put into the smoothies. His job requires him to walk 6 plus miles per shift on inclines and descending slopes as well as stairs, and anything that helps him feel good naturally, it's a keeper. The hyaluronic acid (basic joint and bone supplement from the store) we take daily also continues to help us not have pain in our knees, which seem to be our weak points in the past. The changes in our eating have helped a lot, too. I believe we consider the changes we began making last November more of a daily necessity now. Getting those dark greens (for us, in the form of smoothies) and adding in the squashes, pumpkin, and sweet potatoes instead of high quantities of white starches really has made a difference. With the cost prohibitive nature of our acquiring real milk, we have nearly cut dairy out completely and I've noticed a big improvement with my sinuses since. I don't equate this with dairy per se, but rather with Big Ag dairy that won't ever have the same nutritional makeup as grass fed. So we drink water and tea :)
More stuff to type about later...just a quick update.
Hope to get that photo prob solved soon!
Have a wonderful weekend, and for those of you with the glorious weather like the kind we're having, enjoy that sunshine :)
Shabbat shalom
Monday, March 29, 2010
Happy Passover!
We celebrate deliverance and religious freedom. Here is a song usually sung at the yearly Seder meal, our commemoration of the Exodus deliverance. Dayeinu means "it would have been enough/sufficient" and the song lists a progression of things God did for our ancestors, any one of which was abundant in itself...but as in life, He gave us beyond Enough and compounded His blessings far beyond our comprehension.
Here's an idea of the song..this vid's from youtube and on second glance it looks like the post-er is christian, but the song's the authentic Jewish...you'll get the idea.
Approximate Song translation to English
Leaving Egypt:
1) If He had brought us out of Egypt...Dayeinu (it would have been enough)
2) If He had executed justice upon the Egyptians....Dayeinu
3) If He had executed justice upon their gods...Dayeinu
4) If He had slain their first born...Dayeinu
5) If He had given to us their health and wealth..Dayeinu
Miracles:
6) If He had split the sea for us...Dayeinu
7) If He had led us through on dry land...Dayeinu
8) If He had drowned our oppressors...Dayeinu
9) If He had provided for our needs in the wilderness for 40 years...Dayeinu
10) If He had fed us manna...Dayeinu
Being with God:
11) If He had given us Shabbat...Dayeinu
12) If He had led us to Mount Sinai...Dayeinu
13) If He had given us the Torah...Dayeinu
14) If He had brought us into the Land of Israel...Dayeinu
15) If He built the Temple for us...Dayeinu
And so begins our 7 days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Next year in Jerusalem!
Friday, March 26, 2010
Proof I'm Not An Figment of my Imagination
I feel good, as in gooooooooooooooooood !
This is a nice foil for the not-so-skippity-doo-dah I get when pondering the Over-Examined Life (read tallying up the goofs and glories of my past and finding the columns aren't stacked the way I'd prefer).
SO I won't over-examine this except to say a single recent email changed my perspective and helped me better define something I've found hard to conceptualize...Myself. We've all heard the old question "what use is history?"...at least I heard it a lot in school asked by those who thought there was no practical use in knowing history. But who are we apart from our histories? For some of us farther removed from our own histories, the blanks are hard to fill in and leave me, at least, feeling as if a really important part of me lacks definition. But I'm getting ahead of myself...back to the email.
It went something like this...
Sent my sis an email asking if she knew which of our great grandmothers was said to be Cherokee. It's a detail that came to me one day and I wanted to follow up on. Sketchy oral historical highlights from conversations past, always overheard by us children who weren't paying attention as much then as we would now, are elusive to my memory now. Ah, if we kids only knew to ask our oldtimers those questions back then (Smack to the head, arggh!)
Back to the email...
So ten minutes before I'm about to leave for that evening shift, I go to clear my email box and there's a reply from my sister. But it reads along the lines of "Grandpa and Family Documentary." Grandpa in our vernacular means my maternal granddad, since my paternal one was always referred to as Granddaddy.
What's so important about this, and remarkable (!!!), is that neither my sister or me are genealogically-savvy progeny though we came from a really amazing lineage of forbears...I know so because all the older family members I can remember were rugged individualists as well as loyal family people who, (but for a few exceptions thrown in for spice and spit), lived lives of hard work, integrity, and simplicity. They came from big families familiar both with country and city lives and stayed in touch and very connected through all of the major life ups and downs. Until the modern Disconnect...somewhere along the line the most recent generations, mine and my parents'...did ...what?? Got busy?? I have no idea what happened, but there's no venerable elder to access now to sit at the feet of (dangling partciple be darned) and glean the wisdom of the years and the tales of family. All I have are my own memories of my grandparents, which are a treasure.
My Grandma and Grandpa had a profound effect on my life and there are no two people I miss more. Since an estrangement from our own parents, my sister and I both have often felt the sensation of being shadowed by a great oak of past family, but not being able to firmly grasp any part of it...our own family past a history lost to us.
That may be a very American identity problem for some folks like me whose parents moved far from generational homeplaces in this faster and supposedly more globally accessible world. I'm a product of the busy-lifestyle melting pot, one of so many suburban gypsies orbiting independent of a lot of ties. No wonder I'm happier the more we simplify and attempt to put down roots, slow down, and invest in something with meaning. I've met some others so shed of their pasts that those pasts are unrecoverable. I've led a transitory life and have relocated over 22 times in my 43 years. I've needed something to anchor me to some part of my past, or at least I've wished for it, to carry it into the present.
Grandpa and Family Documentary proved to be a document compiled by my Grandpa's niece (still living) who somehow had (for how many years??) had in her possession two notebooks penned by my Grandpa's father. In his notebooks, he told his own story beginning with his earliest memories of his parents, from about the year1880. From when they "went West."
This niece transcribed the entire two notebooks into type with the only additions being the correction of some spelling errors and doublechecking names mentioned therein with a family tree book she had from her parents' side of the family.
So THERE, in pages and pages and pages in a computer file, was attached this HISTORY of MY OWN FAVORITE Grandpa...and I haven't even read it yet! Guess what I'll be doing the whole weekend besides resting for Shabbat??
This is something I give so much thanks for, and I'm totally thanking God not only that my relative went to the trouble to do this AND share it, but for the timing of it all. This is a time I can truly appreciate every detail and have something to pass down to my own daughter. Strangely, it helps me feel like I belong, though all the people mentioned in the journal are likely no longer alive. I can't adequately express how defining this is for me, but I'm SO VERY HAPPY!
And I had to share...I'm grateful for so many things. As always, God, my husband, my daughter, my friends (includes you guys!), my pup, my job and so much more. Friday night we'll shut things down for the weekly rest (yay!) and spend a lot of time in particular rereading the Exodus account since it's just about Passover.
To others, my great-Grandpa's journal might read about as interestingly as all the biblical "begats" lists, but even those anchor individuals in their times and their families and their heritages. Were our "begats" to be forgotten, we lose so much.
I can't wait to read it and to meet my lost family. For the first time.
Shabbat shalom! :)
This is a nice foil for the not-so-skippity-doo-dah I get when pondering the Over-Examined Life (read tallying up the goofs and glories of my past and finding the columns aren't stacked the way I'd prefer).
SO I won't over-examine this except to say a single recent email changed my perspective and helped me better define something I've found hard to conceptualize...Myself. We've all heard the old question "what use is history?"...at least I heard it a lot in school asked by those who thought there was no practical use in knowing history. But who are we apart from our histories? For some of us farther removed from our own histories, the blanks are hard to fill in and leave me, at least, feeling as if a really important part of me lacks definition. But I'm getting ahead of myself...back to the email.
It went something like this...
Sent my sis an email asking if she knew which of our great grandmothers was said to be Cherokee. It's a detail that came to me one day and I wanted to follow up on. Sketchy oral historical highlights from conversations past, always overheard by us children who weren't paying attention as much then as we would now, are elusive to my memory now. Ah, if we kids only knew to ask our oldtimers those questions back then (Smack to the head, arggh!)
Back to the email...
So ten minutes before I'm about to leave for that evening shift, I go to clear my email box and there's a reply from my sister. But it reads along the lines of "Grandpa and Family Documentary." Grandpa in our vernacular means my maternal granddad, since my paternal one was always referred to as Granddaddy.
What's so important about this, and remarkable (!!!), is that neither my sister or me are genealogically-savvy progeny though we came from a really amazing lineage of forbears...I know so because all the older family members I can remember were rugged individualists as well as loyal family people who, (but for a few exceptions thrown in for spice and spit), lived lives of hard work, integrity, and simplicity. They came from big families familiar both with country and city lives and stayed in touch and very connected through all of the major life ups and downs. Until the modern Disconnect...somewhere along the line the most recent generations, mine and my parents'...did ...what?? Got busy?? I have no idea what happened, but there's no venerable elder to access now to sit at the feet of (dangling partciple be darned) and glean the wisdom of the years and the tales of family. All I have are my own memories of my grandparents, which are a treasure.
My Grandma and Grandpa had a profound effect on my life and there are no two people I miss more. Since an estrangement from our own parents, my sister and I both have often felt the sensation of being shadowed by a great oak of past family, but not being able to firmly grasp any part of it...our own family past a history lost to us.
That may be a very American identity problem for some folks like me whose parents moved far from generational homeplaces in this faster and supposedly more globally accessible world. I'm a product of the busy-lifestyle melting pot, one of so many suburban gypsies orbiting independent of a lot of ties. No wonder I'm happier the more we simplify and attempt to put down roots, slow down, and invest in something with meaning. I've met some others so shed of their pasts that those pasts are unrecoverable. I've led a transitory life and have relocated over 22 times in my 43 years. I've needed something to anchor me to some part of my past, or at least I've wished for it, to carry it into the present.
Grandpa and Family Documentary proved to be a document compiled by my Grandpa's niece (still living) who somehow had (for how many years??) had in her possession two notebooks penned by my Grandpa's father. In his notebooks, he told his own story beginning with his earliest memories of his parents, from about the year1880. From when they "went West."
This niece transcribed the entire two notebooks into type with the only additions being the correction of some spelling errors and doublechecking names mentioned therein with a family tree book she had from her parents' side of the family.
So THERE, in pages and pages and pages in a computer file, was attached this HISTORY of MY OWN FAVORITE Grandpa...and I haven't even read it yet! Guess what I'll be doing the whole weekend besides resting for Shabbat??
This is something I give so much thanks for, and I'm totally thanking God not only that my relative went to the trouble to do this AND share it, but for the timing of it all. This is a time I can truly appreciate every detail and have something to pass down to my own daughter. Strangely, it helps me feel like I belong, though all the people mentioned in the journal are likely no longer alive. I can't adequately express how defining this is for me, but I'm SO VERY HAPPY!
And I had to share...I'm grateful for so many things. As always, God, my husband, my daughter, my friends (includes you guys!), my pup, my job and so much more. Friday night we'll shut things down for the weekly rest (yay!) and spend a lot of time in particular rereading the Exodus account since it's just about Passover.
To others, my great-Grandpa's journal might read about as interestingly as all the biblical "begats" lists, but even those anchor individuals in their times and their families and their heritages. Were our "begats" to be forgotten, we lose so much.
I can't wait to read it and to meet my lost family. For the first time.
Shabbat shalom! :)
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
My Vicarious Chicken-Stalking
There are certain subjects that I simply love to look at....over and over and over...especially on blogs. Chickens, milk cows, certain types of dogs, gardens, DIY projects...and so on. Did I mention chickens?
I don't yet have any, but I'm ok for now...I have my awesome dog who fills my days with constant devotion and a good many antics, so it's filled some of that void inside me that Must Have Animals Nearby.
But I'm still looking forward, someday, to a small flock of chickens.
Here's a blog in France I frequently chicken-stalk....this post includes some of HardWorkingHippy's system of keeping her free range hens out of her (bee YOO tee full) potager terraced garden beds. Enjoy!
P.S. I'm counting down till Monday night...still haven't accomplised The Big Clean, but am slowly and halfheartedly pushing dust bunnies further and further towards the trash bin. I SHALL find my camera and reinstate some photos in this blog before it expires from visual boredom.
I don't yet have any, but I'm ok for now...I have my awesome dog who fills my days with constant devotion and a good many antics, so it's filled some of that void inside me that Must Have Animals Nearby.
But I'm still looking forward, someday, to a small flock of chickens.
Here's a blog in France I frequently chicken-stalk....this post includes some of HardWorkingHippy's system of keeping her free range hens out of her (bee YOO tee full) potager terraced garden beds. Enjoy!
P.S. I'm counting down till Monday night...still haven't accomplised The Big Clean, but am slowly and halfheartedly pushing dust bunnies further and further towards the trash bin. I SHALL find my camera and reinstate some photos in this blog before it expires from visual boredom.
Monday, March 22, 2010
This Was Worth Hearing
We spoke, they didn't listen. Change, oh yes...November will see change. And plenty of action before then.
BTW we just joined the Tea Party Patriots. I'm so laughing now...that's so NOT us...we're the Mind Your Own Business sorts. But since the government now wants to get all up in our business, tell us how and what and with whom we'll do business and mandate it out the ears, we have to do something. We're not right wing, left wing, or any fringe group sort. We're your average folks who are fed up with party politics and who believe that the Constitution has to be enforced and the citizens of ye olde USA must be HEARD not HERDED. It worries me little-to-none what names we average folks will be called if we don't "play nice" or just keep shutting up...shutting up and minding Ps and Qs never would have gotten this country its freedoms in the first place.
Look at all the levels freedoms are being challenged at the core.
Food.
Consumer choice in purchasing what WE determine WE need.
Registering farm animals...for "protection" against disease
DNA registry...already happening.
Mandatory enforced health insurance. SO bogus and anticonstitutional.
Unregulated IRS.
Printing money we can't back with real worth.
Exploding our national deficit and our historical enemies now buying it up, already mandating the terms of our repayment.
Trying to further restrict our right to bear arms and protect ourselves and our property.
People who question these things now being slandered and called "factions" instead of patriots.
The list goes on and on.
Let's get busy changing things BACK unless we want a repeat of Castro's glorious New Cuba.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Gone-to-Hellthcare
We all know Washington can never resist an offer of free drinks. Now it's open bar for everyone!
So raise your glasses high and toast the new Hellthcare Reform legislation. Best not to ask a whole lot of questions. (Mr. Obama might have to cancel another trip or spend another trillion or two)
Kool-Aid
+
=
Drink up, folks! (Please consult your government representative as to your preference of cherry, grape or lime...)
So raise your glasses high and toast the new Hellthcare Reform legislation. Best not to ask a whole lot of questions. (Mr. Obama might have to cancel another trip or spend another trillion or two)
Kool-Aid
+
=
Drink up, folks! (Please consult your government representative as to your preference of cherry, grape or lime...)
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