PONDERINGS ON THIS AND THAT

The Rabbit skin quilt is approaching completion.

from Murph

With Freeacre on a birthday trip to the coast with her son, the ambience is a bit quieter around here right now, which leads to doing some introspection and thinking about a new post.

As I run through the morning’s list of news, opinions and commentaries, I typically muse that a particular article or news item would make a good post article, and then invariably I come on a commentary or analysis that goes into it in more detail, better than I could, and another post idea goes down the drain.

Which led me this morning to examine how most blogs are set up. Since few blogs have contributors that are out doing investigation reporting or are insiders to the mechanizations of the elites, bloggers write about what they read or hear about, and what they are experiencing or observing. That means that a lot of blogs are using second hand, third hand or even fourth hand information as the subject material. Which means that the distinctions between most blog sites rests on the writing style and validity of the non first hand information, and the inclusion or omission of personal experience. Many blogs are almost exclusively first hand experience and often of a very personal nature and some of them approach the content of social networking sites.

Utmost in the minds of most people is concern about the financial/economic situation in the world and the U.S. in particular. Because very few people are on the inside of this circumstance, most people are simply going to have to rely on what others say on the subject. Depending on the individual’s belief system, preferences on political/financial ideology, this will of course determine just what set of information they accept as being part of reality. I sometimes wade through government releases of financial information, which I find to be largely incomprehensible, and read commentaries on those releases, supposedly by people that understand that kind of data and what it portends. Two of the writers on this subject I follow on a daily basis is George Ure at Urban Survival and Charles Smith at Of Two Minds. According to both writers most of the economic information put out by the government’s three letter agencies is half truths, massaged and spun data, and outright lies. It also appears to me that most of the economic writers with any reputation at all largely agree with this assessment. Although, I do pick up on sites that take a totally different perspective on the situation. They appear to be sites that are supportive of the business as usual paradigm and support a “everything is just fine” and “quit being a negative loser” attitude.

My inbox for email is overrun by ads and claims of means for making a lot of money. This does not include the horrendous amount of Cialis and other sexual aids ads per day and the obvious scams. The scam email has tapered off a bit, I only get around two per day now. Seemingly the only way I can eliminate all this crap stuff is by making a new email address. My email junk filter works ok, but I am getting this kind of crap in excess of 50 per day. If it wasn’t for the fact that it would be a real mess to change email address I would do it tomorrow. Freeacre and I have over 200 valid addresses that we keep in contact with. It would be a nightmare. I have received email address changes and if I don’t take care of it right away, they seems to slip off into some kind of limbo on the computer and then the hassle begins of reestablishing contact. Freeacres son, who has some expertise in the workings of computer, insists that a portal email account is the answer, like Yahoo or G mail. Frankly, when the scammers and ads people pick up on a new address, I don’t see that as helping much. You just have another account with all the junk stuff coming in to deal with. Plus, I have a real issue with privacy on the portal email accounts. And, if I changed over to one of them, I would still have the problem of changing addresses. And then I have the problem of what to do about ads that I want to get if I get reckless with the spam filter or changing address. What a conundrum.

Perusing through the news sites and commentaries concerning the Egyptian and other countries open street rebellion, I come on various sites that intimate that the U.S. government is complicit in all of them for various reasons. Of course this is in direct contradiction that these rebellions are strictly grass root motivated and a desire for democracy on the part of the population. Knowing full well that the U.S. is very much into manipulating governments and populations to the empire’s advantage, the U.S. instigating of such uprisings or directing them in some particular direction is not all that “far out” a supposition.

On the home front, our dog Brie hasn’t had anymore seizures since the horrific night on the first of this month. We had to increase her dosage of Phenobarb and I don’t like it. She does exhibit a shift in personality and she has gained way too much weight, 25%+ over her pre seizure weight. (sighing). We have to accept the possibility that she may not be able to survive a whole lot longer, or that it becomes an untenable life for her. She is exhibiting a somewhat depressed joy of life and play that was her trademark and a propensity to sleep much more.

Since we have had an extended amount of more moderate weather, the chickens have started laying again. For about 2 months there we were only getting one or two eggs a day for 15 hens, although several of them were in winter molt. I was starting to think in terms of eliminating most of the flock and starting over. We shall see. It’s hard for us to think of doing in Henny Penny, our oldest hen. She is quite the character, I guess coming to that point by sheer age itself. She is a bit of a pet after all, or at least as much as a bird brain can be a companion. Our rooster continues to be a feathered gentleman with us instead of a feathered rabid attack animal. (Thank goodness).

It’s getting closer to spring again, about time to start pots in the house in preparation for the spring planting. Some of the weather predictions are saying another cold wet spring and very hot summer. Creates lots of problems for growing food. Guess it’s where you are located. Considering we can have 30 degree nights here any day of the summer, we want to make better preps this year for the garden. What a challenge.

We conducted a 2 night viewing of Linda Runyon’s master class on wild food survival at the Grange. Not attended heavily but a success anyway was the feedback we got. This woman makes the departed Eule Gibbons of the 60’s and 70’s look a bit lame. She has lived over a lot of different areas of the U.S. and fed her family mostly off the natural environment. Interesting lady and the film is packed with actual useful information about eating off the wild foods and how to stock them up. In May, we have a big day of presentations about 80 miles away by the CLDS (Mormons) on how to preserve and stock food. Nothing like learning from the masters of some skill.

Until I have another rant on the daily atrocities around us, have a good day.