This is my Eternal Summer

My life is so very different now.

I only 'work' 10 months out of the year; of course there are times when I do have to go in during the remaining two months. Next week I'm scheduled for a class to keep/enhance my certification in what I do; I have State reports to file the first of every month, and I have to sort and distribute supplies when they come in - which they will, off and on, for the next two months until school starts again.

Which is perfect for me. I have a HUGE garden - well, actually two of them, all told about two acres. There s the West Garden, which is all of my 'everyday' garden foods - tomatoes and radishes, collards and mustard greens, spinach and lettuce, squash and zucchini, and carrots and cabbages and corn and green beans and onions and... well, the usual stuff.

The East Garden is my 'experimental' garden. Here I'm growing not just things that I know will grow well here - like potatoes - but things that I've been told won't grow at all, or have never been tried, or that sprawl out too much for a smaller, more precise garden plot. A row of pumpkins, a row of watermelons - the small, 'early' type, that grow quickly and don't take 120 days or more of hot weather. Cantaloupes and 'muskmelons'. Oats and wheat. peanuts, and potatoes - two rows of potatoes.

Oh, crap, I think I've planted too many potatoes. I really didn't expect them all to come up - some were just old potatoes from storage. But it seems that every one of them is determined to grow. Every. Single. One.

There's strawberries, too, in between one apricot tree (I planted two ) and the plum tree next to the apple tree down the driveway. Gooseberry plants and blueberry plants, too. It's a long driveway.

Now that everything's in the ground, I have to weed them and feed them and keep them bug-free. There is the cutest HUGE pair of bunnies that gambol across other peoples' yards - not mine as yet. Hassenpfeffer, anyone? Because for sure I'll be looking for them if they wander into the gardens. There's a four-foot king snake in the East Garden - and I won't bother her. She eats gophers and they say that watching a king snake fight off a rattler - and kill it - is something to see. I planted the onons and garlic on the perimeter of the West Garden, and that plus the fact that there's a lot of horse poop and other compost in the rows may be off-putting to the deer. If not - I have a big freezer.

I may end up loading the quantities of produce into the back of the pickup bed and selling them by the road. Anything that's left, that I can't can or dehydrate or freeze or cook right away, just might be for sale... or left on neighbor's back porches, even in their unlocked cars... ahem.

Then there's the chickens. 10 hens and 10 roosters, just a month old so far. I'll put one of two roosters - the most obnoxious ones - with five hens each in chicken tractors, chicken coops with attached yards on runners, built to scoot between the rows in the garden, to keep down the bug invasions that happen the end of July here. They will spend their fertilizer between this year's rows, preparing for next year's rows. The rest of the roosters will be fattened in a separate pen and will be trussed up, lined up hanging upside down, then their throats cut, then processed for the freezer. THAT will be a messy weekend in August. Then my 10 'girls' will be producing their big brown eggs starting at the end of the summer...

We had to replace the wall oven. The old one will make a perfect miniature smokehouse; we stashed it back. I'm raking up the spoiled hay from the winter horse-feed bale out of the barn, and using the dry hay to mulch, the rotting hay and horse poop to start the new compost pile. We have to take down the storm windows and clean them and the huge old fashioned leaded-glass windows in the frames have to be reglazed and recaulked. We did some last year before winter set in, but not all. It is a challenge. Then there's things to build and things to rebuild; wood to chop for the cast-iron stove and set up to dry and cure for the winter.

Doesn't sound like much of a "vacation", does it?

But I'm planning on taking a short trip the end of June to my brother's in Idaho. My brother - whom my mother abandoned in a boardinghouse when he was six - and I found each other again 10 years ago. Since then we have taken great pleasure in each other's company. But there's a national miniature cattle show not 60 miles west of him. I have sparked his interest in these cattle; 22% butterfat in the milk, makes excellent cheese and butter, and they are foragers, like goats, don't require the hay and corn and grain feed-ups that the big cattle do. He has a house and money with no real property, and I have 60 acres. We are talking about starting our own little herd here; of good grass-fed beef and good cheeses and butter. Most times I preach against going into business with family, but, well... The long weekend in Idaho sounds like such fun, whether we buy cattle or not. They're not in the Plan for another two years, but..

Then of course there is the Star Gazer's Party in July; where everyone gathers at the local river and national park for a whole week to lay on their backs and look at the stars. DH and I missed the one last year, he had bronchitis. But this year I am determined to go. The astronomy professor from UN brings his class and telescopes down to the river and holds free classes on the stars; where they are, what to look for. There is no refraction of city lights here; nothing to get in the way of star-viewing on most nights. The skies here are so covered with tiny points of light that just sitting outside and looking up is like looking into black velvet with a bright light behind it; billions and billions of tiny sparkles. Of course when I say "everyone" - that means about 500 or so people. We are quite glad to be in flyover country.

This is why I moved, what I've always wanted, what I've worked toward and lived for my whole life. To grow things, to produce things, to create things, to be a vital part of life and living, to cast off the Disney World and China Mart existence, to seek after the real meaning of life, the real adventure of it, the real promise of productivity and joy that I find deep within me. My life is my vacation. And even when the snow flies, even when I go back to work full time, this is my Eternal Summer.

The Difference

I used to be on a Festival Committee, and am on the one where I live now, too.

This past weekend was my new place's Festival. First we had a parade that was announced by me (I was asked at the last minute; wth, I was already bringing the equipment we'd borrowed to do it anyway). Then there were children's games and horseshoe pitching in the park. Then there was a rodeo, then a huge supper with barbeque, potato salad, beans, cake, and drinks.

I had to spend three weeks calling people to work on the buffet line and bake cakes. All of my volunteers showed up, and we had cake left over - all different types. The folks in charge of the rodeo had different tasks; the guys in charge of the pit BarBQ had different tasks, the folks in charge of the beer garden and dance had different tasks. But it all came together in one day.

Unlike in the past, I didn't have to beg anyone to work, and neither did any other organizer. All of my people showed up, and NOT ONE demanded to be paid for it - again, unlike in the past. Even the one deputy - yes, that's all we needed, ONE, for traffic control on about 500 people - was a volunteer! People didn't pay to be in the parade, it was volunteer. People DID pay for their barbecue dinners - $4.00 for adults. They also paid a dollar or two if they roped or rode in the rodeo. Everything they wanted they paid for - even the Methodists' concession stand. No entrance fee or cover charge for the dance; the band cost $500 and played from 8 to 1 AM. The Beer Garden cost $1.00 a beer. There was no violence, no drunken behavior, no rowdiness. And at 1 AM everyone who hadn't left already went home.

Such huge differences from what I'm used to seeing; the rude behavior, the selfish demands for people to be PAID for their time to get a festival up and moving, the rowdiness, the destructiveness, the demands for everything for free. Even though I worked all day on the festival, I still paid for my and DH's meal - because that is the way it is done and supposed to be. We volunteer to keep the festival going, not to get a freebie. I always did it before - did it all for free - but was constantly surrounded by people who would only do it for so long and for so much. It always used to piss me off that they were so mercenary, and cared so little about their community, that they thought they should make a profit off of it.

Now I don't have to deal with that crap any more. Here you not only help each other, but you don't demand to be catered to, you don't make a profit off of others' efforts, and you don't have to listen to the endless whining about "someone else might get more than MEEEEE!" or listen to the "Well, what you SHOULD do is -" from people who won't lift, who have never lifted, a single God-Damned finger that didn't profit them somehow. And that is the biggest difference of all.

What makes me Tick?

My "guilty pleasure" is backing underdogs, making them feel like they are not worthless, giving them a grasp on reality rather than being swamped by adversity.

Nothing makes me angrier than to see some person who thinks a little differently, or acts a little differently, become the scapegoat for many self-convinced, self-righteous people, feeling badly because he feels the whole world is against him - and he's often right.

The most recent 'case' I'm working on is a teenager who has been told most of his life that he has to conform. Now we all know that teens are just not that good at conforming anyway. But this kid - and several other 'misfits' like him - are constantly being harassed by adult do-gooders who think that it is their bounden duty to make these kids act like other 'perfect' kids. My 'misfits' all hang together, all do things together, before and after school. Their parents take very little interest in what they do. Their teachers claim that they are the worst troublemakers. Their peers are encouraged, subtly and not, to make fun of them and mistreat them.

So where do these kids come for a friendly voice and support? Me... I know, you'd never suspect it. But I married a "bad boy" - not because I had a sick yen for a "Bad Boy" but because I could see that he wasn't a bad boy - he was just really really smart, honest, and, yes, deep-down kind, not the artificial kind-for-a-reason type of person.

My 'misfits' are all that way - all smart, funny, and the 'give you the shirt off your back' type of people. They simply don't follow other peoples' ideas of the 'perfect child'. They are so smart that they are bored by schoolwork, frustrated by it, and that frustration is read as being stubborn and stupid. My favorite came to me the other day, almost in tears (that he won't let anyone else see - he's TOUGH, dammit) and said vehemently, "I'm a f**king genius!" I said very calmly, "Yes, of course you are."

He stopped the beginning of his frustrated rant and looked at me, quietly amazed. "You mean that?" "Of course I do," I replied, because I did and he is. "You, T____, B_____, C____ - you are all geniuses. You are simply frustrated by what is going on here. Smaller minds and smaller spirits always try to drag people down to their level. You resent that - and you should. But not the way you are doing now. You can show ALL of these people - if you only put your mind to it! Think, J____, THINK. Don't react to them, don't let them make you do what proves them right. Outthink them, out-reason them!" He was floored. Then he went to talk to the other guys, and they all agreed - they were going to do the right things, the decent things, the things that made them happy, not miserable, and not give a damn what pigeonhole anyone else tried to stick them into.

I love doing that. I love making people see their potential, making them realize what they can do, far beyond what anyone else expects of them. I've often been accused of being a nasty, mean spirited bitch, and I enjoy that reputation; I promote it, and let others expound on it. Because it hides what I'm really doing - life by life, person by person, teaching people that they really are somebody, really are worthwhile, without all of that artificial bullshit, the socialist do-gooder hype of conformity and equality. Why shouldn't children or adults become everything they can be, everything their talents have meant for them to be, without conforming to someone else's ideal of right or wrong?

And so it begins...

A swine flu epidemic breaks out in Mexico, in four different regions, that at first the Mexican authorities say there is 'nothing to worry about' - and now they are shutting down public places and pulling people who 'look sick' off of trains. There are people infected in NYC, Texas, and California - no comments yet on whether or not any of these are illegal immigrants (we'll never know, thanks to the politically correct). Much as when my neighbor became infected with tuberculosis, the doctors asked him point-blank if the truck he drove for a living was unloaded by illegals, and his worker's comp wouldn't pay the bills because he couldn't "prove" he got it on the job - although everyone, even his employers and the doctors, knew that he did. Let's pretend it isn't a problem, that open borders are still ok, and that there is nothing to worry about from people coming here who are coming from poor animal-raising and farming techniques, poor or non-existent sewage and water treatment - where fertilizing crops or feeding pigs and chickens with raw human or other waste is still ok. Coming from places where cleanliness of not only persons but food production is not an issue. Coming here.

I'm not too worried, personally. Not a whole lot of folks come where I live on purpose. No illegal immigrants, no legal ones, either. Everyone knows everyone. We are an isolated pocket of humanity that grows its own food, has its own clean underground water supply, travels little (no time!) and rarely seeks medical treatment or crowds.

But for my friends and wide-flung family, I worry. I know where they live, and I know what surrounds them - miles and miles of people who think that the world owes them a living. People who, during a pandemic, will kick down doors looking for meds and food - and even the healthy ones will use it as an excuse to pillage for their own wants.

Of course it won't get that bad. The CDC will stop it, just like they've been able to stop the tuberculosis. If there is a serious outbreak, the National Guard will come in and lock down any violence. Martial law will be declared if necessary. They'll keep the contaminated food and the carriers and Typhoid Marys from spreading the diseases. Our government will protect us as always.

Of course it will.

You keep right on believing that.

No Sympathy for Fools

The bedding plants - over 1,000 of them - are up and we're getting ready to put them in the ground; the chickens will be in the second week of May, the fruit trees in about a week or so. I got my rabbit and deer repellent, gopher repellent, bug repellent (I am a fan of Sevin dust) and the sulphur to put in the soil for the blueberries. There was the annual sale on strawberries - buy 25 get 25 more free.

Then we have the Future Farmers of America banquet tomorrow night, Prom Saturday, Graduation in 20 days. 20 days! How time flies.

Then there are the emails. Hundreds of them every week. Friends panicking, losing their jobs - what will really happen to them? No one knows. During the bubble far too many investors threw money at far too many ridiculous ideas that didn't (couldn't) pan out, and now friends and enemies alike are paying the piper. As much fun as it is to be able to say, "I TOLD you so!" it is sad to watch my friends suffer under my enemies' deserved comeuppance. And of course those same enemies are in complete and total denial still. At least in public. What they are scrabbling about doing behind the scenes to save themselves ,and still be able to screw others, remains to be seen.

I have never lived my life on the Panic Principle, though I know many who do. They LOVE the hysteria of "OHMYGAWD WHAT am I going to do next?" Occurances that are easily predictable, or that even come every year, they don't plan for, don't think about, don't worry about - until they arrive. They deny natural and predictable results, angrily or sarcastically, insisting that these things could never, will never, happen to THEM. Then, when they inevitably do, they rush around shrieking and wailing, "HOW could this happen?"

The reply - "Because you are stupid" doesn't sink in.

My friends keep trying to draw me back in to the embroilments. They don't understand that, like Bill Murray, "I don't - oh, what's the word - CARE." Honestly, if I cared I would still be there, fighting and standing up and being counted. The problem is that it cost me in money and time over 30 years to stand and fight for other people - stupid people, who refused to learn from their mistakes, who insisted that the status quo was right, who insisted that no matter how their skin was crisping and their guts were boiling that they were NOT on fire.

99% of all people are sheep or lemmings, following each emotional leader over the next precipiece, whining about what happens to them as they bounce off of the rocks on the way down. I quit. I gave up. They don't want reason or common sense, they want mommies that tell them that everything will be all right, poor little babies. They make me violently ill. Why would I want that emotional and constant Sturm und Drang, the endless prattling, the endless nattering, the alternating terror and vicious stabs at each other that these mindless prattling children go through, every day - that they desperately NEED to feel alive and functioning?

Nope. I have a life, and it has nothing to do with them any more. It never really did - what I did with my kids, what I grew in my garden, how I lived my life, was totally seperate from dealing with people who whined to be saved - and then gloated and postured when they WERE saved, pretending that they did it all on their own.

I'm busy, here. Through trying to educate the stupid, through trying to help the helpless, through arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Fiddle while Rome burns around your ears. Yawn. Your shrieking is endless white noise. You are determined to remain blind, ignorant, selfish, foolish, and arrogant. Rot in it. Wallow in it. Enjoy it as only you can. Animals wallowing in your own filth, claiming it for attar of roses. "Sympathy" is in the dictionary, between "syphilis" and "shit". Accuse anyone else who even starts to view things, see things, talk about things, or sound like me of being me (the most pathetic and mindless stupidity of all). You have GOT to be kidding. But, of course, you're not... you are that blind.

A Friend's Poem on the Economy (Ha. Ha?)

No I didn't write this but I wish I did. A self-described octogenarian, friend of mine who lives in Columbia did. An ex-DJ, ex-radio broadcast news reporter, wrote it. John Wrisley, a fracking genius though he doesn't know it; funny, friendly, concise, and a voluminous writer and blogger.
It just doesn't get any better than this!

We'll Find Our Way Back

The great middle class has been knocked on its ass
And doesn't know what to do.
The bubbles have burst, and, expecting the worst,
They are bidding their fortunes adieu.

There's no room for mirth when we see our net worth
Drop eighteen percent or more.
We're poorer today than we were yesterday,
And the pain is too harsh to ignore.

401(k)s in a swoon, pension plans out of tune,
Add up to a great tale of woe.
Whom shall we blame? Who'll bear the shame?
Who is it made off with our dough?

When stock prices dropped, and real estate flopped,
Where did all the wealth go?
Did some son-of-a-bitch get filthy rich
While we became burdened with woe?

There's been hanky panky by young Doctor Bernanke,
And tricks by Tim Geithner to boot.
Look behind scenes to see what it means.
Lets trace the distress to its root.

In days of old, true money was gold -
Four-hundred-eighty grains to the ounce.
A unit of measure that one could treasure,
And keep honest tabs on accounts.

A means of exchange, gold helped to arrange
The commercial affairs of mankind.
It brightened the world as its value unfurled;
As trade 'round the globe intertwined.

But it was tough, there was never enough
Of the bright shiny metal called "gold."
"It's holding us back. Please cut us some slack,"
Said the bankers from inside their stronghold.

"Let us use paper and we'll cut you a caper
That will turn this old world on its ear!"
Mistaking paper for wealth, the entire commonwealth
Was convinced it had nothing to fear.

The game worked many years, and amid the loud cheers
We were taught to get "rich" on the cuff.
We loaded up debt and we're paying it yet -
Now the future looks exceedingly tough.

It doesn't seem fair to be forced to foreswear
Those freewheeling days of the boom.
But an irritation brought on by inflation
Leaves us little but gloom.

The boys in D.C. behave outrageously
As they pretend to know what to do.
What really rancors is their gifts to the bankers.
The last one they'll help will be YOU.

And they're not really helping, despite all the yelping!
They're just piling up trillions in debt.
We hear all the blab, but who'll pay that great tab?
It'll be all our kids, you can bet.

As depression bites deep, we may wake from our sleep
And learn from the lessons of old.
We'll find lunches aren't free, and - doubtlessly,
We'll find our way back to gold.

~John Wrisley, March 28th, 2009

Back, Succubi!

"The sky is falling!! The Sky is falling!"
"I lost everything and had to declare bankruptcy - but I'm still gonna party and go out and enjoy life."
"I don't make him spend money on me. Gee, how could I STOP him? (giggle giggle) Oh, looky, I got what I wanted - again!" Tee. Hee.

"I'll let you know if I survive the surgery two weeks from now."

"DO you SEE who's getting a bailout this time?? Isn't it outrageous?? Aren't you upset?"

"Join the "National Tea Party" movement, the "We Surround Them" movement, the "News with Views" subscription group, and get the word out!"

Yawn. Go. AWAY.

For 25 years I tried to educate people, help people, and tell people what was going to happen. They dissed me. They insisted I was wrong. They smiled indulgently. They sneered and criticized voiciferously. Now suddenly they want my SYMPATHY?

What a bunch of drama queens.

If you could read and write and do simple math you had to know what was going down. Now your heroes have feet of clay? And now you 'discover' the ones who wrote the exceptions in the bailouts got campaign contributions from the very ones they 'saved'? And now the hopeyfeeleychangers are either scuttling back into their burrows or still stridently insisting that their Saviour will save us all? And now you think is the time for everyone to rally round and fight?

Go play with yourselves. Talking to you is an exercise in futility, and listening to your screeching and endless meeeeeeeism is like fingernails on a chalkboard. Go wank, as the British say. Waste your seed and your panting useless sweating efforts on your all-too-brief self-satisfaction. Again.

I do admit that it is sometimes fun to watch those who have been making excuses for ten years or more, continue to get defensive and make the identical excuses over and over again. They should tape them so all they have to do is play them endlessly on their voicemails, post them on their facebook pages, a litany of self-excuse and self-pity and self-righteous indignation. All you have to do is prick them a tad bit with a tiny needle, and off they go again, hysterically insistent. It's like tormenting a chihuahua. You know he's going to growl and posture in exactly the same way, teeth bared and bouncing, every time - and that's what makes it so damned funny. Look, there he goes again! Bark, Peppy, Bark! Nothing changes.

But I am tired of the repetitive plaintive whines for attention, the constant emotional manipulation of the stupid by the stupid. You deserve each other. Go bark at each other for eternity, trapped in your senseless and noisy hell.

Join you? Help you? Care about you? I don't even like you. And you are nothing like me - and never will be. Dream on. Don't try to validate your simpering incompetence and pathetic misunderstanding of yourselves by asking me to be a part of it. Don't whine that you "Didn't know, had no idea!" Yes you did. But in your own mind, you told yourself it couldn't, shouldn't be true. You lied to yourself, to me, to everyone around you, and now you want my indulgence, my attention, my help, my participation?

HA. Simper, whimper, and whine your way out of this one, this time, all by yourself. Your eyes are not opened even yet to all the damage you have caused by your own ignorance, selfishness, greed, and prating. Stop grabbing for me, trying to read me like braille, trying to find the sympathetic bumps you can use to try to manipulate me to your side. Go find someone else to suck the life from. Back, succubi!