As the entitled, privileged, white western woman I identify as, I now have Hubby all to myself.
Now his best, his most creative, his most talented and productive self gets expressed here, at home, instead of off in some far away place for some unknown people.
“Every man looks at his wood pile with a kind of affection.” ~Henry David Thoreau
The benefit for me has been huge, off the charts. Most recently in the form of a beautiful Christmas gift. We’ve spent most Christmases of our 20 year marriage apart, usually with Hubby working offshore. This never felt like such a big deal to me considering we don’t have kids and we are neither religious nor consumer-oriented.
It was a pretty good deal actually, because he got bonus pay and we got to feel generous at the same time—offering the holidays to the Dads among his co-workers.
No matter how good of a sharer one is entrained to be, especially I guess as a selfish, entitled, privileged, white, western woman, giving the best years of life to ‘the system’ is not nearly as fulfilling as it might sound to some.
Like most modern Westerners we worked hard for many decades—we devoted years of education and training in order to fulfill our function in the economy and we played by the social rules and did some right investment things and we feel we’ve earned our relative liberty.
We’ve bought our freedom, so to speak. For as long as that lasts anyway.
We have earned our right to withdraw our energy, time and talent from an insane system earlier than scheduled. A ‘gift’ hard-earned and well-deserved, I’d say.
Many years ago I was told that “Americans live to work, while the French work to live” in an attempt to describe the comparable ‘work ethic’ of these two cultures. In general, I’d agree, at least back then. Certainly in past centuries Americans have prided themselves on their reputation of being hard workers, with high productivity, and all those industrious accolades that go along with that—like ingenuity and resourcefulness and determination. Now we desire to benefit from those hard-earned character traits.
Retirement is Redefining Fun
I preferred the French style of cultivating more joie de vivre and laissez-faire attitudes, but not just for the more obvious reasons of the pleasure and sensual rewards of the good life. I also saw how unhealthy it is to encompass so much of one’s raison d’etre —self-esteem and community connections and social structure and really most aspects of life —in with one’s professional occupation. But this is what the majority of us have been trained to do.
“Because work is an activity in which all initiative and energy is extorted from the individual in order to generate profit for someone else, and because it is unbearably unpleasant, futile and barren, ‘free’ time looms before labour as a garden paradise. Fake sickies are then engineered and labour-saving devices purchased to extend the Pastime Arcadia by a minute or two. But because access to wild nature and genuine culture is curtailed, weekenders are forced to buy their pleasure as they buy everything else, from huge corporations which, to turn a profit, appeal to the lowest common denominator of its demographic, thereby producing, in lieu of satisfying art, addictive titillation and anxiety. In other words, once we have freed ourselves from work, we then have to submit to a world made of work.” 33 Myths of the System: A Radical Guide to the World by Darren Allen (2021)
Leaving all the variables aside—like retirement wasn’t exactly intentional and was certainly untimely, yet irresistible, and as yet permanently untenable—the rewards still far outweigh the risks.
Retirement is Reprioritizing.
The old adage ‘time is money’ casts an evil word spell. In actuality, time is precious, as money is profane.
“The second new technology of control invented by the Greeks , was MONEY — an impersonal, indestructible abstraction which rendered people, objects and, eventually, the entire universe as a collection of homogeneous quantities, things which could be bought and sold. It was thanks to the attitude that money engendered that Greek philosophers began to view the entire universe as a composite of discrete, rationally-apprehended granules, or particles (a.k.a. ‘Atoms’), and ideas (or ‘platonic forms’), chief among them, the tragic atom—cut-off, isolated, alone — we call ‘man’.” (D. Allen)
When man is no longer ‘trading hours for a handful of dimes’ to borrow a Doors’ passage, fantastic things can occur. I’m not saying they will occur, only that the potential is created that they might. That is, a space where no space existed before, where money’s place in time is squarely upstaged by something infinitely more appealing.
Some folks plan multiple decades for retirement only to be overwhelmed by time’s infinity once they reach it. They succeeded in their dream. Right?
Whether they scrimped and saved or invested and won, still they cling to the ‘time is money’ fallacy and once retired spend much energy agonizing over their dwindling resources and increased hours to fill with distractions—some new fanaticism —be it sports or politics or shopping or so, so many other means for their entertainment, that is, their entrainment. Your money and your mind.
They’ve been so acclimated to the Earn-Spend Ferris wheel of existence that time shifts almost instantly from precious to perilous. The ‘never enough’ crowd, born and bred to earn and burn, to forever cast the pearls of their finite energy into the infinite abyss of acquisition.
Where to burn, once that ride threatens to end? Could a new retirement hobby ever be enough?
Or will it take a new lifestyle? A new way of being and perceiving in the world? Maybe even re-integrating the simple satisfaction of chopping wood and carrying water? After all, why pay a gym membership?
Or, as my beautiful Christmas gift suggests, maybe making furniture?
As best we could, with limited knowledge, skill, money, we set ourselves up to succeed at this moment, and against the odds. Will that be enough? There are no guarantees.
But, the meaning of ‘succeed’ has shifted with the territory. It’s our own meaning now. No masters above, no slaves below. It’s working at our leisure, at our pleasure, on projects and activities that reflect who we are, what we want out of life, how we envision a better future. It’s personal and imperfect and it’s the way we are trying to practice more than we preach.
Retirement is spontaneity. After having planned ahead.
Yes, it was a tornado that took down that cedar, and many other trees as well. Yes, our tools are still inadequate. No, we don’t have the money to ‘upgrade’. But the financial restraints require creativity and frugality, which we’ve cultured over the decades. And the self-reliance fosters self-confidence, which we’ve been diligently cultivating for decades as well.
If the best things in life are free, what to do with our freedom? Do we spend our precious time perfecting the dance of life, or perfecting our costumes? Do we spend our greatest efforts making it easier for ourselves to play, or for others to watch?
Perfection is the enemy of the good. In the world of corporate work, perfection is the goal. Perfection is the construct upon which all human effort is poised. Your regenerative human resource creates their sustained capital. Perfection in the eyes of the corporate beholder is maintained through mechanization, that is, mechanization of the resource, be he human or time, quotidian or universal.
Retirement is unstructured.
Our only intention now is to never go back. It is a soul-sucking system, not just a time-sucking one. I’d say that’s why so many don’t get out sooner, or whenever they have the chance—their souls have been too drained already.
Mechanization of the body or soul is equal under the laws of the system. But, unstructured time allows plenty of opportunity to de-mechanize.
What is one man capable of without the lifetime expectation of the system? Without the chaotic pressures of the market? With just a bit of time and skill and opportunity?
That’s what retirement should be, according to me. The freedom to be unpredictable and unperfectable. The freedom not to be adjusted or tampered with anymore in order to support a slippery system we unwittingly inherited.
“Most people do not know what to do with free time and when it appears they feel only an anxious need to consume corporate fun or, at best, cultural familiarity.” (D. Allen)
A great number of disjointed fragments came together to make this whole—including a tornado, a scamdemic, a hand-me-down gift of turquoise stones, a random forum post about ‘steampunk style’ and a lot of time, and desire, and a good bit of skill—none of which had anything to do with me directly.
I only breathed just a hint of enthusiasm at just the right time and voila—he has crafted a unique treasure that will forever recall the transformation of a painful memory recast into magnificently unique beauty, form and function.
The deeper fissures in the wood filled with lovely turquoise stones.
If it’s the only piece he ever creates, I am over-joyed! If it leads to a hobby that fills his desires, I am thrilled! If it leads even further, to actual work, like, for others, well, maybe, I’ll be forced to pull that Retirement is Selfish card again.
Wow, I’ve posted no update since the end of August (aka Late Swelter Season). Now here we are already well into Weather Whiplash Season, my how time flies!
This post we’ve got lots of happy snaps, the usual weather bitching, some cheese boasting, and long laments about our dear Shadow’s woes.
Notice the band-aid on his ear? Useless. But, apparently we needed to learn that the hard way.
Sometimes time flies, but when things get really bad, it crawls. Especially when it goes instantly from nothing much to Holy Shit!
And as bad as it is, in the big picture the weather whiplash is still way worse. So, best get that report out of the way first. No rain, in our rainy season. No real season at all, just a rainless rollercoaster, and not nearly as fun as that sounds.
Not natural clouds, folks! And soon the kids won’t be able to see any difference, though the atmosphere has significantly changed in the last two decades, as the weather has changed, as they lie about their climate scam, and charge ‘carbon taxes’ to ordinary folks to pay for their madness. Makes me SO FURIOUS!
I could be taking such photos on a regular basis, but it gets old. And then someone could comment on the ‘pretty’ sunset. 🤯. Argghhh, Noooo! Can’t someone please make it stop?!
No? Ok, moving on.
More bad news. We’ve had the most prolific acorn year since we’ve been here, that’s about 15 years. Sounds like good news, I know. It is good news, in many ways. The pigs are getting fat, the sheep and goats are gorging. Literally. And that’s the problem. One of the young twins gorged himself to death. It was terribly sad. His little stomach ballooned up as if his body couldn’t contain it anymore and he was suffering for hours.
I’d read baking soda could help, but it did not in this case. Perhaps it was too severe. I also read there’s a surgical procedure which would alleviate the pressure in his gut, but I don’t have the confidence to perform that myself and the vets around here don’t treat goats. I held the little guy for a long time, trying to keep him warm and help him feel better, but we lost him. Oh the perils of animal husbandry!
Another problem of the acorn bumper crop is much less severe. We live under a large oak tree and have a metal roof. It’s been rather windy lately and once those nuts start shaking loose, it’s kinda like the sky is falling. If our veteran neighbor with PTSD comes by I expect he’ll be darting for cover quick, because it sounds eerily like machine gunfire when they get popping off the roof.
The acorn perks include some plump pigs and happy goats, two of which I’m still milking, which is making for some very tasty cheeses.
Under the oaks: happy pigs, sheep and goats.Can you spot the perfectly camouflaged foraging pig?Happy goats make for delicious cheeses.
I’ve gotten so successful I’m confident enough to get very daring!
Chèvre wrapped in sassafras and fig leaves for aging.More aged chèvre—the top log is covered in dried goldenrod leaves and flowers, the bottom one is wrapped in honeybee comb.Our first pecan harvest—less than impressive, but still delishLactarius paradoxus mushrooms, homemade goat cheeses and first Japanese persimmon
Our fruits were nearly non-existent this summer, but we did just get our first ‘crop’ of persimmons, a whopping 5 of them! A couple of years ago I harvested lots of them from a neighbor’s tree and they were delicious; that was the first time we’d ever tried them.
Fuji persimmon
We planted both varieties, but the American variety takes much longer to start producing fruit and the fruits are generally smaller. These pictured above are Fuji, quite different, harder, larger, less sweet, not at all astringent, and also very tasty. The closest in taste I’d say would be a very ripe mango, the American varieties are especially super sweet, like jam.
If you’d like to learn more about this fancy fruit, here’s an enthusiastic lesson from James Prigione.
We’ve been getting a few mushrooms, but the lack of rain is certainly hindering our foraging experience. A friend brought us a huge chicken of the woods, our first time trying it and it was excellent.
Laetiporus sulphureus
The lactarius paradoxus are hard to spot and deceptively unattractive. In fact, they are exceptionally tasty and have a longer shelf-life, and of course a different season, than our favorite chanterelles.
Even while foraging mushrooms it seems the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. 🤔
In the garden we do have two nice full boxes of varied cool-season produce we protect from the frosts with row cover cloth. In addition to lettuces there’s some broccoli and cauliflower, spring onions, cilantro and parsley, radishes and Chinese cabbage. We’ve also got our garlic already shooting up and a couple rows of turnips started for the pigs come spring. Our neighbors are now buying eggs from us, so we throw in the surplus veggies when we can.
3 of 6 colonies survived our terrible summer. The hives are a bit hodge-podge at the moment while we do maintenance on them.
The honeybees are occasionally making an appearance, though since the frost there is little for them to forage. One of their last favorites is another one considered a ‘nuisance plant’ by the ‘experts’—it’s called tree groundsel and it’s pictured after the frost in the right photo above, in the background behind the boxes. Quite a lovely late-season plant, if you ask me.
And approaching it before the first frost sounded like the buzzing metropolis that it was! A last hoorah for the bees.
So we come back to the current day and our crazy Shadow drama. It all started with a tiny Band-Aid.
He’s got the ear-span of a small plane and we have the living room space of its cockpit. When he shakes his head he invariably hits some piece of wall or corner of furniture with his Dumbo ears and it’s actually pretty amazing it didn’t happen already: a tiny gash on the tip of one ear that he doubtlessly cannot even feel.
Forever happy and oblivious
We were racking our brains for several days, trying everything we could think of and just digging ourselves deeper. One tiny failed Band-aid led to bigger Band-aids led to bigger wraps led to taping menstrual pads to the poor creature!
Nothing was working. We also tried several over-the-counter products, like liquid Band-aid, blood-clotting powder, and some spray-on crap. Not only was nothing working, they all seemed to be making the problem worse.
We even tried to craft our own ‘No flap ear wrap’ made out of my doo-rags, which also didn’t work. So, we purchased a pricey one online which should be arriving any day now. Obviously, this is a universally common dog issue. A result of over-domestication no doubt, but that’s fodder for another post.
Then I start racking my pea brain in frantic desperation. How to stop the blood flow pronto?! Crimp his ears with clothes pins? Tie his ears up on top of his head with a scrunchy? Stitches? Soldering? How about just cut the whole ear off? Yes, we did briefly consider the vet. But we’ve been spending the many months since we got him trying to detox him from all the vet potions and it feels we are finally making some headway there. I kept imagining the new meds that would be required for this new issue and their invariable side-effects, which would start us off at square one with his detox.
Clearly I don’t think very well in high-stress situations. I was really trying hard and the bad ideas were piling on. The blood, which had gone from a tiny occasional drop, to a full-on drip, to a steady stream, and from then within a few hours a sprayer-hose in every direction with every shake of his head. And that boy loves to shake his head.
Between the blood splatter and the acorn fire it feels we could be living in a battlefield training zone.
Yup, the crazy, bloody mess had arrived and is still visible all over our living room, deck, porch, siding. We covered all the furniture and even the walls with old towels and sheets. Hubby started following him around everywhere, with a giant towel extended between his outstretched arms each time he sensed a head shake was about to turn into a sprayer-hose of the sticky, red, splatter paint across the windows, the screens, the ceilings even. (Where are those magical elves when you need a deep house cleaning?)
We needed a miracle, and fast!
And thank the heavens, I got that miracle in one brief email. Thank you UK herbalists, Kath and Zoe, miracle workers! It should’ve occurred to me sooner. Me, especially, considering I did start the Herbal Explorations pages earlier this year and have been getting educated on herbal remedies. It honestly did not occur to me that herbs could solve this acute issue. I didn’t think anything would be fast or effective enough, especially when every other thing we were trying had failed and even worsened the problem.
Zoe suggested powdered myrrh as her preferred method in order to stop the blood flow, but we didn’t have that on hand. I ordered some online, but in the meantime chose among her other options, yarrow, and we have plenty on hand because I like it in Kombucha. I made a strong tea with it, as well as grounding some up into a powder and that whole concoction I held on his ear a few times with a cloth, some of that powder getting into the wound and sticking there, and the blood flow finally stopped. Holy Heavens! As of this writing we are still in good form and have our reserve remedies soon arriving in the mail.
What I clearly need now is an official Herbal First-Aid course. Herbs are not just for gentle healing and routine health, I see, they can be used in emergencies, too.
Why did I not think about it sooner?! It seems like such a no-brained to me now, that I’ve started to consider other potentials that didn’t occur to me at the time—like the old Russian folk remedy bees podmore—which I just happen to have been saving for a rainy day for 3 years now.
Quite an expensive lesson, but a welcome one nonetheless. 😊
Thank you from Hubby’s ‘White Elephant’! 😆
A huge thanks and deep bow to Kath and Zoe, from all of us on the wee homestead! 🙏 🤗
The material being taught to the professionals that most people consider to be experts in healing and human health has been corrupted by corporate propaganda.
The medical education curriculum being taught in universities has been hijacked by big pharma. This is not a new phenomenon, the coup d’état which replaced natural medicine (that sought to address root causes of illness) with synthetic petroleum based medicine (that seeks to use petroleum derived patentable synthetic drugs to cover symptoms and create ‘return customers’) began over a century ago.
Here is a brief history that provides a summarized overview of how the hostile take over happened.
Founded in 1847, the American Medical Association is the largest association of physicians and medical students in the United States. Its stated mission includes “…lobbying for legislation favorable to physicians and patients, and to raise money for medical education.”
The AMA spends big money on lobbying. One of the AMA’s top lobbying firms, the McManus Group, also lobbies for PhRMA, Eli Lilly & Co, Merck and Pfizer. According to OpenSecrets.org, the American Medical Association comes in second in overall money spent on lobbying in the last 10 years with over $264 million. The health industry as a whole trumps all other industries including energy and finance in lobbying expenditure.
The AMA looks to legitimize its agenda through its Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA, which is the most widely circulated medical journal in the world. JAMA receives major funding through its advertisers, many of which are pharmaceuticals. In addition, the American Medical Association has been accepting money from the Rockefeller (America’s first billionaire that made his fortune in Oil) and Carnegie Foundations from as early as 1910. In World Without Cancer, G. Edward Griffin makes the argument that the Rockefeller and Carnegie Foundations began to support the AMA in an effort to control the medical schooling establishment and to gain power over this “large and vital sphere of American life.”
The editor of JAMA is very influential, and has historically played a significant role in suppressing alternative health treatments. Morris Fishbein, editor of JAMA from 1924–1950, was directly engaged in suppressing Royal Rife’s cancer cure. In 1849, homeopathy was nearly as popular as allopathic medical practices. The AMA was able to use its position to squash what it referred to as “quackery” — stating that the public did not know what was good for it and that the medical establishment must have total control. At that point it called for control over all medical regulations and licenses. These regulations eventually lead to closing down of schools and almost complete suppression of the practice. Even today in parts of Canada and America some homeopathic practices are “underground.”
It was around the turn of the century that the AMA, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Carnegie Foundation forged their partnership. They put their money into drug-based research (oil derived pharmaceuticals) and made that the main focus of “healthcare”—a move that turned “healthcare” into “sickness management.” The Rockefellers and other prominent banking elite (and the shareholders of their subsidiary pharmaceutical corporations) have been able to control and profit enormously from the drug industry.
Now, all medical doctors in the USA are trained in medical schools that are run and/or accredited/sanctioned by the AMA. Of 129 medical schools in America, only 22 require even what amounts to basic rudimentary courses in nutrition. Medical students are not trained to see the connections between many degenerative diseases and malnutrition. Instead they are taught only how to treat with surgical or pharmaceutical methods but do not cure or alleviate the root problem or ailment. Similar numbers are reflected in medical education here in Canada. In this way, they are assured of life-long customers. Surveys conclude that over 66% of all Americans regularly take prescription drugs (with only slightly lower numbers being reflected here in Canada as well).
Massive transnational pharmaceutical corporations (like Bayer) were not satisfied in only dominating what we are taught about medicine and what forms of ‘medicine’ we will have access to, they soon moved to take over the food production systems as well.
Just 50 years ago, some 1,000 small and family-owned seed companies were producing and distributing seeds in the United States; by 2009, there were fewer than 100.
Thanks to a series of mergers and acquisitions over the last few years, four multinational agrochemical/pharmaceutical firms — Corteva, ChemChina, Bayer and BASF — now control over 60 percent of global seed sales.
The slow march of seed consolidation suddenly turned into a sprint. Chemical and pharmaceutical companies with no historical interest in seed bought small regional and family-owned seed companies. Targeting cash crops like corn and soy, these companies saw seeds as part of a profitable package: They made herbicides and pesticides, and then engineered the seeds to produce crops that could survive that drench of chemicals. They make the petroleum based pharmaceutical drugs that your doctor will prescribe you when the toxic ‘food’ you eat results in degenerative diseases. At every turn, they make a profit (at the expense of the integrity of the biosphere and human health). The same seed companies that now control more than 60 percent of seed sales also sell more than 60 percent of the pesticides.
GMO byproducts degrade and deplete soils of vital minerals and beneficial bacteria, both of which protect crops from pests, viruses, and other threatening elements. Glyphosate which is used in conjunction with GMO seeds does not biodegrade, which means it is continually accumulating in the environment without restraint, perpetually altering soil composition and contaminating natural resources.
A handful of companies have spread these toxins across our planet diverting US$ 400 Billion of public money to subsidize their high cost chemical commodities to make them artificially “cheap”. The costs of this cheap “food” are astronomical in terms of the health of people, the ecological damage it causes and it’s exploitation of farmers. If the true costs of chemical food were taken into account it would be unaffordable.
If what we put into the soil is toxic, what we get out is toxic. Mission successful. Incidents of degenerative disease and cancer have skyrocketed since the above described ‘food’ and ‘medicine’ products became the norm. Life long return customers for the pharmaceutical industry are now plentiful.
The article continues with more compelling evidence and ends with good intentions and creations—Gavin’s ferments and info about his book: Recipes for Reciprocity
Good writing, great points! A repost by Jeffrey Tucker
“Degrowth is the economic model of flagellantism, reducing consumption, embracing privation, acquiescing to austerity. We no longer declare recessions to be on their way because recession is the new way we live, the realization of the plan. The word recession implies a future of recovery, and that is not in the cards.
Decolonization is another watchword. It means feeling so guilty about the space you inhabit that your only moral action is to stay put and reflect on the sufferings of those you have displaced. You can of course say a prayer of supplication to them, so long as you never appropriate any aspect of their culture, since doing so would seem to affirm your rights as a human being.
You want joy, beauty, color, drama, adventure, and love? It’s not gone entirely. Park yourself on a yoga mat on your gray floor and open your computer. Stream something on one of many streaming services you have been provided. Or become a gamer. There you will find what you seek.”
Geoengineering, weather modification, climate remediation, climate change, global warming—or whatever the science and corporate spinners are calling it this week.
Here I’ll be posting links and pics, quoting/reviewing books and articles, and including commentary about this crucial and controversial topic, while trying to cut through some of the propaganda of my favorite “conspiracy theory” subject: The Weather.
Our own skies provide a regular crop of evidence for the on-going atmospheric manipulations. The Texas Weather Modification Association provides zero assistance to the public though we are personally experiencing all the signature signs of geoengineering, which they pretend is not happening: drought-deluge within micro-regions of the county, tornadoes, weather whiplashf, monster hail, high prolonged heat, and even snow storms.
I’ve been documenting these instances for many years on this blog as the establishment continues their normalization attempts.
We start with a couple of primers from the amazing sites and research of Jim Lee.
Disclaimer: I’ve cherry-picked quotes I like from this excellent and well-researched article (though rather dated) and I would recommend a complete reading. However, politically, the final paragraphs I find off-putting, short-sighted and propaganda-driven. I did not find this to deter from the substance of the main thesis, so I include it here.
“One purpose of this essay is therefore perhaps unavoidably therapeutic: I wish to help promote an integration of two scientific communities, or more precisely, to persuade the cheery Dr. Jekyll to recognize his alter ego, the dark and mysterious Mr. Hyde, and to do so within plain sight of the entire global climate-change science and activist community. Why? Because until this self-reckoning happens no good will come of Dr. Jekyll’s supposedly benign schemes to deal with Earth’s climate. The clever and above all determined Mr. Hyde, an inveterate national security warrior, will use such schemes for his own anachronistic national security ends. He always has. And history demonstrates these ends do not servethe benefit of all humanity.
The dawn of the Age of Geoengineering: The Sorcerer’s apprentices at play
During WW II “a revolution took place, one that was initiated and sustained not so much by the military as by science,” according to historian Kathleen Williams. Immediately after the war, “Military stimulation of science and technology became institutionalized” and the “Cold War ensured the military funding of science would continue…changing both academic science and the military.”[12]Sixty years ago the writer Robert Jungk noted: “In the universities, once homes of free speech throughout the world, the spirit of secrecy took possession.”[13]The Department of Defense (DoD) alone has accounted for “nearly 70 percent of all government funds directed towards research and development” of basic scientific knowledge.[14]The 350-year tradition of independent, individual investigation of nature and matter gave way to the era of ‘Big Science’, meaning scientific research with big, government-funded budgets. Big Science unequivocally included weather and climate modification, as well as other forms of geoengineering, all of which have been invariably cloaked in secrecy. And “secrecy always lowers the standard of environmental accountability”[15]— not to mention democratic accountability.
Earth’s atmosphere consists of several layers, each significantly related to the other, from the lowest layer, the troposphere, where the air we breathe and the weather we experience occurs, to the stratosphere, which also holds the ozone layer, to the mesosphere, the thermosphere, and finally the exosphere, which shades into outer space. The ionosphere stretches from the mesosphere through the thermosphere and into the lower reaches of the exosphere, from 31 to 621 miles above Earth. It was this region that drew the military’s fiery curiosity: how could it be influenced, what were its secrets, and powers?
After Argus, Starfish, and West Ford, research on the ionosphere proceeded apace with construction of a worldwide network of radio frequency transmitters, and later ionospheric heaters, in the US, Canada, Norway, Greenland, Australia, Puerto Rico, and Peru, in partnership with what the National Academy of Sciences calls the “ionospheric modification (IM) community”[35]of major research universities and institutes working in cooperation with the Pentagon. Research also continued in the Soviet Union. “Atmospheric modification experiments,” Dr. Bertell informs us, “can be categorized as either chemical [aerosols] or wave [electromagnetic] related.”[36]The ionosphere is an “active electrical shield protecting the planet from the constant bombardment of high-energy particles from space” and probing it with radio waves has led to the understanding that a “strong electrical coupling exists between the ionosphere and the lower atmosphere.”[37]IM community research has led to many discoveries useful to the military for global over-the-horizon communications, earth-penetrating tomography (also useful to fossil-fuel and other mining companies), surveillance, and weather or climate modification, among other purposes.[38]
Ever since the early days of Project Cirrus weather modification has been both weaponized and commercialized. Since the early 1970s over sixty countries[43]and most US western states have used weather modification technology to manipulate their weather, programs that almost certainly have had and continue to have an as yet unspecified effect on the planet’s overall climate. One region’s or one country’s drought becomes another’s flood, and one’s rain, a neighbor’s drought. The artificial weather seamlessly becomes the artificial climate. Thousands of regional weather modifications made over the past 65 years, such as the UK’s Project Cumulus (1949–1955)[44]and the US’s Project Skywater (1961–1988),[45]have collectively impacted the world’s meteorological and hydrological cycles in ways that remain largely unclarifiedand ignored by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, and IPCC climate modelers.
In the 1950s and early 1960s climate change geoengineering proposals in both the US and Soviet Union were oriented toward causing global warming for the benefit of human activity, with the melting of the Arctic then the glittering jewel on the geoengineer’s horizon, and a prospect devoutly hoped for by Soviet geoengineers and planners.[60](One fifth of Russia’s territory lies north of the Arctic Circle and includes an Arctic-frontier coastline thousands of miles long.) This original or early orientation of geoscientists has been quietly maintained for decades despite the ever-growing consensus about global warming, and has been funded by the big energy companies who have been wedged inside the great climate change debate since its inception.[61]In a March 25, 2012 letter to The EconomistMatt Andersson, an aerospace executive and intelligence industry consultant, bluntly stated: “The public and press are largely uninformed (and misled) as to the actual Geo-engineering operations being conducted by military and certain cooperating commercial interests to effectively ‘melt’ the arctic for naval navigation and resource extraction.”[62]
The pioneering journalists who covered the early chemtrails story from 1999 to 2005 also reported that individual citizens collected post-spray rainwater samples and had them tested by independent laboratories in several countries throughout the Western world. These tests showed elevated levels of aluminum and barium most frequently, but also many other toxic elements such as strontium, thorium, copper, titanium, arsenic, lithium, boron, iron, sodium, calcium, lead, selenium, magnesium, chromium, and cadmium, among others as well as strange gels, polymers, and a variety of microorganisms. Post-spray rainwater tests have been conducted throughout the world, most commonly in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.[97]
In the decades since the Vietnam War the state’s and corporate media’s appropriation of the term “conspiracy theorist” has cast a pall over the search for truth about the exercise of power, and especially the state’s covert exercise of its military, intelligence, and technological prowess. This has profoundly colored the search for answers about the military’s ongoing geoengineering activities because secret operations are classified, hence unprovable by standard criteria, and thus remain invisible to the public. Accusations that cannot be verified because of classified information can be safely dismissed withplausibledenial. The doctrine of plausible deniability was specifically adopted by the US government at the outset of the Cold War in 1948: “‘covert operations’ are understood to be all activities…so planned and executed that any US Government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons and that if uncovered the US Government can plausibly disclaim any responsibility for them.”[112]
The Russian physicist and Nobel laureate Peter Kapitsa wrote of the change that came over science on the eve of WW II: “[T]he happy days of free scientific work…disappeared forever” and science “lost her freedom. She has become a productive force. She has become rich, but she has become enslaved” to governments, war, and commerce, and she is “veiled in secrecy.”[229]After the war diverse writers could claim that science had become, in the words of historian James Fleming, “a prominent and permanent part of all modern militaries,” and that the links between them “in perspectives, personnel, values, budgets, [and] scale…have grown inexorably over the years” with a consequent “militarization of the natural world.”[230]
Science’s “loss” of a “deeply rooted set of ethical beliefs”[231]was compensated by a vast increase in scientists’ social status and political power: “[T]here broods over them a mythological identity” that serves to ensure them a “supremacy within our culture,” and “envisages them as the new Prometheus pitted against the hostile forces of nature,”[232]uniquely serving humanity. Roszak asks if science is “to be pardoned on the grounds it has that it has systematically taught our society to regard knowledge as a thing apart from wisdom.” Such “alienated knowing is, sooner or later, ecologically disastrous knowing.”[233]
And now, back to our East Texas property: Giant hail and freak snowstorms
There are those, including the above, who discredit the work of Dane Wigington of GeoengineeringWatch.org
I don’t have the answers and I don’t know which information is correct or who to trust. However, Dane is the most prolific of those speaking out against geo-engineering/weather modification, so I regularly follow his work. His documentary ‘The Dimming’ is very informative and I hope everyone will watch it.
Chemtrails Exposed by Peter A Kirby
“Dr. Joseph Kaplan (1902-1991), chairman of the International Geophysical Year, said, “Control of earth’s weather and temperature is within the realm of practicability now.” ~ ~ ~ High-profile weather modifier Archie Kahan pointed towards future large-scale weather control by stating, “Changes in the atmospheric circulation produced by modifying the radiation balance of the atmosphere and control of major storms are possibilities held”
— Chemtrails Exposed: A New Manhattan Project: second edition by Peter Kirby “phenomenon central to the New Manhattan Project and explained in the next chapter. He writes, “There is reason to believe that we can find triggering mechanisms which could make or dissipate atmospheric disturbances.””
— Chemtrails Exposed: A New Manhattan Project: second edition by Peter Kirby https://a.co/axJPWWP “Charles E. Jones III is a retired US Air Force brigadier general who served continuously in the Air Force and Air Force Reserve from 1954 to 1986. He has written a short piece acknowledging the reality of chemtrails. Jones writes: “When people look up into the blue and see white trails paralleling and criss-crossing high in the sky little do they know that they are not seeing aircraft engine contrails, but instead they are witnessing a man made climate engineering crisis”
— Chemtrails Exposed: A New Manhattan Project: second edition by Peter Kirby https://a.co/deNHbci “facing all air breathing humans and animals on planet Earth. These white aircraft spray trails consist of scientifically verifiable spraying of aluminum particles and other toxic heavy metals, polymers, and chemical components. Toxic atmospheric aerosols used to alter weather patterns, creating droughts in some regions, deluges and floods in other locations and even extreme cold under other conditions.””
— Chemtrails Exposed: A New Manhattan Project: second edition by Peter Kirby https://a.co/deNHbci “LORAN/ SS Loran Today, electromagnetic energy generated from ground-based antennas called ‘ionospheric heaters’ as well as their offspring is used to manipulate the atmosphere and thereby modify the weather. As noted in the first chapter, this use of electromagnetic energy is what distinguishes the New Manhattan Project from the conventional cloud-seeding industry. The biggest early developments of technologies which have since resulted in today’s ionospheric heaters took place at the MIT Rad Lab. Ionospheric heaters have evolved from something developed at the Rad Lab called the Long Range Navigation (LORAN) system. During the Rad Lab years with LORAN, Big Science got serious about bouncing radio waves off of the ionosphere. Before LORAN, the most significant contributions in this area were made by Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) and Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937), and then later by scientists Gregory Breit (1899-1981) and Merle Tuve (1901-1982). Merle Tuve was the director of the terrestrial magnetism division of the Carnegie Institution.”
— Chemtrails Exposed: A New Manhattan Project: second edition by Peter Kirby
“Teller wrote and spoke about weather modification countless times. In his memoirs, Teller writes of, “putting 1 billion small floating spheres into the atmosphere.” We have noted how he wrote about spraying us with aluminum. In his book “The Legacy of Hiroshima he suggests the solar radiation management (SRM) geoengineering thesis. In other words, he suggested spraying us with chemtrails many times. Teller served on the Panel on Weather and Climate Modification of the National Academy of Sciences where our good friend Gordon J.F. MacDonald was chairman. Teller once testified before the Senate Military Preparedness Committee that if Russia was first to control the weather on a global scale, then the United States could be beaten without war. Teller also told the committee that he wouldn’t be surprised if the Russians achieved global weather control in the relatively near future. Throughout his career, Teller used the Russian threat as a justification for more spending on weapons programs. In the example reproduced next, we see how Teller notes atmospheric ‘triggers.’ He’s writing about the notion that certain, relatively small atmospheric phenomena at certain points in space and time can create atmospheric chain reactions which eventually lead to large atmospheric phenomena such as storms. It is analogous to the so-called ‘butterfly effect.’ The butterfly effect is the notion that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in China can eventually cause a giant storm on Cape Cod. The thesis of atmospheric triggers is mentioned over and over again throughout”
“the weather modification literature in the same way Teller mentions it here. In order to control the weather, Teller and his peers suggested that these triggers be artificially created and/ or manipulated. The atmospheric trigger thesis is central to today’s NMP operations. In fact, it was during the course of his work in computer-simulated weather models when American mathematician Edward Lorenz coined the phrase and wrote about it in his paper “Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?” Today’s NMP supercomputer atmospheric modeling systems are designed to be able to identify these triggers and predict their outcomes. Knowing the probable outcomes is how the people running the NMP know when and where to perform atmospheric manipulations. The National laboratory Teller co-founded and directed (Lawrence Livermore National Labs) has been at the forefront of supercomputer atmospheric modeling since early on and continues there today. Teller writes: “Before anything can be controlled, it first must be understood. We are just beginning to approach an understanding of weather. We know that very small causes can grow into very big effects. A slight disturbance of the air masses on the front separating the calm air of the poles from the steady westerly winds encircling the globe in temperate latitudes can trigger a whirlpool a thousand miles wide and can affect the weather over the United States for an entire week. We can and we should increase the number and range of our weather observations. We will use satellites and other means to keep track of clouds and winds. Then, using improved electronic computers, we shall be able to predict weather and trace the origin of each development back to its original trigger. “When this high degree of meteorological understanding has been attained, we might be able to create triggers of our own and realize the age-old dream of actually doing something about the weather. We might spread a cloud of dust over a strategic location [author’s emphasis] or find some other way to upset the temperature balance between air masses. We might break droughts. We might regulate the precise location and time where a hurricane arises, thus predetermining the place where the destructive winds would dissipate. “Such new command over nature will give us responsibilities beyond our present ability to imagine. When rain will be the servant of man, man must be the master of himself. Control of clouds will bring either conflict or co-operation between nations. The prospect may seem terrifying, but in the long run this situation or one similar to it will surely arise. Science brings progress; progress creates power;”
See the Playlist at ‘NeverLoseTruth’ channel!
Some photos after a tornado on our property that came without warning in the middle of the night and was not recorded by any source I could find. It was terrifying and killed dozens of mature trees, nearly took the roof off the house and spread limbs, branches and debris right up to every window and across all our acreage.
Tornadoes were never a regular occurrence in East Texas, now we have multiple events every year somewhere nearby.
Through fence lines and trails, the clean up took months and the damage is still visible over three years later.
And once again, back to our East Texas property.
These ‘upside down icicles’ formed in the still green grass overnight when the temperature dropped 50 degrees.
“In the days since Hamas attacked Israel, that response has translated into contributions of millions of dollars, loads of military gear and mountains of clothing, food and household supplies from Jewish communities across the United States. Items have ranged from granola bars to boots and bulletproof vests. The outpouring has come from the smallest neighborhood synagogues to the wealthiest corners of the Jewish business community – and everything in between. Some 5.8 million Jews live in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center. While there is no sign that Israel is short on basic supplies like granola bars, the donations underscore the concern and connection Jews in the United States feel toward Israel.”
$100 million in one year, and that’s in 1957 dollars!
Life Magazine August 12, 1957 “The Jews Of America and the State of Israel”
“Aid from U.S. to Israel. U.J.A.’s $100 million supports refugees. Generosity to the less fortunate has been an article of Jewish faith since the time of Moses. In the eyes of American Jews, this now means helping the swarms of persecuted Jewish refugees from Europe and the Arab world, for many of whom the one glowing hope is to get to Israel. America’s vessel of generosity is a phenomenal private philanthropy called the United Jewish Appeal, which this year will raise $100 million to help Jewish refugees.”
In the same issue “How U.S. Jews View Jewish State” by George Steiner “We do not, admittedly, have enough information on American electoral trends and voting habits to give a definitive answer. But certain generalization can safely be made. In New York State professional politicians regard a measure of pro-Zionism as a law of survival. In close presidential and congressional elections New York and other urban centers in which Jews are concentrated may determine the margin of victory.”
“It should not be overlooked that the American Jewish community makes itself heard not only at the polls. There are a great many Jewish writers, impresarios and performers—men skilled in presenting ideas and summoning emotions. Whenever Israel is threatened, the voice of Jewish feeling is heard eloquently in the full-page advertisements of leading newspapers and over the loudspeakers at well-attended rallies in New York’s huge Madison Square Garden. This flair for public relations must be taken into account when one tries to say just how much pressure, political and indirect, American Jews can bring to bear on Washington officials in defense of Israel.”
“Adjusting to a new life, Omessi, who had always been an office worker, still wears a city man’s clothes as he awkwardly half-squats in the broiling desert sun to try to prune a grapevine. Of three alternatives in Israel all offering little but hard work and risk, Omessi deliberately chose to join a farm settlement, or moshaw, where he would at least have a home and seven acres of his own and receive about $9 a day for his labors in the vineyard and other projects.” 😂 😂
I wonder how long Omessi lasted as a farm laborer in his new home?!
A spontaneous site redesign is in the works! It’s come to my attention that this site is unorganized, unnavigable and losing its relevance—if it ever had any. 😆
We really need a makeover.
I’ve decided to tackle those issues posthaste. But, please be patient, as my skill set will be very challenged during this restructuring.
In the meantime, scroll away for previous meme drops, updates on the wee homestead, amateur poetry and varied shares. Or, check out the so-far few Herbal Explorations pages, or the Geoengineering Resources, or the Farm-to-Table Resources, which will be updated as well.
And, feel free to share any suggestions and opinions: what would you like to see more of on this blog? What kind of blogs do you think we need more of in the cyber world? Are there any blogs you particularly like that you think I could learn from as far as content/design/features?
Please, share to your heart’s content! I hope you’ll miss us while we’re gone! 🤗
I know it must be autumn somewhere! Here that reality is still mostly in my dreams. We’re still in the 90s and still mostly dry. There are a few tiny signs of change though, that I’m magnifying in my mind, because I can hardly wait! It’s been a terrible summer.
See, right there, 3 red leaves on my favorite Sassafras tree! (Very soon to be featured in an ‘Herbal Explorations’ post)
But, I’m not going to complain about that now. Instead we’ve got lots of happy snaps, and even a few scary ones.
We’re gearing up for the fall/winter garden, getting the beds ready for the transplants that have been growing under lights for a month and are very ready for their new outdoor home, just as soon as the temperature drops a bit.
Hang in there brassicas, it’s almost time!
We just started harvesting sweet potatoes from the boxes waiting for replanting.
Those vines helped keep the goats happy and healthy during the extra long heat wave.
Summer keeping a sharp eye on Shadow even though there’s a fence between them. None of the goats have warmed up to him, despite all his best efforts!
The peppers have come back with gusto after another dose of compost dressing and removing their shade cloth.
Jalapeños and banana peppers and the now monstrous cranberry hibiscus on right that is finally just starting to bloom.
Cucumbers again, yippie! Plus hurricane lilies, turmeric, zinnia and basil keeping the bees happy. And lots of bindweed (morning glory)—scourge to the industrial farmer—a hardy, lovely and welcome cover for the rest of us.
I’m getting about 1/2 gallon of milk a day from 2 goats and making cheese often—mozzarella and soft chèvre every week and a hard cheese whenever I can accumulate at least 3 gallons (preferably 6) in the freezer. The larger the hard cheese the easier it is to age properly and goat milk works just fine for cheese after freezing.
The easiest cheese to make and so delish!
But I’m really looking forward to making Camembert and Munster again. Just like all things natural, cheeses also have seasons. I was very disappointed by a so-called Brie I just splurged on from the grocery store. They should call it a processed Brie-like imitation and market it in the aisle with Velveeta. Quel scandale!
A few more friendly faces . . .
As I mentioned last update, we had a sausage-fest this summer, that is, a super-high percentage of males born, of all species—cats, pigs, sheep, chickens, goats. So odd.
Now we have 3 young male cats, a new thing for us. But one of them is a real scaredy cat, we’re never able to get close to him and he’s rarely around except for meal time.
Always crouching in the shadows and darting off even from the camera.
Also odd but true—our black cat, Mittens, hangs out with our black Shadow and our blond Tony hangs out with our blond Bubba and Buttercup—go figure!
“Hey in there! Where’s our breakfast?!”
I love spiders, especially these beauties, but some folks find them scary, apparently.
Now here’s a real foe . . . .
Gross! Looks like right out of a horror movie. And he has a lot of friends haunting our compost heap. 🤢
But who loves ‘em but our very scary Halloween rooster . . .
Poor guy, we’ve no idea what happened to him, but he is one scary-looking dude!
Soon we will be making the tough but necessary fall homestead decision—who will get bred and who will shuffle off to freezer camp?
But not a care in the world for these contented creatures!
Hope you’re having a fine Sunday and thanks for stopping by!
Do mere words, forever shifting on the barnyard wall, mold our collective behavior?
If a lie lands in the narrative, and no one knows it’s a lie, does it pass for the truth?
Enter, the Scapegoat:
“No, everything seems conditional now, contingent on proof of cognitive compliance. Their cancellation of me has been cemented into their own identities. The people who were once closest to me now exist in direct opposition to the person they imagine I’ve become. There is no way to dissuade them, to show them that I really am me, the same me I’ve always been. I realize the framing they’ve embraced since the lockdowns cannot shift without destabilizing the shaky narrative they’ve chosen to inhabit. I am the problem. I have to be the problem in order for their reality to remain steady.” Alison McDowell
Oh how I know this role so very well! I was born into it—by chance, divine intervention, twist of fate—I have no idea.
Alison, having experienced life primarily as the golden child, here feeling it now so poignantly, perhaps for the first time, navigating as an outsider, has put words on my reality as I never could. Such poignant, touching, true words.
There is something about venturing into new territory and trying to map the landscape for yourself that highlights what is most special and unique about a particular place from a particular perspective. It’s a kind of magic I think. What has become invisible to the native through habituation has new meaning through new eyes and in turn brings new insights to the observers’ previous perspectives simultaneously.
It’s why I wanted to be a travel writer, why I thought I could be good at it, because if I could recognize that level of magic, surely I could learn to apply it myself.
But now I deal in inner worlds, instead of outer ones. So many of us find ourselves here in these times that we can hardly consider ourselves outsiders anymore. Can we?
“The Herculean effort to struggle to come to an understanding of something alone, without mature guidance and the fellowship of other stumbling souls is more than most can bear. This is what angers me about the glib soundbites in praise of the ‘freedom’ for individuals to simply learn alone via internet study.” Christine Jones
But, in ways that don’t seem to matter to me much these days.
That we are each middle aged women who have been cast off—by our own or divine, or others’ design—how delightful, still, to find sister castaways.
What I’ve come to learn lately navigating the inner worlds at the expense of the outer ones is that words matter much less. Labels hardly at all. That works out pretty well since language has forgone nuance words have become superfluous. (Spellcheck just tried to correct me from ‘become’ to ‘Beyoncé’, how apropos)
The inner world narrative is not man’s narrative. Words hardly fit. Words hardly fathom. The words sound ever-more more political the further in you journey. Falsity reigns and duplicity rains and you find that words only rein in reality. They don’t invent it, they don’t even represent it, not really. The map is not the territory.
In fact, it becomes more difficult to navigate the inner worlds the more you rely on the words.
What are thoughts but words yet expressed? What am I to rely on once words begin to lose their meaning to me? Me, who spent four decades devoted to the study of words. Who considered language to be the cornerstone of civilization and all that made it function.
What a shift, now to think in fact it is not words that craft the spells that create our cultures, but rather enclose them, like walled gardens or mazes, constructs that sometimes illuminate and sometimes obstruct. Sometimes nurture and sometimes confound.
Once upon a time “devious” and “clever” were not synonymous. To understand how they’ve become so confounded one must explore the inner world, beyond the words and into the being. There the answer lies.
Lies?
Perhaps the lies inherent in the words, inherited with the words, are driving us collectively mad? Everywhere I hear about the ‘clever’ machinations of the great powers. Clever?
Perhaps if we shake hard enough, like a soaked dog after his bath, the words will be cast off like water droplets, leaving the cleansed being behind.
