I will be accused of being hyperbolic. Melodramatic. Perhaps I complain too much. Might my standards be too high?
It’s not that bad, they will say, or think. You still have a house and a husband and a relatively stable life. Just think of those miserable folks in . . . And all those who . . . And don’t forget the starving children in . . .
All over the place. Like, seriously, all over the god-damned place, and still everywhere, also, simultaneously, I hear such minimizing, avoidance, redirecting, marginalizing ‘advice’ from those high on their horses.
So if my experience, this time, is not as hellish as the last time, or as his or her or their experiences, on our vast continuum of hellishness, I should just move on. Get over it.
No matter how hard it gets, the social contract requires you stay positive, hopeful, forever gazing over the rainbow at the future potential for success, and perpetually focused on the life lesson.
It’s not hard, it’s challenging. It’s not a problem, it’s an opportunity. It’s not theft, it’s redistribution. It’s not a real lie, it’s a lie of omission. It’s not a failure, it’s a stepping stone. You’re not beat, you’re regrouping.
I still get counseled from others, unwanted advice (well-meaning I’m sure in their own minds) on how to see the bright side.
As if I don’t know how to do it! I was born and raised painting a silver lining on every cloud. I’m American, we’ve written nearly every script on this bullshit.
But, I grew up and got over it.
I was also a teacher for 20 years and sometimes I was actually a good one. Ok, maybe only occasionally, but that counts.
When I was good it was because I was tough, but fair. Not nice. Not compromising. Not lenient or understanding. Not painting rosy pictures or being sweet and kind.
And in such moments of lucidity it became very obvious to me that most students fail due to one thing: unrealistic expectations.
Our culture is saturated with them. Because it’s really, really good for business.
Lots of students sincerely wanted to learn the foreign language I was trying to teach them, and certainly had the smarts to do so because it’s not difficult, even a child can do it. And almost always does!
But they bought the hype of some advertisement or second hand story from a braggart who swears anyone can learn a language in three months by listening to tapes on their work commute. They bought the expectation the process would be smooth sailing all the way.
They are a lot like these types who are constantly insisting everyone see the bright side of every situation. They’re all like mood police. Like moms who make kids ‘kiss and make up’ while they’re still seething inside. Emotional bullying based on unreasonable expectations. It reminds me of an awful photo I once saw of a child model posing for the camera with a forced smile on her face though her eyes were red and puffy from crying.
So, with all that out of the way, this summer has SUCKED for me.
There, I’ve said it. I haven’t written a Homestead Happenings in months in order to avoid having to try to make it palatable for readers. I know how to paint the silver lining on it. But, it also irritates me that those are the only kinds of stories we’re allowed to tell in mixed company. If there’s not some triumph over adversity, keep it to yourself.
If there’s not gratitude somewhere for the gift of life, no one wants to hear it. Stop whining. Get over it. Make lemonade.
An excellent article, rather long with multiple tangents, but well worth the read. He covers quite a bit of weather terrorism, and the completely justified outbursts about the globalist disaster capitalism, but that’s not the part that most interested me today.
He also talks about rebuilding. He’s got some fantastic inspiration on what true resilience looks like, and it’s not even close to what’s being sold as our only options after a crisis.
I’d LOVE to rebuild in such a way right here, right now.
But another weather disaster is not what we want to force that to happen, thanks anyway weather terrorists!
resilience in the face of adversity
“a typical new house built in the US is made with energy intensive (and very pricey) materials that come from all over the world, materials that have nothing to do with blending into the local environment. Additionally, most of those imported building materials are toxic. The end result is a butt-ugly house that’ll be outgassing toxic fumes into the living space for decades. To make mater worse, it’ll look and feel completely foreign to its location. The only people who benefit from such a house are the globalists who control the globalist building material supply chains and write the costly, globalist building codes.
The reason so many butt ugly, toxic, expensive houses like this get built is because the same globalists who get local authorities to impose national building codes that require their toxic globalist building products – codes and products that give no consideration to local conditions and resources – are the same globalists that provide the textbooks and pay for architectural curriculum’s at universities that dole out the architectural degrees we are told are needed to design a house. The traditional concept of vernacular architecture – buildings made from local resources that allows them to blend well into their location – was long ago tossed aside in most modern architectural university programs in favor of driving up costs to increase globalist profits.
The house construction industry is as big of a toxic, globalist rip-off as the pharmaceutical industry.
Now we have FEMA moving in to “assist” with rebuilding. Right. One thing we can count on is that anything FEMA does will be closely linked to the industrial housing complex. That means toxic building materials that have nothing to do with the local vernacular will reign supreme.
Be forewarned – anyone who signs up for housing relief help from FEMA will be locked into the toxic, industrial housing complex.
Thankfully, as of right now, building a house doesn’t require one to be dependent on university trained architects or the toxic, globalist building supply chain.
Let’s get into that.
Three wonderful building resources are in abundance Western NC: stone, trees and bamboo. The stone and trees are native, most of the bamboo was introduced long ago. As I pointed out in the following post, one of the benefits of building with native resources is that you end up with a home that blends in with the native landscape – it looks like it belongs there because it is made of materials from that place. That is the essence of vernacular architecture. Another benefit of building with local resources is that, in the event of another disaster, the resources needed to do repairs are readily available from your native ecosystem.
No, these techniques may not work everywhere, and they shouldn’t. That’s what makes vernacular architecture so unique. It all depends on the natural resources available in your area. You want your home to blend in with your region, not my region. Don’t let a globalist suit sitting in a distant tower in New York City tell you how to build a house in Florida, North Carolina or New Mexico.
I once picked up a hitchhiker from England. He had already been traveling around the US for 3 months. He was a recent graduate with a degree in architectural. He was understandably disappointed with the architecture in the US, saying it was all very homogenous. He was right, of course. That’s what comes with globalism’s shortsighted, one size fits all, economy of scale mentality. Local resources and landscapes are not on the radar of most university architectural programs in the US. In the same way that modern doctors know nothing about nutrition, modern architects know nothing about vernacular architecture.
He told me that if someone were to blindfold him and take him to any rural area of England and removed the blindfold, he could tell where he was just by the vernacular architecture of the place. That is the epitome of resilience in home construction. It’s also the epitome of pride of place and a sense of community, all of which are lacking under the strong arm of the centralized, globalist technocracy in the US.
Those recovering from disasters have a choice: They can take the convenient route and sign their life away for government aid, once again becoming addicted to the cheap, toxic, pablum of globalist syphilization, and hope that another disaster doesn’t affect them or their childrens grandchildren. Or, they can become resilient.
This is a ‘weed’ I’ve been wanting to learn more about for a long time. It’s a very popular plant for foragers, right up there with Mullein, but I first learned about it as a preferred late season food for the bees.
In East Texas it seems to prefer roadsides and creeks to open fields and often appears nearby mistflower (conoclinium coelestinium) both in the family asteraceae.
Goldenrod and mistflower growing by the creek October 2024
Surprisingly (or perhaps not) Wiki has little info on this popular medicinal, and it wasn’t listed on a longtime foraging go-to of mine, Merriwether of Foraging Texas.
I can’t imagine why not! It’s a well-known medicinal in many countries and is plentiful in Texas even during extremely hot and dry summers.
According to The Medicinal Flora of Britain and Northwestern Europe, ”It’s first reliable record of medicinal use dates from the Southern Europe of the 13th century. It became much prized in Tudor England but, being imported, was very expensive.” (Julian Barker)
“Goldenrod was formerly prized as a wound herb as it is, indeed, astringent and antiseptic. Its principal internal use is for the kidney and bladder. I have found some justification for the BHP recommendation against naso-pharayngeal catarrh (and chronic sinusitis) but some skepticism has been expressed against this use. I think much of the variability in its efficacy may be due to the extreme polymorphism of the species which will lead, I am sure to the future recognition of subspecies.
”The aromatic leaves of the American S.odora make a once popular drink known as Blue Mountain Tea.”
“The flowering tops are used medicinally. Their constituents include tannins, saponins, bitter compounds, an essential oil and flavonoids. These substances give Goldenrod diuretic, astringent, vulnerary, anti-inflammatory, expectorant, antispasmodic, and carminative properties. In herbal medicine an infusion is used to treat kidney and bladder disorders, to improve kidney and prostate function, for flatulence and indigestion, and for chronic bronchitis, coughs and asthma. Externally Godenrod is used in poultices, ointments and bath preparations for varicose ulcers, eczema and slow-healing wounds.”
Some of us have known for decades what’s coming. Actually, what is here, already here, has been here, and has been destroying families and communities for two centuries, at least.
You need look no further than the “Civil” war to see it.
Others are just coming face to face with this reality now. It’s a horrifying reality for such folks, not only has their reality bubble been burst, but now they must face such dire facts while trying to fight for their homes, their properties, and their lives. Just as happened to the Southerners. Just as happened to the ‘Native Americans’. Don’t believe the war propaganda; every day is Groundhog Day. Every land grab scheme has been played before, now they just have fancier weapons to do their dirty work.
Waking up is hard to do in the best of circumstances, so I can imagine the hell when attempting to do so in the worst of them.
It’s not just the weather! I know, I’ve been focused on the weather for so long, it’s been my obsession, because trying to deal with it on a daily basis is no picnic.
I’ve also felt like the manufactured weather is like a baby step, a gateway, if folks would get their minds around that fact, and the very serious implications of it, then they would be better able to face the far more dire situation we are in.
Now that the cyber world is finally facing up to the manmade weather chaos, I feel it’s time to take the next step, because in fact, the reality of the situation is FAR worse.
During the series of tests at the High Energy Laser System Test Facility at White Sands Missile Range, the Demonstrator Laser Weapon System (DLWS), acting as a ground-based test surrogate for the SHiELD system, was able to engage and shoot down several air launched missiles in flight. The demonstration is an important step of the SHiELD system development, by validating laser effectiveness against the target missiles.
DEW—Directed Energy Weapons—are that reality. This is not a conspiracy theory. Those in the know, those in the positions of power in this country, they understand very well these weapons are real, and they are being used against us in this country as in many others.
This book is from 2003.
“Several nations are engaging in development and production of directed energy weapons. Recent scientific advances now enable the production of lethal lasers and high-powered microwaves. The current growth and development in this emerging area strongly suggests that directed energy weapons of lethal power will reach the battlefield before 2010. Since proliferation of lower power laser weapons has already happened, it is likely that proliferation of high power or high energy weapons will occur as well. This paper expands on this development and posits potential impacts on a plausible future battlefield, developed in part from the Alternate Futures of AF 2025, where all comers deploy lethal directed energy technologies. From these impacts, which span doctrine, organization, force structure, and systems design, this paper recommends changes to better posture the United States for this potential future.”
Who you vote for will not change this. This is being carried out from above our political class. As I asked in a previous post: Who owns our airspace?
“The NOAA Project Report below includes information regarding “Weather Modification experiments through electromagnetism” starting 01/05/2023 through 01/01/2026. The submitted application includes a World Economic Forum Global Weather Modification Alliance STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING which discusses “manmade electro-magnetic storms which may render another region powerless to floods, extreme wildfires and hailstorms…”. The applicant states, “I created a Strategic Intelligence Map this year as well and sent it off to UNOOSA and the United Nations in hope to create a weather modification alliance…”
Who owns our airspace? Does this answer my question?
The ‘race for space’ is not about gifting the world with Internet. It’s the modern battlefield. All that sits below ‘space’ is the fallout zone. We are the fallout zone.
They don’t just want the most beautiful places either, the mountains and the coastlines. They want what is beneath our feet. In some cases, that means lithium and other desired minerals.
East Texas, along with a good chunk of the South is also lithium rich territory, not just our miserable neighbors living in the current hellscape called Appalachia.
“In this episode, we dive into a timely and fascinating topic: the growing importance of lithium extraction in the United States and what it means for mineral owners. In fact, long-time listener, Barb R. shared a news story about Standard Lithium Ltd’s discovery of the highest confirmed lithium grade brine in North America in Cass County, Texas. This discovery has sparked conversations about the ownership of lithium mineral rights and who owns the valuable minerals found in produced water and the potential impact on royalties. Whether you have minerals in the Smackover Formation or anywhere else in the United States, be sure to listen to learn how you can navigate this developing landscape to make sure you get paid for these valuable minerals.”
For those new to the topic of mineral rights here’s a noteworthy fact: Most mineral rights owners do not live on the property for which they own the mineral rights. And most land owners do not own mineral rights.
That means they, ordinary mineral owning Americans, profit, sometimes substantially, if the Public-Private partnerships drill on the land, even against the desire of the land owners.
Furthermore, if those mineral rights owners don’t know they own those rights (for example a death where those rights weren’t specified so the inheritor has no idea), or aren’t informed of the prospective drilling operations (because these international corporations are not always forthcoming), that money goes to the US federal government.
As the famous quote goes:
Thank you to The Tactical Hermit who has been covering the news of our fellows in our latest war zone. Follow link for more info.
I’ve written several times about this tree in past posts and have been meaning to include it in the Herbal Explorations for some time. Thanks once again to Gavin Mounsey for putting a bee in my bonnet! His contributions are featured below.
Photo credit: Gavin Mounsey
A quick peak at a couple of those previous posts of mine to set the stage:
One of my favorite trees, the Sassafras, is flaming red now, one of the few to have changed so brilliantly in this unusually warm and dry fall in East Texas. Between now and winter is the best time to clip the leaves and dig up the tenacious roots so as to indulge in a couple of our ancestors’ favorite libations—root beer and Sassafras tea. Gumbo filé is also made from it, which is an essential ingredient in some Cajun cooking.
Our ancestors adored it, science calls it a carcinogen. At the same time vast groves of it are grown in regions of the globe more easily controlled, in order to mass extract their saffrole to make a highly concentrated and synthetic version of the popular street drug called ecstasy.
A quite undermined tree of the South, considering its illustrious origins and conspiratorial fate. It is a tree widely cultivated in Asia-Pacific as an essential ingredient to the popular drug, or versions of it anyway, generally called “ecstasy”.
At first, like cannabis, it was classified among the most harmful of substances by the FDA, though our ancestors had previously been very acquainted and attached to these and so many other suddenly ‘dangerous’ plants. Then while they were deemed “carcinogenic” by our government, simultaneously expanding was its cultivation in foreign countries for the manufacture of street drugs. This was actually before “Poppy Bush” but perhaps setting that very precedent for the former president?!
While I’ve no idea how to make the popular street drug, I can assure you it makes a deliciously fragrant tea, traditional root beer, and gumbo filé powder.
As for the drug version, I did come across this for any who wish to research further along those lines.
“The most common synthetic routes for production of MDA, MDMA, MDE (MDEA), and MDOH are from the precursor MDP-2-P. To get MDP-2-P first a natural source of safrole is acquired. Safrole can be extracted from sassafras oil, nutmeg oil, or several other sources which have been abundantly documented in Chemical Abstracts over the years. The safrole is then easily isomerized into isosafrole when heated with NaOH or KOH.”
Zubrick, James W. “The Organic Chem Lab Survival Manual: A Students Guide to Techniques.” ISBN #0471575046. Wiley John&Sons Inc. 3rd ed.
Some partial information from The Druid’s Garden, visit her post for much more!
“Sassafras has been called by many names and these names help teach us some of her power: auge tree, saxifrax, cinnamon wood, cinnamonwood, saloop, smelling stick, chewing stick, tea tree, winauk (Native American in Delaware and Virginia); Pauane (Timuca Indians); Kombu (Choctaw); and weyanoke (Algonquin).
Sassafras is typically a fairly small tree, growing 20-40 feet in height with a trunk 1-2 feet in diameter in the northern end of her range. In southern portions of its range, she can grow much larger, up to 100 feet high. Her wood is soft and light-colored with a faint aromatic Sassafras smell. Her wood is brittle, coarse-grained, and rot-resistant although it is not very strong. Typically, her wood has been commercially used for posts and lumber, but wood carvers also enjoy working with it. Sassafras is dioecious, that is, the male and female flowers appear on separate trees. The females will eventually have fruits ripen (which occur around midsummer) whereas the male trees will not.”
Medicinal Uses of Sassafras
“Sassafras Root Spring Tonic: As described above, the Sassafras was taken internally for a variety of healing purposes throughout the ages. Traditional herbalism recognizes Sassafras as a “spring tonic” or “blood purifying” or “blood thinning” herb and is used in the spring in quantity for this purpose. In 1830, Constantine Rafinesque wrote, “The Indians use a strong decoction to purge and cleanse the body in the spring” (Quoted in Wood, 315, New World Herbs). Wood notes that it “promotes clear thining in old age from good circulation to the brain, to improve the peripheral circulation to rid the joints of arthritic depositions, and to promote diuresis” (316). Euell Gibbons in Hunting the Wild Asparagus notes that traditionally, Sassafras Root tea was made with maple sap water for spring tonic. He noted that even in the 1950’s, when he wrote his book, that many folks still drink Sassafras tea “as a spring tonic, believing that it thins the blood and prepares the body to better stand the coming heat of summer.” Gibbons offers this medicinal tea: 3 tablespoons of honey, 3 tablespoons of vinegar (I would suggest a fire cider here) and 1 quart sassafras tea. Chill and serve as a spring tonic.
“Blood and Circulatory System: Today, herbalists recognize sassafras root as a warming, spicy, and aromatic herb that functions as an alterative (tonic) for the liver with mild antiseptic qualities. It has a specific action on the blood and circulatory system, stimulating blood flow and enhancing periphery circulation.”
Gavin Mounsey offers more interesting info in his recent note:
“The small tree known as sassafras (Sassafras albidum) was once one of the most prized plants of Turtle Island (aka “North America”). In 1565, Francis Drake returned to England with a cargo hold full of sassafras roots, and set off something of a craze for sassafras tea, or saloop. By the next century it had become a major export item, almost equal in value to tobacco. Europeans accepted the claims of most eastern Native American tribes about its effectiveness as an all-purpose medicine and tonic, and that combined with its wonderful taste and aroma — Thoreau called it “the fragrance of lemons and a thousand spices” — eventually guaranteed its place as the root in root beer. John Lawson, an early explorer of the southern Appalachians, wrote in 1709, “Sassafras was a straight, neat little tree… treasured by the Indians for its aromatic roots, from which, when pounded, a potion can be brewed to refresh or cure, according to his needs.”
“Early colonists consumed a lot of beer, and it probably didn’t take long before someone got the bright idea of adding sassafras roots to the mix of herbs and spices typically added for flavor and medicinal effect. It might seem strange to think of beer as a health drink, but for many centuries, it was far safer to drink than most available sources of fresh water, being first subjected to a prolonged boil and then made alcoholic. Weak beers were consumed in roughly the same quantities as Americans today drink Coke or Pepsi, but with less serious health risks, since the sugar was all turned into alcohol (and medicinal phytochemicals can be effectively preserved and delivered in a bioavailable format in naturally fermented alcohol based beverages).
“The modern herbalist Stephen Harrod Buhner (Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers, Brewers Publications, 1998) has this to say about brewing with sassafras:
“Sassafras was the original herb used in all “root” beers. They were all originally alcoholic, and along with a few other medicinal beers — primarily spruce beers — were considered “diet” drinks, that is, beers with medicinal actions intended for digestion, blood tonic action and antiscorbutic properties. The original “root” beers contained sassafras, wintergreen flavorings (usually from birch sap), and cloves or oil of cloves. Though Rafinesque notes [in 1829] the use of leaves and buds, the root bark is usually used, both traditionally and in contemporary herbal practice.
“Beer” was used loosely to refer to a variety of lightly alcoholic drinks made with whatever sugar was on hand; both the recipes Buhner offers, for example, use molasses instead of malted grain, as does this one I found in The National Farmer’s and Housekeepers Cyclopedia from 1888:
“Root Beer.—To make Ottawa root beer, take one ounce each of sassafras, allspice, yellow dock, and wintergreen, half an ounce each of wild cherry bark and coriander, a quarter of an ounce of hops, and three quarts of molasses. Pour boiling water on the ingredients, and let them stand twenty-four hours. Filter the liquor, and add half a pint of yeast, and it will be ready for use in twenty-four hours.
“I was excited to see the mention of wild cherry bark — something I had considered using in my own brewing, but hadn’t found any actual mention of until now. I have brewed with all the other substances mentioned, though not all at the same time. (I wasn’t terribly thrilled with the flavor of yellow dock in beer.) But I’m more of a purist than Buhner: I do insist upon using malted grain (or malt extract) as the primary source of sugar, though I will use molasses or honey as adjuncts, in small quantities.
“And I feel the early colonists probably made their root beers, spruce beers, and other healthful brews with malt, too, whenever they could. From an early date, many larger farmhouses had their own brewing operations, and taverns brewed beer in every town and village, first with malts imported from Europe, but quite soon from locally grown grain. A 1685 report from William Penn suggests that malt was substituted for molasses as soon as real brewing became practical:
“Our Drink has been Beer and Punch, made of Rum and Water: Our Beer was mostly made of Molosses, which well boyld, with Sassafras or Pine infused into it, makes very tollerable drink; but now they make Mault, and Mault Drink begins to be common, especially at the Ordinaries and the Houses of the more substantial People.
“In 1750, the Swedish botanist Peter Kalm, interviewing a nonagenarian for his book Travels in North America, learned that the early Swedish colonists of what is now eastern Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey had been “plentifully provided with wheat, rye, barley and oats. The Swedes, at that time, brewed all their beer of malt made of barley, and likewise made good strong beer.” And of sassafras specifically, he wrote, “Some people peel the root, and boil the peel with the beer which they may be brewing, because they believe it wholesome.” He adds: “The peel is put into brandy, either while it is distilling or after it is made.” Nor was ordinary tea neglected: “An old Swede remembered that his mother cured many people of the dropsy by a decoction of the root of sassafras in water drunk every morning.”
“Kalm also mentions the preservative and antiseptic properties of sassafras, which must’ve played a role in its popularity as a brewing ingredient as well (hops were far from the only herb understood to help keep beer from going “off”):
“Several of the Swedes wash and scour the vessels in which they intend to keep cider, beer or brandy with water in which sassafras root or its peel has been boiled, which they think renders all those liquors more wholesome. Some people have their bedposts made of sassafras wood to repel the bed bugs, for its strong scent, it is said, prevents vermin from settling in them. … In Pennsylvania some people put chips of sassafras into their chests where they keep woolen stuffs, in order to expel the moths which commonly settle in them in summer.
“A slightly later (and much more famous) botanist-traveler, William Bartram, mentioned a very different root beer formula from the standard recipe, which makes me wonder how many other sassafras-based concoctions might have been made at one time. Writing about a southern Appalachian plant now known as Bignonia capreolata or crossvine, he wrote, “The country people of Carolina chop these vines to pieces, together with china brier [i.e. Smilax pseudochina] and sassafras roots, and boil them in their beer in the spring, for diet drink, in order to attenuate and purify the blood and juices.”
“Lo how the mighty have fallen. Safrole, the active compound in sassafras, has been banned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration since 1976 as a supposed carcinogen, and as a consequence sassafras may no longer be prescribed by herbalists, though commercial brewers and root beer manufacturers may still use a safrole-free extract. For the homebrewer willing to ignore the FDA’s finding — which even the very conservative Peterson Field Guide to Medicinal Plants and Herbs of Eastern and Central North America rejects as absurd — it’s a matter of locating a thick stand of sassafras on some dry ridgetop and getting permission from the landowner to dig a few roots.
“The tree grows like a “weed”, and with its distinctive leaves it’s impossible to mistake for anything else. How will you be able to tell if a given root is sassafras, and not from a neighboring tree? Just scratch and sniff. If it has “the fragrance of lemons and a thousand spices,” you’ve hit pay dirt.
“This species along with a handful of others will be introduced to several community food forest projects I have in the works intended to both provide habitat for displaced Ontario Carolinian forest non-human inhabitants while also providing food, medicine and materials for humans in a regenerative way.”
That’s so great to hear, Gavin, let’s set The Science straight! 😊
These used to be my favorite clichés growing up. I miss that sometimes now that I’m growing old and cynical. I miss that crazy big picture dreaming like we do as kids with seemingly the expanse of the world and infinite days ahead of us. My mom really did often repeat that we could do or be anything we wanted.
Prima ballerina even though you’re short and curvy? Sure, why not!
I never really believed it, but I do agree that to dream big is a good thing, and not just for kids. The older we get though, the more that critic steps in even before his queue, the inner voice of impossibility. A necessary ally, no doubt, in his strict adherence to the practical and well-tested norms.
Let’s call him Jack, from another of the well-worn clichés, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”
What if we put Jack in the box for now, where he prefers to be anyway, and we enjoyed some precious time without him?
It seems like a lot of folks have dreams they would call big that center around money. They want a new house, for example. And that’s true for me, too, I would like a new house.
But I think of that as a small dream. When we first moved here we didn’t expect we’d stay in this house. It’s not where we would choose to have a house on this property, and it’s not the kind of house we would choose as far as style either. We thought we could make this one into a ‘project house’ where we did all our work and hobbies, then we could have another small one more suited to us, off the road, on a more picturesque part of the property with views all around.
Then after making so many improvements over the years and spending so much time, money, energy on the surroundings, we downsized that dream. Jack won that one, as usual.
But that doesn’t mean he’ll always win, right? Back in the box he goes!
Dream BIG! It’s not that easy. I used to have lots of big dreams and many of them I wrote down and some of them have come to pass. At least partially.
Like, I always said I wanted a small house on a big piece of land. I just had no idea that would be in rural Texas, or there would be the whole menagerie attached. I was thinking more like an acre in Corsica or Guadeloupe overlooking the sea.
Guadeloupe, French West Indies 1997
Sometimes I dream we could still do that if we really wanted. But, Jack doesn’t have to bother getting out of his box for that one, that’s how little chance of it there is.
But, what if we could bring some of what I love about that dream into this dream we’re already creating?
A spring-fed pond, that would be a good start. No, make that a lake!
There are properties all around us that may soon be for sale. We’d buy them all!
And then what? (Back in the box, Jack!)
I heard a friend talk behind my back once a few years ago when she first visited here. Directed at her hubby, as we were driving them in the tractor to their lodging in the still-unfinished cabin we built, she said, “Why would anyone need so much property?”
I didn’t, but wanted to say, “But, you see, but we would have, could have, SO much more!” Why not?!
Hubby used to joke about our paltry 50 acres, “In Texas, 50 acres buys you a front yard.”
It’s not a matter of need, obviously. How much land does the Queen of England own?
It’s not even about what one might accomplish with a few hundred (or a few thousand) acres. I don’t imagine we’d aim to accomplish much at all. Jack would want to put a name on it of course—a nature preserve, or a dude ranch, or a future botanical garden, or a (God forbid!) another of the popular ATV parks.
I think in my biggest dream I’d invite some cherished friends to our rural sanctuary, with the spring fed pond (lake!) and wooded paths strewn with pine needles, and secret herb gardens, where we’d enjoy some homemade wine on a fine pergola made of bamboo watching the birds . . .
Sometimes it takes 20+ years to learn the lesson of one moment.
“Jste zdrava?!”
“Are you quite well?!” (Lost in translation.)
It was not a friendly inquiry. So naturally, I was immediately put off. My Czech was mediocre and I was confused, I took it more literally.
Am I healthy? Why on earth is she asking me that? Why is she shouting and waving her arm?
I understand now she meant that facetiously. Like an Old Southern Belle might drawl from her wraparound porch, “You from around here, Darlin’?” Right before she pulled a shotgun from behind her skirts.
Maybe I should consider myself lucky she couldn’t possibly have a shotgun when and where she was living in Prague.
Her home looked very much like an antebellum plantation home, not so different from the one above, but only a quarter of one, and with just two pillars. With a large front and back yard, and beautiful fruit trees full of plums, which stuck out even in this neighborhood of nicer homes compared to the typical panelock housing found just a block away.
Soviet era ‘panelock’ housing
That I’d be inclined to take a photo should be logical, at least that’s how it seemed to me at the time.
Should I have told her I was perfectly healthy, 25, in my prime, one might say.
Me, always curious, at a pub in Jihlava, Moravia, current day Czech Republic, 1994
“No taking pictures here!” More hollering and waving.
Now that time I did understand without any additional effort. I put down my camera, I apologized, and I moved on to the next house, where I took more pictures unencumbered by any screaming women.
Prague in 1999 was already transformed from that of 1992, at least I could see it clearly.
Of course it’s different if you live there, even rapid change can seem incremental when one is concerned with the quotidian. Foreigners have a different perspective.
I looked like a spy to her, I get that now. It’s not that I wasn’t used to paranoia, it was permeating the place, always.
It’s just I didn’t recognize what paranoia like that would feel like until decades later, in my own country.
Yes, the United States, where we are told we are free. Of course you can take a photo of my beautiful house, I take great pride in it!
Adjusting to insanity. That’s what that woman had done. The more one is required to adjust to insanity, the more paranoid one becomes.
She saw me as a spy, not as a clueless and curious American interested in architecture.
“Are you quite well?” Was most likely a candid and covert admission that she was in possession of illegally inherited property. Or if not illegally obtained, then certainly not conforming to the current and always shifting proper codes.
Under Soviet governance no one was allowed a large house without subdividing, everywhere, not just in the large cities. There was a housing crisis. Everywhere. Even country estates and cottages had to be confiscated. Collectivized, euphemistically speaking. Then, Privatized, once again. The hand that washes the back . . .
Repatriated? Potato-Potato. Musical chairs?
You really think it’s different here now? Don’t dig too deep.
In fact, you’re not allowed to be a curious American in America either. Little did I realize. Try talking about the weather. Ask a few questions. Don’t stop when you get the first rebuff of redirection and discomfort. Press on.
You want to see how much America TODAY is like the Soviet Union?
Why is it 99 degrees in mid October in East Texas? Why hasn’t it rained for 2 months?
Climate Change is a scam? I agree.
Why are there hurricanes in the mountains of Southern Appalachia? Climate change is a scam? I agree.
Why are there so-called Northern Lights in the south?
Climate change is a scam. I know.
Where do you think this is going? What do you think they are up to? Why don’t you ask some questions? What are you so afraid of?
Press on. I dare you. Do we own our air space? Who has taken over our atmosphere? Who is complicit?
Not HAARP! Not Geoengineering! Totally Natural and Normal! Yay, solar storms!
These are for reals geomagnetic storms people! They are NOT HAARP experiments. You crazy conspiracy theorists better stop saying that or you’re in BIG trouble!
So COOL and AWESOME! We are so lucky to be alive to experience this great phenomenon!
I’m over 55 and in my entire lifetime I never saw or even heard of seeing the Northern Lights in the South until this decade.
“What used to be a once-in-a-lifetime event – or a bucket list trip to the Arctic circle – has become a more common sighting in the last couple of years. On Thursday night, the stunning colours of the Northern Lights were visible once again even to the naked eye across much of the US. Experts say the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, are more visible right now due to the sun being at what astronomers call the “maximum” of its 11-year solar cycle. What this means is that roughly every 11 years, at the peak of this cycle, the sun’s magnetic poles flip, and the sun transitions from sluggish to active and stormy. On Earth, that’d be like if the North and South Poles swapped places every decade.” From the BBC Why are we seeing the Northern Lights so often lately?
“Geomagnetic storm, not a HAARP experiment, created dazzling, worldwide northern lights display.” Politifact
“Another in a series of unusually strong solar storms hitting Earth produced stunning skies full of pinks, purples, greens and blues farther south than normal, including into parts of Germany, the United Kingdom, New England and New York City.
“It was a pretty extensive display yet again,” said Shawn Dahl, a space weather forecaster at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center. He said the center has gotten reports of northern lights sightings as far south as New Mexico. “It’s been a wonderful year.””
A wonderful year! Stop questioning the beautious wonder of wonderland!
It’s totally normal and wonderous! It’s fantastically natural and we love nature! We promise it’s not artificial, no way, no how! Really, we double dog swear and it’s been fact-checker approved in over 5 countries!
Surface modification control stations and methods in a globally distributed array for dynamically adjusting the atmospheric, terrestrial and oceanic properties
“Surface modification control stations and methods in a globally distributed array for dynamically adjusting the atmospheric, terrestrial and oceanic properties. The control stations modify the humidity, currents, wind flows and heat removal rate of the surface and facilitate cooling and control of large area of global surface temperatures. This global system is made of arrays of multiple sub-systems that monitor climate and act locally on weather with dynamically generated local forcing & perturbations for guiding in a controlled manner aim at long-term modifications. The machineries are part of a large-scale system consisting of an array of many such machines put across the globe at locations called the control stations. These are then used in a coordinated manner to modify large area weather and the global climate as desired.”
Listen to the beginning of Dane’s broadcast this week where a man confronts the (supposedly ignorant) atmospheric terrorists and makes them squirm like the worms they are! 😆
I hear social criticism on occasion that the problem with cultures in the West today is a lack of moral courage among the people. We have traded our ethics and morality for comfort and convenience. And I think this is a very valid criticism.
But . . .
That does not strike the problem at the root. It is another effect, not a cause. Because in order to manifest moral courage there first must be moral indignation.
Where has that gone?
Those who I’ve witnessed as model-worthy examples of moral courage started off with anger, outrage even, against the injustices they were witnessing around them, in their institutions, their governments, their families.
They didn’t wait for orders from above. They didn’t look on their social media feeds for what should be outraging them. They looked around themselves, in their own lives, where they personally experienced the unfair treatment, or lack of concern, or outrageous injustice, or someone close to them experienced it, igniting in them the blue flame of anger, the righteous indignation, that is the sustaining fuel that feeds moral courage.
Several such individuals come to mind from the last years:
“In early 2020, the Canadian biostatistician Christine Massey realised that something was wrong with the COVID-19 story. She was motivated to commence investigations into virology and the claimed evidence for the existence of ‘SARS-CoV-2’. This led to the development of the Freedom of Information Act project that revealed more than 200 health and science institutions being unable to cite any valid scientific evidence for the alleged “virus”.
Over time the project has expanded to include other alleged “viruses” as well as evidence that any microbes, including bacteria, have been shown to be pathogenic in controlled scientific experiments. The conclusions from Christine’s research are clear: virology is based on pseudoscience and germ “theory” has been falsified. Her work has caught the attention of the establishment media and she even earned a typically-disingenuous “fact check” article recently.”
Moral outrage does not have to look or sound like a crazy woman screaming at the crowd, or making obscene gestures, or behaving like a scary lunatic.
It can be as calm and straightforward as Christine Massey and the Bailey doctors. It can strike at the lies in measured tones and with legal methods. It can be inspiring to others even as you work from the comfort of your bed while sipping tea.
Yet relatively few bother.
It’s remarkable to me that there are so many even now whose moral indignation is never sparked by the mess of the world around them. It’s never fueled by concern for others or for the future. It is as if they are comfortably numb.
It is indeed frustrating to have to live among so many such people. For every Christine Massey there are probably 10,000 soulless deadbeats. Maybe more.
That might sound pretty depressing, but on the bright side, that means just lifting a pinky finger to do the right thing is looking pretty heroic in comparison.
