A lot of folks still aren’t grasping this manipulative strategy, so I want to make a glaring point of it this post.
It’s easier for others to recognize classic rudeness, and shrug it off. It’s considered good manners to be tolerant of others’ petty foibles or potential misunderstandings or cultural differences and so on.
But folks aren’t putting a stop to plain old gaslighting, even when it’s obvious. They aren’t calling it out, and naming for it what it is—abusive, highly toxic, anti-social, not only for those who perpetrate, and their victims—but also from those merely viewing or reading.
Abuse radiates much further than those immediately involved in the moment.
This little rant, or welcome observation, depending on your position, was inspired by a small YT channel, another East Texas gardener, which I was curious to view from his title today—Garden Failures: Looks like another bad year.
The kind of title of a seemingly honest person just sharing his experience, not a hustler looking to sell me shit or snare me into another Cult-ur, is one of the nice rare finds still sometimes popping in my social feeds.
I watched only a few minutes before taking a gander at the first comment, and was relieved to find a someone seemingly aware of the enormous amount of weather manipulation going on, and clicked because I saw there was a reply.
But, much to my annoyance and disappointment, it was the typical reply of a Master Gaslighter.
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To be shamed as you seek validation, or understanding, is gaslighting. This ‘rude behavior’ is far more than rude and it is tolerated in our culture far more than bullying. Why?
This behavior is graver than victim-blaming and bullying, it is an aggressive attempt to diminish, deflect, avoid, minimize, and control the perceptions, research, feelings and lived reality of the host.
The host, as in the one who has had the audacity and courage to seek understanding in the first place, in a hostile environment and against the norms of the Cult-ure.
I’d just been listening to Jon Levi discussing it, so it was very fresh in my mind. I’ve experienced it all my life, as ALL have in our Cult-ure.
It’s just that some go along with it, instead of recoil from it.
I have gaslit others before, sometimes knowingly, sometimes quite unconsciously, only realizing it years later. My mindset was at those times to ‘fight fire with fire’ and maybe that’s a good strategy, at times, with those who have breached the boundaries into your personal life and betrayed you.
But the large majority of the time those gaslighting others on social media is ALL about narrative control and social engineering. Sometimes I wonder if these are actual individuals, but I don’t bother to check, because I’ve experienced it enough in real life to know if these are just AI bots replying to one another, well, they have a pretty good idea of the human condition.
Is it because the political world has so infiltrated every aspect of our existence that folks have come to accept a steady supply of gaslighting in their lives?
I’ve stopped fighting fire with fire myself, too much gas out there, I’m too old for that now.
But, I wonder, besides avoidin the gaslighters, which seems quite impossible these days, what other action might one take?
There are two replies I generally hear from others when I attempt to talk about geoengineering and weather modification which I also often see in the comments section of others posting about this topic.
So this post I’m going to share some new links and quotes and personal observations in the hope that folks really start to get a better sense of the scope of this issue.
So few folks are even aware of the long history of weather modification, though it’s been well-documented and these days is very easy to research.
This is something I’ve written about many times already, because it sets a precedent. I am no longer going to bother with this vast history in future posts, because now there are plenty of others talking about it online.
I’ve noticed that when someone is aware of the long history of weather modification, they usually reply that it’s just about ‘cloud seeding’ which is no big deal, they say, they’ve been doing it forever, so what’s the problem?
As Agent’s Substack starkly points out, there’s nothing safe & effective about cloud seeding. And if you’d like the ugly truth expressed in some pretty harsh terms, I urge you to read his article. (Some of his work is behind a paywall)
“They’re just cloud seeding, it’s not chemtrails! It’s harmless!”, they tell us. In fact, it’s so harmless that the vast majority of states in the US have some form of seeding program currently taking place. Many of them are funded with our tax dollars, but some are sponsored by corporations you would never expect to be involved in GeoEngineering. Idaho Power currently spends $4 million a year on cloud seeding which results in a 12% increase in snow in some areas. Although the internet assures us Cloud Seeding is super-duper safe, today we are going to look at what chemicals are being spammed into the atmosphere, according to the Manufacturers of the chemicals and a crazy CDC document I unearthed.”
He’s also shared his sky photos in another recent article and has lots more geoengineering materials.
“I had an idea for an experiment: Pick a month and photograph and/or video the sky every day in 2023 then wait a year and do it again in the same month, then compare the GeoEngineering. Would there be anything to learn from this? Let’s find out…
“First, they (meaning, The Powers that Be) claim the suns rays are harmful and causing Climate Change (Global Warming), therefore, to keep the temperature of earth down, they need to block it. This is not a conspiracy theory, it is well documented. I have written a number of articles on the topic. They have been discussing blocking the sun since the 1960s and NASA was doing extensive research in the early 1980s which involved releasing chemicals into the sky and running tests to see how much of the suns rays were blocked. They began planning heavily in the early 1990s. read my piece 1992: Should we Spray Sulfuric Acid or Dust to Block the Sun? In the mid-to-late 1990s, only a few years after the 1992 document, people in the USA began reporting white grids and lines appearing in the sky. These grids and lines blocked the sun.”
A friend in UK driving to her vacation destination recently sent me some pics of the sad state of the skies there. Look familiar?
I wish I had better news. It’s not good. It’s not benevolent. It’s not about saving us from global warming or helping our farmers cope with droughts. It’s not about that AT ALL.
That’s just the cover story, because there always has to be a cover story.
It’s about weaponizing the weather for control purposes of war and power. Now it’s also being used to force populations in myriad ways and fleece everyone with ridiculous carbon schemes. The academic publications which hype on and on about climate change do not talk about geoengineering as an on-going global operation, but as mere proposals, and this is how they’ll lock in their ‘World Governance’.
As the public outcry grows, so the solutions will be put into place.
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Several US states have gotten on this bandwagon to outlaw geoengineering on various levels, which will have zero impact, because it’s a global issue, by design.
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‘To prostitute the elements’ : Weather Control and Weaponization by the US Dept of Defense by R. Pincus 2017 War & Society p. 64-80
“The US military has a long and robust history of scientific research programs, often conducted in conjunction with civilian scientists at non-military governmental agencies as well as universities. These programs flourished in the immediate post-Second World War and the early cold war years, as the field of military science expanded to address the sprawling Soviet threat. One area of growth was in atmospheric science, which had already taken off preceding Second World War in conjunction with the growth of air warfare. Advances in meteorology, cloud science and climatology enabled military interests to align with weather forecasters and also agricultural interests, as old ideas about cloud seeding and weather control were revived in the light of new research. The military, largely through the Air Force, advanced a series of projects investigating the potential of weather and climate control, manipulation, and ultimately weaponisation.”
What we have are Global Public-private partnerships cooperating internationally to manipulate the weather and change the climate as well as fleece the populace with projects that do not help the people.
Like these: the Greenhouse Gas Removal by Enhanced Weathering (GGREW) projects
“One example of a research project on the feasibility of enhanced weathering is the CarbFix project in Iceland.[33][34][35]”
“An Irish company named Silicate has run trials in Ireland and in 2023 is running trials in the USA near Chicago. Using concrete crushed down to dust it is scattered on farmland on the ratio 500 tonnes to 50 hectares, aiming to capture 100 tonnes of CO2 per annum from that area. Claiming it improves soil quality and crop productivity, the company sells carbon removal credits to fund the costs. The initial pilot funding comes from prize money awarded to the startup by the THRIVE/Shell Climate-Smart Agriculture Challenge.[36][37]”
I’ve been documenting some of what’s been happening in our skies for nearly a decade. It is not cooling us, it is not stabilizing our rainfall, it’s the exact opposite. And, they know this!
“In their own words from one of their reports, the Royal Aeronautical Society (based in London): “the current overall effect of contrails and contrail cirrus is a net warming – about 1.5 times that of aviation’s C02”. This is a smoking gun because it affirms that what they are doing is actually having the opposite effect of what they claim to be doing. It’s warming things, not cooling it.”
But what do academics concern themselves with? Issues of governance, because, warmer temperatures might increase small arms purchases. And other GLOBAL concerns about the control of the ornery plebs.
In my last post I included a recent photo from our area. These are the among the ‘new cloud species’ which some will actually tell you have always been there, we just never noticed them before Smartphones. Yes, I’ve actually heard this ridiculous answer on multiple annoying occasions.
“Mammatus clouds” they call them, because to name them is to normalize them. And the kids grow up “knowing” and are diligently taught to accept anything that has a name. That’s Science!
The official sites, the academic sites ALWAYS normalize, that’s their job. The rest of us are just all crazy conspiracy theorists. See, totally normal, because it’s right there in the International Cloud Atlas!
Thanks for reading folks, please research and pass along information!
Some brief updates this post and not as many happy snaps as I’d like. But, it’s been so busy and carting my tablet around everywhere is not usually an option, especially where it’s wet and dirty, which is a lot of places at the moment.
Kidding season is over and it’s been a bit stressful, no surprise there. I’ve been wanting to try something new—which is the greatest lost homestead technique I could think of—making our own rennet.
We’ve only had goats a few years now, all of this still feels very new, but, we do want to keep moving forward on the path to self-reliance, so this one is pretty essential on that list. It was as challenging as I expected it to be!
I am squeamish, so that’s the first of the issues. Hubby does all the slaughtering and butchering and for a while I did help plucking chickens, but then we got a machine, so I don’t even do that anymore. I’m not accustomed to seeing the interiors of the animals, let alone having to identify all the parts.
So, trigger warning for this section for anyone reading more squeamish than me! Move to the next section, if you please.
For the briefest of intro lessons, rennet is made from the 4th stomach of the ruminant animal, the abomasum.
This photo is from a calf, so for us we were dealing with far smaller features. Obviously, this is a precious commodity. The abomasum must come from a nursing animal, as it still has the enzymes required for cheesemaking. It can also come from a stillborn, an unfortunate event turned into a beneficial one with proper immediate attention.
In our case, we’ve had 2 stillborn, one this year and one last year. This year we also had a very small doe, a first freshener, who had fairly large twins. We decided to cull one of her kids as part of our efforts. Of course this is never an easy decision to make, and I lose sleep over stuff like this. I was never meant to be a goat farmer, I just want to make cheese!
Anyway, I am glad for the tough choice and going through the trouble to acquire this precious skill. Hubby and I sat down before the guts together, at the kitchen table. One of the great many sentences I could never have imagined I’d be writing!
It’s not easy to find information on the how-to’s of this process, and I certainly had no one to call or visit for advice. It was not enough information to substantially build my confidence, that’s for sure. Sometimes that just takes doing it.
Luckily, I did find one YouTube video, and one blog, both again working with a calf, for which I’m exceptionally grateful.
Another brief aside about rennet, if I may bore many readers a bit further! As I’ve written before, most cheese made today, at least in the U.S., is not made from real rennet, it’s made from a lab-grown rennet substitute, made by Pfizer.
While it’s not that expensive for home cheese makers to buy animal rennet online, relatively speaking, considering only a tiny amount is required, I don’t want to have to entirely rely on far-away sources for such an essential item.
Another thing I’ve been experimenting with to overcome this issue is vegetable rennet, again, from a natural, local source, not a GMO lab-purchased source. We have figs, so that’s what I’m using, but nettles are another source.
It’s not possible to set a large hard cheese with this method, but it works for soft cheeses and very small, what I’d call semi-hard cheeses (because they don’t need a press) like the one I just tried after discovery this channel’s excellent demonstration.
This cheese is so easy! I’ve only just made it, so I can’t yet vouch for the taste, but he makes it look delicious. For this cheese you don’t need any special equipment—no molds or cultures, no aging fridge, and no rennet. Instead of the cute baskets he uses I just poked some holes in an old sour cream container. (And can I just add how much I adore his heavy accent and classic Italian hand gestures!)
We did eventually figure it all out, and here is our final product, now drying for 3 months or so, according to processing directions. It will then be sealed and last for many years and make many dozens of cheeses.
A great big thanks to the multi-layered efforts of man and nature for this magical gift!
In weather news, we’ve had a lot of rain. While I mentioned last update how much I love the rain, it is causing problems. We lost most of our onion harvest, for starters. This is a big disappointment because we were so close to harvest, just a couple more weeks. Not anymore, they were rotting in the ground, we had to pull them, lost a great many, and the others are mostly very small still.
So between the pitiful potatoes and the sad state of the onions, we are not starting off too well. The peas are already done as well, because of the heat, but that’s pretty normal here.
What’s not normal is my usual complaint—the manufactured weather. We can’t drive to half our property until Hubby upgrades our culvert, a huge undertaking. But we are very lucky this time around! No hail, or tornadoes, or other immediate disasters to deal with, like a great many.
Yes, more manmade clouds above our head. We’ll learn what NASA calls them next post.
But, I have a future Geoengineering Update in the works, so I’ll save further lecturing and complaining for now!
Instead we’ll end with a snap of one of our favorite dinners, just how we like it, burned to perfection! Not our pepperoni or cheese this time, but some just foraged chanterelles, homemade sourdough crust, and homegrown pork sausage. 😋
And other news this post, including Hubby’s big mistake, lots of garden snaps, critter updates and the new normal weather chaos.
Big ones, small ones, skinny ones, fat ones . . .
Black ones, white ones, green ones, yellow ones . . .
Let’s see, perhaps a bit of 80s pre-conditioning before our current day “You vill eat ze bugs!”?
We’ve never seen so many, and such a variety. They do not look the least bit appetizing and clearly the birds agree, or there couldn’t possibly be so many.
I’m not exaggerating when I say you cannot take a step without seeing one. I’m hoping they turn into gorgeous butterflies and soon we’ll have a garden full of them. But I haven’t looked them up yet and they could easily become some voracious relative of horn worms for all I know, about to attack the tomatoes.
They’ve destroyed my spring cabbages and are working on the fava beans and snap peas now.
Fall cabbages in the back compared to spring cabbages up front
At least the goats appreciated all those Swiss cheese-like leaves.
Snap peas don’t last long here anyway and while those creepy crawlers get the leaves of them, and those of the radishes, at least they leave us the fruits.
I’ve already made a large crock of sauerkraut and a quart of fermented radishes. Plus we’ve been getting loads of mulberries thanks to Hubby who has been destroying the tent worms that have been appearing all spring. Those little buggers love the wild cherries too and can easily destroy all leaves and fruits in a matter of days.
So, big kudos to Hubby for coming to the rescue, and spending a fair amount of tedious time harvesting these little beauties as well.
But, Hubby is also responsible for the misdemeanor crime of killing our potatoes! I should’ve caught it. I know, he was just trying to help. So, he filled our potato buckets with too much compost too fast and now we have potato disaster.
Lesson learned, you can only add a couple inches at a time, even if the greens are much taller than that.
I’ve got lots of herbs companion planted with the tomatoes that are all looking great.
Thyme, cilantro and dill growing between tomatoes
One of the best garden decisions I’ve made is far more flowers in the garden. Not only to attract pollinators, but to attract us too. It’s a far more inviting space than just rows of crops and makes me want to go in and play. 😊
The Peggy Martin rose just one year after planting a cutting from a friend.
And the Burr rose, many years old, huge and seemingly indestructible, even from constant nibbling by the sheep and goats.
And one of my garden favorites, which my photo doesn’t do justice at all: Nigella, a delicious seed and lovely tiny blooms in blue and white.
Their seeds have a grape-like flavor and are delicious in bread and kombucha.
A larger garden view
Another fruit that so far seems successful are the persimmons. We have both Virginia and Asian planted and the flowers on them are so unique, just like their fruits.
I’ve also got the citrus planted at last and I’m so excited! I cannot fail! (Says no one but me and I’ve gotten quite a few discouraging words from others on this venture.)
Planted along with the new ‘kiss me under the garden gate’ flower which is doing quite well, and the still unfinished wattle fence.
In the best news we have our first kids just born this morning. Milking season approaches too quickly!
The weather madness continues, unfortunately. Big surprise.
Some still think these are contrails! Good grief!
This weekend’s forecast looks like a drop-down menu: 1/16th inch rain possible, or severe storms, or flooding, or hail, or tornadoes. Try planning for those options, peasants! 😩
Hope life is a little more predictable in your neck of the woods!
I have to applaud our reader Highlander for sharing this musician who has me laughing so hard I have tears streaming down my cheeks! Nothing like a good laugh for health. So, first the fun stuff.
I believe this kind of ‘meaningful entertainment’ is an excellent way to spread the word about unpleasant news.
Another good one I’ve shared in the past, not a parody tune, a ballad, and very sad.
And, winding down, if you can muster the courage, Dane’s weekly Bad News Broadcast, which I never miss (much to Hubby’s chagrin!)
Keep laughin’, keep preppin’, and thanks for stopping by! 🤗
Two quick shares today—a very short peek at a few radar clips from GeoengineeringWatch.org. These ‘anomalies’ occur daily, obviously it’s not natural. Are the meteorologists all in on it? They can’t be so dumb as to think this is natural, right?
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! 🙏 🤗
I’m critical of high-tech solutions and when I hear them in tandem with big claims of sustainability, especially at a global level, I automatically bristle.
Still, the first time someone called me a Luddite, I balked.
I know there are plenty of us—vocal advocates and quiet dissenters alike—bemoaning so much of the tech being shoved down our throats, most certainly when it comes to food. I’ve been vocally ‘anti-GMO’ and ‘anti-geoengineering’ and ‘anti-vaxx’ and ‘anti-surveillance’ which in their linguistic game really just amounts to PRO-nature.
Yet it is becoming more common, even among the homesteading ‘community’ and ‘off-griders’ to consider these two powerful forces as intrinsically intertwined. As if sustainability cannot be achieved without modern tech, forgetting we somehow made it all the way up to the industrial era with relatively little of it.
We often hear of technology being a Trojan Horse. But, that’s an understated analogy, considering in that story it was a “gift”—insinuating it was one that could’ve been rejected. There is no rejecting a good portion of this tech flooding into our lives today. You will not escape the digital prison, at least not completely. Those 5G towers are screaming their frequencies over your head day and night whether you like it or not. The weather modification is a thing, whether I like it or not. (NOT!)
We also hear of technology being as any other tool—to be used for good or ill. Yet, is that a fair assessment when these tools are largely invisible? And when they are overwhelmingly in the hands of very few, and when fewer still would be able to replicate them in any capacity?
What am I missing? Where is the healthy balance? To explore these questions over the next few posts, I’m bringing in considerable help.
A young ‘homestead influencer’ I’ve heard about for years is about to release a new book and her attitude about the tech sounds pretty healthy. In the book she explores the question, “What are we leaving behind in our race toward progress?”
Like most of us, she has zero intention of recreating a ‘Little House on the Prairie’ lifestyle. She has managed to incorporate the tech into her life on her terms. So far, it seems.
Many of us certainly feel as the diaspora—dispersed between cultures—natural and digital.
I can’t help but wonder, is losing our soil connected to losing our soul?
I have a cousin in Colorado with a farm I’d call pretty high-tech. He’s a permaculture/biodynamics guy and has been very successful and has the perfect background to enlighten me, I’m sure.
He worked all over the world before his current venture, which has recently gone on the market after 20 years of development and WOW, talk about a success story! To increase the value of a property by such an extraordinary measure is truly remarkable. And that’s only part of his success story.
He too seems to have managed the tech, rather than the tech managing him.
I was quite moved by his 2015 speech:
“I remember! These qualities of life giving wholeness that our ancestors knew deep in their bones have been drawn off, separated, reduced, modified, pasteurized, homogenized, radiated – their vitality degraded, their life giving forces mutilated beyond what our cells might recognize. We now consume what are at best facsimiles of food, laboratory concoctions, genetically mastered ingredients – simulacra that do not build our cellular health but create work for our bodies, that weaken our fortitude and break our spirits. These laboratory wonders parade in full color down our grocery store isles. -all screaming for our purchasing dollars. More money is spent on the campaigns intended to seduce us than on the so-called food inside. These products are combinations of ingredients that we can not pronounce, masquerading as food and covered up with contemporary Eco-socially correct overly-designed, brightly bannered sales pitches in suspect containers claiming to bring us momentary bliss – all hawking only slight variations of amber waves of commodities meant for one thing and one thing only – to efficiently generate profit for a few, and from the most devastating chain of ecological rape and pillage the world has ever experienced – all leaving an accumulated insurmountable debt to future generations.”
Excerpt from a speech given by Brook LeVan at the 12th Annual Sustainable Settings Harvest Festival on September 20th, 2015:
“In the modern world, progress and innovation are often celebrated as unambiguously positive. New technologies, ideas, and ways of living are readily embraced with the assumption that they must be better than what came before. While it is true that certain advancements have brought undeniable benefits, such as improved hygiene, faster means of travel, effective medical treatments, and enhanced communication, it is crucial to critically examine the broader implications of modern progress. Often, the rapid pace of change leaves little room for reflection on whether newer solutions are truly superior to time-tested practices. As society becomes more complex and interconnected, the allure of novel and convenient solutions can overshadow the wisdom of the ancestors. Practices that have served humanity for generations may be disregarded in favour of modern alternatives that promise quick results and ease. For example, the trend toward processed foods and sedentary lifestyles has led to health problems that were less prevalent in societies that followed more traditional dietary and physical activity patterns. Likewise, the reliance on fiat money and speculative investment has created economic instability compared to more sound financial practices.”
Sound financial practices? What will the future kids know of that when even homesteaders are encouraging others to go deep into debt to finance their ‘off-grid’ dream property as if that’s magically sustainable? We used to call that debt-slavery.
Curtis Stone is a popular YT homesteader, and I’m not really meaning to diss him here, because it’s quite possible if I were a young man in my prime I wouldn’t be having such reservations as I do.
Risky behavior is common in youth, yet do we not expect a mature individual, as a mature culture, to become less risk-tolerant with time?
Debt has alway been encouraged for farmers when all the fancy new equipment becomes de rigueur—and a great many lost their farms that way during the Great Depression.
I’m not the gambling type myself, yet I see the technological sphere permeated with these types. From my vantage point, they appear to be addicts.
As if The Tech is not sketchy enough to me, there’s also the obvious fact of The Money, because you can’t have one without the other. That’s where the rabbit hole starts to go very deep.
(17:53) Gambling on people’s lives. That’s where the tech is headed. Not a ‘Black Mirror’ episode. Reality. Our debt-creation machine riding squarely on the backs of every cyber-unit, that is, every man, woman, and child, every living thing, all resources all around the world. Internet of Things, Internet of Bodies.
Alison McDowell of WrenchintheGears has been doing deep dives on this topic for many years, her work is hefty and dense, expertly sourced, and crucial in this discussion.
All this data. All the electricity required to run all this tech. All the power to be had, when all that power is in the hands of so very few.
So, I suppose I am a bit of a Luddite. I’ll be exploring this reality in the next few posts, I hope you’ll join me by adding your thoughts about the topic in the comments.
Times are tough, the mood around here is tight and demoralized. I won’t sugar coat it. Two months of 100+ degrees and no rain is bound to have emotional as well as physical consequences. We are victims and I refuse to pretend otherwise.
It’s one thing after another and because it’s so hot everything takes far greater effort. I’d go down the big list of all the things breaking down and all the things we can’t keep up with, but it’s way too long.
And no one likes a complainer, right? Don’t wallow in misery, right? Don’t bring others down?
If I had a dollar for every time I read or hear somewhere some version of—“Don’t play the victim”or “You’ve got to get out of the victim mentality” —I’d spit on it, wad it up in a tight ball, and shoot it out the barrel of a gun right between the eyes of every idiot who repeats such self-serving nonsense.
We ARE victims and there are a great many of us. Victims of medical experimentation, victims of weather warfare and disaster capitalism, victims of theft, victims of bullying and coercion, and that’s just those who are lucky enough not to be victims of far worse.
What is the ‘victim mentality’ exactly and who does it serve if we all bypass it? Who does it serve if we swallow our anger and resentment and bitterness?
Folks like to say it serves oneself, as in, then the dark emotions don’t haunt you and bring you down. They say we shouldn’t be vindictive, or hang on to past abuses and that hate will eat away at our souls and even cause cancer and other serious diseases.
In fact, it’s blind optimism and relentless positivity that keep folks stuck in denial and complacency, which can easily prove fatal, for the individual and the culture.
It is considered extremely ‘uncool’ to ‘play the victim’ even when you are a victim. Why is that? The media would have us believe everyone is playing the victim and that’s what’s wrong with our culture—so litigious, everyone looking for a handout, too many snowflakes.
While that may be partially true, and most certainly exploited, they leave out one very big piece of the social puzzle. Like, should we not be concerned that we have created a culture with so many victims, whether perceived or real?
I’ll leave y’all to ponder that question for a bit while I digress.
Because, we SO ROCK!
Sure, it really sucks at the moment. But at such times I take more notice of all the things we’ve done right. It’s not bypassing all that’s gone wrong, it’s holding both reality extremes in my mind at the same time.
We recently celebrated our 20th anniversary, and 15 of those years we’ve had this property, which we purchased, BASED ON BEING VICTIMS. After Hurricane Katrina, we saw first hand what the government response is to a crisis and we also saw how helpless most folks were. It was very eye-opening. We took action, to make sure we were not victims again.
We were victims again. And again. These are not ‘natural’ disasters, not one of them.
But for argument sake, even if the hurricanes and tornado were not manipulated by man (they were!) the consequences of those disasters were most definitely exacerbated by man.
These are disasters with perpetrators. Each time the (supposed) natural disasters were made far worse by people. We were robbed after the first one, as well as permanently losing my teaching contract at that time. The second time we were left paying 3 rents—one on the apartment we couldn’t live in, the mortgage on this property that had no finished home to live in yet, and the house to which we evacuated. The third time saw more grifters try to take advantage of our compromised and very stressful situation under the guise of helping.
Each time we’ve taken action based on that victim status to try to ameliorate it for the next time.
That’s why we rock. In the last 15 years we have carved out an awesome wee homestead. We cleared loads of land, just the two of us and a little old tractor. Built a cabin, 3 chicken coops, a corral, a large garden, a large orchard, remodeled our home, acquired many different kinds of livestock, have been learning beekeeping, foraging, cheesemaking, herbalism and LOADS of other life skills that were completely new to us, and have helped a few others on their journey to do the same.
As victims it is our duty to arm others (or at least try, especially for the next generations) with the tools they will need to bring down the perpetrators who currently evade us. It only serves the perpetrators to pretend there are no victims, or to micro-manage others’ victim status and behavior.
A victim mentality can be healthy, or it can be destructive. What most folks do is try to exploit it or minimize it.
They try to exploit it by using it as an excuse to do nothing—this is not a victim mentality—this is a grifter mentality. They try to minimize it because the folks around them are too lazy, indifferent, busy, selfish, adolescent, or cruel to listen to them and allow them to express their true feelings rather than those that are socially acceptable and make everyone else feel comfortable.
The guilt and shame should go squarely and solely on the shoulders of the abusers and those making excuses for the abuse. If victims of repeated abuses turn into individuals with a grifter mentality it could be because they’ve witnessed so often first-hand that this is the winning strategy in our culture. I seriously doubt telling such individuals to stop ‘playing the victim’ will do a damn bit of good. And, why should it?
So, all hail the victims! And more power to us. Not the corrupting brand of power that turns us into tyrants and perpetrators ourselves, but the inner-power it takes to hold that victimhood out for all to see, in order to enlighten, to righteously blame and accuse, and to give the next generation a better chance at identifying their abusers, holding them accountable, as well as in fortifying their own lives and livelihoods against further victimization.
Ug, am I in a mood! Read on for a big fat bitch fest.
First I’m going to bitch about the weather. Then I’m going to bitch about the garden. Finally I’m going to bitch about all the dumb bitches.
I will end with one positive paragraph, however, so y’all can leave satisfied that there’s no need to fret on my behalf. 😆
Let me first set the proper tone.
Time stamp 35:53. It’s an old clip, but as valid as ever. Oh my, do I have rant-envy! How I wish I were this good!
You’re worried about what you’re putting in your fucking body?! What about what you’re fucking breathing?!!
I listen to Carol nearly every day; she’s one of the precious few who gets what’s happening and has a proper level of peeve about it all. Go ahead and give the first 30 minutes a listen, if you care to hear about all the (manufactured!) weather destruction around our realm.
If you want to be that person, who writes in the comments that all this is normal and they can’t control the weather, feel free, because I could use a good target for all this vitriol!
And just for the record, I know they use the word ‘control’ to confuse folks, because then they have plausible deniability. Because they don’t exactly “control it” like we control the thermostat in our homes. They manipulate it, where and when they can, in order to cause destruction, in order to profit from disaster capitalism and play the Stocks with weather futures and food prices and every other piece of the economy which is weather-dependent, which is a whole helluvalot.
If you are safe and secure in your tiny little area, good for you, your region is not on the targeted list, YET.
This is not about Bill Gates and his ‘proposed’ solar radiation management. This is SO much bigger and he is one drop in the bucket of the wild, Wild West that is happening in our skies and with our atmosphere. It’s been going on for decades! I’m SO SO damn tired of the denial and the Pollyanna pretending and the stoic excuses!
The general consensus that we can just keep throwing money at the problems and they will magically get fixed by technology is not just absurd and dangerous, it is fatal.
How’s this for the next big fix by Big Biz?
“Now, the likes of Bayer, Corteva and Syngenta are working with Microsoft, Google and the big-tech giants to facilitate farmerless farms driven by cloud and AI technology. A cartel of data owners and proprietary input suppliers are reinforcing their grip on the global food system while expanding their industrial model of crop cultivation.” From Net Zero to Glyphosate: Agritech’s Greenwashed Corporate Power Grab “Whereas traditional breeding and on-farm practices have little or no need for GE technologies, under the guise of ‘climate emergency’, the data and agritech giants are commodifying knowledge and making farmers dependent on their platforms and inputs. The commodification of knowledge and compelling farmers to rely on proprietary inputs overseen by algorithms will define what farming is and how it is to be carried out.”
How do you make the world believe there’s a climate emergency? It takes a lot more than hyped-up media coverage and fraudulent stats—there has to be something to cover after all. Enter mass-scale weather modification in key areas—droughts, floods, earthquakes—YES THEY CAN!
Not to mention they’ve cornered the markets of: Disaster Preparedness, 1st Response, Disaster Relief, and Reconstruction, of the entire globe.
Someone has to keep shaking that can to keep everyone fighting you know!
“There’s a meme that circulated on social media a while back that perfectly sums up the polarized, manipulated mayhem, madness and tyranny that is life in the American police state today:
“If you catch 100 red fire ants as well as 100 large black ants, and put them in a jar, at first, nothing will happen. However, if you violently shake the jar and dump them back on the ground the ants will fight until they eventually kill each other. The thing is, the red ants think the black ants are the enemy and vice versa, when in reality, the real enemy is the person who shook the jar. This is exactly what’s happening in society today. Liberal vs. Conservative. Black vs. White. Pro Mask vs. Anti Mask. The real question we need to be asking ourselves is who’s shaking the jar … and why?”
Weather warfare is real and it is happening. And it is going to get worse.
Around here, with nearly two months now without rain, high temperatures, drying winds, it’s very easy to grasp what sitting ducks we all really are. We spend the entire mornings just trying to keep what’s not already dead from dying. The time and energy and repetition is exhausting and demoralizing. The afternoons are spent indoors, grateful for the air conditioning and that we’ve had no animal fatalities from the heat, so far.
Most of the garden is dead and depressing. The tomatoes fried, the cucumbers almost gone and getting bitter, the squashes mostly dead, even the heat-loving luffa, which has never succumbed to the heat in past summers. One of four chayote squashes is still barely hanging on, and that’s supposedly another heat-lover.
Not even regular watering helps.
Thinking this ‘heat dome’ could be parked over us for another three months, or wildfires could be next on their battle plan is more than I can bear. I set a single perfect pinecone on the windowsill to remind me fall will surely come, eventually.
Then come the normalizers, Lord Have Mercy! The Fucking Chemtrail Deniers, How I LOATHE them! Let me count some ways:
The evolution of the geoengineering psy-op as I’ve experienced it over the last decade or so has been a recurring nightmare.
I’m thinking it might be helpful to those new to the topic and also to those compiling the multi-colored yarns of our clown world for knitting a scarf for their future grandchildren.
No kids, the skies did not always look like this. Don’t believe the Con-trail Believers!
Some early ‘rationales’ for the lines, dubbed chemtrails, back in the ancient past (circa 2010) — these would be the various layers of gaslighting I heard during my first inquiries on the topic.
*First tier. This is when I would randomly ask Google questions like, WTF is wrong with the sky? What’s the difference between weather and climate? What’s a ‘space fence’? What the hell is wrong with the weather? Answers: Planet Nabiru causing atmospheric disturbance The wind patterns changing due to ‘El Nino’ Contrails, a con that keeps on giving WiFi, atmospheric phenomenon due to widespread wifi Radar, result of new tech
*Second tier. This is when I started seriously questioning and challenging on social media. What’s geoengineering? What the fuck is wrong with the weather? What are ‘sun dogs’? What is ‘solar radiation management’? What are chemtrails? Answers: Not there, my imagination (yes, I got that regularly) Military operations, not my business (ditto) New brand of ‘green’ Jet fuel Military chaff End of days Coal Fly Ash Military fuel dumps Contrails, the con persists!
*Third tier: Self-replicating Nano-bots (now we’re getting somewhere!) Space fence, for real! Germ warfare Weather warfare (DUH!) My imagination—yes, still!
I do try to focus on the positive, and there is a bit of it. Hubby’s first sunflower-melon patch was a big hit. It’s gone now, but we’ve got some really amazing watermelons to celebrate his success!
The pumpkins have also been pretty impressive, and amazingly they are still alive, though it does feel odd to have ripe pumpkins laying around everywhere in July.
Guess who else loves pumpkins? The plants got so big they’ve grown past the garden fence into the goat’s forage area, so, fair play.
But selfish old queen that she is, she wouldn’t share a single bite with her mates!
For a couple hours in the morning it’s not so terrible standing still in the shade with mist from the sprinklers blowing on me.
At least the okra is still alive
Moringa, a lovely plant that just might make it long enough to produce before frost.
While we definitely have fewer pollinators visiting the garden this summer, at least we do still have a few nibbling at the drying flowers. May they survive and multiply!
And of course, tomorrow’s Funny Friday, so that might help my torrid mood. 😆
