It’s that time again! Find something to grin about, or we just can’t help you. It’s a crazy, mad world out there, laugh first, consider later. 😏
Wishing y’all a lovely weekend!
Funny Friday
Behind The Scenes — The Unmasking of Maine….and Beyond
Former CIA Chief Of Disguise Explains The Use Of Human Masks “Watch this 7 minute video from a CIA specialist about masks, disguises, and “twins” in the CIA over the years in conjunction with Hollywood. She says each operation was actually a “performance”‘. Link to video.
Behind The Scenes — The Unmasking of Maine….and Beyond
Homestead Happenings
Still hot, humid, and dry. An odd combination, no? We have lots of cloud cover regularly, very high humidity most days, with lots of surrounding areas getting lots of rain, yet here we get none of it.
Mother Nature or Manmade?
Why doesn’t our own “local” (HA!) or national news cover weather modification and geoengineering like the UAE does?
“The National Centre of Meteorology carried out a series of flights over Texas while working with the US state’s local weather association.
Nanomaterials are tiny manufactured substances that can be designed for a specific purpose.
In the case of cloud seeding, they replace traditional salt, dry ice and other chemicals as a more effective tool in generating rain from existing clouds.”
“New UAE cloud seeding test in Texas shows promising results”
Now why do you suppose the UAE experiments over Texas instead of over their own country? And if the results had been shown to be ‘less than promising’ what would that mean exactly and how the public might learn about said results? I won’t be holding my breath for answers to such obvious questions.
Drought-deluge scenarios are a hallmark of geoengineering, according to Dane Wigington, as are wildfires.
“Scientists have developed special drones that can fire an electric charge into clouds to make them rain, potentially paving the way for downpours in the Gulf region.
The project, led by British researchers and funded by the UAE, could see fleets of unmanned aerial vehicles replace manned aircraft that seed clouds with chemicals to create showers.”
The rainmaker: UAE-funded electric drone project designed to be the new cloud seeding
What they fail to mention is, cloud seeding works both ways—as we like to joke here on the wee homestead—we’ve got the spray-on rain, and the rain spray-away.
It’s not that funny, but it’s a whole helluvalot better than what I really want to say about it all!
In better news, we’ve got lots and lots of pears and okra. Hubby’s been working hard on the hard cider with our new heavy duty press. We’ve also been canning both and trying to put them into as many dishes as we can. Neither are my favorites, but since that’s all that’s growing, we’re going to find a way to like it!
The goats are venturing further for forage—good thing there’s lots of neighbor-free land for them to roam! And of course I still bring them their favorite vines.
In the garden we are already harvesting some of the sweet potatoes as they are not looking too good. Hopefully the other areas will come out nicer—we planted them all over the place.
Some of the peppers have been dying mysteriously, full of fruit one day, dead the next. I have no clue. The tomatoes I started indoors in July and transplanted outside a couple of weeks ago are still looking ok, fingers crossed.
We’ve got the very welcome garden visitors, and the not so welcome, as usual.
Luckily it doesn’t take much rain for the swamp lillies to make a show, and a good way to end this post.
Thanks for stopping by!
Funny Friday
I’m happy to say we’ve got some real knee-slappers in here today! If nothing here tickles your funny bone, well, I don’t know what to say.
Except, I hope they come up with a vaccine for that for ya! 😏
Wishing y’all a lovely, labor-free weekend!
The King and I – Search for the King Cobra
Fantastic! I love this man’s posts and this one is particularly impressive!
The little island of Singapore has an abundance of wildlife. The government strategy is to evolve from a Garden City to become a City in Nature. Singapore already boasts an impressive list of iconic wildlife such as huge Saltwater crocodiles, otters that roam the city, wild boars in suburbia and hornbills in the sky above.
The green spaces are wriggling with a jewel box of snakes. Always nearby but hardly ever seen, there seems to be a snake for every occasion in Singapore. They range from the huge Reticulated python to the deadly Blue Coral snake, but there is one snake that captures the imagination of people all over the world like no other – the King Cobra.
I have seen many snakes in Singapore, but the elusive King cobra had evaded me for almost 2 years. It was…
View original post 1,104 more words
How the Predator Sees You
When you draw a heart, you are showing them where to aim.
“LaVey had one solid philosophy non-Satanists need to adopt: self-preservation. LaVey likely picked this up from Nietzsche.
“There has never been a great ‘love’ movement in the history of the world that hasn’t wound up killing countless numbers of people, we must assume, to prove how much they loved them! Every hypocrite who ever walked the earth has had pockets bulging with love!”
A Prima Facie Examination of Satanism | Winter Watch
This is what Alice Bailey describes as the “externalization of the hierarchy”: the hidden rulers slowly revealing themselves.
“The “simpler code” devised for the masses used to be organized religions. It is now becoming the Temple of the Mass Media and it preaches on a daily basis extreme materialism, spiritual vacuosity and a self-centered, individualistic existence. This is exactly the opposite of the attributes required to become a truly free individual, as taught by all great philosophical schools of thought. Is a dumbed-down population easier to deceive and to manipulate?
“These blind slaves are told they are “free” and “highly educated” even as they march behind signs that would cause any medieval peasant to run screaming away from them in panic-stricken terror. The symbols that modern man embraces with the naive trust of an infant would be tantamount to billboards reading, ‘This way to your death and enslavement,’ to the understanding of the traditional peasant of antiquity.”
– Michael A. Hoffman II, Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare
“Meanwhile Mitterrand’s Minister of Culture, Jack Lang, led a relentless policy of promotion of the “culture of inversion” (defined recently by Paul Kingsnorth as the dedication of “the cultural elites, and sometimes the political and economic elites… not to upholding the cultural forms they inherited, but to turning them on their heads, or erasing them entirely.”) This program manifested itself in such examples as raves in the Louvre and post-modern ballets featuring excrement and menstrual blood. This was the era in which Mélenchon came of age as a member of Mitterrand’s socialist party, where he held positions of senator and then minister. The Mélenchon of 2022 is very clearly the heir of this moment, not a new invention or deviation.
“This is the “peripheral” France—rural, consisting of small- and medium-sized towns and overseas territories—upon which Bernard-Henri Levy each day vomits his class hatred, despite the fact that, for over thirty years, it has been hit hard by the practical consequences of his liberal gospel, to the point that, in the poorest rural regions, living conditions are even more dramatic than in the “problem” suburbs. It comes as no surprise that this France, which comprises more than 60 percent of the population, has been completely wiped off the left intelligentsia’s radar. It is simply the logical consequence of the process that has led the modern left, since its conversion to the principles of economic and cultural liberalism, to gradually abandon its original social base in favor of the new, overeducated and hyper-mobile upper-middle classes living in globalized metropolises, who represent only 10 to 20 percent of the population and are structurally protected from liberal globalization’s problems (when they do not benefit directly from it) […]
Mushroom Abundance
While just two hours away Dallas was getting flooded, we got a measly two inches. Certainly not enough to fill the pond or raise the creek or get the ravines flowing again.
But it was enough for a crazy number of mushrooms!
I was collecting mushrooms for several days afterward, including some first-time-finds—a choice edible and the weirdest mushroom I’ve ever seen.
Mushrooms popping up everywhere.
And now on to the good stuff!
Foraging for anything is just about my favorite thing to do in decent weather, and mushrooms especially. But in hot, sticky weather there better be some bang for the buck, as the saying goes.
Especially because the chiggers thrive here when it’s hot, wet, and humid, so shorts and sandals are not an option.
Last year with our very wet spring we had chanterelles all summer long. We’ve had very few this year, so this nice haul has been a real treat.
Hubby found this ‘chicken of the woods’ on a rotting Oak tree while feeding the pigs. It’s a first-find for us here and is considered to be a good “Beginner’s” mushroom, because there are no similar mushrooms to it which are poisonous. It’s very tasty in cream of mushroom soup and does indeed have a texture similar to chicken breast.
Another new find is considered to be “choice”—related to the shiitake mushroom—Lentinus lepideus.
We got a marvelous wild harvest right in the back yard. These “Pink bottoms” (Agaricus campestris) are very common and closely related to commercially cultivated mushrooms in the grocery stores.
They resemble another common yard mushroom that fools a lot of folks—the toxic Chlorophyllum molybdites —including me once when I was a beginner. It was an excellent lesson considering spending the night hugging the toilet has made me a much more cautious mushroom hunter!
These two often grow together as well, preferring the same conditions, sometimes in ‘fairy rings’. When they are very young the gills of both look white, while still mostly closed.
As they open, the good ones have pinkish gills that change fairly quickly to chocolate brown. The toxic ones have greenish gills that get a grayish-olive tone with age.
And to make matters more confusing, once a little older and browned they could also be confused by a novice with another yard mushroom, the ‘magic’ mushroom, the common psychedelic Psilocybe cubensis. The very bitter taste will be enough to figure that out.
And now, for the grande finale . . . the most perfect specimen of Macrolepiota procera I’ve ever seen! A delicious edible, fairly common wherever there’s been ruminants wandering, like quite a few other wild mushrooms.
Funny Friday
It’s that time again!
Hope there’s something in here to tickle your fancy.
Wishing y’all a lovely weekend!
Thanks for stopping by!!
It’s the System, Stupid
To me this entire story positively reeks of stagecraft. But, even if we take it at face value it demonstrates how screwed up our food system really is.
Here’s the story in tiny nutshell: The McCloskeys were sued for animal cruelty at their dairy farm following an undercover employee’s secretly videotaping several instances with four workers involved. Now a settlement has been reached:
Classy.
A $21 million Settlement has been reached in a class action lawsuit filed against Defendants The Coca-Cola Company (“TCCC”), fairlife, LLC (“fairlife”), Fair Oaks Farms, LLC (“FOF”), Mike McCloskey and Sue McCloskey (“the McCloskeys”), and Select Milk Producers, Inc. (“Select”), relating to fairlife and FOF Milk Products. The lawsuit alleges that Defendants falsely labeled and marketed certain dairy products produced using milk from cows that were allegedly not treated humanely. Defendants deny all allegations and have settled this lawsuit to avoid further litigation.
The Court has not decided who is right.You may submit a Claim Form to receive 25% of the average retail purchase price, up to $100, for your purchases of fairlife Milk Products and FOF Milk Products, if the products were purchased for personal use and not for resale, and were purchased on or before April 27, 2022. Claim Forms submitted without Valid Proof of Purchase will be capped at a Cash Award of up to $20 and Claim Forms submitted with Valid Proof of Purchase will be capped at a Cash Award of up to $80, subject to certain adjustments (upward and downward) depending on the number of claims submitted.
So, there’s video evidence, but the Court has not decided who is right. Must be so confusing, poor kids.
But you get some money anyway if you can come up with your milk purchase receipt, potentially from 2015. Brilliant.
In an interview the McCloskeys talk about all the fantastic improvements they’ve made to garner public trust once again in their dairy products since the video’s release, and the broad coverage of ‘the scandal’ by MSM (I do believe they neglected to mention the product line was owned by Coca-Cola, but I may have missed that part and really do not care to re-listen. It was annoying enough the first time listening to Mike Rowe pander to these creeps).
What I did hear in the interview was how proud the McCloskeys are now of their complete video surveillance system, how they are well on the road to becoming ‘Net Zero’ so that they can help curb climate change as responsible business owners, and how very excited they were to see the gleam in the eye of the school children who came there to tour their facilities and were so thrilled to see cows being milked by carousel machine.
Now they might grow up to become mechanical engineers, Mrs. McCloskey beamed!
I’m so excited for our Green future too, aren’t you?!
Still This Love Crap
Have you ever experienced unrequited love? Ever love someone who was so out of your league they didn’t know you existed? Ever been horribly, unfairly, unceremoniously jilted by a lover? Ever love someone for years who treated you like shit most of the time? Ever love someone who turned out to be completely different than the one you thought you fell in love with?
Ever tried to muster up feelings of love for someone or something you did not, could not, love?
And yet still, despite its ephemeral nature—from its meaning, to its translation, to how it is individually experienced—some of our greatest thinkers, philosophers, social critics, poets, not to mention a good chunk of pop culture, still repeats “Love is the answer.”
We should love everyone and especially nature. That’s what’s wrong with the world, they insist, not enough love. And every time I hear this, I roll my eyes, even when it comes from someone I love.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b08njtjg
Most recently I heard it in an interview coming from Wendell Berry (link). How someone so inspiring, who has led such a charmed and wholesome and respectable life, who now at an advanced age seems so wise, could repeat such nonsense confirms for me only one thing: “We don’t see things for what they are, we see them for what we are.”
Love is the answer to the West’s problems, they say, because you take care of what you love. And the younger thinker and social critic Paul Kingsnorth agrees with him.
How lovely.
Now here’s a homework assignment I’d love to give to these fools. Kingsnorth likes to study tribal cultures, which I think is really cool. He likes them because they have a solid home in nature, unlike Westerners. And I agree. So, I think he should ask all those tribal folks their opinions about this ‘love’ solution so many Western thinkers keep harping on about.
My bet is, it doesn’t translate. At all. I bet he’d have to write an entire essay for them about what he means by love in the first place, let alone how he expects that will solve anything.
How do you make someone love you? Or care about you? I have a difficult time imagining a more monumental task. And yet, somehow those who care about nature are tasked with getting those very great many, like the Technocrats and their vast entourages, to not only love it, but to respect it, to care for it, to nurture it even. Seriously?
What a debilitating delusion they are spewing. And not just once or twice out of an understandable desperation. But constantly, for decades now.
Yet to call it out for the obvious shallow fantasy that it is, I become the bitch.
Well then, so be it. Let me play that role for a minute or two right now.
Imagine Mother Nature is your very own mother. Maybe you love your mother, let’s give it the benefit of the doubt. You love her, but your sisters love her more. And your mother and your sisters are screaming at you—“You don’t love me!” “You don’t care about me!” “You are exploiting me and you must stop!”
How will you respond to their shrieks and demands of love and care? Deny your lack of love, perhaps? Maybe yell back that they are all wrong about you? Maybe ask what they mean by that?
You might be so sure of your love that you ask what you can do to prove it?
Maybe Mom replies she wants you to write her a poem professing your loving feelings. So you do. You go even further, and you write 10 poems and throw in a tediously long essay to boot. And you’re very proud of your efforts and you feel you’ve really captured the intense love you have for her.
And she says she likes them, even the tediously long essay. In fact, everyone who loves her also agrees how perfectly you’ve captured those feelings of love through your words. Astonishing.
But, after all, those are just words, and you said to love her is to care for her, so she wants to see some action.
So with the same zeal you wrote the ten poems and tediously long essay you tackle the part where your loving words become caring actions.
You chop wood and carry water for her. You refrain from any negativity in her presence, because she doesn’t like it. You insist that everyone in her company, through shame or coercion or even force, abide by her rules and preferences.
At long last, she is satisfied with your efforts. You can feel the power of her appreciation filling your heart and coursing through your veins.
She tells you, “Child, you are a true master of loving care!”
“Except, you see, there’s so many children over there who don’t love me. And their lack of love for me is upstaging your love. Their lack of love is demonstrably more powerful than your true love. What can you do about this?”
And you reply, “Great Mother, don’t you worry, I can make them love you like I do!”
Really? Can you? What makes you so sure about that?
You read them your poems, and they smirk. Then they read your tediously long essay and shrug. You show them your admirable work in fetching wood and carrying water for your Great Mother, and they respond by clear cutting your forest and damming your river.
Then they tell you their favorite joke, laughing all along.
The joke goes like this: There were these three dudes on a yacht. One was an American, another was Russian, and the third one was Mexican. They were all drinking and getting boastful as drunken men like to do.
The Russian said, “In my country, we have so much vodka we can afford to throw it away!” And he takes a full bottle of vodka and throws it into the ocean.
They all laugh harder. So, the Mexican says, “In my country, we have so much tequila we can afford to throw it away!” And he takes a full bottle of tequila and throws it overboard.
And they all laugh harder still. Then the American says, “Well, in my country we have so many . . .
And he picks up the Mexican and throws him overboard.
The Russian and American look at each and howl with laughter. And the American blurts out between guffaws, “Tough love!”
To The Holy Spirit
O Thou, far off and here, whole and broken,
Wendell Berry
Who in necessity and in bounty wait,
Whose truth is light and dark, mute though spoken,
By Thy wide grace show me Thy narrow gate.
Kensho Homestead 