Safety Dance?

I observed unusual behavior in one of our hives yesterday afternoon. Lots of activity at the entrance, too late in the day to be food-related, in my opinion, but clearly demonstrating communication efforts.

I’ve only read studies and opinions from scientists and beekeepers about the bees’ waggle dance as a communication for food sources. Lots and lots of opinions and studies about that! That may be all that trickles down to the layman, however, so I keep searching the books. Here’s a new one, once again, about food.

“Social communication systems are predominantly multimodal and can combine modulatory and information-bearing signals. The honey bee waggle dance, one of the most elaborate forms of social communication in animals, activates nestmates to search for food and communicates symbolic information about the location of the food source. Previous studies on the dance behaviour in diverse honey bee species demonstrated distinct differences in the concurrence of visual, auditory, olfactory and tactile signals produced by the dancer.”
“Similarities in dance follower behaviour across honey bee species suggest a conserved mechanism of dance communication” Elsevier, Science Direct, Animal Behavior, Volume 169 Nov. 2020 https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/animal-behaviour

But, non-expert that I am, my hunch tells me this bee behavior was not about food at all, but rather about warning the forager bees that a storm is coming and to not go back out. Shortly after this observation, where the weather front moving in from the north is visible in the distance, all bee activity at the entrance stopped.

I believe I lost a hive early last spring due to either a quick-moving storm, or pesticide poisoning. This new observed behavior tilts my pondering toward the latter. In that particular colony, which was quite large, I checked on them because their entrance activity suddenly slowed to almost nothing. When I opened up the hive I found loads of drawn comb, a healthy number of nurse bees and even larvae, no disease or infestation to speak of, but bars of activity as if flash-frozen in time. Loads of nurse bees in the process of working, heads in cells, dead. My assumption is their foragers never made it home. So, when the temperatures dropped that evening, they hive didn’t have enough thermal mass for their survival.

I apologize for my lack of video skills, still, it’s on the to-do list. And, that whimper at the end is because I got stung by a fire ant, not a bee! Then the dogs came over to check out what I was doing in the grass, which to them always means playtime. Impromptu mission aborted due to attack. 🙂

Of Two Minds – Everything is Staged — MCViewPoint

https://www.oftwominds.com/blogoct20/staged10-20.html Charles Hugh Smith All the staging is a means to an end, and everyone in America is nothing more than a means to an end: close the sale so the few can continue exploiting the many. You know how realtors stage a house to increase its marketability: first, they remove all evidence that people […]

Of Two Minds – Everything is Staged — MCViewPoint

True Sustainability

As the United Nations, Club of Rome, World Health Organization and various other international ‘public-private’ partnerships try to propagandize the world into their vision of “Global Sustainability” there are a number of crucial variables they’ve left out, which localities could capitalize on, if they were made aware of this potential.

For example, did you know there are salt mines all over place in this country? Salt was the basis of our first ‘trade markets’ — long before exotic spices of the Orient — salt was King of the World.

Salt was, well, worth its weight in gold, as the saying goes. Why do we import tea, the ‘native Americans’ might have queried of the mostly British expats settling here? There’s perfectly good tea all around you, can’t you see? And they might have made a few good jokes about that.

But salt? You’re going to import salt, too? What the bleep for?! That’s not even joke-worthy, that’s just a dumb-ass death sentence! You know it’s everywhere around here, right? And the gold y’all so covet, what’s that for, exactly? Y’all are really so very attached to your adornments, eh? Good choices there, give over your salt, so you starve, for gold, so you can pay your taxes. Brilliant system!

Here on the wee homestead we came inspired to see how long and far a road it is to self and community sustainability. We were thinking like most homesteaders, survivalists, etc., are thinking—food, water, energy. Obvious, these are crucial.

But what about the salt? That, along with the water, was the very first thing either robbed, buried, or tainted by the industrialist-minded settlers. Not the ones who came for a better life more aligned with their God and purpose, the ones who came expressly to profiteer for the pay-masters back home.

Long before our water and air were compromised, our people enslaved to the State and our ranges overrun with slave labor, our salt was “buried” by the Global Regulators. There are salt mines and primal (renewable, sub-surface geysers, essentially) water available all over this country.

That was known centuries ago! But go ahead and demonstrate your loyalty to the State, that tricked and enslaved your Great, Great Grandparents and before, by wearing that muzzle of submission and voting for your next tyrant.

Don’t care where your salt comes from? Next you don’t care where your water comes from, or your food comes from, or your energy, or anything else.

Line up, bend over, take your shot.

https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/texas/salt-mine-tx/

Envy Is Everything

I’ve heard contention whether envy or jealousy is ‘le mot juste’ and while I’m interested in the semantics, in this particular case, for the moment, I’m more interested in the feelings.

Let’s just say, for the sake of this post and the wisdom I’m trying to impart within it, that envy, like its roots, denote from ‘envie’, or, ‘to desire’. That is, within this particular context, to desire something for its own sake, not to receive pleasure by withholding from another.

To desire something at the expense of another is a feeling I’ve not yet known, though I’m assured constantly it’s a quite universal feeling. Not that I’m saying at any level that I’d wish to share my spouse, as one example, with another for the sole sake that such an individual would benefit, at the level that I theoretically might, according to such anecdotes, from the accolades or astral benefits of sharing my spouse. Now that I’ve only managed to combombulat the issue, let me state it unequivocally: Desire is love without the commitment.

To say “J’ai envie de toi.” is a far more sexually explicit thing to say in French than to say “Je t’aime.” Yet both are translated often as “I love you.” In Spanish the two expressions prove even more nebulous.

Until this particular feeling enlightens my consciousness I can only say what I’ve experienced personally in that relative ballpark. I have “envied” only one person in my entire life—in this particular sense of I WANT what you’ve GOT—and it was not for her beau, or her looks, or her wealth—though that is not to say that any of those were not enviable. In fact, as enviable as any of these things might be, this young woman would have no idea whatsoever I ever ‘envied’ her at all. It was like 20 years ago, or so.

And yet, when I think of her, my heart is stroked. I get a knee-jerk reaction of nostalgia mixed with mystery that evokes in turn a tear-jerk reaction that is completely unique to this particular individual.

I don’t even remember her name. In fact, in the most attracting moments I ironically also found her a bit irritating—as odd as that sounds—too lively, too happy, too in love, or something.

She was blonde and bubbly and sleeping with the boss, so I really don’t knock my irritation too much. But, she had something else. It’s so extraordinarily rare anyone has anything I want, but she had it. To me, in a way I didn’t understand at all at the time, she had the ring of power.

And She had it so fucking good it burned. It burned me! My desire for what she had burned me, so hard, that over 20 years later, my biggest triumph in life is, #metoo. But not for her man, her plan, or her choices!

No, not that #metoo nonsense!

She knew the plants.

We walked through Prince William Sound Alaska, and the flora and fauna were like relatives to her. She knew her TERRITORY! Never, not ever before or since, have I felt that kind of envie.

And now I know, if she were to meet me again now, she’d say the very same thing about me.

She’d see in me what I saw in her: Pride in my territory.

And so, this strange young woman I knew for only a few months, in changing the course of my mind, changed the course of my life, for the better, forever.

And she has no clue about it, at all, and most likely never will.

Your Guide to the Great Reset — The Mad Truther

corbettreport You’ve all heard by now that The Great Reset is upon us. But what is The Great Reset, exactly, and what does it mean for the future of humanity? Join James for this in-depth exploration of the latest rebranding… Read More ›

Your Guide to the Great Reset — The Mad Truther

“Seasonal Dissonance”

Related to the psychological term ‘cognitive dissonance’ this new Eco-socio-scientism-conspiracy term describes the thermometer and related mechanical device-reading temperatures that refuse to align with the visual and sensory data which would otherwise assure a concerned individual that the season is indeed changing.

A lunch of freshly foraged chanterelles and lactarius indigo—lucky for me, I chose wisely. These are not beginner’s mushrooms and I was really nervous! (Hubby didn’t dare, citing the obvious need that, just in case, someone must live to tell the story.)

”Hmmm, roast pork with spider sauce? Not sure I’m feelin’ ya . . .”

Persimmon seeds in the feral hog scat is a better indicator than that blazing 90 degrees Fahrenheit that’s frying the kohlrabi and beet seedlings before they’re a centimeter above the soil’s surface. Don’t fool yourselves, it’s not just ‘Mother Nature.’

This is that tricky New Micro-Season in East Texas, thanks mostly to weather engineering I’ve no doubt, where no crop, or handler, understands what’s actually happening.

Cardinal flower (lobelia cardinalis)
Big Elkhart Creek 

The days are far too hot for the cool season, the nights far too variable for any season. The hungriest and most prolific garden pests are still proliferating, long from dead from potential threat of frost, but the hungry chickens are unable to benefit because said voracious insects are conveniently barricaded with the young greens and seedlings they so covet within the garden gates where there‘s narry a predator to be found.

If the past few years of weather whiplash are an example, we’ll go from shade cloth over our boxes to in need of frost protection within a few days. Maybe this time we’ll be ready for it?

The bees are as excited as if it’s spring, which gets me worrying. I plan to do some honey harvesting very soon. I have a mean colony who I’ve been giving the benefit of the doubt for well over a year now but who might get the permanent boot very shortly. I got stung in the eyebrow, again, just trying to maneuver around their hive, gently. Just in order to weed!

There’s just no call for that level of aggression around here; they’re clearly asking for some serious retaliation. Sure, the golden rod they’re feasting on was not my doing, but that tree groundsel, excuse me, a meager toll is in order, considering I planted that expressly in that very position for their exclusive benefit.

2nd favorite thing I’ve planted this year: Thai Red Roselle, makes my favorite Kombucha, another favorite discovery of 2020!

First favorite, check back to summer posts, Trombetta squash. We are still eating it!

40 seconds of Zen, OR, as long as I was able to sit still before swatting another mosquito on my nose

Armored

Armored
in chain mail or blubber
Masked
in muzzles or cosmetics
Clothed
in cotton or steel
Waning power
Dripping wax

Shells casings
rubber
bindings wraps
sheaths goggles
sabers latex

UV against the light
DC against the dark
AC against the heat
BTU against the cold

Shields against the swords
Umbrellas against the rains
Parasols against the sun
Docs against the insane

Veils across the faces
Sensors across the tongues
Blinders across the temples
Mufflers across the ears

Nestled wrapped warped
coddled framed
Walls weapons fortresses
Fences barricades
Bars chains moats
Buttressed ceilings
Cannoned boats
Stifled Beings
Sacrificial Goats

For Better Or Worse

This year Hubby and I passed our 17th anniversary Test of Marital Bliss, more or less devoted, mostly minus the bliss.

While at first blush this post might read like something of a roast of us both, I mean it actually to be a tribute to us both, to our loving growth, as well as a bit of advice to newlyweds, who will most certainly ignore it, bless their young hearts.

“Never go to bed angry,” was my grandfather’s advice, at my first wedding. That marriage lasted just shy of five years. While I did learn some great life lessons from Grandpa, that particular one proved pretty useless.

I’d rewrite it now as something close to the exact opposite: Never try to resolve any issue while angry. What better way to overcome your anger? A good night’s sleep.

Exit Glacier, Alaska, stock photo

My second attempt at marital bliss showed far more potential immediately. I’ve told this story of Hubby and I many times before, because it’s a great story. When he first proposed to me, in a tent at Exit Glacier in Alaska, we had just high-tailed it out of a precarious and perhaps even dangerous situation in the wee hours of the morning from the tourist boat where he’d been working for nearly a decade previously and had invited me to join him that summer season.

My presence there and his devotion to me was apparently causing a serious rift between him and his good friend/employer.

We found ourselves sneaking off the boat pre-dawn, strategically, while everyone else was out, because Hubby had lost all confidence in his boss’ professionalism and maybe even his sanity after an extremely inappropriate altercation the night before.

It reads more like fiction than real life, I do realize. But, isn’t that often how life goes? As we pulled out of Prince William Sound in the compact rental car stuffed with the duffel bags of all his possessions, we drove straight into a glorious and totally unexpected rainbow. Cross my heart, no exaggeration at all, across the valley as the sun rose above the mountain pass was the most gorgeous rainbow I’d ever witnessed.

I barked and awed and carried on enthusiastically to a mostly apprehensive man trying to hold it together during this incredibly bold and unprecedented move.

How could it not be auspicious, a wonderful omen, I raved, on and on?! After all, it was the most exquisite rainbow I’d ever seen. How could that be totally by chance?!

That is, until a few days ago.

On my birthday, as Hubby was flying offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, as he’s been doing for about a decade now, he took this shot from his helicopter.

Gorgeous, auspicious, but, he didn’t even think to send it to me at the time. That’s the real point of this post.

He took this shot because he knew I’d love it, that’s for sure. He’s not the synchronicity believer that I am, he thinks celebrating birthdays is for kids and he’s not nearly as impressed with rainbows as I am, clearly. I doubt he shared this shot with his offshore crew, because I doubt there are any among them who are so eager to gush over rainbows in the Gulf.

I requested ages ago he take more photos while offshore, but I get it, he’s got a job to do out there, he’s not a tourist, and no one’s paying him to take photos.

But a couple of days ago when I asked if he had more good photos, he sent this one. I laughed out loud! I said, REAL photos please! NOT fake unicorn CGI gonna-fool-my-wife type photos! How dare you make fun of my rainbow love!

He swore up and down it’s real and totally un-retouched. And I gazed at it, truly amazed, stunned, in true AWE for at least a solid minute.

Then I said: “Oh My God! How on earth could you have not sent me this photo on my birthday, since it says right there that’s when you took it?!”

He looked at me like a deer in highlights for an extended moment, until I laughed. I shook my head, rolled my eyes, and laughed some more.

This was exactly the sort of thing, early in our marriage, that would’ve set me off. Proof, right there, front and center, of his thoughtlessness and insensitivity! Oh and how I felt that enticing tug of self-righteousness, don’t get me wrong!

But the wisdom of 19 years of loving this man, 17 years in wedlock-down, threw me, suddenly and unequivocally, into what I think is a State of Atlas Shrugs. She said, “So you got it a week late, and in a totally off-hand manner, but still, you got it. You really gonna cause a stink about that?”

And the still small voice of Wisdom replied, “No, ma’am!”

And the Reason of the middle-aged woman, now a Devoted Gardener for a decade, well accustomed to planting seeds three times before the right time strikes, realized the greater truth in that moment, beyond the banal ‘perfect’ timing desires of us mere mortals: Nature has a timetable that doesn’t match your Personal or Man-made calendar.

DUH!

And, better late than never!

Nature=Master Deceiver

“There’s no lie in nature.”

I’ve heard this repeated so many times now, from so many different and I believe well-meaning voices, that I decided it’s high time to add my own voice to this nonsense.

Nature doesn’t deceive. Nature doesn’t try to fool you.

Today this is repeated by quite a few philosophers, conspiracy theorists and ‘truthers’ as a way to elevate nature above man’s conning and cunning ways and to condemn our current fantasy-based reality. I agree our so-called civilization deserves plenty of condemning. But, I do not intend to trade one set of illusions for another.

Apparently this attitude goes way back, to the likes of Walter Russell and an entire camp of German Idealists. I love nature as much, maybe even more, than these guys, that’s for sure. Yet my experience is there are no greater deceptions to be found anywhere else, the worst of man’s worm tongue included, than there are to be found in nature.

You wouldn’t dare!

There are mushrooms so similar that not only a spore print, but a microscope is needed to tell them apart. Poisonous Amanita spissa or delicious Amanita rubescens? Chlorophyllum molybdites, lepiota Americana or macrolepiota procera? Do you want a nice dinner or an evening hugging the toilet? Don’t be fooled, choose wisely!

“Destroying Angel”
the deadly Amanita virosa

Man got his idea for camouflage directly from nature, obviously. In some cases the camouflage is so stealth you could be staring directly at a living creature and not even know until it moves.

Take a walk in the woods and you’ll see sticks that look like snakes and insects that look like sticks. There are spiders that look a lot like bats and bugs that look more like birds.

There are plants like poison ivy, my greatest garden nemesis, that look completely benign, leave no feeling or trace at all in the moment, but 12-24 hours later, long after you’ve forgotten all about it, can elicit a rash so severe you’ll be begging for relief even if it takes the form of a cocktail of toxic pharmaceutical drugs.

That horror story is my arm, on too many occasions to count.

The possum plays dead so effectively he’ll fool nearly any predator.
The most beautiful flowers can kill you.

Datura inoxia

The most disgusting and unappetizing swamp insect can be delectable.

In fact, to say nature is THE Master Deceiver is even an understatement if you ask me. Nature is a raving, lying bitch at least half the time.

Living so close to nature, growing food, co-creating with the land has offered me the greatest single lesson of my life: Cute and nice are the camouflage of prey and pets.

Nature does not play nice. Nice is for ninnies.

It’s considerably more deceptive when man’s hands meddle in nature’s mix as well, quite impossible sometimes to tell where one ends and the other begins.

Amazon Bans Health

Weston A. Price Foundation latest publication locked out of globe’s largest book retailer. Land of the free, my arse.

From their announcement:

THE CONTAGION MYTH
BANNED ON AMAZON!

We are sad to announce that our new book, The Contagion Myth, is banned on Amazon—sad for what has happened to American freedom of expression.  But Amazon’s actions tell us that we have already struck a nerve and the powers that be do not want the paradigm-busting information in our book to circulate.  

Amazon will be refunding your money or not charging you if you pre-ordered on their site. However, you have many choices for ordering the book online at:

    Barnes & Noble

    Books-a-Million 

    Indiebound

    Target

Thank you for your patience!

Thomas S. Cowan, MD

Sally Fallon Morell

The disease called Covid-19 is not contagious and scientists have not properly isolated and purified a virus associated with the disease. The illness, characterized by lack of oxygen, widespread clotting, electrical or “fizzing” feelings, and degeneration of the lungs, fits the description of radiation poisoning from exposure to electromagnetic frequencies. The most likely culprit: microwave radiation from fifth generation wireless—5G. The Covid-19 illness has appeared following the deployment of 5G first in Wuhan, then in Europe and then in large cities in the United States.

That’s the message of The Contagion Myth, now available from Skyhorse Publishing. The authors, Thomas S. Cowan, MD, and Sally Fallon Morell, are the founders of the Weston A. Price Foundation and well-known advocates for a nutrient-dense traditional diet as the best protection against illness and environmental toxins.

Scientists from the U.S. Public Health Service were never able to prove that the Spanish Flu of 1918—which burst on the scene with the worldwide rollout of radio towers–was contagious; and no health agency has carried out the needed contagion studies on Covid-19.

Initially formulated by Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch, the germ theory of disease—that bacteria and viruses attack us and make us sick–has never met the common-sense criteria of Koch’s postulates, which call for subjecting a healthy organism to the isolated bacteria or virus.  In

fact, while bacteria have received the blame for disease since the nineteenth century, the last two decades have witnessed a complete paradigm shift.  Science has demonstrated that we live in symbiotic relationship with bacteria in the intestinal tract; bacteria help us digest our food, enhance the immune system, and also appear when necessary to clean up dead tissue. Bacteria only produce poisons under conditions of filth and lack of oxygen.

Cowan and Fallon Morell argue that we will soon see a paradigm shift when it comes to viruses; that viruses are not harmful, but helpful exosomes that our cells produce to rid the body of poisons and make adjustments to new environmental threats, such as 5G millimeter wave radiation.

It follows that masks, social distancing, testing for genetic material (not an actual virus) and vaccines will not solve the Covid-19 problem. The challenge instead is to institute etiquette and rules for the safe use of wireless technology. The authors also propose dietary and life-style strategies that can help protect against 5G and other electromagnetic frequencies.