A puppet or a string Or a puppet on a string Or wouldn’t you know Influence is everything
Nobody loves you when you’re down and out Another story altogether when you’re flush with clout Sweet is the life, no sorrow the story Lift him up, shoot him down Ring around the rosy
Sweet is the life, no sorrow the story A fresh paint job, keep smiling Ring around Their rosary Silly McMuffins cry death’s a story
But it doesn’t have to be like this That story told from His Petrogliphs McQuota meets Mass Misfits That’s what I say
It doesn’t have to be like this Influence is everything Hear what I say They will shift your night from day
Just stay away Don’t swallow their lies Don’t inject their poisons Don’t eat their fruits Don’t Don’t Don’t Don’t let them take your mind Your soul is not for sale Don’t let them get Under your skin Don’t let them touch your scentmost intransigentSo effervescent
The Millennial Gardner gave a great little pep talk at the end of this confessional concerning his myriad gardening mistakes over the years. There should be more such vids as this. The positivity movement is dead, in my opinion, though MG is still a devoted adherent.
Positivity–Capitalism couldn’t survive without it!
He’s not yet reached the ripe age of bitterness. He thinks he will be able to continuously throw money at the problem, and I rather doubt that’s a viable long-term solution. I hope I’m wrong.
But overall I really appreciate his rejection of the typical appraoch to problems today: The Head in the Sand vs The Pie in the Sky. That’s what I see most often, and on that I think he’d agree with me.
So, more power to him!
We all need a pep talk now and then and Millennials especially it seems to me are inheriting the ends of the Shitshow and are expected to pull it all together again after the wrecking ball.
Hardly a lesson in equity, or perhaps the best lesson that could be.
The gist of his little pep talk is valid–anyone who excels at anything worthwhile has experienced, and learned from, the greatest teacher of all–Failure.
It’s not nice or pleasant or fun or comfortable to learn the lessons of failure. And we live in a culture addicted to nice and pleasant and fun and comfortable.
Not really a conducive atmosphere for learning.
Yet, sometimes the results of the lessons are far more pleasant than we might expect. Like, in my case, my greatest lesson in gardening so far has been flowers.
Flowers and ‘weeds’.
I had no idea the delight they offer when I first started gardening and I made little room for them in my garden, whether the classic garden cultivars or the wild weeds who long to make themselves welcomed. HUGE mistake!
I’ve been working on correcting that for many years now, and it’s absolutely paid off in myriad forms: more bees, more joy, more pleasure, more beauty, more sense of wonder.
The garden feels like less of a chore and more of a privilege with every bloom. The attraction is magnetic, to insects, to birds, to me. I observe better, I take more time, I allow my natural esthetic sense to align with the food crops and converge into a very satisfying balance of food and fancy.
Somehow, whether in my heart, or soul, or imagination, co-mingling the wild in with the crops has engaged me in a way that is a continual wellspring of curiousity and desire, even in the worst of times.
The rapture of emergent colors, the allure of fragrance on the breeze, the dance of the petals and the delight of the bees, I think what my early garden experience was missing was in fact the essence of ME. Because you don’t get that from books.
Learn from our failures dear ones, that’s why we tell y’all about them. Don’t let them dim your spirits, but use them in good faith, and find a way.
“We successfully got DVD hail!” He’s so excited! Is this guy working for the weather gods? The Texas Weather Modification Association perhaps? Or maybe Weather Modification, Inc.? A new startup with funding from the Gates Foundation?
I suppose they will soon be selling gardeners’ and homesteaders’ insurance. I’m really looking forward to the days I can list my squash on the future’s market so assholes like this can bet on it’s failure and cheer when he adds another 10 cents to his electronic wallet. I long for the new opportunity to fill out paperwork to get reimbursed 3 cents on the dollar, or rather, on the CBDCs: Was it crooked neck squash or zuccinni? Were the onions beyond the bulbing stage? Were the seeds purchased at a WEF-approved supplier? How much rainfall did the seeds receive in the initial 30-day growing period, so that we can deduct that from your refund?
Weather derivitives are already a big thing, so the insider trading when companies can boast about their crop and property destruction potential is bound to up the ante. But, it’s not war, don’t think of it as war.
It’s really about resilience and making communities stronger. And if the youth have a hoot while destroying their neighbors’ gardens, well, you know, boys will be boys!
What do you care about some lost work and produce when you can contribute to the future of science anyway? What are you, some kind of Luddite?!
I don’t follow this very popular homesteading channel, Off-Grid with Doug & Stacy, too chatty and hyperbolic for me, but that’s what gets the clicks, so more power to ’em. Yet somehow, the Algos knew to put this particular new episode prominently on my feed.
Natural beekeeping in horizontal hives!
It’s excellent! I first heard this beekeeper many years ago and am so glad to see he continues to promote natural beekeeping and adding to his informational website. He’s also added equipment, books and events, and if I still lived in Missouri, you can bet I’d have befriended him ages ago.
It really is a thrill for me to watch the growth of treatment-free beekeeping over the last decade. It used to be not only terribly difficult to find good information, but also it was treacherous. I’m not joking either. Natural beekeepers are the anti-vaxxers of the beekeeping world, with all the bullying, ridicule, and obnoxious bloviating to prove it, which I experienced for years with this simple preference.
I do not want Big Pharma livestock. It’s really not a crime, though you will be treated like a criminal to suggest it or admit that it’s your practice to most mainstream and commercial professionals. According to many of them, the fact that treatment-free beekeepers exist at all explains why their colonies are filled with diseases. It’s blind faith in The Science. And The Science is not rational.
Folks might be surprised to learn that the lifespans of pets and livestock has decreased sharply over the decades. Bees, like all the animals, are basically treated as a disposible commodity. One disgusted veterinarian who turned his practice to homeophathy complained about this in milk cows, but actually it can be observed in ALL livestock:
“While my cow patients in Wisconsin often lived well into their teens, some to over 20 years, the average California operator culled cows at 2 years old. They’d been pushed with so much grain and ever higher production goals that their health suffered and they were literally dispensed with when they couldn’t keep up.” (3) When “organic” dairy ain’t – by Will Falconer, DVMhttps://vitalanimal.substack.com/p/when-organic-dairy-aint
But that is clearly changing! It could be that more are recognizing the false science of Pig Pharma, finally. Or, that there is so much success now in the treatment-free circles, and so many more are starting to practice it, that the bullies in the business are starting to become outnumbered. That’s my hope anyway.
One commercial beekeeper replied to Leo’s inquiry with a common fact:
14:45 “If I stopped treating my bees, I’d lose 85% in a year . . .”
I would LOVE to try a skep hive!
That’s right! And plenty of beekeepers, commercial and hobby, have experienced that, unfortunately. I also had a very hard time in the beginning. It took a lot of failure and a lot of research.
Mostly it took conviction. Good health is not found in medications. It is achieved through wholesome practices, which are the same for bees as all of life: Clean living and being left to pursue the most natural ways as possible.
From the interview we learn Doug & Stacy had similar issues as I had when beginning in beekeeping, and it was through Leo’s work and presentations they understood why and began to change their practices with continued success. Leo insists, you don’t need to invest much money, contrary to popular opinion. You don’t need to keep buying bees to grow your apiary.
Treatment-free practices rely on the natural intelligence of the bees to care for themselves. We do not requeen when we make a colony split, requiring the bees to raise their own queen. This keeps all beekeeping local, as it should be.
One of our horizontal hives with an observation window.
Instinct of the local area grows in the colony from one generation to the next. Also contrary to popular opinion, the bees get more resilient with each generation when left to their own decision-making, ie. when to swarm, how much honey to store for the winter, when to build up brood in the local conditions, which queen to keep, and when to get rid of her.
Leo’s entire apiary was grown through trapping swarms and making splits. I’ve not had much success with swarms and will try to start following more of his advice for attracting them. You’ll actually have more success attracting swarms in less rural areas, as counter-intuitive as that might sound. But bees are a bit like deer in that regard, they are attracted to the closest and most abundant and varied food sources, which often means near where humans are residing.
While he uses horizontal hives, like I do, he also has some good advice for beekeepers in cold climates and hive designs which help keep colonies alive during long winters.
LOVE SWARMS: The Complete Guide to Attracting Honeybees
I once drove all the way to Arkansas on my search for treatment-free bees. This is what the car looked like when I arrived home! 😆
Unfortunately, after all that trouble, these bees also did not survive a full year. BTW, I was not stung once.
When I finally understood the importance of getting bees locally and allowing the weak colonies to die off, I finally had some success. But, it’s still a work in progress and I’m so happy for all the advice and expertise from those with more experience and success.
Strange days, indeed. I saw this image on a Youtube channel I listen to just for background music while I’m working. Though I do quite like some of it, I suspect it’s all AI-driven. So, the music is not played by musicians, the image is not the real picture of a beautiful personal library that exists in the actual world, that would be my fantasy library, in my own dream home.
I never expected the strangeness of life to increase with age. I expected the exact opposite in fact. When I was a child watching TV after school–the Mickey Mouse Club, Zoom, Bugs Bunny and Friends–I knew, even as a small child, that what I saw on TV was a fantasy world. Similar to when kids are watching a puppet show, they see a performance in front of them on a stage while they sit in the audience. Clearly pretend, even to a child.
It was not the real world where Mom went to work and my sister and I went to school, where we were learning real things about the real world.
That’s what I thought. As I teen I read a lot, but I was not attracted to most pop fiction, and not to the sci-fi/fantasy genre at all. I feel lucky to have grown up with many avid readers in the family, though we rarely read the same things.
It was my pragmatic side perhaps that made me believe that fantasy was for the children’s world and once we left childhood those things would be left behind as life got more real.
Of course I can witness now very clearly the error of my naive thinking, or lack of realistic foresight, or practical knowdedge of human nature, or the patterns of civilzations rises and falls, or whatever. I was wrong. Adults also prefer a fantasy-based reality, or have come to prefer one in the last generations.
Where we used to play grown-up as kids, now we play kids as grown-ups. Our politics read like old B-movie plots. Our actors look like cyborgs. Our ‘elites’ want us ingesting lab-concocted chemicals so badly they inject them into everything imaginable, from seeds, to every manner of foods, to the air and water and soil.
And now it seems the takeover of illusion over reality is nearly complete, as folks allow AI to conquer their minds. Engulfed in Total Immersive Illusion seems to be the end goal.
I had to ask Hubby if he thought the library in the image was AI generated. “Definitely AI” he replied after gazing at it for a split second.
I keep staring at it, imagining myself lounging on the couch. There are 4 or 5 little stacks of books around me, just 3 or 4 high each one, but I keep getting up to get another, and then another. So many books, so little time! The ladders to the upper stacks give me just enough exercise so my legs don’t cramp up and there’s an adjoining little breakfast nook, not visible here of course, where I have stashed a simple but elegant array of snacks–some pistachios and some smoked salmon and capers on crackers and a carafe of fruity, refreshing homemade sangria.
Back to the real world. It’s still right here. Here, where I have hundreds of books with no stacks for them. I got tired finally of the clutter of ugly book shelves in our tiny space and packed the vast majority of them into boxes where they sit stacked shoulder-height waiting . . .
Waiting perhaps for AI to come and build them a new home. Kind of like in the hugely popular TV program for adults of the 60s ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ who will rise out of the bottle and with the swing of her ponytail and nod of her head, grant us all our wishes.
Jeannie was so much better than AI though, she would never have used her powers for evil, that’s for sure. She was like the Mother Theresa of Genies. She was like the Easter Bunny who would sneak you chocolate eggs when you were in a Timeout because you pulled your sisters hair in order to be first to find the plastic egg, which was filled with coins, sometimes even a dollar. Not that you wouldn’t have found it first anyway, the hair pulling was just an extra bonus. Jeannie didn’t judge.
“Robot priests can recite prayers, perform funerals, and even comfort those experiencing a spiritual crisis.”
What do y’all think: Has the fantasy-based reality gone too far for your taste?
Mysterious to some. Known to a precious few. Invisble to others. Inconsequential to most.
The fundamental question remains: Do the origins matter?
Screenshot
And if you say they don’t, but the others say they do. Does that matter to you?
What do you care? Can another make you care? That is the ACTUAL question.
Such is the task of the new profession called Activism.
If I can get you to care about A today, and B tomorrow, and C next week, that makes me a better Activist.
Influence is Everything AIEIO And on this farm . . .
Like the serpent, provoking Or the embers, stoking The winds then evoking
Power, so they say The power to what? To influence The tides, the lives, the minds Terroire Territory
Space Outer space, deep space, near space Inner space
It’s all about that Great Big Race The Human Race The race against time, the race of space, the race for EVERYTHING THE race that begat the wars The wars against poverty, the war against bacteria, The war against hate Right before the war for Freedom
Elaborate spiral staircase, at the Nathaniel Russell House in South Carolina. Original image from Carol M. Highsmiths America, Library of Congress collection. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.h
And that begat the Solutions Those for the soil and for the folk Those for peace And those for hope
Legacy or burden have you considered the difference? Gifts or curses does that difference matter?
What is a favor? What if your favor is not my flavor? Preferences Do they really matter?
The winds of change Gusts, sudden, and not exactly random A spiral sequence Tones the man cannot understand Infuriating and cleansing and inevitable HIM His hyme so diminished Rythme so consternated, disconfigurated So palpably deflated HIS never-ending upward spiral Circling the drain Such a Goddamn shame?
Question to ask the Assigned Sages of the modern day: How do you innovate your way out of a Death Cult?
Such a busy time of year already, made busier with our remodeling projects, but we always make time to stop and smell the roses.
And bow to the weather gods, or geoengineers, who have spared us this time, and after so much barking, we are grateful there was no bite. Before I sing our praises, let me acknowledge those further north who are biting the bullet this time around. Our picture perfect skies are so very rare, I don’t like to think about all that means.
We did prepare all we could for the worst, annoying as that was. Out came the row cover fabric again and the wheelbarrows full of logs to hold it down, after just having cleaned all that up and took it to storage the week before.
We expected a frost for sure.
All the pots had to be gathered to cover all the peppers and tomatoes. And considering it was so hot and humid and over 8o degrees when we were doing all of this, it felt more incongruent than snow along the coast of the Gulf of America. 😂
But, I can’t complain, because as I just said, we got very lucky. No hail, tornados, landocaines, flooding and we just barely scratched by the frost threshold.
Just look at that sky! I can’t tell you how long it’s been since seeing such a sight!
There is so much beauty and bounty, in nature, and in cyberspace too!
Just yesterday I was scrolling through my Youtube feed and about every 100 suggestions up pops a true gem, like this old Mexican lady cooking her heart out and sharing it with the world. This is the very best of the power that’s right at our fingertips, I truly believe that: The world’s people sharing about their cultures. The cuisines, the histories and myths, the music, the dance, the landscapes, the languages, the gardens, the architecture–and the ordinary folks sharing them. Unfortunately, as the AI gods have demonstrated, for every such miracle there are about 100 curses.
Make food not war!
There are the tiniest gems not to be missed through all the noise and all the neon glare.
And it seems like they are beckoning me to slow down and notice them.
What would you rather do . . . follow me around the garden, or do more of that thing you call work?
A plot of volunteer poke weed and garlic, as if they’re just screaming, we are here for your good health, so happy to be here, we keep returning for you!
Sometimes, when I least expect it, we learn how to grow together better. Like I was thinking of the old Southern trick to set out red-painted pebbles to fool the birds into keeping off the strawberries. I thought, I bet some well-placed breakfast radishes would have the same effect, and sure enough, it’s working. The birds have moved off that bed ever since those radishes started showing their little red tops, and bonus, we adore radishes, maybe even as much as strawberries.
We have been eating giant salads every day, with enough surplus for our neighbors.
Along the country roads all is flourishing. The bluebonnets are brilliant and I even caught a roadrunner, just barely.
Beep, beep!
Such gifts of beauty and bounty! What a precious, ephemeral time to infuse their bursting energy into our year ahead. What we put into it is what we’ll get out of it, just like life.
I hope your spring is being beautiful to y’all, too! Thanks for stopping by!
A flock, it is not. There will never be a revolution in America.
More like, when I say jump . . .
Kinda like Bugs Bunny getting his feet shot at while Yosemite Sam demands he ‘Dance!’. . .
It’s a relationship.
Americans will never revolt. They will never rebel. I’m not talking our military here, I’m talking the people, the masses, who will gladly vote for war if they are commanded by their team, but who will never en masse lift a finger in inconvenience to support it. A placard, perhaps. But not a pinky finger otherwise.
Why? This man nails it and it’s so spot on I fear reposting it. Truth bombs this huge are usually dropped by assets. Even listening can get you on a list, I’m sure. Because, America is so damn free.
But this murdering convert to Islam is correct nonetheless. Our guns can’t save us from, or in, this battle. We have already lost. We were conquered from within long before this current administration. We do not have the heart to rebel because rebellion and revolution require artists, the kind of artists, and warriors, who cannot be bought. We don’t have that, we haven’t had that for a long time now. We have conformity, collusion, corruption and therefore we’ve got what we deserve. Politics is downstream from culture.
Start at the 1:15 mark, it’s only about 10 minutes, and it’s brutal. Not for the feight of heart, I’m afraid, but absolutely the truth as I see it. Listen and weep, or not.
Still, no time. I’ve lost a month, maybe two, in projects and to-do. Now I risk missing the whole spring to more of the same. And yet, in spring, it’s never all that bad.
There will always be time for baking delicious bread, and making fabulous cheese. Even in the midst of kitchen face-lift chaos, the healthy food must go on.
Quinoa-rosemary sourdough made with potato water Fantastic!
Still, no time, but still want to share some quick happy snaps and briefest of updates, because I’d hate to be totally forgotten before even gone! 😊
It was a beautiful day, so I decided to take the scenic route to the herdshare where I pick up one gallon of raw milk at the cost of $15, that’s about a 1 hour round-trip. On this day, it took more like 3, with multiple occasions for nearly getting stuck in the mud. But it was very scenic and an adventure to boot!
Excuse me, sir, might I pass?
Apparently they get much more rain than we do and the scenic route proved impassable.
But the cows didn’t seem to mind.
Meanwhile back on the wee homestead, Patty has had a big brood!
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And the wild cherry has never looked so good! I wish I could get a better pic.
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We’re spending so much on our interior face-lift the roosters are taking over, no time to reduce their numbers, the benefit being, no sleeping in.
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The garden is growing so fast, and the citrus and magnolias I planted last year are just now sprouting. But all that for another post, too much to do!
Hope all’s springing with y’all, thanks for stopping by!
Another fixer-upper on the route to my herdshare. Looks a bit over our pay grade.
How about this one, also on the route?
Destined to become a Black Heritage museum, so they say! 😆
What is the difference between Hope, and Hopium? There’s a fuzzy line and it’s very easy to misjudge, but it’s located somewhere between: “Yay, Trump will save us all from $11/dozen eggs!” And “We should start a chicken mega-ranch.”
If those two meet in the middle of the road, might creative minds find that they’ve absent-mindedly crossed with logic and conclude a few laying hens might be just the ticket? A bit of self-sufficiency, why not? After all, it’s not rocket science . . .
Joel Salatin exposes the WEF agenda! “Josh Sigurdson talks with Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms, an entrepreneur and farmer who for years has fought against Monsanto, factory farming and dependence pushing for people to homestead and/or farm and not be dependent on the system. We previously interviewed Joel in 2017 regarding Monsanto. Now, 8 years later, we delve into the massively expanded technocratic grid as more than ever, people are dependent on grocery stores, the grid and AI, weakened by design. The World Economic Forum agenda is to destroy self sustainability and make people weak slaves to technocracy. Eventually they want food rations and carbon credit scores. They’re already being rolled out to some degree and with the 2024 United Nations Pact For The Future, this problem is encroaching quicker than ever. The climate lobby attempting to bring down farms is more alive than ever. There are solutions however which Joel Salatin has spent decades teaching people. There is also a rumor circulating that Joel Salatin was picked to head the USDA. He explains this and more in this interview.”
Though it is the gateway livestock, and that’s official, I’ve even heard it repeated by the official fact-checkers at NASA.
Don’t worry, more government will save us! They will VAXX this FLU away, similar to the way they spray on the weather!
Respiratory diseases? I can’t imagine how that might be happening! So baffling!
But as James Corbett points out, chickens are the simple solution, but not necessarily the Easy one.
Most folks will take the easy way out, drink the Kool-aid, puff the Hopium, and exclaim RFKJ is here to save the day. Cheap eggs and healthy injections on the way!
