you say you want to have a revolution?

Champagne Taste- Beer Money

     I believe 80 percent of the population fits into this category, including myself. We would all love to have that big extravagant house or maybe a couple of them and maybe a private plane to taxi you between the two. Too live a day without worrying about where the money is going to come from to pay the bills and at the same time act like you could give a care about how much they are because you know you are comfortable enough to live the rest of your life without a worry or care about how much money you have. I can only imagine what it would be like to live a life like this. Most of the people I know will never ever fall into this category. And I wonder if they did have all that, would that ever be enough.

     Sometimes I think that is what drives rich folks and that is they don’t have to worry about today so they are driven to make sure that tomorrow and the next day will always be the same. They are never content with just having enough and will always want more. The feeling of power one gets from knowing you have enough money and more than anyone else is the driving force of millionaires and allows their arrogance to bloom. Power is money, knowing you can step in and buyout a business and have the expertise in place to make ten times more than you have now is for sure a thrill to these folks, men and women alike.

     I can also imagine it is as lonely there at the top of the heap as it is at the bottom. This is something I know about. I know what it is like to survive on little or nothing, to watch people like myself worry as the fumble their EBT cards out of their wallet to help pay for food they eat. And there are those that have no help and a limited income that struggle daily to put something on the table. I look at both classes of people as well as those in the middle who have a good job and kids in college who are also struggling even though they make in excess of 50 k per year, and I wonder why the disparity between the upper class and those below . The middle class and the lower class are struggling to make ends meet while the upper class wonders why we are bitching. 

 

hmmmmmmmm trump?  

      Most are people who took advantage of silver spoon beginnings like Donald trump who believe we citizens who don’t own casinos and hotels or large corporations and considers us whiners and who thinks that the average guy or gal already makes too much money. That we should take a cut in wages or just stay where we are, it is like we need to be able to manage what we have better so that we too can someday aspire to be what he is. And what is he, a bigoted class racist as far as I can see. His daddy set him up in business and told him he was special. He is special; he has a mental condition that allows him to think he is different than anyone else. He is special; he is handicapped in his ability to see the big picture. I feel sorry for him. He has no idea or feeling for anyone’s plight except his and how it affects him.

     This is seen in him and his war against the minorities especially the Latino’s who are in the United States secretly living and paying taxes and avoiding our government as much as possible in an effort to avoid detection, and who only want what the rest of the poor want in our great country a chance to live without fear of being deported back to a worse poverty. These are the same people who no doubt pick the lettuce for the salads served in his fancy hotels and casino’s or who keeps his horses and walks them at the stables he owns and cleans their crap up . Who climbs down in the grease trap at a restaurant and cleans the settlings out because no one else, especially the Caucasians think they are capable or willing to do.

     In fact Mr. trump has no idea how the illegals have entrenched their selves into our society and how we could never find anyone legal to do half the jobs they do , and if, how much it is going to cost society to replace these folks if they were deported. It seems as if ivory tower offer views of grandeur but one gets dizzy when you have to look down and see why you are where you are and who you owe it to. It isn’t just the illegal immigrants he is attacking he is attacking all us folks who work and support the elite in this country who have forgotten how and why they are where they are.

     These are the same people who run our congress and change our laws daily stripping benefits from our servicemen and those less fortunate while increasing their profit margins for themselves by enacting laws that benefit those who are rich, and are the only ones that could afford to benefit from those laws. Free trade agreements that strip jobs from our economy and send them overseas, to places like Vietnam where we once made war with their communist nation and who killed our servicemen and now wants to take the bread and butter from our tables, so that we can be like those folks poor and needy also. Why, so that the profit margins of the rich can be greatly enhanced by Want Too Lee’s ability to work for 25 cents an hour making products to sell in a dollar store.

     It I hard to blame the Vietnamese or any third world nation who wants a piece of our economy, but it is easy to blame those that let it happen. This is an upper class problem and needs to be changed one politician at a time. The trouble is politicians are like used car salespersons that once they get in office soon swing their support to lobbying interests and let greed influence their decisions to allow themselves to stay in power. Few have the character and integrity to govern the people’s wishes, instead allow them to govern by their personal wants and desires, and what is best for them. How do we think people like Mr. Trump would be any different? His insensitivity towards the lower class is already evident, and how anyone would think that it is going to be any different is beyond me. Our only chance to change anything is to get out and vote and change the way things are going one politician at a time.

     As to the gap between the rich and poor, and class systems will always be a problem. But the one thing we have in our favor is a democratic society where by the elected have to have the majority of the vote. Wise up people that is why we need to vote. Now the only people voting are the upper middle class and the rich, yet the majority of the voting populace is the middle class and poor, only we never show up at the polls. There are a lot more poor people then there is rich. We need to get out and vote more and pay attention to the issues and be a force in politics our self. If you want to change the system,  make those that make the most pay their share including corporations who are getting a free ride on taxes or are being subsidized while making a profit like G.E.. We need to stop lobbying. These are changes the majority of our country needs. We need to recognize those people living amongst us who have no right to be here but are still paying the price for their silence in lower wages and fear of being booted out in a moment’s notice like our illegal Latino community who for the most part are worry free.

     We ned to take the upper class’s champagne taste and turn it into beer money and make them work for their privilege, instead of just handing it to them as we have done . We have a wonderful country and it is full of problems, many of them could be remedied by making everyone’s life more richer , one millionaire at a time.

crossing the line!

Why Have Property Lines? 

       I guess after some news of my neighbor’s plight and a recent confrontation with another neighbor I find it is necessary to revisit the old complaint of respect for other people’s property and wishes. This is a common complaint not only expressed by myself but also by neighbors, and sometimes by those neighbors most guilty. Even myself I am becoming more aware of my past disregards for others property and have made changes to avert any problem associated with that.

      In regards to myself I wandered on to several neighbors properties searching for a lost heifer I documented in one of my earlier blogs. She was a pain in the ass and the last of my cattle I had and have now rid myself of for just this reason. There are no fences to speak of except electric fences I put up. And when a heifer gets it in her mind to go dancing in the middle of the state highway , it really doesn’t matter to her what stands in the road , a girl has gotta do what she has to do. The trouble was she crossed 2 properties who are absentee landowners and one is the city of Canton, and trying to find anyone there during off hours is almost impossible. Haste to control her ramblings was necessary to return her as soon as possible to our land. So I purposely crossed their land and still was unable to secure her. Had she been involved or was the cause of an accident, she would have been a liability to me and the farm. They could have sued us for damages. To build a fence to keep her in by herself would have been impossible she would find some way to get with other cattle; she was not going to be by herself. I am sorry but I needed to do what I did. 

 

       A neighbor over the hill lost a beautiful Tennessee walker due to a broken leg brought on by someone , another neighbor sighting in a 410 shotgun in the horse pasture causing the horses to run wild. Scurrying from one end of the field to the other causing the Tennessee walker to stumble and trip in a rut and he went down and broke a leg and the owner had to put the horse down as a result of this stupidity or vengeance for whatever, as I don’t think I have heard the end to this story. Well the owner of the land with the dead horse is suing the other owner for the loss of his horse.

      I had the opportunity to be able to acquire the horse manure from his property. For us both it is a win-win situation. I no longer have cattle and need the manure to make compost for whatever I need it for. Currently it is the raspberries I am trying to plant as well as for trees I am going to plant. Anyhow after the horse manure is mixed with rotting hay and then allowed to heat up, should make a really good additive to my raspberries as a fertilizer promoting good organics in the soil. It will leach the high nitrogen into the soil whenever rainfall arrives and naturally fertilize my plants. At the same time it does him a favor knowing he doesn’t have to worry about where to get rid of the horse manure. He also mixes lime into the manure to keep the flies down in the horse stalls and also it keeps the manure from getting to alkaline from all the wood chips and burning up the soil whenever it is applied to soil, like a garden. I am not only getting shit but good shit.

    I have also had some other dealings with this neighbor who lost a horse and everything is on the up and up. He is new but keeps good fences tries to be a good neighbor, and doubt he has started a feud with other neighbor as most of the people around him speak highly of him. He too is an absentee land owner only having horse barns there and twice daily comes and takes care of his horses. He is and his wife are very conscientious horse owners , taking all precautions with the horses, taking in rescues and trying to be responsible in all they do with respect to their neighbors. This guy is threatening action against the other owner who fired the shots as tempers flared last night and I can attest to something happening as I personally saw his horses running full tilt from one end of the pasture to the other and witnessing a large boom from what I thought was fireworks but could have easily been the neighbor with the gun shooting as both were in the same area. I was loading my truck with the manure while this was going on. But I thought the fireworks or noise was coming from another house as I watched this woman appear on porch and shortly after I would hear the boom and I assumed it was fireworks she was letting off instead it might have been the gun.

     Also the farmer who lost the horse, well his wife was walking through their pasture to get the horses when the same neighbor shooting his gun launched a volley of shotgun blasts in her general direction in her field. This is what prompted them to call the sheriff and two arrived and told the guy to quit shooting into the field but couldn’t tell him to quit shooting as the other owner has rights. Being they are absentee owners it would be impossible to say that he wasn’t trying to scare the horses purposely away from his property. Still one owner has a dead horse and the other has a civil lawsuit he will have to answer to. Why because one owner doesn’t respect the other. It is my understanding a 410 shotgun isn’t much good for much besides hunting rabbits and doesn’t carry much of a punch as a shotgun goes. It does make noise and scares people away as well as horses. How much sighting in or shooting at a target does one need to make the shotgun lethal to a little fuzzy bunny, I don’t know, but doubt it takes much, so why all the shooting for nothing? None of this makes sense .

     I just recently had a confrontation with a new neighbor who took it on his own to hunt my property without my permission by bow. He was already told to not hunt our property after talking to him earlier. He was not only on my property and jump and ran with his buddy after being spotted but he was also on another neighbor’s property who I know had not allowed to him to hunt his property. Well away from his own property the two hightailed it down towards their property but saw that I soon caught up with them, as I was going that way anyhow and just accidentally caught them hunting illegally. They stopped and waited for me.

    I asked him why he was up on my land hunting. He said something about a big ten point buck. I said well your land doesn’t start till way down the hill there and you are definitely not on your land. I originally saw you on my land hunting when I already let you know I don’t allow hunting and did it personally. He said yeah but it was a big ten point buck I took a shot at. I told him it doesn’t matter, if it is on my land, it is mine till he goes somewhere else. And he isn’t supposed to be hunted. If you shoot him and he is hurt, you still need to come ask permission before you trail him across my land. If you don’t ask me first I will prosecute you for trespassing. At this I asked him if he understood, I said you wouldn’t like it so well if I did the same to you, and  shot a deer and killed it on your property. Would you? Especially when we have already had this discussion.

     He was the first person to let others neighbors know that the five acres he had was his and not to be entered because he was going to hunt it. Our land is adjacent to his and I am sure an inviting place to hunt as I kind of let it go on purpose. Still because I am currently not using it for whatever purpose, it is still ours and under our discretion to be used as we see fit. Our rule is to not allow hunting. Why can’t people respect that? Why do I feel threatened every hunting season because I don’t have colors on to show I am human on my own land? I don’t remember growing up that way as daily we would head over the hill to get the cows to milk before going to school during deer season or whenever, we never had to have colors on or worry about anyone else on our property. Why can’t the idiots stay on their own land, if they want a farm in the country, to hunt on, then let them go buy it and leave ours alone? Why can’t people respect our property and wishes? My biggest peeve is that I have to post our land every 450 feet along the borders or at a feature to keep people out legally. This is not only stupid as if it isn’t yours, or you don’t pay the taxes on it then why is it so hard to comprehend that If it isn’t yours leave it alone. Not a hard rule to understand. Still it is the one thing our new society thinks they are entitled to. Be it someone else’s possessions, their land, their wildlife.  Why can’t they work for what they get?

     Playing dumb is no excuse, you know enough to buy a hunting license and understand and fill out the form and sign your name to it. Then you have enough sense to realize you need to be responsible for yourself. There is no excuse for hunting illegally. It is that time again and the deer are congregating on our property, and it is as if they know we don’t allow hunting. I consider our place a safe oasis for these deer and their last harbor before being chased on to the road before some unsuspecting motorist. If the bottom goes out and Armageddon comes around and the store shelves empty and I am in need of food, it would be nice to know their would still be game on our property to take when all else around is gone. I would have to be desperate but still you do what you have to then. Not now when it is just a game to these hunters, a kill game. Its great as long as it isn’t them.

rainy days and tuesdays

I Write and Never Finish

    I write and never finish on here lately finding what I write either a little too personal to share or just me babbling again. So instead of just going on I intend to just update you on what I have going on.

     The natural gas hasn’t returned and it is day to day, as to whether I will have enough gas to heat my water.  As for cooking it is an occasional meal that is prepared on the stove. Instead my sister Sherry bought an induction cooktop single burner which works like a hot plate, only better. The heat is more controllable and at the lowest setting will gently braise most anything as well as boil water. Most of my meals are prepared in one pan and occasionally if I need a second burner I usually have gas to make that happen. Anyhow I have adjusted and seem to be getting by. Doubt if it will be this way forever but I have enough going on now that I am able to get by with what I have now.

      The gas water heater is a problem but that too is being worked around. I am able to have enough gas to heat the water in the morn for a shower and do dishes, and then I turn the water heater off to avoid heating water for no real reason. The washer will draw down the rest of the hot water, but if I don’t use too much gas drying clothes then I can usually keep the pilot on in the hot water heater, and this will keep the water warm.

    To this end I plan on installing a loop of water line into the back room where I have the wood stove and put a loop on the ceiling of the room above the wood stove to absorb the heat as well run a loop into the greenhouse in back and by making a grid will be able to use solar heat also to heat the water, then the water line will continue back to the original line where I intercept the line and then to the water heater. If I can achieve temperature rise of 80 degrees then the water heater would only have to raise the temperature 45 degrees. This will reduce the amount of gas I will need to heat water and hopefully I will be able to get by with that.

     For safety sake I still intend to add a pressure relief valve in the water line to add protection against a line blowout from increased pressure due to heat buildup in the line. You already have one installed in all water heaters but it won’t hurt to have an additional one for safety sake. Also during the winter I plan on trickling water to prevent freezing of water lines.

     The wood burner is doing a pretty good job of keeping the house warm and some modification of the house trailer as I have it will be needed to make all parts of the trailer comfortable. As well I have a pretty good size pile of wood I need to process to keep me going through the hard winter times so I don’t have to go out and mess with it in the winter. 

 footer excavation

      The footers are coming along on the addition and I am almost to grade against the back wall of the room adjacent to the house and will begin pouring footers soon. I am also planning on installing an extra drain inside as added protection to assure my inside floor stays dry. I will have protection both outside and inside. Again a lot of this doesn’t make sense without some kind of illustration as to what is going on. Sorry I am just spending time doing things I shouldn’t and need to spend more time concentrating on what I should. Still daily I have progress and like yesterday and the day before I dug almost twice the amount out that I had originally set myself to task daily. Not all bad but always could be better.

      The chickens are producing daily and are still kicking out 3 eggs a day and are the most productive and humorous animals I have on the farm. One must make sure you don’t leave a car door open or a door open to the house as the chickens suddenly see it as an opportunity to go in and make themselves at home, whether it be the trunk of a car or an open car door, or it could be inside your house as they head straight for the dog dish to free range babes dog food. The shorter days are forcing them to become more aggressive at eating all they can. Whitey, my oldest chicken is still going, and has all her feathers but has quit laying eggs all together.  She is first to head for the roost at night, and seems to be the first out in the morning.  Daily they come around where I am digging to see if there is something being dug up in the soil. I am down five feet in places and it is a hard shale , not real bad digging but you need a pick to break apart, unfortunately not much for the chickens to pick over like there is in the topsoil where they find bugs, grubs, and night crawlers.

         I now have all the female cats spayed and will start working on the males. Any of my females except momma cat lily will be available for adoption. I should be getting flea medicine for all in mail shortly that has the same active ingredient as Advantage and Frontline. And will have enough to treat them all. All in all they are doing great and are source of entertainment and daily all will come by for a pet or just to say hello. To walk around the farm and see my cat posse following along is fun as if they could be a force to reckon with but still they love to walk round the farm with me exploring new areas and try to look bad.  Trying to get them all out of the greenhouse is a chore as they just want to stay there.  But I am sure they will eventually get hungry and will want something to eat and I am not making a trip out there to just feed them.  Although I have a cat pan in the house where they sleep they hardly use it instead choose to go outside daily. This is a major help to me.

      It is nothing to look outside my window and see 10-12 animals, be it birds, chickens and deer, and the occasional neighbor dog. It is neat to know that they find comfort in being here or maybe it’s the food? Anyhow I like seeing them and enjoy the company as it may be.

    

     

getting an early start on the day

I Appreciate the Comments

pig i am working on

       Although I may seem to get a lot done, still in my heart I know I need to get more done than I do. I am capable of more and even when I am at leisure I need to utilize my time better, whether it is drawing or whatever.  And Mr. word perfect is having its way with me this morning as it seems I can get nowhere with this blog this morning constantly making mistakes while I am writing I have to go back and correct as I go along. This slows my train of thought and makes it tough to stay on subject.

      I regress as I rant about why I can’t get more done or why it is such a hassle doing anything it all. I doubt it is any different than anyone else when it comes to that territory. For me I am driven by a need to make my life better for myself in just a couple of years by making my home life something I am proud of instead of feeling like I am ashamed to bring people into my home, plain and simple I hate trailers. I saw one burn up one night as I went home through Mineral City in an area called Windy City which stands for a small community of trailers grouped together for people trying to escape the Chicago area and all its violence.   Apparently their effort to escape the Chicago area and all its troubles didn’t unfortunately include fire as it ravaged the trailer and firefighters were helpless to do anything about it as I saw flames licking the bottom of tall oak trees thirty feet up on a hill as I traveled on a road parallel to the fire as I went home to my trailer to check my fire alarms. I passed fire trucks scurrying to carry water to the top of the hill where hydrants were nonexistent to fight a fire that there was no chance of ever stopping till it was complete in its devastation. 

 

bear i am also working on

 

       These things are like wind tunnels of death just waiting to snare you with fire as it consumes the cheap plywood paneling that seem to make up almost 90 percent of the innards of these places. The floors are of a composite wood glued particle board and even the plumbing will burn heartily, as the heat builds up inside and the aluminum walls actually melt from the heat allowing more air to fuel the fire and make devastation complete.  They say a trailer will be completely destroyed and engulfed in fire in fifteen minutes and by the time of a half hour is passed even with the best firefighting effort it will be a smoldering black mess. My distance away from the fire department will only assure that the Magnolia fire department and its reputation of being the called the best basement savers around will go unscathed. So easily one could see my need to get to better accommodations than what I have now is of pressing concern.

      I inherited a mess in some respects not unlike a lot I have encountered before. The trailer being mated with the old house was probably ok years back but recently I have encountered some electrical problems that have required me to do without electricity in some areas of the trailer. Part of this is because of my unwillingness to climb underneath the trailer to see what kind of connections my brother installed between the two as I feel that may be the source of my problem. Well my unwillingness to live out my life in a trailer is only surpassed by my unwillingness to climb under the trailer for anything.

     Multiple water leaks forced me to install new water lines in the living area exposed on the walls to make sure they are where heat will get to them to prevent freezing. I have had to redo some drains only to the extent that I would do what I could do, as long as I don’t have to climb under the trailer. I hate those places and their cobwebs and damp ass fiberglass messes. When new they are not too bad. But after a water leak or two and the insulation in the floor of them become damaged they are a nightmare to keep them dry. I have no intention to do that. I am getting to old to run out in the cold at night making sure my animals are ok while I watch everything I own go up in smoke. This is what is driving me to keep on going despite whatever obstacles I might encounter.

    Every day since I started the foundation for the addition I have been trying to put in at least 2 hours a day toward the building process. This is about as much as my back will allow and still be able to keep up with other activities I try to plan on completing daily. Some will say I should just pay someone else to do the work I can’t, or is too hard for me to do. Well in theory that seems great, but in reality I am like everyone else when it comes to paying for anything. I have to watch every penny I spend and I can’t afford to take out a loan and it is up to me as an heir to the farm not to burden the farm with unnecessary costs by having the farm either pay for my needs, or to assume a loan to get done what I need to do. Since legally I don’t really own the land and in reality only have a share of the total farm, I can’t really get the farm to do anything for me they won’t do for anyone else. In fact the only insurance I can get is renters insurance and the insurance companies are not too crazy about giving me that. And the main reason for that is the construction of my fine abode, whereby a trailer is mated to a house. The age of the trailer is also a concern as well as the wiring as it is aluminum and has been known to be a fire hazard.

    I would hate to lose everything and if I did, I think that would be it for me and my efforts at trying to make home here. I guess as long as I could get out the best I can and be able to save my animals, I would be able to start again but it would be hard.  So in the meantime I need to keep on pushing myself to do more. I guess a will is also in order to make sure my wishes are covered in the event something did happen. As it stands now I am entitled to receive a share of the farm properties, without a will , my share would be passed on to the family whether I wanted it that way or not. In some ways it would be nice to see the property stay in the family but in that same respect it would mean my life has been worth nothing, neglecting the endless hours of work I have done on the farm without pay, trying to maintain in some form of protecting the family investment. This will pass on to some who feel I have no right to any part of it. It is for that reason alone I need to get my affairs in order and pass my share to someone I feel deserves a chance to live their lives in comfort of knowing they can live here without worry of moving in their lifetime. Maybe after that I offer my share back to the family to fight over. By then I am sure I will be a passing memory in all their minds.

    So in some ways , yes I am driven to make sure I take care of unfinished business and get myself to a point where my life will be easier and all I will have to think about is taking care of myself , my art and whoever will be in my life as a partner at that point. Hopefully I will have left life’s hassles well behind. Or do we ever get to that point?