Homeschool Parenting

Posted on May 10, 2021 by Kelsey

Being a homeschooling parent has a lot of challenges. Chief among them is being sure that the things I teach are accurate, and fulfilling, and that the child is learning what she should in order to stay close enough to her age group that she could easily matriculate with her age group if she should for some reason need to enter the mainstream at any point in the future. But when one of the kids homeschools with a regular teacher over Zoom, it can also be challenging! Specifically when the teacher says something that is complete nonsense!

Today gave a perfect example of that, when my 12 year old’s teacher was teaching her class about the US Census, and in the topic about the question of citizenship she said that one of the reasons that citizenship status would be asked is because non-citizens don’t pay any taxes. My immediate thought is that she has just contributed to making a group of Nationalists, and possibly racists with that one statement.

The reason I think that is because I have several non-citizens in my own immediate family. To be accurate, one got his citizenship late last year, but he has worked and even bought a house here in the US for a few years prior, and the other two are still not citizens at this time. All pay or have paid payroll tax, all who own property pay property taxes, and the one who does not own, pays rent to an owner who pays property taxes on the place he lives in, and not one of them is exempt somehow from sales taxes. So, every single one of them pays a plethora of taxes just like any US Citizen does. There are no free rides among them.

I understand that there may be people who are in the US illegally, who have to take pay off the books, and stay under the radar. But a blanket statement that non-citizens don’t pay taxes is completely inaccurate. I realize that in the rush of teaching that a statement like that can come out mistakenly, and that a person saying it might do so on accident, and without meaning to.

What is hard is not wanting to jump in as an adult and correct the situation. After all, why should a whole class of kids carry the kind of biases that something like that can create away from the class? But then, when the kids are in a classroom, parents never hear things like that in the first place unless their child happens to mention it.

I guess the real advantage is that I have the opportunity to mention it to my own child, and correct the potential bias, and do it in a way that hopefully does not undermine the teacher, and gives them a way out by mentioning that it may have been an oversight on their part. I think it is also important to raise a kid who knows how to get along socially with people she does not agree with, so she has to know how to live with the statements that she does not have to confront, and know when to confront them, when she is old enough and knowledgeable enough to do it.

At any rate, it is probably a little thing, but it is aggravating, just as it is when the teacher’s religious biases come across in the class. But considering those biases do come across and they do hint at their particular beliefs, I have to credit them for still teaching proper science on evolution and such, though the dominant religion in this area, and the ones the teacher hints at is creationist.

So, there are pluses and minuses to it, and like anything, there is finding a proper balance to it. It is just one of the challenges to being a homeschool parent, and at the same time, in the modern ‘woke’ culture, there is the challenge that teachers must face with all the parents who are improperly or partially woke, and the ones who are not woke at all. It has got to be hard. And then there is the unnecessary hair splitting over things like which non-citizens pay taxes or not.

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It’s Thursday Night

Posted on May 7, 2021 by Kelsey

What do you do when you are the last person up on a Thursday night? I watched a video on YouTube explaining thoroughly Q-Anon from it’s origin, to it’s ideologies, to where it is at now and where it is headed in the future, as well as how to talk to people who believe in it. It was an interesting video put on by a younger YouTube creator who has clear thoughts, and presents in a sensible order, and is obviously good at her research. Basically, she gives me hope for the future.

I don’t think though that from watching her video, I would be prepared to deal first hand with someone entrenched in the conspiracies espoused by Q-Anon. Hell, I can hardly deal with the modern political party that has assumed the identity of the Republican Party. It is certainly NOT what it was when I was a kid. While it owes its assumption of the party to some of the crap that the party believed in then, it cannot pretend it is the same as it was. I think a lot of that is owed to Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson, and Info Wars and the likes. Guys, your Art Bell politics has highjacked the mentally frail in this country and turned it into a voting block so you can have hat you want at the hands of those who fall for the BS veneer you put on it.

Apart from that, there was a comment read during the video I watched, which was from one of the channel creator’s subscribers, and I could have sworn by some of the words used, and from the situation described, and the propensity of those described to fall for crap like Q, that the author of the comment was talking about Mormons. That reminded me of something…

I don’t know how to write a large piece. I could write and write about a topic, but to make it coherent and tell the story of my own personal experiences in Mormonism, well, I need to take the time to really do it, and do it right, if I am to give this story some life. I want to write about it. I am just intimidated by the scope of that project. I also want to figure out how to best describe the religion and the people without equating them. That’s hard. People are their ideologies, and this particular ideology is nuts. But the people who hold the ideas are not all nuts. So, in short, I’ll get to it, but it is going to be a challenge.

Invariably the previous President is still coming up constantly in national discourse; in the news, and on late-night television. Many in this country seem to still be traumatized by that Presidency. For many, it was like thinking that we were on a bus across town to whereever it is we need to be, but then suddenly realizing that we are in a speeding clown car, heading through a ring of fire, and noticing that the clown driving is absolutely drunk off his ass, and asleep on the accelerator towards the post holding the tent up. Oh, and we are terrified of clowns.

I wish I could say it is a topic that should be dropped and never brought up again, but if that man runs for President again, then he must be defeated again. And if he is to be defeated again, then so must his lies, and his shot on the fan conspiracies which satisfy him with the ability to see what sticks and gets him what he wants. People believe the election was stolen? He has convinced him that he won? How the Hell did the government transition in the first place, then? He was President! He should have had the power to stop it if he had legitimately won the election. But somehow, the man he called Sleepy Joe managed to overpower him, and gain access to the White House? The story stinks.

The story also stinks because I do occasionally peak in at Facebook, and look at some comments. Today I read a woman responding to her own brother to tell him that he had fallen for Democrat lies, and that she just did not want that kind of negativity in her life. Families are being divided. Yes, that DOES remind me of the stories of the Civil War. While there are no slaves in the balance, people are. Mostly, the same people as were then. And that is heartbreaking. It is clearly a country that has changed little.

So, this is a little random, but it is a Thursday Night, and I am feeling pretty random. I need to get rested and get to work on my story in a clear form, and tell what it is I need to tell. I need to tell it, in the way an author needs to tell his story. I cannot breath with it inside me anymore. So I need to unblock it, and let it go. But I need it to be organized, make some sense, and hopefully, be relatable so those who probably need to hear it, can understand how I found safety in the chaos of the world beyond religion.

I’ll leave it for now. But I will go and start making my notes.

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Rainy Days and Family Dollar Always Get Me Down

Posted on May 2, 2021 by Kelsey

It was not supposed to be rainy today, but it was. I had plans for outside, but the rain delayed them. I was happy to get some cardboard burned, the lawn mowed, and the animals fed during an hour this afternoon. I sure wish I felt this up to doing things all the time!

Rain on our windshield at Family Dollar.

We went to the gas station today and topped up the car, and went to Family Dollar so Missus could run in. I am not a fan, so I wait in the car with the kids and that at least makes it easier for her to go in and get what she needs or wants, without us bothering her.

The view of the mountains from Family Dollar.

I am also testing out my new computer, my camera, and a file method to see if I can shoot from my DSLR and put it up on this site without the silly pictures not uploading like they were doing on the old computer. I figured that if I shoot a small JPEG and the RAW file from the camera, I will have a good sized copy of any pictures that come out really good, rather than only having a tiny JPEG to work with. So this post is in part a test to see everything is working. And it is! But you can bet that in a few minutes it will stop, as it usually does, and everything will go back to normal; not working!

I’ll need to get a can of gas for the mower before I do the roadside mowing and the neighbor’s lawn. He paid me to do it (already), so I want to get it done soon. I am no fan of being a mess about on doing things I have told someone I am going to do for them.

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The Gift of Faith

Posted on May 1, 2021 by Kelsey

In the film, Angels and Demons, the character Robert Langdon is challenged on his beliefs before he is allowed access to the Catholic Archives, and is response is, I think, pretty perfect. It is diplomatic, without being forced to concede anything to the Camerlengo. “Faith is a gift I have yet to receive.” Based on my experience, that reply would likely work with the Catholics. But I don’t think it would hold much ground with many Protestants, or Evangelicals.

In 1990 a friend of mine was asked to attend church with a girl he knew, but he was nervous about going with her, and asked me to come along with. I agreed to, and got one of my first experiences outside of the religion I had been dragged or otherwise pushed up in. It was an Apostolic Church in a secluded, almost coastal California town. The members appeared like a poorer version of Mennonites, almost Polygamous Mormons, sans the headgear. Married women were required to wear shorter hair, buy the nubile ones could be easily identified because they were not allowed to cut their hair, and wore it long.

The building itself was a standard church fair, though a bit run down, and while the lighting reached from corner to corner, it was dark, and stale fluorescent light that made the place feel like it was in a basement, an after thought to the house of God.

There was singing, there was prayer, and there was testimony spoken from the alter and congregants of the Apostolic Church that night. But my ears pricked when one of the ladies of the church stood in place and called out her testimony loudly, thanking the pastor for the service last Wednesday, and for tonight’s service, then thanking the almighty for the two young men who have come to hear the Word with them tonight, and then she said, “And it is my hope that these two young men will come and pray on our alter tonight, and feel the Spirit of God.”

“Did you hear that, Alex?” I asked quietly.

“What?” he asked.

“They just trapped us into praying on their alter. If we don’t, we are going to insult them.”

When the appointed time came, up to the bottom step of the stage where the pastor spoke from, we went. I knelt down, and the pastor and another man and a congregant put their hands on my back as I bowed my head and closed my eyes. I was unsure why they felt it was okay to touch me, but I pressed on quietly under the pressure they were putting on me to speak out loud as the pastor prayed aloud, “God, thank you so much for bringing this young man to us tonight, and I ask you Lord, please, give him words. Give him words to speak up unto you. Fill him with your spirit, and I implore you, GIVE HIM WORDS, oh Lord!”

I had words. I was quite sure that man did not want to hear them Mom always told me, “If you can’t say anything nice, shut the fuck up.” So I did. I was pretty unimpressed with this cultish trap to put me on the spot to perform for these people, and to give me a false feeling of ‘the Spirit of God,’ by putting so much pressure on me to speak out in the way they wanted me to.

I never went back there.

Faith was a gift I was yet to receive.

Brought up in the Mormons, I was bound to serve as a Mission for the Church, and because of that, I was invited to sit in with many other congregations, too. I have been to Catholic Mass, Pentecostal Church, and I have sat in and been called a sinner by the Baptists. I have argued down with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and I have been among the Methodists and the Lutherans.

Aesthetically, nothing compared to the Greek Orthodoxy’s Epiphany celebration in Tarpon Springs, Florida, where the priest said prayer at the waters edge, then threw a large golden cross into the harbor, and the thirteen year old boys leapt in after it from a semi-circle of small boats tied together around his pedestal.

As for finding Faith in God, I never did among any of the religions. Not really even my own. And as for fruits, there were few that I found sweet enough to take with the bitter. I was in my early twenties then. I still attended Church for a few years, till I finally came to realize that I was not only wasting my time going, but I was allowing others to waste a great deal of it, imposing on it, as Mormons are prone to do with their “callings.”

“Brother, you have been called to serve as a Sunday School teacher. Will you accept?” Did anyone ever say no? Were they in the favor of the Bishop, or his congregation if they did? I never dared to find out. It is not that I did no enjoy working with kids, or that I had not found any pleasure in being in Florida as a Missionary. I had many experiences that I treasured. I got to see and do things I never would have, otherwise, and I got to grow from those experiences. But I did not grow in the way that the religionists would have had me to. I grew further and further away from them.

By the time I was 27, I could not go on doing what I felt was faking my faith. While I had given every effort to it, and I had lifted up my voice in tearful prayer for many years, and I have served and put my feet into motion as well as my heart, I could not find what seemed like a true manifestation of the Divine. Questions still lingered about things, and the answers were unsatisfactory.

“You have got to have faith, brother.” What does that mean? To the members and leaders of congregations, it meant that I was supposed to accept that God had a plan, and that I needed to be humble and find the meaning in whatever had happened.

To me, “you have got to have faith” meant that I needed to shut up and bow my head, and not question, and be satisfied without a real answer, but to look for natural patterns and ascribe those to God. It was a psychological trick to get me to shut up, rather than to ask why horrible things happen, or why Pastor Dell Rose, of that Apostolic Church in California ruled over a poverty stricken congregation, but outside there was a new Corvette with a license plate that read “Rose” on it. But that was trivial to questions about why there is suffering in the world, why children die, and why death and misery seemed so random, and yet, evenly distributed among the faithful, as well as the unfaithful. In fact, much of the misery seemed to be caused among the faithful by the other faithful.

“You have got to have faith, brother.” I am not your brother.

My ex-wife dragged me into see the Mormon Bishop about my “lack of testimony,” and the meeting which ensued was appalling to me. I had gone in expecting to meet a man who would lovingly help to guide me to find the faith I had been missing. I expected maybe someone who would speak kindly, and offer sympathy, and at least look down on me a little. What I got was a man who was angry at me, who wanted me to meet up to his expectations, and who told me that I was “a Priesthood holder, and the leader of this little family, and (I) had better get (my) testimony sorted out!” Yes, he literally shouted at me.

Funerals have been the only reason I have darkened the door of a Mormon Church since. It seemed appropriate since the death of something beautiful was represented in it. But by now, I only attend the gravesides. Funerals are used to reinforce Mormon beliefs in what they call “The Plan of Salvation,” to keep the flock strong in the face of death, and to sound like they know what they are doing to those who are not Mormons, in the face of something that even Religion cannot provide relief from. Come on, people may be clinically dead for a time, then revive, but nobody truly comes back from the dead, then stays immortal.

The true nature of a Cult is revealed in my next interaction with the Mormons, when I moved to England to live with my second wife, and one night, laid up ill in bed, I heard a knock at the door, and my wife answered, and a man’s voice asked for me by name. The Mormons had found me in another country, though nobody I knew has ever fessed up to giving them my address.

And finally, I have come back to America, and now live in a very Mormon community, because of a family situation now gone past. We have little interaction with the Mormons, though there is one who I can call a good friend. As for the rest, I might as well live high upon the mountain top, where Rip Van Winkle will not venture. While that does not meet the expectations that the Mormons themselves will boast about, being in service to their fellow men, it suits me just fine to be ostracized among them. I am surrounded my a religion I don’t have to tolerate. If any of them come to me as a person, they are welcome, but as a parson, they are not. Missionaries don’t knock on my door. Nobody drops off copies of the Book of Mormon. Home Teachers do not offer to come visit, and “see if there is anything we can help out with.” Best of all, nobody comes to collect tithing!

Well, this isn’t meant to be any kind of complaint against the religions. It is just the manifesto of where I stand with them, or rather, where they stand with me. Respectfully, “Faith is a gift I have yet to receive.” How likely am I to? Not very. I can also list many reasons why I agree that religion poisons everything. It is a fervent conversation, for which I have no fervor at the moment.

The beautiful aesthetics of ceremony or pageantry do not amend for what I have lost to religion, much of which I have not discussed here. The British have found the correct substitute with the venerable cup of tea. Life is instead celebrated in the mundane, the normal, and the everyday. Instead of devoting to religion, I devote to learning how to properly cook a steak, and how to properly work with tools. Instead of “having a calling,” I spend my time teaching my children everything I can possibly teach them. I give them every advantage I know how to. While they are young, they learn to properly enjoy a steak, and when they are older, they learn to properly cook it. Our family’s traditions are closer to Pagan than Christian. We celebrate the times of the year, not events that are completely un-provable, and are far more likely to be wallpapering over Paganism, anyhow.

This is the world as I see it. Faith is not a gift I have rejected. It does not come to me. It is incompatible with reason, and does not meld with sensible living. Non-Christian orthodoxy is equally footed with the Christian. All can pass along their way. But I will reject their impositions on me or my family. I will not accept their violence, nor their harm. They may not take my money, my time, nor my dignity. Any human is welcome, who is willing to leave their Gods at the gate.

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Slipping Through Time

Posted on April 29, 2021 by Kelsey
Momento Mori

Today our eight year old and I spent time watching a tree trimming crew working for the power company, trimming back the trees in front of the house across the street, making way for safe power delivery.  It was made into a Social Studies lesson as we observed the safety precautions taken by the two men in the truck, especially where the road warnings and cones were concerned, and how much they were cutting back without permission from the property owner as a matter of right of way.  We also read through her sight word cards, and she is all set on the front side words on that set, ready to go to the other side.

We have only about a month to go before the kids are out of school for the summer, and I will be free to focus on getting our farm spaces sorted out, and since I decided on a new computer, to upgrade the means of managing the farm, and blogging, and media production. Surely I did not buy a new computer just to play Age of Empires on! Tomorrow the computer arrives, and I get to start setting it up for use, and the next day I want to go scope out the firewood supplies down at the green waste disposal, and see if they are still giving it away for free as they have last year and the one prior.

Sleep has been a joke the last few nights. Last night I awoke at 2:30 AM and did not get properly back to sleep after. I think I could have held a coherent conversation at any point, as I was concious till morn.

On that note, it is time to try again, and see if I can get a good night’s sleep. Maybe tonight? I can only dream!

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The Problem

Posted on April 27, 2021 by Kelsey

Every now and then my mind turns to philosophy, and religion. Naturally, I take these subjects based on how I was raised, and how I have come to understand them during a couple of intro classes in college. I’ll tell you right off that I never got past the intro classes because it seemed to me that much of philosophy is thinking too hard about things that are utter bullshit. Basically, it didn’t differ too much from what I learned in church growing up. Thinking up ideas like that the whole world we experience could be a dream of only one person is no different than thinking that the whole world is the creation of some God.

I was brought up in one of the religions who think that all of humanity is on earth, placed here one by one, by a God that wants to test us all to see if we are “worthy” of being in his presence forever. I can definitely assign that God a male gender, because it certainly seem a manly thing to run such a test.

So, there are basic problems with this proposition. The testing environment is severely flawed. Hi, you are here for a test that will affect you forever, result in you going to Heaven or Hell, and so on, but as an infant your mom fell asleep smoking in bed, and burned your house down. Test over for you, and you are not really tested at all. They say babies go right to Heaven, but what if you were baby Hitler?

But it is not just limited to carelessness of other humans! There are lions that can eat you, planes that go down, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, tsunamis, lightning, and so on. More than 200,000 people were killed in an earthquake and tsunami in 2004, and you mean to tell me that their “test” was all through, adminstered by a God that loves them, to see if they should be sent to Hell or not?

The problem is God is the school administrator, and the school’s active shooter, and al he wants you to do is graduate with high marks, while he continues to work on his marksmanship.

The whole prospect is nothing short of silly! I don’t think that people who are loved should be subjected to murder at the hands of the test administrator. I don’t see hwo people can have their personal tests cut short because of accident, carelessness, mistake, or at the hands of other test participants, and it chalked up to “whoopsiedaisies!”

Much more likely is the scenario that we are all part of a species of animal on this planet, under the same kinds of existence as all the other animals, with the risks and deaths inherant to being some sort of mortal or another, but our particular species has the disadvantage of imagination to really screw us up.

Our imagination and our ego combined has us thinking up religions and philosophies that get us thinking we are more than what we really are. We are amazing already as a species that has risen to creat tools and objects that we can use to help us survive. The dinosaurs were here for nearly two-hundred million years, far longer than we have been, and there are no fossils of steam trains, or airplanes among them. There are no dinosaur city ruins to dig up, as far as we know. In the two-hundred thousand years or so we have been apart from the other primates, we have come a long way! But we don’t need to make up bullshit to take us farther. Best to be where we are at, and what we are, and go from there.

I’m sure I will suffer more of these thoughts in the future, and will subject my blog to them, so I will put them under the “philosophical” category, then put this kind of thing under a sub-category called “problems” in order to consolidate them for consumtion, or to know what titles to avoid, if you are the reader.

Like Deep Thought, and the meaning of life being 42, I am sure I am right, because I have thought about it a really long time. And that, is Philosophy for you!

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On A Rainy Day

Posted on April 27, 2021 by Kelsey

Today has been a perfect, rainy day. The rain started yesterday, and has carried on through the night, and all of today so far. It is nearing sunset, and bedtimes for the kids, then the adults, with tomorrow meant to be partly cloudy and a bit warmer. But today, glorious day! I put a fire in, though it was not cold, and I had two cups of tea this morning, black first, then lemmon grass and mint, both sweetened with honey, the black dulled with a bit of milk.

The school reports are turned in, and almost all of the business of the home school acedmy is done for the year, testing, financials, and all but a month of course work.

I am eagerly awaiting the arrival later this week of a new computer for me to play a game that Missus and I like to relax to. It is a laptop, which is not really my first choice of computer, but it is time to get something both powerful and portable, so this time around, it is to be this. I will use it for the blog, and for my media production, whatever that may be, especially when I am away from the home computer. I got al the accessories that I think I will need, too, like a bag and port replicator, as well as an external hard drive to back things up onto. But mostly, I am eager to play our game, sit in the same room, and not have the lagging that my weather station computer gives playing from it. That will return to being a dedicated machine.

So far our new chicks have been growing just fine, and adapting to their new home in the floorspace of the coop with the peacocks and chuckar. I am ready to pick up some meat chickens next, and raise them up, then butcher and serve them, sharingh the boys to see how they take to home grown chickens. I need to perfect my butchering skills, too. Hopefully they will be large enough to more easily clean out, as the last time I butchered, the birds were not a meat breed, and the cavity too small to remove everything without squeezing too tightly on my hand. I know it is a silly complaint from me, given what the birds had just gone through. But it is what it is to be a living being, myself.

A pot of coffee is just finished, and so are the cinnamon rolls! That will be the start of a relaxing period for the evening, then bed soon after. Life could be worse!

I watched a video today by a young English lady called Ruby Granger, who talked about Cottagecore aesthetic, and went into some detail on how to achieve it. As someone who is what many Americans now call a ‘homesteader,’ and as someone who has spent a great deal of time in the English countryside, I must say I found the whole aesthetic very appealing. I liked many of the suggestions Ruby made about things like decorating with flowers around the house, the books she suggested, the idea of picnics, and walks in the country, and doing things deliberately, not for a higher purpose but to do well at what is in front of you. Bake things for people you love, press flowers and include them in handwritten notes to others, and so on.

The thing about it that took me was not just the idea of living some provincial life, but the ideas of being close to nature, using less plastics, growing own food, and what she most seemed to be conveying was not just stopping in life to smell the roses, but to be a rose.

I think I am pretty close in my own life to living this aesthetic, and to being the person who does more than smell roses. There are some new habits I need to form, and there is a bit of cleaning and organizing that still needs my attention, but it is not for a lack of what I own, or the environment I have created here at our little farmhouse.

Smell the roses, be a rose, and sieze the moment. Learn, and dedicate self to the things I do. That’s where I see myself right now. While I am so close o having everything I need, I must continue to seek for the things I want, and be there for the people I adore.

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I Am A Collector Of Antiques

Posted on April 15, 2021 by Kelsey

I collect antiques and put them on display in our little old farm house. The difference between me and some other collectors is, most everything I collect and display, I also use. These days, most things a person buys gets used till it is broken, which often comes quick, and then is thrown away and forgotten. Worst part is, sometimes it was bought on credit and it is not even paid off yet.

Old time things were made to be used, and they were made to be repaired. So when I buy antiques, it is to use them, not to just set them on a shelf for people to look at. Some of the antiques I have bought have been tools for the shop, and some have been things for the kitchen, or furniture that is still in very good condition. Some things have been from the 1960’s, and some have been much older.

Yesterday we decided to go to town and walk around some antique shops. I only found two things I could not possibly leave behind, but one, a hand cranked drill, turned out to be broken right in the cast iron, and I left it be. The other was a 1973 Coleman gas lantern priced at only $20, and by the time I had gotten it home and fully inspected it, was in almost brand new condition. It only appears to have been lit one or two times! Every piece, every gasket, seemed like new, with the only blemishes being a little black spot on the top, and a little bit of chrome flake on the frame, but I am not even sure that counts as dammage. It cleaned up like new.

I have been wanting one of these to work after dark in the gardens in summer when it is too hot to do it in the daylight. I never could convince myself it was the time to spend on a new one, though. But at $20, who could turn down the opportunity? Especially when all the other lanterns I found were in much worse shape, and more than twice the price!

This is exactly the kind of thing I look for in an antique! I want something that is old, reliable, and still very useable! It needs mantles to be absolutely sure it will work, but without them, it does exactly as it should, pumps up, holds pressure, spits a very little fuel from the burner.

It’s my first gas lantern, and by the way I am going on about it, I am sure you can tell. It is nearly as old as I am, and I think that makes us partners for life. I’ll just confirm it is working when the mantles arrive, and that will be it!

I think this lantern will be a helpful and wonderful addition to our little farmette!

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The Last Week Or So

Posted on April 3, 2021 by Kelsey

Last weekend we were in Salt Lake City, enjoying a bit of shopping and a stay overnight in a hotel there, just to be away from home, and from chores and the like.  We ate out at The Cheesecake Factory in the evening, and just did a general explore.  It was a good time for all of us. 

The week has been Spring Break for the kids, and for me, as their sort of official teaching coach or whaever token title the school gives me though I have to do all the teaching and instruction for my younger daughter.  Well, fine and dandy then.  Missus has been at work, which is at home, but still, it was work.  She has earned money for it. 

This weekend started today, Friday.  I have been working with the kids’ help sorting out some things on the farm to ready it for some changes we have planned to make it less expensive, or even a little profitable.  I am readying for a new egg flock and a meat flock in the chicken runs, and we have discussed getting a beef cow, which is a couple of weeks of bottle feeding, if we do.  We have set the goats up in proper pens for two of them to give birth next month.  So we expect our heard to expand there, which means I might be looking to set them up a larger place to graze and dwell.  We have been trying to sort out two cats who have recently given birth, and help them get their kittens to a place that if safer than where they chose.  In addition to all this, I have begun to move the rabbit pens to their new location where we want to be able to treat them to a run.  I also have set up a permanant location for the chicken brooder in order to get it to a place out of the way, and yet servicable and self cleaning. It is like the rabbit hutches, where they will drop to a space below tended by other animals.

It is getting late now, especially by my standards, and I am waiting for the laundry to finish so I can wear my clean bedclothes to bed. Just a moment and they should be dry enough to extract early if need be.

We are ready to take chicks if I find any on sale now. I have starter feed at the ready, and a heat lamp plugged in. I need two parts for their brooder, and I need to fish out two feed and water dishes, then I can put some in it. It is time our younger daughter get a chance with little babies and rasing them from the start. I like the strategy of checking into a couple of the stores and getting older chicks, which are almost always marked down, and which have improved chances of survival, and started their feathers for proper self warmth, making it a little shorter period of time I have to keep a heat lamp on them. I don’t know why anyone would ‘just have to buy the downy chicks.’

Lastly, before bed, I recieved my carving knives the other day, and spent the afternoon carving like mad. It never bothered me till I quit, then it hurt, and the next morning it hurt, and the following day it hurt, and the day after, it hurt. It is only finally to where I can say it is pretty much clear. My hands hurt, my neck and upper back hurt, and of course the one spot where I stabbed myself did not hurt at all, even though I had blead profusely. Go figure!

Oh, and I must mention two housekeeping items before bed, too. It has been two or three days since I first heard the frogs for this year. I like to keep track, as they are a decent barometer of the changes of the seasons.

Today I was in the chicken run and the birds were dashing about here and there, while my daughter and I were working on the rabbit hutches. One of the hens ran from behind the A-frame to about ten feet away from us, then began to flop around, though she had no apparent sign of injury. My daughter pointed it out to me, and I said, “that one is going to die.” We went away to the shop to get a couple of tools and there was that hen, lay there as dead as can be. I told my daughter to go toss the hen into the pig pen, so she did without reservation, which I thought was pretty good for an eight year old. We have no idea why the hen died. Maybe she was somehow trampled by one of the geese? There was really nothing apparent to indicate it.

And now I bid you, goodnight.

Posted in Journal Entry, Regular Update, The Farm | Comments Off on The Last Week Or So

Facebook Still

Posted on March 25, 2021 by Kelsey

Three days ago I looked into Facebook to see what it is like now, and I think it took four swiped with humb over the screen of my cellphone to realize I still need to be away from it. Opinions are best kept quiet, which is what leads me to continue to be Facebook still. I don’t want to be a contributor. Folks can vote for who best suits them, they can wear a mask or not. They can do as they please in thier own privacy. But the constant nagging on and on about it all makes them all that crazy uncle who everyone dreads sitting next to at Thanksgiving. Not wanting to contribute to that noise, and also feeling fairly intolerant to stupidity, I remain off.

I am also a bit fed up of meme thinking, and the expression of opinions through simple memes which convey a minimal amount of logic that may seem irrefutable to the person posting it, but cannot be taken at more than face value because it comes with the authority of a photograph, itself a thousand words. No, there is more to life than that, and thoughts are hopefully much deeper, and worth greater expression.

I wonder if Dawkins ever felt insulted by the simplicity of the meme? Especially when he was sat at cocktails with his friend, Rushdie?

People are more complex than all that. At least I hope so. “Like” if you agree!

Today is busy putting up new curtain rods, speakers for one of the main rooms, and wiring them in for proper sound distribution, if I get around to that part. We’ll see. I am not quite a s young as I used to be. Missus just came in and had a look at theowork so far, and is very happy with the progress up to now, so that is assurance to move forward. I wanted to stop for a rest break, and to check with on some concenrs I had. We are good, it is time to go!

Maybe a snack along the way would do wonders for motivtion, too?

Covid-19 is still spreading, and even with some people vaccinated, there is not enough for herd immunity, and with variants, it is still very important to wear a mask and wash your hands. Still don’t touch your face. We are not out of the woods yet, and being eager to go out and have fun isn’t what’s going to fix this. We all are. We need to take it easy a bit longer, get some of the answers we need, and be ready to take the next steps to keep the virus from spreading. It may seem fine to relax and be free, and it may seem fine to watch others and think they will get theirs, but that thinking changes when it hits the people you know, the people you love, and they become ill, and have long term effeects, including death. It’s just a piece of cloth, and it is the absolute least thing we can do to protect ourselves, and eachother. If you are wearing a maks, and if you have gotten vaccinated, you have my respect. If you cannot pull off either of those things, well, your thinking is not new. It is not safe. Safe is not unAmerican, and it is not a bad word. The first promise is Life, then Liberty and the Persuit of Happiness. It is all no good if you can’t have the first, though. And after this point, if you still beg to differ, then I have got nothing for you. I hope you make it, and I’ll see you after the Pandemic is fully contained and we are dealing with it as truly as relatively minor as the flue.

Finally; micro-chips in the vaccine so the government can track you? Seriously? Why would they give you one for free when you won’t put down the one you pay for? Yeah, I need to stay off Facebook! Some people are unbearably stupid.

Posted in Coronavirus, Journal Entry, Philosophical | Comments Off on Facebook Still