Anybody want a free kitten? Really! I’ve got two cute little boy kitties that desperately need a home. Well, okay. It’s really me that’s desperate for them to find a new home. I need to get them out of my “office” so I can clean it up! I need to at least get the litter box clean long enough for the smell to go away! Please somebody! Adopt these kittens!!
Other news of import, to me anyway. The writers club I belong to, the Silver Leos Writers Guild, is having a conference the first week end in June. That would be the weekend after next. The week end after that I’ll be heading up to Milwaukee, Wisconsin with Coop and another lady for that conference on Growing Power. I think I mentioned that last week. Then, sometime in the last week of June, I’m sure the LOTFD will open up the fireworks stand north of Lone Oak on 69. Looks like I’m going to be a very busy camper this June.
As for my opinion this week. . . I’m just glad that the storms we’ve had so far haven’t hit us like they did Joplin or the other cities that have been half destroyed by twisters so far this year. I read on the internet where some meteorologists and climatologists are blaming this outbreak of storms on the sudden disappearance of La Nina. Sorry, folks I don’t know how to make this computer make that little squiggle mark over the ‘n’ so you know its Spanish for ‘little girl’. Seems this sudden warming of the currents down in the southern Pacific has played hob with the jet stream. The jet steam usually is further north this time of year, well away from the hot damp air we tend to develop down here in the south. So now all that cool dry air is rubbing up against the hot, wet winds off of the Gulf. Add to that the fact the temperature in the Gulf has been reported as being a bit warmer than usual as well and BINGO! We got big storms from Texas, up through the plains into the north east.
Honestly, I’d already noted that the jet stream was lingering down south several weeks ago while watching the weather reports on TV.
My only other opinion is that I wish the rain, much as it is needed, would conspire to give us a long enough dry spell so I could mow my front yard again and finish the electric fence I’ve started in my back yard so that my goats can do the mowing back there. Why not a regular fence you may ask? Simple, I don’t think any other fence that I could move as easily would keep those escape artists in. I’ve had them, as kids, go right through cattle panels after they pulled or stomped down the wire netting I had over it. I’ve had them push their way under and climb over. I’ve even had to save their silly necks a number of times when they were older and got their heads through a cattle panel but then were too dumb to figure out how to get it back out. The horns got in the way. Yeah, they still have horns. They are pygmy goats after all and those horns come in handy as something to grab when they do get out. At least they do until the goat in question catches on that if you grab those horns you’ve got them and they are going back in the pen. Fortunately, when that happens there is always the old stand by. The feed bucket. Works on goats as well as it does horses or cows. Never did get that bucket trick to work very well on Chickens.
Say, really. Anybody want one or two little boy kittens? One is yellow with white paws and chest. The others more orange with no white on him. Come on. Give me a break. Come get a kitten already. Please. Then Momma can take a trip to Cause for Paws.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Alt Op #20, anybody want a kitten?
Does anyone out there want one or two cut little yellow, male kittens? PLEASE!! The little beasts are locked up in my ‘office’ so that my big dog isn’t tempted to have them for a snack by accident. They’ve torn the place up, the litter box is stinking it up and I have to come in here to write this stuff. One little boy is a very, very light yellow. More blond than yellow in fact. The other little guy is more orange than yellow and notably darker than the other. They are not brothers.
The darker one is one Peggy and I found one morning over at her place. We were heading out toward the gate for some reason and heard this pitiful yowling from under an old chair on her parents front porch. A chair that had been covered up with a tarp to keep the rain off of it. When we up ended the chair we found this terrified little orange tabby cat. I took him home to my momma cat and her two kittens. Momma Cat gave me this reproachful look for keeping Bubba away from her all this time and settled down to feed him up. The little girl my momma cat had has gone to her new home, but now I need to find homes for Bubba and Blondie. Please help me out here before one or the other tries to climb my leg again while I have shorts on! Again.
Finely broke down and paid the big bucks to get the equipment for that electric fence I’ve been wanting to put up in my back yard so I could have the goats mow for me. Now all I have to do is get it up. Might have to ask my neighbors on one side if I can feed the wire through what’s left of the fence between our yards and send it down their side of the fence. That way the goats can clean out the fence line and we can figure out what we need to do to get it repaired. Then I also wouldn’t mind talking to my neighbor on the other side to see if I couldn’t put my electric fence up inside the pasture between our two houses so that my goats could clean it out for her. It’s work that would make my goats very happy and fat.
To bad us humans can’t usually find work like that. Work that isn’t really work, just stuff we’d do on our own without being made to do it. You know, sort of like me and this odd little article I write every week. I write all the time anyway so why not! What would be great though is if I could find a way to get paid real money to do this kind of thing. As it is I get a free subscription that I have sent to my cousin Craig Wayne. He lives down south of Canton.
The only other thing I “just do” is read. To bad I can’t get paid for that either. Fact is, I have to pay to do that quite often as I’ve already read most of the kind of books I like that are in the local library, and I’ve for sure read all the books in my house (a whole other library!) at least two or three times - or more.
Of course I could get paid for writing. All I’d have to do is put a final polish on some of those stories I’ve been working on for years and send them off to a publisher but then. Sigh. Then I just might be rejected and told I can’t write as good as I think I can, no matter what my kindly and gentle friends and neighbors have told me. The thing that makes me think maybe I really can write a good story is Peggy. She has a disconcerting habit of sometimes looking me in the eye after reading something I’ve written and saying, “This is crap. Fix it. You can do better than that.”
Now is that true friendship or what. Of course there are also times when she finishes reading what I’ve written and looks up to say those words every writer longs to hear, “So what happens next?! Go finish it!!”
The darker one is one Peggy and I found one morning over at her place. We were heading out toward the gate for some reason and heard this pitiful yowling from under an old chair on her parents front porch. A chair that had been covered up with a tarp to keep the rain off of it. When we up ended the chair we found this terrified little orange tabby cat. I took him home to my momma cat and her two kittens. Momma Cat gave me this reproachful look for keeping Bubba away from her all this time and settled down to feed him up. The little girl my momma cat had has gone to her new home, but now I need to find homes for Bubba and Blondie. Please help me out here before one or the other tries to climb my leg again while I have shorts on! Again.
Finely broke down and paid the big bucks to get the equipment for that electric fence I’ve been wanting to put up in my back yard so I could have the goats mow for me. Now all I have to do is get it up. Might have to ask my neighbors on one side if I can feed the wire through what’s left of the fence between our yards and send it down their side of the fence. That way the goats can clean out the fence line and we can figure out what we need to do to get it repaired. Then I also wouldn’t mind talking to my neighbor on the other side to see if I couldn’t put my electric fence up inside the pasture between our two houses so that my goats could clean it out for her. It’s work that would make my goats very happy and fat.
To bad us humans can’t usually find work like that. Work that isn’t really work, just stuff we’d do on our own without being made to do it. You know, sort of like me and this odd little article I write every week. I write all the time anyway so why not! What would be great though is if I could find a way to get paid real money to do this kind of thing. As it is I get a free subscription that I have sent to my cousin Craig Wayne. He lives down south of Canton.
The only other thing I “just do” is read. To bad I can’t get paid for that either. Fact is, I have to pay to do that quite often as I’ve already read most of the kind of books I like that are in the local library, and I’ve for sure read all the books in my house (a whole other library!) at least two or three times - or more.
Of course I could get paid for writing. All I’d have to do is put a final polish on some of those stories I’ve been working on for years and send them off to a publisher but then. Sigh. Then I just might be rejected and told I can’t write as good as I think I can, no matter what my kindly and gentle friends and neighbors have told me. The thing that makes me think maybe I really can write a good story is Peggy. She has a disconcerting habit of sometimes looking me in the eye after reading something I’ve written and saying, “This is crap. Fix it. You can do better than that.”
Now is that true friendship or what. Of course there are also times when she finishes reading what I’ve written and looks up to say those words every writer longs to hear, “So what happens next?! Go finish it!!”
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Nineteenth article in the LONL: Time goes by.
Wow. Look at that. It’s very nearly the middle of May already. Soon it will be June, then Graduation for the high school kids, then the forth of July will be here before we can blink! Then when we open our eye’s after that blink school and the fall holiday season will be starting up all over again.
Now, however, we have to get the last of the hot weather stuff planted in the gardens and harvest the end of the cool weather veggies. Then there are the things we can look forward to. Things like the graduations I mentioned above or the local Vol. Fire Departments annual BBQ dinner. That last will be this coming Saturday the fourteenth. They plan to start serving at five in the afternoon and keep going until there isn’t anything left to serve or folks stop showing up. (Just for y'all reading this in the blogosphere: The BBQ went great and tasted fan-totally-tastic! Ya shoulda been here, yum-mie! Don't know how much the VFD made on the event yet, just hope it was enough to keep the grass fire trucks on the road through the rest of grass fire season!)
I find myself working with the Community Seeds folks more than I’d planned. Brother Coop has some big plans for some things like a farmers market, organically grown produce and even vermi-composting. Things that I have been talking about here for a long time. I even have a chance to go to a conference on just those sort of things where I can learn more about them. Hopefully, I’ll learn enough to teach it to anyone I can tie down for the required amount of time. Should you be worried? Yep. I once was a Girl Scout. I know a little bit about tying knots. At least enough to know that untangling them can be tricky sometimes.
If you don’t know ‘vermi-’ refers to worms like red wrigglers and such. But of course if you’ve read enough of my articles in this paper you likely already know that.
Oh, about that conference I hope to go to with Brother Coop and another gal. If you want to find out about it just Google Growing Power. There’s some interesting information there.
I am just a bit disappointed with how many folks have adopted one or more of the nine 4x4 raised bed plots over at Community Seeds. I’ve been picking lettuce and spinach for my own use out of two of them. So Coop just told me to go ahead and pick one or two for my own. So I did. Wylie went with me this past Sunday and picked a mess of collard greens. He said they went down fine with beans and cornbread. I’ve enjoyed several tasty mixed green salads myself as well as cooked spinach.
Yeah. I did go over there and help plant the stuff. I’ve planted even more stuff since, especially some black diamond watermelons that I’m already drooling over and the plants haven’t even bloomed yet.
What I don’t understand is why some of the folks here in town who claim to be too poor to buy food haven’t lined up to get at least one of these 4x4 plots. Why they haven’t showed up to help with the tilling, the weeding, and the watering. All those things that must be done if you want to eat something that you’ve grown. I mean, come on folks! Dose the stuff out of a can really taste that much better that you absolutely have to get cash money so you can buy it at the store instead of growing your own.
Yeah, sure. It’s work. Sometimes hot, dusty and grimy. It also isn’t quick and you often have to wait for the season to be just right to plant or to harvest. To that complaint I say. SO. Get used to it. The way I see it with the budget crunch we are in there is no way the federal, state or even county government can feed us all much longer. I’m not even sure I’ll keep getting my Social Security Disability checks every month. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been wanting to turn my whole yard into a veggie garden and get chickens. Maybe this conference will give me some ideas on how to get that done.
Now, however, we have to get the last of the hot weather stuff planted in the gardens and harvest the end of the cool weather veggies. Then there are the things we can look forward to. Things like the graduations I mentioned above or the local Vol. Fire Departments annual BBQ dinner. That last will be this coming Saturday the fourteenth. They plan to start serving at five in the afternoon and keep going until there isn’t anything left to serve or folks stop showing up. (Just for y'all reading this in the blogosphere: The BBQ went great and tasted fan-totally-tastic! Ya shoulda been here, yum-mie! Don't know how much the VFD made on the event yet, just hope it was enough to keep the grass fire trucks on the road through the rest of grass fire season!)
I find myself working with the Community Seeds folks more than I’d planned. Brother Coop has some big plans for some things like a farmers market, organically grown produce and even vermi-composting. Things that I have been talking about here for a long time. I even have a chance to go to a conference on just those sort of things where I can learn more about them. Hopefully, I’ll learn enough to teach it to anyone I can tie down for the required amount of time. Should you be worried? Yep. I once was a Girl Scout. I know a little bit about tying knots. At least enough to know that untangling them can be tricky sometimes.
If you don’t know ‘vermi-’ refers to worms like red wrigglers and such. But of course if you’ve read enough of my articles in this paper you likely already know that.
Oh, about that conference I hope to go to with Brother Coop and another gal. If you want to find out about it just Google Growing Power. There’s some interesting information there.
I am just a bit disappointed with how many folks have adopted one or more of the nine 4x4 raised bed plots over at Community Seeds. I’ve been picking lettuce and spinach for my own use out of two of them. So Coop just told me to go ahead and pick one or two for my own. So I did. Wylie went with me this past Sunday and picked a mess of collard greens. He said they went down fine with beans and cornbread. I’ve enjoyed several tasty mixed green salads myself as well as cooked spinach.
Yeah. I did go over there and help plant the stuff. I’ve planted even more stuff since, especially some black diamond watermelons that I’m already drooling over and the plants haven’t even bloomed yet.
What I don’t understand is why some of the folks here in town who claim to be too poor to buy food haven’t lined up to get at least one of these 4x4 plots. Why they haven’t showed up to help with the tilling, the weeding, and the watering. All those things that must be done if you want to eat something that you’ve grown. I mean, come on folks! Dose the stuff out of a can really taste that much better that you absolutely have to get cash money so you can buy it at the store instead of growing your own.
Yeah, sure. It’s work. Sometimes hot, dusty and grimy. It also isn’t quick and you often have to wait for the season to be just right to plant or to harvest. To that complaint I say. SO. Get used to it. The way I see it with the budget crunch we are in there is no way the federal, state or even county government can feed us all much longer. I’m not even sure I’ll keep getting my Social Security Disability checks every month. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been wanting to turn my whole yard into a veggie garden and get chickens. Maybe this conference will give me some ideas on how to get that done.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Alt Op #18 from Lone Oak Newsletter
Yeah, I know Ben Laden is dead. Good riddance. Now, on with other things.
Have the rest of you noticed that a lot of stuff has been showing up in your inboxes over and over again. Most of it is stuff that sounds good. If you don’t stop and think about it, but lets face it, whose got time to do that. Well, a friend of mine did when I sent her the one about that proposed 28th amendment to the constitution just for grins. I figured if there was anything hinky about it, that she’d jump on it and she did. She sent me the following link: http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/28thamedment.asp
Why am I passing this on to you? Because first of all this thing is taking up way to much space in our inboxes and our minds. Secondly, it’s mostly wrong. Yes, it is a proposed 28th amendment to the constitution, but hey, I could start one circulating saying that men should be denied high office because they think about sex so often. That would also be a proposed 28th amendment because the last actual amendment was the 27th one. So any amendment proposed now will of course be the proposed 28th amendment.
Snopes goes on to point out however that just about all of the rest is, well, not true. This is stuff we should know, but it just hasn’t been sexy enough to make it onto the nightly news or you tube I guess. The page on Snopes goes into more detail but to summarize: Members of Congress can NOT retire with full pay after 1 term, they do have to pay into social security (the reason most of them get so much more out of it is they make so much more money than most of us anyway!), they are NOT exempt from sexual harassment laws, nor did they try to exempt themselves from that healthcare legislation everyone is so upset about. Snopes even quotes the section of that legislation that says the members of Congress and their staff will only have access to plans created by the bill or offered through the exchanges it establishes.
Dang. Sort of busts that indignation bubble don’t it.
Don’t worry. We can still get all upset about how most of those guys and gals in DC are so rich to begin with and only seem to get richer. Then there’s that new ruling by the Supreme Court that lets big business make whatever donations they want to folks running for office. Sort of gives the impression that our democracy is now for sale to the highest bidder. After all, the same folks that convince us all to buy the ‘right’ kind of deodorant or toothpaste can also convince us to vote for the ‘right’ candidate, and all those big bucks can buy a lot of ad space. Then there are also all those folks who can report their opinions as if it were breaking, factual news.
Yeah, I know. This article is nothing BUT opinion. My opinion. Just like it say’s in it’s title. There may be some fact mixed in here but I freely admit that it is probably highly colored by my own skewed little outlook.
However, when I’m reporting on something for this peerless publication you can bet that I will be sticking as close to the facts, and nothing but the facts, as I can.
Unless of course, I get a gig writing advertising copy. Then, like all the others who do that job, I will be singing the praises of whoever is paying me the money to write the tripe that they want me to write. That’s how it works with advertising. I don’t have to believe a word of it. I’d just have to get you to believe it and go buy the product, or cast the vote, or make the donation. Now doesn’t that kinda make you stop and think about a lot of stuff that’s going around the net now days?
Have the rest of you noticed that a lot of stuff has been showing up in your inboxes over and over again. Most of it is stuff that sounds good. If you don’t stop and think about it, but lets face it, whose got time to do that. Well, a friend of mine did when I sent her the one about that proposed 28th amendment to the constitution just for grins. I figured if there was anything hinky about it, that she’d jump on it and she did. She sent me the following link: http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/28thamedment.asp
Why am I passing this on to you? Because first of all this thing is taking up way to much space in our inboxes and our minds. Secondly, it’s mostly wrong. Yes, it is a proposed 28th amendment to the constitution, but hey, I could start one circulating saying that men should be denied high office because they think about sex so often. That would also be a proposed 28th amendment because the last actual amendment was the 27th one. So any amendment proposed now will of course be the proposed 28th amendment.
Snopes goes on to point out however that just about all of the rest is, well, not true. This is stuff we should know, but it just hasn’t been sexy enough to make it onto the nightly news or you tube I guess. The page on Snopes goes into more detail but to summarize: Members of Congress can NOT retire with full pay after 1 term, they do have to pay into social security (the reason most of them get so much more out of it is they make so much more money than most of us anyway!), they are NOT exempt from sexual harassment laws, nor did they try to exempt themselves from that healthcare legislation everyone is so upset about. Snopes even quotes the section of that legislation that says the members of Congress and their staff will only have access to plans created by the bill or offered through the exchanges it establishes.
Dang. Sort of busts that indignation bubble don’t it.
Don’t worry. We can still get all upset about how most of those guys and gals in DC are so rich to begin with and only seem to get richer. Then there’s that new ruling by the Supreme Court that lets big business make whatever donations they want to folks running for office. Sort of gives the impression that our democracy is now for sale to the highest bidder. After all, the same folks that convince us all to buy the ‘right’ kind of deodorant or toothpaste can also convince us to vote for the ‘right’ candidate, and all those big bucks can buy a lot of ad space. Then there are also all those folks who can report their opinions as if it were breaking, factual news.
Yeah, I know. This article is nothing BUT opinion. My opinion. Just like it say’s in it’s title. There may be some fact mixed in here but I freely admit that it is probably highly colored by my own skewed little outlook.
However, when I’m reporting on something for this peerless publication you can bet that I will be sticking as close to the facts, and nothing but the facts, as I can.
Unless of course, I get a gig writing advertising copy. Then, like all the others who do that job, I will be singing the praises of whoever is paying me the money to write the tripe that they want me to write. That’s how it works with advertising. I don’t have to believe a word of it. I’d just have to get you to believe it and go buy the product, or cast the vote, or make the donation. Now doesn’t that kinda make you stop and think about a lot of stuff that’s going around the net now days?
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