The other day I was on the Facebook looking at one of the dairy farmers posts I follow and they were talking about farm sanctuaries – which are purported to be the equalivent to animal rescues and human sanctuaries. Apparently, if a food animal is somehow abused or perceived to be abused then it deserves to live it’s life out on a zoo. It’s the personification of livestock, as if animals had feelings beyond biological instincts. Not that there is much truth to that.
But on the other hand, farms are often sanctuaries. You can’t disconnect the raising of crops and animals from the natural environment that exists, and certainly not the laws and processes that rule nature. They are a place that is inheritantly non-urban, taking up vast expanses of land, converting natural resources into food and fiber. Yet in most cases, they are sustainable and go on from generation to generation, soaking up natural resources, and following natural processes. In that sense they are very much sanctuaries.
Thank you for sponsoring my blog, I said to the realators under my breath as I looked at the advertisement for the standard vinyl-covered suburbanite house like so many I ride my mountain bike past coming home from Five Rivers at dusk after work. I shouldn’t dump that much on advertising, I mean my blog produced $225 in revenue in August from that kind of shit, and I’ve already earned another $30 from the first week of September – all from rambles about hillbilly incense and photos of wildflowers and dreams about goats and mountains.
It’s a Hump Day and like usual I’ll ride to work. 🚲 It’s not like there is a bus any more. I saw the equestrian lady from Rensselearville who drives that giant black horse-hauling truck that works hybrid had to park in the south end, without the express on her days in when I rode past that lot. Sucks for everyone that used to ride the 519. Who knows, Monday I’ll have to decide between the local and driving in as rain seems likely come Sunday into Monday. But we need the rain, as I want to have fires 🔥 up in the woods without burning everything down.
Last night I snuck up to Five Rivers 🐦 right after work until around 7:15 PM when it was getting much too dark to hang out there anymore so I flipped on the lights, drove home, fried up more zucchuni and onions and remaining rice and beans I had. 🍳 Been exploring a lot of new tunes and music on OpenTune which allows you to access probably quite illicitly YouTube Music without ads. But what do I care, I do plenty of illegal and illicit activities, at least according to the ads for Rickey PLLC that I’ve been seeing. I knew they were a big Ag Lawfirm, helping farms navigate things like estates, trusts and manure management law, but I guess they also have a criminal division. 🚜 Maybe that’s why I’m targeted for such ads. Don’t you know burning plastic is a crime! As is smoking grass in the National Forest. 🌲 Incense and a hot fire helps. 🎇
Ran to store this morning for moo juice 🐄, up as early as the Teat Strippers as they fill their bulk tanks to be hauled off, pasteurized and restocked in even more plastic bottles soon to be trashed. 🗑️ I smashed down the trash this morning, soon enough to be recycled into carbon dioxide for the trees. 🧅 Broke open that 5-lb bag of cornmeal, and with some onions, spinach, zucchuni of course, oatmeal, whole wheat flower, Stevia and lots of Mike’s Hot Sauce in the plastic bottle, turned into cornmeal pancakes. 🥞 Lots of coffee ☕ to ensure I will be jittery and anxious all day, but at least I’m just riding my bike to work so no driving and listening to my creeky old pickup. 🫘 Left a giant bag of kidney beans on the counter so I remember to soak half the bag and boil them up come morning. 🫕 I like pinto beans almost as much as Edward Abbey – cheap, healthy protein without much plastic garbage!
Farmers market day today at the Plaza, 🍆 and what I really need and want is more zucchuni as I full admit that season is probably only about a month left before it’s done for the year. Also cherry tomatoes! 🍅 It’s good to get downtown from time to time and catch up with the gang up on Capitol Hill. 🏫 With all that talk of incense, I got some of the incense I got up at camp and lit one of those sticks off this morning. It certainly is pungent, 👃 not sure if I love the smell making everything smell like college dorm room. But it meant I finally found my shaving cream. 🪒 Should be a good day, time to shower and get on my bike 🚲 to work.
Going to rain come Sunday, 🌧️ so I may be revising my plans to head out to Vermont for the weekend. 🏕️ We will see, I had a lot of fun last year camping off Troll Road on Prospect Mountain. Got to be careful with fire though with things being dry, although it’s still fairly green out. 🌸 Saturday does look real nice. Of course I’ve also been thinking about Schoharie with all that great produce they currently have at Shauls. 🍅 Maye the rain will hold off on Sunday. I’ll keep an eye on the forecast, 👁️ things definately could change between now and Sunday, especially when it comes to timing.
Dependency on heroin is often said to be a bad thing. After all, you are a relying on a chemical to live not unlike the use of statins to keep people alive with high levels of bad cholesterol or wearing contact lens to see. However, the later too things don’t have the same level of stigma attached to them, mostly because statins and contacts lens haven’t been defined by society as illegal even though they are very much a dependency. I mean, what is alternative? Death and blindness.
For most people, heorin addiction and use of statins can be avoided by care with pain killers and generally living a healthy lifestyle and eating primarily unprocessed foods and not too much meat. You really don’t want to be addicted or rely on either one of those things if you can avoid it. It really helps to develop a taste for things that aren’t loaded with sugars, salt and fat as much of the widely advertised processed foods are. If it’s good for your burn barrel, it’s bad for your health.
Truth there isn’t much of a way to protect your vision from becoming far-sighted beyond spending a lot of time outdoors. I did a fair bit growing up in country building trails and playing in creek, but I also admit I was a computer geek in the 1990s and also spent too much time indoors, playing around with Mac OS and Linux. Exposure to the outdoors and natural amounts of UV light is so important to protecting young people’s vision. In that way I feel I wish I had spent more time outdoors and less in front of a computer as a youth. Despite what was the meme at the time, just because you spend a lot of time working with computers doesn’t make you a programmer or necessarily particularly good with them.
Statins are tough, you can’t just wean yourself off them though good diet helps. Fortunately I don’t need them and hopefully never will. But what about vision? Well thanks to technology, it’s quite possible to get your vision permanently corrected, thanks to LASIK surgery. It’s not cheap – around $5,000 – but it’s one of the few things that you can buy for $5k that won’t end up in the scrap yard and ultimately the landfill in a few years. Vision correction is permanent, a lifetime investment free of required doctors visits and buying more plastic things to stick in your eyes and those stupid aluminum-topped packages you’ re always picking out of the fire pits.
Really, maintaining your health is important. As is fixing issues in your life permanently at least when you can. As permanence is rare, and when you make a long-range investment it is worth it.
Also noting that Tom Shipley was from Rolla, MO. I bet they have some good pot down there, grown using off-grid solar power in Idaho pasture pig shit between the oaks and grasses that dominate that area.
