New Blog

Hey, all!

I've got a new blog up and running, in case you are interested. It is mostly old and new Alternative Opinion articles that have been published in the Lone Oak Newsletter.

I usually edit them some more before I post them, trying to make them more blog-ish.

The address of this new blog is www.arurualpointofview.blogspot.com Yeah, I know. Rural is totally misspelled, but I can't figure out how to fix it other than starting all over again and that is not an option. The actual title of the thing is 'A rural Point of View.' I've posted the last 4 or so Alt. Ops. that have been published as well as a couple of old ones from years back.

Go take a look.

Enjoy.

Plans, or: would you like some cheese with that whine?

Yeah. I know. It's still cold out there. Muddy, to. Down right yucky, in fact.

But. . ..

Even with the dreary weather I can tell that the day's are getting just a tad longer now that the winter solstice has passed. Once more my fingers are itching to dig into the dirt. I want to put some thing down around my little lasagna garden, and also from my front door to my mail box to make a nice walk way. All the idea's I’ve had involve cardboard, or feed sacks with lots of mulch on top.

I keep looking at the North East corner of my front yard. A place where the sun seldom shines except in early spring; and even in late fall, and winter, when the leaves are off the trees, that area only gets filtered sunlight. Oh, do I have plans for that area! But alas, I have little money. A nice little pond with a fountain in it, would be great there. Especially in the hot summer. Hostas and ferns tucked in around it would just add to the cooling cozy-ness of the area I think. Of course I’d also need some patio furniture and some kind of patio like stuff on the ground to keep what little grass and weeds grow there at bay or mow the place a lot.

There's an area out back that would work great as a vegetable garden. But I don't want to plow it up. There's just enough grade to it that plowing could cause the soil to erode faster than I could build it up. Once more I’m thinking of cardboard and feed sacks.

How can cardboard and feed sacks be of any use in a garden you may wonder. Here’s the plan. Use the feed sacks that are made of paper, cut off their bottoms and down each side. That will give me two sheets of just about the right size for a row of veggies, or I could just cut up cardboard boxes to the same width. I lay those down and top them off with some of the super well rotted stuff from my old manure pile. The rows I could lay out perpendicular to the natural flow of the water off of that area and back them up with bricks or some such on the down hill side.

The feed sacks that have more plastic in them, particularly those made with what looks like woven plastic strands, I can cut up the same way as the paper ones and use them between the veggie rows as a path way, maybe even cover them with some kind of mulch.

But what to plant? Obviously stuff I’d like to eat. Perhaps even stuff that I'd just like to see how it grows. I'd definitely like to also get some chickens as well as plants. Maybe some ducks to do garden duty. At least ducks wouldn't peck holes in my tomatoes.

I have goats so there's some more fertilizer for the garden, and if I do get some chickens that would be even more fertilizer.

So what have we got here? Plans for chickens, and ducks, and tomatoes, and corn, and beans, and bell peppers, and banana peppers, and okra, and potatoes, and lettuce, and cabbage, and ferns, and hostas, and. . ..

But, it's cold out there. It's wet out there. My knee hurts when I get up from working on the computer. I don't have the money for nearly half of what I'd have to buy. Stuff like mulch, and pool liners, and sand (if I built that little pool), not to mention the cost of chickens or ducks and what it would cost to fix up a place to keep them safe from varmints.

Sigh. I guess I'll do what I can and just keep dreaming about the rest. Oh, well. Such is life when you ain't rich.

Annoucing My Newest Blog

Just so y'all will know I have a new blog where I am posting new and old copies of the "Alternative Opinion" article I write for the Lone Oak Newsletter.

I am editing them so that they will make sense as a blog as well as trying to make them make more sense generally. I'm even trying to fix the comma problems, but I somehow doubt I'm improving anything that way.

I'm also hoping that by editing some of the sentences and such that I'm just plain making them a better example of writing. I have been taking some writing classes after all, and wouldn't want to be embarrassed if, say, my instructor should wander into my blog-o-sphere.

Of course, I am also planning on contacting some agents and I definitely want to empress them. Who knows. Maybe I could actually get them to find someone who'd pay me for my writing!

Wouldn't that be cool!

My new blog can be found at www.arurualpointofview.blogspot.com Go check it out. Hope it entertains you. In one way or another.

Snow days

The weather man said it was going to snow. Boy did it snow! At least four inches. Maybe more here in Lone Oak. Sometimes I hate it when those guys are right.

I will not accuse my goats of being stupid again. At least not until they do something really dumb again. Why? They are staying in their little barn and waiting for me to bring them feed. I don't think they've even left to get water. Even after I broke the ice for them the ungrateful wretches.
It sure looks pretty out there. A regular post card. I only have a few problems with it: (1) It's cold. (2)Being a good ol' Texas gal, I am absolutely certain that ice is only supposed to occur in big ol' glasses of tea. (3)It's really cold out there. (4)Pretty postcard snow is supposed to come in pictures from Alaska, and other places where snow happens, not appear in my back and front yard! (5)It's especially not supposed to get all over my truck, or the roads, or otherwise make it hard to get places. I vote we send this white stuff back to Alaska or Cannada.

I blame global warming. It's messing up the weather patterns and causing ice to occur outside of tea glasses. It just ain't right.

I've started another blog. This one is called, uh, now what did I call the sucker? Oh, yeah, "A Rural Point of View." I'm posting my Alt Op article from the Lone Oak Newsletter in it. It's on blogger.com same as this one. I'm editing them again before I post them so they will hopefully make since to folks who arn't from Lone Oak.

Maunderings 1/1/11

Ok. Here’s what I’m thinking. About my land taxes and finances in general.

This coming Monday, 1/3/11, go to the bank and rip the money out of my IRA and stuff it into my savings account with the funds I’ve saved up to pay land taxes with. That will give me more than enough to draft out the cash I need to pay the land taxes. Especially as I’m only $120 away from having it already. That $120 won’t be taken out until the 15th however.
But with the taxes already paid I can instruct the bank to make the deposits to my savings from checking $140 starting with the one this month. That should give me a little over what I need to pay taxes next year. Even if I spend all of the IRA money (less the amount needed to finish off paying the land taxes, of course) that is left after uncle sugar gets his out of it.
Otherwise, I will have to have the bank pull $150 from my checking into my savings for next years taxes for the months of Feb. through Dec. just so I can have a little more than enough to pay the same amount again. That would give me the leeway of another full month (January) to get any extra on the tax bill into savings. Unless I’ve left almost every cent the government leaves me of that 21 thou in savings and not spent it, just so I can have that cushion against higher land taxes.
Oh, yeah. The bank will be getting a chunk of that IRA as well as I won’t be waiting until the 8th of March when it’s officially time to decide if I want to keep it there or roll it somewhere else.

OR

I’m sure the bank would be much happier if I pulled $120 from my A-line account and used that to get the taxes paid earlier. It would take me about two months to pay that loan off. I could still have the bank up the amount going into savings to $140 this month so I could have the tax money saved up by Dec. I’d be pinched for the next two months but it’d work. Then I could wait until March 8th to rip that cash out of the IRA without having to pay the bank didely. I would only have to pay the IRS.

I’m thinking the last paragraph above is my best bet. Even if I decide to leave my IRA totally alone.

Now another question I need to answer.

Okay. Let’s say that I do rip that money out of my IRA come March 8th , knowing that it will be less because the gov. will get it’s share! What do I do with it. Why am I taking it out instead of adding to it like I am to my savings account?

Well, duh. I’m not adding to it as I am to my savings account because I just don’t have the bucks! Unless I win that PCH money between now and then! (HA!!)

Ummm. Another thought just intruded. What if I stashed the savings account money into the IRA then drew enough out of it to pay the gov. taxes on the IRA funds and the banks fee for early withdrawal of funds. Then told them to stash that $140 in the IRA instead of a savings account? Ummm. No. Probably would not increase my IRA’s earnings enough over the next year to make it worth it. Or would it? Guess I’ll have to ask the bank folks and hope they don’t finagle me.

Okay. Let’s just say I will get that cash out of the IRA. To what end?

I need a more reliable truck. Or some other kind of transport that can haul at least 6 bags of feed and a couple of square bales. I need a way to get out into my pasture, damn it! I haven’t been out there in at least 2 or 3 years!!
So that would be a good used truck or SUV and maybe an electric golf cart or gas guzzling 4 wheeler.
Could I profit from this? I see no particular profit in this idea other than making me feel better.

OR

Go back to college, to TAMU-C and get yet another degree. This time in Environmental Science. And go to those Permaculture classes in Ft. Worth. How would I USE that though. I’m sick of never using any of my degrees!! Sick of wasting the time and money used getting them. I’d still need a reliable ride and maybe DSL to take those on line courses I’d likely have to have.
How could I profit from this? I could agitate for a Permaculture course to be taught at TAMU-C or at one of the nearer Jr. Colleges with me as the instructor. If I were officially and legally a Permaculturalist (?) I could teach classes in it here in Hunt County, or actually do design work as a Permaculture designer (or whatever they are called), and be paid for it. I could offer my services to Lone Oak at a reduced rate. I could also maybe apply the Permaculture stuff to my place in a more rational and organized manner (with better knowledge of what to actually do), and thus reduce what I have to pay for power, food and water. Becoming more sustainable and independent myself.

OR

I could just haul off and do what I presently see as what needs to be done to my place to make it sustainable with that money. I could put a metal roof on the house with a rain water collection system added to it. I could top that with some solar panels and a small windmill out between the barns. There would of course be rain water collection systems put in place on every metal roof on my land. Ummm. Might not have quite enough for all of that.
Where would I profit from this? Save money on water/sewer bill. Maybe, if I demonstrate that I have pared down to zero trash I can get out of paying the garbage pick up. I’d Grow a lot of my own food and thus not have to spend money for it. I’d also slash at least some off of my power bill

OR

I could just chuck it all and go on a cruse or a trip to somewhere I’ve always wanted to go. Maybe buy a Motor home and go to all of the National Parks I’ve always wanted to see. Taking along a lot of empty canvases and full pant bottles with more than enough paint brushes, etc. Who knows. Maybe I could sell what I painted. I’d certainly have to do something with them as I have no freaking place to store them.

OR

I could decide to really go big into the goat biz. Buy electric fencing that I can move easily, along with equally mobile watering/feeding troughs, and shelters (igloo dog houses?), and start advertising to “clear your overgrown, brushy, bramble ridden land and organically fertilize it in one week to one month depending on the size of the land.” Then where ever the land is, I go out, set up the electric fence around it, put in the dog houses, and the water troughs; then add the goats, and let them get to work. I could use the doe’s and kids only, holding the boy back for working on cleaning up my place.
What would I need? Besides the fencing, the dog houses, and the water and feed troughs? Something to keep the kids from sliding under the fences. Perhaps a solar charger for the battery that would run the fence. A reliable vehicle and trailer to move all the equipment and the goats. Some occasional help. (Hell! I’d need a strong and physically active partner!)
I’d also might have to cut a fence line around the area the customer wanted cleared. A clear place to set up the electric fence. Then depending on how long the goats had to stay there I’d have to mow along it to keep it clear, and the fence working. Unless the customer already had a goat proof fence. Might be smart to also have a guard donkey.
Would I need insurance? In case something; like a coyote, feral dog or bob cat got to the goats, or the goats got out, and hit by a car/truck, or ate a car/truck/garden.
What would be my profit? Where could I pull in money from such and operation? From renting out my goats as organic land clearing machines. From having to feed them less. From selling baby goats I didn’t want to keep. (All the male ones. )
He he he. I could get two big castrated male goats to keep the smaller breeding billy company. And then try to train the big ones to pull a small cart. A small cart I could use in parades or around town just to advertise the business.

OR

I could choose to become a ‘professional’ writer. Use the money to get DSL put in and maybe an extra ‘business’ phone line. The problem there would be the continuing costs associated with that. Then I could get another, top of the line computer loaded with the same kind of programs as those of most publishing houses use. Plus one that will let me switch or translate formats from what one publishing house might want to what another uses. I could dive in and actually research these folks and find the one (or two!) that might be the best fit as well as an agent. I could also use some of the money to go to some of those writers events. Hell, maybe even a comic con or two.
Where would any income come from in this? Book sales. Speaking tours…Uh-oh. I’d have to take a class or two in public speaking for damn sure. And of course that magic word : residuals. Trouble is this would take some time. Maybe more to get started on than the goat idea.

OR

I could just leave that money where it is. Keep the status quo. Keep the truck I’ve got, the computer I’ve got, the situation I’m in.
Problems with that? This house in uninsured because I haven’t got the extra income needed to pay for insurance. I also haven’t got the extra income to make even the minor repairs that already are needed. I can’t afford to pay anyone to mow my front yard and I haven’t the money for the stuff to set up the irrigation system I’d need to turn it into an edible garden, much less for the stuff I’d need to get what can’t be found, made, or southern engineered into what I’d need for such a garden. Not to mention the seeds and / or plants. I doubt that truck of mine will last, besides with gas going up I won’t be able to afford to drive it much longer anyway. It’s also obvious that this health insurance company I’m with is likely going to keep raising it’s premiums on me and that the government will likely never raise what it pays me again. I wouldn’t be surprised if it decided to cut all SS payments. (After they gave themselves another raise, of course, for being so fiscally responsible!) Therefore, I have to get some more money SOMEWHERE! And I’m way to old to sell my ass on the street corners. There fore, despite the risks inherent in all of the idea’s above I HAVE TO DO SOMETHING!!!!

But what!? Pick one? Mix them up and do two at once or try to? The only thing going for me right now is that my little heard of six goats has, in the last week of December, doubled in size with the addition of six cute little kid goats.

Anybody want to buy a baby goat for Easter? For Valentines?

Somthing Interesting

Found something interesting while using PCH's Search and Win. Yeah, I know I'm not likely to win any thing, but as with the lottery, you can't win if you don't play. I've forgotten what I searched for now, but it had something to do with writers or writing.

Of course I was inundated with a page full of sites dealing with just that. One of them that I decided to check out was http://www.thewriterssite.com/ ,and it had a lot of info that I found interesting. I especially liked the blogger section.

In that section I found a blog by a Nathan Bransford. He is doing something really great this Christmas season. He is donating a dollar per comment on his blog to Heifer International.

His blog can also be found at http://www.nathanbransford.com/ Go there, comment. Help out Heifer International.

For those who might read this and not know what Heifer International is, I'll tell you. It's an organization that backs the old saying: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life."

How dose it do this?

Simple it gives livestock of one sort or another, a heifer, a pig, chickens, sheep, or what ever would be most suitable to a poor family somewhere. (Yes, here in the good ol' USA, too!) The family is also given training on the care of the beast and then, when the critter reproduces they pass the off-spring on to another nearby poor family. Quite often the milk from the heifer or the eggs from the chickens help stave off starvation for the family and the extras are sold to ensure better housing or even education for the children.

So if you ask me this is one of the better charities around. It teaches folks to fish instead of teaching them to sit around waiting for someone to hand them a fish to eat.

Oh, those web sites I mentioned above also have a lot of information on the publishing side of writing. Well, at least they seem to have a lot to me.

On his site Nathan Bransford asked that those who commented give their name, location, and a Christmas wish, but with only 50 characters to work with and a long name I couldn't spell out my Christmas wish.

What is it?

Only to get up the nerve to start collecting rejection slips from publishers. I'm gonna havta start doing that someday.

Willing Ignorance is Stupid

This blog may step on some toes. Then again, it may not. It depends entirely, I suppose, on who reads it.

I have noticed something recently while conversing with people younger than I and even with a few of my own generation and older. There seems to be a tendency now to see thinking as hard work best left to specialists.

Once, some time ago I admit, I happened to ask someone what they thought about some religious something or other. I’ve forgotten what the topic was now. I do remember her reply as it went something like: “Oh, I don’t think about such things. It’s too hard.” And this was someone who went to church, well, religiously. I left the conversation wondering, whose job it was to think of such matters? Preachers, philosophers, Popes?

I have had similar discussions with people about science, and unless we are talking about cars, computers, cell phones or televisions, I often get a similar reaction. “It’s too hard to think about!” This is true especially if you try to get into the basic science, the physics, of why the car, computer, cell phone or television work.

Now, I am the first to admit that I really don’t need to know everything about the science of a vehicle in order to drive it, or a computer, cell phone or television, in order to use them. But at least I do know a smidgen of the basic physics behind and involved in why and how they work.

I also fancy myself a writer and I happen to be a darn good reader. I should be able to communicate with others. However, I have found my self boggled by the blank looks I sometimes get when I use a phrase or quote that I considered to be old fashioned and so hackneyed that surely everyone knows it. The looks I get are often those of confusion, as if the other person was wondering what the heck I meant. They seem confused even after I explain myself. For example: surely everyone knows the quote “…The plans of mice and men, oft go astray…”, and what it means. After all it means just what it says: you can plan all you want but it won’t always work out. I used that as an excuse for not being able to go to an event when I called to make apologies for not being there. From the reaction I heard, I do not believe they understood what I was trying to say until I rephrased it. I was not talking to a child but to an adult. Okay, a young adult, but still one old enough to have run into this quote at least half a dozen times I am sure. If only in old movies shown on TV or such. Going through school she must have run across the quote, or even read it in books other than text books, in magazines or newspaper articles. Providing of course that she is not like many of her fellows, and that she actually does read something other than what she absolutely MUST read.

And that brings me, at last, to the reason for this blog. If you have read my earlier blogs you may have even waded through my rant on the economy and how it simply is not sustainable. A good part of the blame for that unsustainable economy lies with big business. No, it is not a conspiracy! Neither is the problem I am going to try to point out with the link between education and big business.

In both cases, the unsustainable economy and the dumbed down population that big business needs to survive, what has happened was not really planned. I believe it occurred as a kind of positive feed back loop like those that resulted in the Gaia principle.

It came about this way: Big business needed workers that would work long hours at simple, repetitive, jobs for little pay; sometimes in harsh conditions, without complaint or question. As schools got bigger and had more kids to educate they had to find a way to ‘make more product, more efficiently’(more graduates) and there was the answer right there in the thriving big businesses around them. Thus, “I’m not paying you to think, Jones! Shut up, and get back to work or get the hell out!” became, “Johnny! Sit down, shut up, and do your lessons! Stop asking silly questions or you‘ll be sent home with a note from the principle!” If Johnny did not comply he was a bad student, got bad grades and dropped out to become a burden on society, with some notable exceptions I’ll mention later.

The ‘good’ students did well, grew up, graduated and went to college and got degree’s. Then, most of them got jobs in big business, in industry, and earned the expected amount. A salary they then spent, through credit cards and such, buying all the stuff that the commercials on T.V. and the ads in magazines told them they had to have to be seen as the successful people they had to be. Even those who only got a high school degree went on into some business or other, though they got paid less and did even more ‘rote’ work than those who had gone to college to become their supervisors. Both groups married at some point, often several times, had kids and started the cycle all over again. Thus supplying big business and the modern economy with two of the three basic things it needs to survive: (1) an ever growing supply of obedient, easily manipulated workers and (2) an ever growing supply of easily manipulated, and obedient consumers. This also resulted in the schools having ever more ‘product’ to deal with, often with little funds, thus forcing educators to treat the little tykes even more like identical products on an assembly line.

Yes, I know. Far more than public education figures into this. Indeed, if you stand back and just observe, as I have the habit of doing, you can see how even religions have a part in this. Even the supposedly rebellious, and independent minded, protestant religions have begun to place more responsibility for what they believe on their leaders than on the individual believer. How can I say that? Simple. That discussion with a friend I mentioned above. The one who declared such thinking to be ‘to hard’. So hard that she had to leave it to her preacher who “knows so much more about such things.”

Sadly, I recently saw a report on the TV News about a survey that proves that woman’s point of view is still alive and well. It was done by asking various people questions about religion. Not what they believed, but about the known facts of their religion and others. The only group that seemed to really know facts about religion were the Atheists and the Agnostics. Oh, dear reader, if you don’t know; there is a difference between the two. Atheists say there is nothing there; no heaven, no hell, no God, Son, or Holy Ghost. Agnostics, on the other hand, say they just know there is Something there (Agnos is derived from ancient Greek and means ‘knowing’) they just don’t know what It is, exactly, and some believe It is simply unknowable, whatever It is.

This willful ignorance in both things private (like the various religions), in business and in politics gives those who are ‘in charge’ of any of these spheres great power. It gives them great power because they become the ‘authority’. In many cases they become the authority in both senses, in that they are the ones expected to know all about what they are ‘in charge’ of and the ones who make sure everyone toes the line and obeys orders.

This leads to workers believing that, because the boss said so, it is a good thing to have all of their retirement tied up in company stocks. Heck, they even feel lucky about it! At least they do until the company goes belly up and they go from having a multi-million dollar retirement fund to being paupers. It also lets priests of any religion tell certain followers that some of the little ‘favors’ they want them to do for them are commanded by God and if they don’t comply then they will have sinned. I don’t say that all priests do this, far from it. But the temptation is there and some will believe that as they are, after all, the ones carrying such responsibility; they should get at least some perks. The same temptation faces the various managers in big businesses. Though there and in politics it is even more evident and more expected, if just as fiercely hidden.

This same willing ignorance can lead to women getting completely unnecessary hysterectomies because some doctor said they needed one. For the same reason, I have known people to get sicker or even become psychotic because various doctors gave them different medicines and they blithely assumed that if the doctor prescribed it, it had to be okay. The just didn’t ask the different doctors or the pharmacist about the side effects or how the various meds might react with each other. After all, why ask? Doctors are all knowing and all wise just like the preacher in the pulpit, the boss at work, the teacher in the school or the politician in office. And like those authorities they are never to be questioned.

What can we do about this will-full ignorance?

First I think we must all admit that quite often it is the ’bad’, the troublesome, students that have the most smarts, the most to contribute. After all the guy’s who originated Apple© and Microsoft© never earned university degrees. They got sidetracked into building multimillion dollar, even billion dollar businesses. We also have to get ordinary folks to realize that lack of education does not have to equal ignorance. It should be also be made known far and wide that, unlike stupidity, ignorance is easily curable. All it takes is a trip to the local library or logging onto the computer and doing a search with your favorite search engine. There the difference between stupidity (a.k.a.: willing ignorance) and unwilling ignorance will become clear. One group will find out everything there is to know about their favorite model, movie, or rock star; down to what they are doing that very second; and the dust on the thinking machine in their head will just get deeper. The other will look for answers to some of the harder questions of life. They might look up their own religion and then wander on to read about others, and other topics. They might get a bit boggled by what they read on that or all the conflicting views on global warming. Then they will just naturally dust off that really fine computer inside their heads and start using it to think about what they have read. They might even find out that using that brain not only feels good, but it is also fun and rewarding.

Unfortunately, there is no real cure for this willing ignorance that we are faced with that so many prefer. That is because it is so much easier, it makes life so much simpler and worry free if you don’t have to think. Because, after all, if you think for yourself you will occasionally run across the thought that you just might be wrong. After all you are only human. Hold on to that thought, tight. Expand it. Those AUTHORITIES I mentioned above; the preacher, the teacher, the boss, and yes, even the politician or scientist? Guess what. They, too, are only human. They can be as wrong as anyone else. But believe me, of all of them, it is usually only the scientist who is willing to say, “Oopsy, I may have gotten the decimal point a little off there!”

And what, I ask you, is wrong with that? With admitting that you were wrong or made a mistake? Or even with changing your mind, especially if you base it on what you believe to be sound data?

That is a trap we often put our ‘authorities’ and ourselves in to. We don’t want them to change their minds or be swayed by some other ‘facts’ that may come along, even if they happen to be better, or more factual than any that came before. This kind of reaction, this refusal to allow for change of mind or anything else is tied back to the foolishness of willing ignorance. It is characterized by the old saying “ I know what I know and I don’t want to be confused by the facts!”

I say there is nothing wrong with changing your mind, your religion, your political party or your brand of toothpaste. Some are more serious changes than others, that’s all. All such changes should be well thought out, and considered before being acted on.

Except maybe the toothpaste. Toothpaste is just toothpaste, after all. Isn’t it?