Three issues today--just keeps raining

Three Issues:
Swine flu. Sometimes I sincerely doubt our intellect. Who would actually quit eating pork because this possible pandemic was named ‘swine’ flu? Evidently, quite a few, since last Tuesday the pork industry took an 18 million dollar hit! Now, I am not an advocate of the method of confinement by which our meat is raised. (When I retire, I will be raising our own chickens for meat and not just eggs.) I strongly believe that raising our meat so confined is unethical (interesting to use that word when I/we are going to eat them) and with the use of antibiotics is dangerous and unnecessary. I believe in eating meat, but there are healthier, more humane ways to do it. At the same time, I just don’t know how some are making the strange connection that ‘swine’ flu would be passed to humans in meat that is cooked to 160 degrees. I come from the farm (I’m still there) and this doesn’t make sense to me. Personally, I feel much more comfortable eating the venison that my husband and daughter hunt in the fall. I help with the butchering so I do get up close and personal with the meat we eat. I detest those who devour their McBurgers at the same time talking about the ‘poor little animals and how sad it is that they must die’. I guess it is ok to allow others to do your killing for you. When asked, ‘why do you kill those animals’, I reply “Because I can’t eat them alive.” OK, now I am stepping down from that soap box. Heaven help us if the H1N1 becomes worse!
The Economy, stupid! No insult intended, but I couldn’t resist. I live in a state that is run by an idiot—bet you can’t guess which one it is because it seems to be commonplace. Our state has a ‘reserve fund’ of over a billion dollars. Our state has unemployment out the wazzoooooo and has been borrowing unemployment funds from the feds since last November. Our governor says that the reserve fund is for a rainy day. Just what exactly constitutes a ‘rainy day’. It’s raining cats and dogs and we are in the middle of a perfect storm! My oldest daughter is drawing unemployment and is trying to hold onto her home and raise our granddaughter (luckily they are only 4 miles away—at least they aren’t at the other end of the country). There are NO jobs. She doesn’t have medical insurance, granddaughter has Medicaid. Her unemployment will eventually run out—then what!? And it is EVERYWHERE. And we have asses in the Statehouse who want to ‘save it for a rainy day’. The ark is loaded and leaving! The President seems to understand, which is a lot different than the loser that we had in the White House before. Trouble is, can anyone get us out of this and soon? The answer is no since we are in the transition phase where we come to understand that capitalism is dead (rest in peace) in the last depression and we have only been working with an illusion since then since everyone is so afraid to let go. We will come through, but it will be an humbling experience that we deserve. And the world will be a different place—hopefully at least greener.
The War—many people are saying ‘at last, we are fighting in the right country’, but we still have a very expensive mess left in Iraq and jumping and running may take a bit more time than we would like. Keep in mind that no one has ever ‘won’ in Afghanistan, but we had a good chance in the 80’s had we stayed to clean up after the Russian mess. However, the American people only want to use money for war, not for the peace, so the Taliban moved in very smoothly. If Americans could just see that an investment in peace is much farther reaching than an investment in war, we would not be in Afghanistan. Of course, peace doesn’t seem to us to be ‘patriotic’ so it is not preferred. Don’t even get me started on that boondoggle in Iraq—an excellent vacation spot for George and Laura. Much closer to their Saudi buds.
You might note a bit of bitterness today. We have a quarter acre of vegetable garden for the farmer’s market that is standing in mud and isn’t planted. Wettest spring in years. We’ll do what farmers have done for centuries—we’ll just wait.

Peace to us all.

New Year's Day

It’s nine o’clock in the morning and the house is uncharacteristically quiet. Last night was New Year ’s Eve and we stayed up to watch the ball drop on tv. My eight year old granddaughter was with us and she really wanted to see it drop, but we all fell asleep and woke up at 12:04. I have never felt so little promise at the beginning of a New Year. True, we have a very promising president who will take office in three weeks and I really believe he will make a big difference, but he has been left with bigger problems than even FDR faced. That’s the way it always goes. A progressive is elected to clean up an idiot’s mess and is given only so much time. Then, if he is blamed for having to raise taxes, etc. for money to clean it up and the Republicans start heckling. And if his efforts to reform and change are not completely successful, they will point their fingers. But the rest of the world has been heckling and pointing fingers at us for decades since we have the dubious distinction of being the only industrialized country whose government does not think its citizens deserve decent affordable health care, whose environmental policies have been laughable. To me the cause is two things—greed and war. We are so greedy that we allow rich people to deregulate our economy and we allow idiots to borrow huge sums of money for a war for his/their egos. Can you imagine what good that war money would have done? Why do we never borrow that kind of money for peace and good, only war and weapons. The vast difference between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ is increasing. The futility of capitalism was brought home to me in a big way two days ago. My oldest daughter lost her job. She and my granddaughter have a tiny house with a mortgage 4 miles from us across the river in a 5 block country village. The nearest town has around 4,000 people and it is only four miles from her, but there are no jobs there. The two factories that have supported that town, one for over 100 year and one for around 50, are beginning to shut down. The residents there look to Danville, Illinois and to Lafayette, Indiana for jobs and there are no new ones, in fact 800 people just got laid off at a truck trailer factory. The unemployment office is flooded with applicants as the economy gets worse and worse. Her unemployment will not give her money for at least 4 weeks. In the meantime, there is the mortgage, heating bills, electricity, phone bills to pay with no money. In 9 days she will be able to get food stamps, if she has the gas money to go get them (county seat where the office is 10 miles away) and the gas money to go to a grocery store. We will help in many ways, but what of those without family around? My husband and I have pretty secure jobs (we think) at the nearby University. Between us, we’ve been there over 40 years! But we are sure my salary and his wage will be frozen for awhile and we have bills to pay, too. We wonder how many people we can support with just 2 jobs, but we may find out. If my daughter and granddaughter have to come to live with us, the house is small, but we’ll make do. If daughter #2 loses her job and must also live here, we’ll make do. Anyway, right now we can clean out the pantry to make sure daughter #1 has basics and we can give her some gas money. Some system, huh? And there is no level playing field. Those who have lost a great deal of money had more money than most to begin with so even though they will moan, most will still be ok.
A problem overall is that many people have an interesting definition of ‘want’ and ‘need’. It is so blurred that to make a distinction is very difficult for them. To suggest that all the high tech gadgets are not necessary can send some into shock! To suggest that they actually use their stove to cook every day because it is better and cheaper to eat at home is quite different from their usual way of life! To suggest that there is more work they can do for themselves when they get home from ‘work’ causes a blank stare. To suggest that more family members should be living in those McMansions and that we all don’t need as much indoor living space as we think we do is unthinkable to some! Slight exaggerations? Maybe, but not too far off target.
My husband and I have a strategy that we are working on/have done that hopefully will benefit not just us, but our entire extended family. When early spring comes, my husband and I will plant three very large gardens so that we can sell vegetables at the local farmers market and so that everyone in the extended family will be able to eat well. We normally sell only eggs, noodles and baked goods, knitted items, but with our acreage, we are beginning to develop even more. Our newly planted fruit trees won’t bear for a few years, but in time those will factor into the farmers market sales, too. Chickens are laying and look healthy, so we have eggs to sell. Hopefully, there will money for people to buy what they need at the farmers markets in my area this year.
Happy New Year! May we all be here next year to tell about how we survived. Good health to all.

Sauerkraut and Noodles and life goes on

Noticed that the economic summit of the past few days came to the conclusion that all economies must have regulation or this mess that we are in could happen again. I guess the Republican idea that the U.S. could be a rogue and just decide not to regulate is a privilege that we cannot take anymore. The rest of the world is watching and we have to start acting like we are part of it. The President was honest enough to say that this depression (not calling it that yet, but that will come) could be worse than the last Great one. So NOW it becomes serious to him! Of course, now someone else has to clean up after him and his friends.
If you haven’t yet seen Obama’s web site change.gov, it is worth the look. What a great way to get feedback from the people!
But our lives go on. Yesterday was the first day of deer hunting season and Mike and daughter Kristina were out hunting in the morning and late afternoon. Kristina almost always gets a deer on the first day of the season, but not this time. Most of our red meat is venison and the object is to get as much as possible during the season to try to get us from year to year. It is also beneficial to the wild herd to thin out the population or it will weaken and die. Hunting and marksmanship has always been a big part of our family life. My father is 80 and a few months ago he won the championship trapshooting trophy for all age classifications for the states of Indiana and Illinois and he is the only person to do it twice! He claims that his father was better than him and I personally saw my grandfather shoot from a sitting position a walnut thrown into the air (he used a walker to get around then). Kristina has the same good sight and reflexes. Mike also loves to hunt. When he brings them home, we do our own butchering. It takes almost an entire day and is exhausting, but worth it. Summer sausage and jerky make great Christmas presents. The deer around here eat what the cattle eat so there is very little ‘gamey’ flavor.
Also yesterday, it was time to take the sauerkraut from the big crock and can it in jars for the year. I used huge flat dutch cabbages from my dad's fall garden (I always have him grow those very large ones just for me to make kraut) and about six weeks ago, sat at the picnic table in the back yard and shredded the cabbages as thinly as possible and put the cabbage and salt into the crock. It’s the German in us that longs for all things pickled. Just two weeks ago, our garden was tilled after I picked all of the spinach, and gave all the swiss chard, radishes and broccoli plants that were left to the chickens. Today, I began getting ready for Thanksgiving by making a huge batch of noodles which are drying on the racks right now. I have orders for my noodles and will need some for us so I may have to do it again next week. Soap to make that I will get to soon, I hope.