Can’t wait.
Monthly Archives: February 2012
Clearing
Good fences make good neighbors.
Robert Frost said that, and it’s as true now as it was then. Case in point: our redneck neighbor, who lives adjacent to the southwesterly area of our property.
When we bought the place, the entire rear acre-ish was wild and overgrown, and incidentally had three dumpsters worth of trash that people had been dumping over the years. We cleaned all that out, and took down some of the wild area for what is now the orchard (or the beginning of the orchard, anyway). Since then, we find more trash here and there, either bubbling up from being buried, or just from the redneck and his group tossing trash over the fenceline because they’re too lazy to dispose of it properly.
I admit I will never understand people who can’t be bothered to throw things away. For instance, I have a fascination with the two hoarder shows that are on, and I’m simply amazed at their representation of geologic layers – except instead of rock and sand formations, theirs are formations of takeout containers, pizza boxes, cups, bottles, cans, and any other sort of trash that the rest of us (rightfully) recycle or toss out as a matter of habit. Likewise the people who have mounds of crap all over their property, whether it is things they thing they can “salvage”, junk they’re collecting in hopes of it being worth something (scrap metal, which would be if they actually took it to a center), or just trash (because once again, they’re just too lazy to put it in a trash can).
This is how it is for the redneck neighbor, apparently: some things, like bags and bottles and whatnot, they’re just too lazy to deal with, so they toss it onto our property. Then we wind up picking it up and disposing of it. I should point out that the redneck family is not immobile, nor are they disabled in any fashion. They’re just lazy, trashy people. Other things, they’re simply too cheap to properly dispose of: this includes batteries and tires. Not just any tires, either: the kind of tires that are used on very large trucks and construction vehicles.
The redneck neighbor took down his fence at the very rear of our property for some reason last year. After that point, we had a rather massive issue with deer coming in from the state forest that we back up to, who then got into the back garden and treated it like their personal buffet. We dealt with that by raising the fence around the garden to about six feet. No more deer in the garden. However, we were still left with redneck neighbor tossing trash onto our property as if it was still his personal dumping ground.
So we had a fence guy come out to give us an estimate on getting the back 120 feet or so refenced. This time, with privacy fencing, solid enough that redneck can’t just roll dead tires back to our property, and high enough that they’d need to work to throw things over it. Since redneck neighbor’s kids and the neighbor kids to our immediate east also walk across our property to a sag in the wire on the fenceline we share with redneck, the sag is now completely down. So we added another 72 feet to get that portion fenced as well. When we were walking the fenceline to take a look before the fence guy was here, what did we find? yet another tire. Which we promptly rolled right back across the fenceline to his property. It’s your crap: deal with it.
This leaves us with about 150 feet of fencing that will still need to be redone. We went with the almost 200 feet to start because these are the areas most in need at this moment, and because it looks like I’ll be clearing the room they need to work by myself foe the most part. I don’t mind this, but there is a limit as to what I can get done before the actual fencing workers are due to show up, so this will do. Once this is all up, I’ll work on clearing the remaining line and we’ll get them back to complete the line. It will be a great joy to be at the back of the property and not have to look at redneck neighbor and the miscellaneous heavy equipment he has scattered around his property.
As an added bonus, we also noted that redneck neighbor has (illegally) cleared out a section of the state forest just at the back of our property where the line to the forest begins. Back there, he has huge tires – the really big ones, that go on dump trucks and the like – a big pile of garbage (bikes, pieces of heavy truck gear like cranks and brakes, and just general crap), and a dead log picker. That will be an issue for the state to take up with him, because they’re definitely going to be notified about that.
In the meantime, we’ll have the start of a better neighbor in place: a new fence.
Get. Bent.
It’s nice that you’re now coming out and flat out admitting that this, like abortion, is simply another means of trying to to preempt womens’ control over their own bodies. A bunch of old white guys get to decide not just access to birth control for women in Catholic/religious organizations – something a vast majority of people, including Catholics, agree should not be restricted – but all women, period, regardless of where they work. And our dumbass senator, Marco Rubio, is trying to join in on the fun. At this rate, in a week you’ll be debating whether women should be allowed to drive or work outside the house.
Let me tell you something: once you people begin to care just as much as life once it leaves the womb as you pretend to care when it hasn’t, then you can posture all you want. Until then – and I’m talking to you, members of the Catholic Church, who ignored kiddie-diddlers for (literally) decades, and to you, other right wing nutters who think all social assistance programs should be shut down – get bent.
Bee feed
If we already had bees, they would have already been out foraging, gathering at least pollen (and probably nectar as well) around here of late. How do I know this? Oh, just an educated guess.
The world is ending!
Well, according to some people, anyway. Not me. I’m not into that end of the world nonsense, Mayan or otherwise. It’s interesting to me to see what people think is going to bring about the end of the world as we know it (TEOTWAWKI): earthquakes, solar flares that result in EMPs, the end of oil, global financial collapse, etc. You know it, someone probably believes it ill result in the end of the worl.
Tonight was the beginning of a series fro National Geographic called Doomsday Preppers. They had a one shot special a few months ago, and I figured it wouldn’t take long for them (or someone else) to come up a series about these kinds of people. It didn’t.
This evening they ran the first two episodes, four people/families each. For the most part, the people seem exactly as I expected: plunging right over the fine line that separates being prepared for a disaster from being completely paranoid and obsessed about it.
“Bullets. Lots and lots of bullets.” That about sums it up for most of them: lots of weapons to keep the marauding hordes at bay when the shit hits the fan. Which strikes me as rather odd that anyone would appear on this show and tell the world where they are located, so those marauding hordes will know where they are.
Some have bugout plans, but my question for those already in rural areas is what exactly makes one rural area that you’ve already set up as your home base, defensible and stocked, less safe than some other rural area you’ve set up the same way?
More to come…
Taking the day off
Not by choice. The past few days I’ve felt decidedly unwell: dizzy, nauseated, massive headache, arms feel heavy and weak at the same time, etc. Not the flu – I get a flu shot every year now given all the cancer nonsense and the fact that my white blood cell count is not back to normal after all this time (and probably never will be). Seems like a case of RC. Random Crap. Hopefully it will get out of here soon so I can get back to doing the things that need to get done before the season really starts.
The season comes to a close
The football season, that is! Tonight’s the last game until fall – boo. I’m sure we’ll find a way to keep ourselves occupied in the offseason, which is the real season on the ranch. Tonight we’ll have pizza, subbing for brisket, and guacamole, and chips, and other assorted crap that is suitable for noshing during a Super Bowl.
The flats started last month in the barn are all up. Tomorrow I’ll start the flats of tobacco (for mom) and keep working on the reconfiguration of the frames in the front garden. And f still refuses to rain, more dragging hoses to the trees to try to keep them going. The grapefruit and the orange out in the orchard are striking quite the pathetic poses, as are the lemons. Sad, but I figure they should be able to pull themselves out of it. After all, citrus farmers down here have had trees go through this kind of oddball weather and still produce a crop.
Today I began the first fermentation of the wine (riesling), in the bucket, airlock on, waiting for the yeast to get busy. In a week, time to shift it to the secondary fermenter, and maybe start another round of beer. If only I could drink any of it…
Review: Colony
I’ve watched Colony several times now. The synopsis as given by the filmmakers says “Colony documents a time of unprecedented crisis in the world of the honeybee through the eyes of both veteran beekeeper, David Mendes, and Lance and Victor Seppi, two young brothers getting into beekeeping when most are getting out. As Mendes tries to save the nation’s collapsing hives, the Seppi’s try to keep their business alive amidst a collapsing economy.”
This may be the documentary they wanted to make, but it doesn’t actually seem to be the one they did make.
Colony collapse disorder (CCD) is touched on in the film, but as one person (Randy Oliver) puts it, sometimes things like this are cyclical and happen for no particular reason other than it just does. Maybe it is systemic pesticides, maybe it is disease, maybe it is the stress that bees face due to the migratory nature of commercial pollination, maybe it is some combination of these and other factors, or maybe it’s something else altogether, but the film itself takes no particular stance on it, nor does it offer any steps that any individual could take to help. Dave Mendes is featured, talking to groups about pesticides, trying to get people together to do something (in the film, what this may be isn’t entirely clear). Outside of the film, anyone interested in bees at all knows that Mendes is all over the place talking about the need for research and so forth, but this isn’t really touched on in the film. There are some shots of a congressional hearing talking about money for research, but nothing more than one might get in a summary story from CNN or the like.
The rest of the film focuses on the Seppis, a religious family running a commercial operation in California. Most of that focus is not on the effects on CCD on their operation – although there are some points where they do talk about dead hives – but on their negotiating attempts with almond farmers to get a certain price point per hive for almond season. While this holds some interest for people really interested in beekeeping, I imagine this would be fairly boring overall. Quick summary: almond farmers pay migratory beekeepers a price per hive to have bees to pollinate the short flowering season in the fields. With hundreds of thousands of acres of almonds in California, as you might guess this involves a lot of money in the end: with an estimated 1.4 million hives required to pollinate, do the math at even a hundred dollars per hive.
And this business side, I think, is where people like me begin to really think about what’s going on in this film. Before I get into that, though, I have to point out one of the most irritating moments about this film, which involves one of the Seppi sisters talking about the hive. While holding a frame covered with bees, she points out the queen, and says, “They’re somewhat of a matriarchal system.” No, they are a matriarchal system. That’s what it means when the female of the species is in charge, making the decisions, and doing the work. She mentions the queen lays all the eggs and the workers do the nursing, cleaning, and foraging, and says, “But they wouldn’t be there without the male.” After pausing, she gives a little smirk to the camera, and spouts this gem: “You have to remind feminists that.”
OK, which feminists would that be? The ones who never got out of sixth grade biology and know nothing about reproduction? Or the ones uninterested in the submissive woman line touted by certain religious sects – the women (and men!) who happen to be the ones who fight for equal rights for women, and in the past managed to get women not to be counted as chattel, to be able to go to school and receive an education, to be able to work in the same fields as men, and got the right to vote? Those feminists? None of those I know think men are unnecessary or think that complete separatist living is the way to go – those types, like the people who seem to think feminism is a dirty word or that women should just give up their own dreams to accede to what someone else thinks they should do are, fortunately, fringe and rare.
On to the business side. The son who appears to be the primary force of the beekeeping business, says they had 1200 hives (and they want to “bless” farmers with their bees). During the film, the discussions with farmers talk about pricing between $140 and $170 per hive for pollination. For convenience, let’s just say a thousand hives. That’s a lot of money either way. At one point, though, the mother says that the parents are pumping in $20,000 above what the business makes to keep it afloat. Ignoring all the other income (the dad works as a teacher, apparently, and the family may have almonds of their own), as a businessperson myself I have a hard time understanding why it isn’t possible for them to run this business and live on $150,000 a year, even after expenses knock out part of that gross income, especially when they’ve had a few years of managing the business under their belts. Now, I don’t know anything about their accounting or their books or their expenses, but if you’re in the hole that much each year, perhaps you need to take some business classes or exit the field, because something is not right.
In the end, this was a rather unsatisfying documentary, and likely to be not something terribly interesting except to those of us who keep bees (or will be keeping bees).
Workaday
Working away at the ranch: taking down Mount Mulch a wheelbarrow at a time. Hauling hoses out to the trees to water them since we’ve had no rain at all. Spraying fish gut solution on the garlic and making the entire front garden smell like a fish processing factory. Pulling weeds. Shoveling soil from where I’ve reconfigured frame lines up front. Checking the blueberry plants to make sure they’re still alive (they are). Realizing while eating after washing my hands three times that next time, wearing gloves while using the sprayer to dispense fish gut solution would be a good idea. Playing with the lazy dogs on this ranch. Wondering if the clouds will finally get together and bring some rain. Sitting down to watch Colony again and try to finish the review of it. Thinking about bees. Laughing at the crow that followed me around this morning, cawing away at me as we moved along from task to task.
In all: a good day. And it isn’t over yet.
More lessons in how not to do things
The Susan G Komen Foundaton continues its Hindenburg-esque disaster campaign.
Today, they’ve issued this press release. I’ve inserted some translations.
“We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives.”
Translation: We’re sorry we didn’t realize that the vast majority of people are not beholden to far right wing ideology.
“The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not.”
Translation: We hoped that no one would notice that our changes to our funding criteria initially only affected a single organization out of all of those who receive monies. The additional of the prohibition against distributing monies to researchers who use stem cells was just a bonus we tossed in later to appease our most shrill ideologues. And now we’re scared shitless that the money we usually get from individuals and corporations will no longer be coming in.
“Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation. We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.”
Translation: We’re sorry we got caught trying to cut off funding to an organization undergoing a political witch hunt led by antiabortion people who think Planned Parenthood is some kind of baby killing factory instead of an organization that primarily provides other services. We’re still not defunding Penn State, who is under an actual criminal investigation, though.
“Our only goal for our granting process is to support women and families in the fight against breast cancer. Amending our criteria will ensure that politics has no place in our grant process. We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.”
Translation: Just like we said, the existing grants will be honored. Planned Parenthood is welcome to try and wring money from our greedy hands next time around, but we guarantee those requests will be denied for publicly stated reasons other than the real one: we’re cravenly desirous of the support from the right wing horde, and our VP Karen Handel has voiced her intent to defund Planned Parenthood.
“It is our hope and we believe it is time for everyone involved to pause, slow down and reflect on how grants can most effectively and directly be administered without controversies that hurt the cause of women. We urge everyone who has participated in this conversation across the country over the last few days to help us move past this issue. We do not want our mission marred or affected by politics – anyone’s politics.”
Translation: Our decision was wholly a political one, but if you say so, it’s you that has the problem.
“Starting this afternoon, we will have calls with our network and key supporters to refocus our attention on our mission and get back to doing our work. We ask for the public’s understanding and patience as we gather our Komen affiliates from around the country to determine how to move forward in the best interests of the women and people we serve.”
Translation: We’re hoping the upper echelon will continue to be able to collect their gigantic paychecks.
“We extend our deepest thanks for the outpouring of support we have received from so many in the past few days and we sincerely hope that these changes will be welcomed by those who have expressed their concern.”
Translation: We’re still deleting negative comments from our Facebook page as quickly as we possibly can.
Nothing has changed. This wishy-washy release doesn’t actually address anything that was not already in place: the existing grants will still be given. Future grants will be nonexistent. The SGKF will continue to play politics and cater to their far right wing. That’s the way of it, and the brand has been damaged beyond repair at this point, since the antiabortion people who have no reading comprehension skills are just as mad now as the people who lambasted SGKF for the decision in the first place. The latest release makes them look even more spineless than before.
I came across the financials for the SGKF and they are underwhelming in terms of the ratio of dollars spent on research, screening, and prevention versus overhead. It’s an abysmal ratio, in fact, and simply one more reason (among many, now that more and more is becoming known about them) to bypass the SGKF and donate to organizations who put the money to better use.