The Sunday Drive from Hell

It has been a beautiful autumn season. Exceptionally so with the gorgeous colors and warm afternoons. After a week of working inside an office, I look forward to being outdoors on the week ends and working on some projects in the yard. One, that I'd been putting off, is to dig in the compost in the planting beds and plant french shallots and elephant garlic for spring. The cold winters here require that you get them planted before the first frost, which could be at any time. I was also looking forward to making another pie with the Asian Apple Pears that we have an abundance of. Maybe some jam.


However, best laid plans and all that stuff. Hubby, who has been working 7 days a week, 10 hour days for the last month had the bright idea that we take a Sunday drive in our classic 72 K5 Blazer to get away and relax.













The idea was to take a back road called Fender's Ferry, an historic stage coach road that would take us ultimately to I-5 and we would have lunch at a cutesy restaurant in Mt Shasta.

So, I'm like....."Ok....how long do you think it will take because I have some things I want to do. OK?"

He says: "It should be just about 3 hours. I took this road from Redding in the 70s"

Looking at the map it didn't seem to be all that many miles. I now realize that those roads in blue lines represent unimproved road. Really really unimproved. Tip number one. Avoid the blue roads.

The road at first wasn't too bad. Graded and obviously well traveled..... and look, there are even some people living in cute cabins up the hill and down by the creek. Soon the road became narrower and narrower. We were already too far to go back....we thought. Three hours of bumping along on a one lane crumbling dirt road clinging to the side of a mountain averaging at best 8 miles an hour. Don't look down!! OMG it's straight down.!!! The only thing between us and certain death are those humongous pine trees that are at least 4 feet on the stump. No one had ever logged this area.......because it is freaking impossible to get to it unless you are .....insane!!!! I'm gripping the side of the seat and bracing myself with a hand on the dash. No seat belts aaaaaagh! Is this ever going to end. My hand is still cramped.

We did see some pretty country side, discovered a water fall that was at least 100 feet high. Met up with some people on quad runners. I forgot it was deer season, so at least if we broke down someone would be by sometime. I just hope that they haven't seen Deliverance.

At several points we came across pretty open meadows planted with fruit trees. Really old fruit trees. Also the foundations of barns or houses made out of rocks. These must have been old homesteads or stage stops. Probably made by people who gave up traveling on this God forsaken road and decided to just stay where they were out of desperation. Seriously, people were tough in those days. No wonder they all married their cousins. It was too much work to find anyone else.

About 3/4 of the way in, according to the squiggly blue line that represented the road the car started acting up. Clue two....there was no way the map maker could possibly make the line squiggly enough to represent all the hairpin turns in such a small line.

Me: "Um... the car is missing and sounding funny. Are we ok? " "And, just how drunk were you in 1970 when you went on this road?????"

"No problem " he says, "We are just loading up with carbon and the spark plugs need to be cleaned." The hubby, I find out later is glossing over the problem, thinks we have sucked two of the 8 cylinders and is freaked out. We have no cell phone reception and there is no way in hell that we are going to get AAA to come out here and tow us.

So, we plow on and eventually make it to I-5. We wanted to get out and kiss the asphalt.

Not lunch but now early dinner in Mt Shasta and back to home. Seven hours and it felt like we had been gone for a month and like we'd been beaten with a rubber hose.

Needless to say. No pie.

Serenity Prayer and Apple Pears

This election cycle is getting the better of me. With all of the voter fraud and the mysterious (most likely illegal) donations to Obama's campaign and that no one in authority seems to be concerned, I've come to the conclusion that the election is being stolen out from under us. We are turning into a third world banana republic and our votes count for nothing. I waffle between angry and depressed.

Sooooo. It's time to take a deep breath and step back and recite the Serenity Prayer

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

There is nothing I can do about ACORN filing fraudulent voters. Nothing I can do to stop them from busing in illegal immigrants who can't read English and casting their votes FOR them....for you know who...of course. Nothing I can do to stop people like Jive Turkey and Jjlthi htios from fraudulently channeling untraceable contributions to the Obama campaign, while McCain, the stupid shlub, is being over run and out maneuvered. I cannot change these things.

However, I have found something that I can change.

For years we have had a tree in our yard that produced mystery fruit.























Gigantic pear looking things, as big as softballs, that turned yellow on the tree and inevitably fell onto the ground. The deer enjoyed them. Turns out these apple pear looking things are just that. Asian Apple Pear. Go figure. They are quite delicious and a delicacy

They need to be removed from the tree while green and ripened on the counter or in the pump house. Crisp, sweet and slightly tart they were a wonderful addition to a salad last night.


So in my quest to change the things that can be changed and ignore the things that I can change.

I'm going to change these, and the other 30 pounds of Apple Pears, into pear pies, pear tarts and pear jam.

Making Patterns and Sewing Clothes

I just recently was going through boxes of photos ranging from 30 years ago to pick out some pictures for my daughter's up coming wedding. Yes.....photos. On real paper in envelopes with celluloid negatives. Remember? Before digital cameras. Before photoshop.

It was like digging into a box of memories. Remembering when and where I took these photos. Pictures of my daughter as a baby, a toddler, a gangly pre teen and finally a beautiful young woman. Pictures of people I haven't seen in 30 years. Pictures of people I don't even remember who they even are.

While scanning many of the early photos to put onto a disk, I realized just how much sewing I used to do. Almost all my daughter's best dresses and outfits were those that I made for her. Most of my clothes were made by myself for myself. We were poor, collected food stamps for a while, and had to make do with what we had. Even so, we got by pretty good and we look spiffy in our home made clothing.

This got me to thinking about our current economic situation and reflecting on my previous post about "Going Galt". Why pay top dollar for clothing that is poorly made, doesn't fit, probably made in Guatemala or China and continue to contribute to the "machine".

So, my creative juices started to flow and I pulled out a book that I've had for some time on making custom clothing patterns. I'd forgotten how easy and fun it was. When I was younger, ahem...thinner and gravity wasn't such a big drag on certain parts of my body, the patterns from McCalls or Vogue worked just fine. However, it seems a little alterations are in order.

If they can do it on Project Runway, heck yeah........ so can I. One more thing to liberate myself from the yoke of government control.

Going Galt

PJM (pajamas media) and Dr. Helen have put up a post about the idea of 'going Galt' If you haven't read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, you should. I admit that she isn't the best or most entertaining writer in the world. I read this book in high school and it made a profound impression on me that shapes my world view today.

For those who haven't the time to plow through her massive book, the main theme is that there are those who are productive in society, the John Galts and then there are the takers and the users. Stealing shamelessly from Dr. Helen.

"the basic theme is that John Galt and his allies take actions that include withdrawing their talents, “stopping the motor of the world,” and leading the “strikers” (those who refuse to be exploited) against the “looters” (the exploiters, backed by the government)."

My husband, who has a plumbing business (just like this guy) and also has his own blog http://dumbplumber.blogspot.com/ and I are both self employed. We have seriously discussed this concept and are already "going Galt". Cutting back on production, cutting back on business and contributing the least we possibly can to the government. We aren't the only ones. Some cattle ranchers and farmers in our area are cutting back. Less food production and laying off workers. Contractors are not going to be building. Less lumber needed. Less logging and mill production and it goes on. The economy grinds to a halt and there is no one productive to rob from to give to the leeches and looters.

Actually, by cutting back, we will ultimately have more retained income (less taxes) and more quality time to do things that we enjoy. We have already seen this.

I suggest that we ALL do the most we can to stop the engine of the world and let the looters starve.

A Little ACORN Topples the Mighty Oak

ACORN the community activist organization that is supporting Obama and who has been supported by his campaign to the tune of $800,000 dollars is under investigation FINALLY for fraudulently submitting fake voter registration forms.

They have been, for years, stuffing the ballot box and overwhelming the county voter registars offices with a flood of late arriving fake registrations. This isn't an accident or sloppy work. They are doing it on purpose. The technique is part of a plan to bring down captialism and change the 'regime' in our country to socialsim. Saul Alinsky laid out the rules and literally wrote the book on how to bring down our country. The Cloward-Piven Strategy provided the blueprint for the plan that is in effect now. I'm not going to go into depth on this as there are many more sites that have done the heavy lifting. Here Here Oh , Hell....just google it.

While I agree that everyone who is legally eligible should be able to vote. Voting for our Representatives, Senators and the Executive office by the people of this country, instead of having our leaders imposed on us by fiat, is what has made America a great and free country. Up until now......the system has been working. Now with the subversive actions of a socialist/communist group we are in danger of being toppled and hamstrung by our own goodwill and our own rules.

Most of us, who read blogs and write blogs are fairly well aquainted with the issues and the candidates. However, the same cannot be said of the people that ACORN is registering, often multiple times.

Just listen and weep. This is the future of our country. Ignoramuses who vote based merely on the color of skin or merely on Party affiliation without any critical thinking or any idea of who or what they are voting for.



If it weren't so sad, it would be funny.

Predictions for the next 4 years

1. Obama will be elected President through fraud and the media will refuse to do any investigative journalism. Mainly because they are implicit in facilitating the fraud and want to have Obama elected no matter what.

2. The "fairness doctrine" will be rammed through Congress and talk radio will be diminished if not completely taken down. The only "news" and opinions we will be allowed to hear are those that are filtered through the media.

3. The internet will be next. Websites that are right leaning will be forced off of the web or mandated to express views that don't contradict the 'regime' of Obama

4. This suppression of the First Amendment will extend to individuals and our personal webpages, facebook sites and possibly even our emails will be scrutinized

5. Anyone who deviates from the 'right thinking' will be accused of racism, sued to be taken off of the television or movie screens. Only the proper expressions will be tolerated and all others will be shouted down and silenced.

6. Taxes will be levied against the so called rich to the ends of redistributing wealth. In that case, the truly wealthy will be able to save themselves by moving out of the country or moving their assets out of the country. The small business owner and entrepreneurs will be driven out of business, will lay off workers or will just go underground. The middle working class and small business owners will cease to exist. Power and wealth will be concentrated in the hands of government functionaries and there will be an even wider gap between the rich/governmental mandarin types and the rest of the population.

7. The economy will go underground. It is already happening as I type. People will be trading for services and goods. Cash economy will rule instead of a paper trail. Tax revenues will go down, and the 'regime' will demand that more taxes, fees and excises be imposed. Downward spiral.

8. The 'regime' now having controlled the sources of information will concentrate on the children. By taking children away from families at an ever younger age, they will be more able to indoctrinate the children. Teaching the children to spy and report on their parents when the adults deviate from the pre-approved programing.

9. There will be a very bad terrorist attack that will polarize people even more, with the 'regime' seeing this attack as a Godsend to allow them to maintain more power. Perhaps even repealing the 2 term Presidential rule and attempting to sieze permant status. Elections as we know them will be a thing of the past.

Within 25 years the United States will cease to exist as a free country. We will either be a socialist nation like Russia or the country will splinter into geographically drawn political fragments. Urban vs Rural. The US will no longer exist as a country at all.

Ah...The Law Of Unintended Consquences

Don't you just love the way the law of uninteded consquences continually comes around to bite us all in the ass. Thanks to mostly, not always, but mostly liberal nanny state laws we have all kinds of messes to clean up.

The mother of all messes of course has to do with the melt down in the financial markets caused by socialist goals embodied in the CRA act and the relaxing of loan standards by Bill Clinton and the erosion of the "Chinese Wall" also by Clinton that removed the barriers between banking and investment companies.

But....enough of that. I'm talking laws meant to protect us from a slight chance of harm that ultimately put us ALL in real danger. Laws like this one in California. To protect us from the slight chance that our house might catch fire, we are now polluted in our bodies by 100% more levels of flame retardent in and 1000% times more in our environment.

As I sit on my couch typing on my laptop and absorbing even more PBDEs, I ponder what other great surprises the meddling government will be bringing to us in the future in the name of saving us from ourselves.

New Game Show: Congressional Sweep

Anyone remember the gameshow Supermarket Sweep? This is what Congress is reminding me of lately and especially with this latest rush to shove a lard laden bill through which supposedly is going to rescue us from ourselves.

In the game show, contestants would frantically race through the store throwing the most expensive items in the cart they could at the fastest pace they could, and the one with the most at the end would win.

Toss in the caviar, hams, cheese, canned luxury goods......whatever cost the most. Didn't matter if the combination of food and goods in the basket made any sense or were of any actual use. Just throw it in there.

Congress is doing the exact same thing, with our money. Rushing around and throwing in the pork and the caviar. Never mind that we can't use this crap. Don't need this crap. Don't want his crap. Whoever has the biggest most expensive basket WINS!!!..

Well... except for us of course, since we don't get to actually eat any of the groceries, but have to pay for them.