comrade simba

Apparently he realized he missed some shit so Mr. Smiles came back out yesterday. Here’s the rocket stove, the hand cranked washing machine, the Thunder Bucket^TM… Shoved the exercise bike against the pump jack wheel and showed him the PVC Special piston pump. Tossed out some good 15 second doomy soundbites and jabs at suburban delusion… whatever.

Don’t much care. He said I was a kind man for allowing the interview but I’m really just a crazy man – harboring an insane belief that the show might get somebody up off the couch heading for the front yard with a shovel. I guess another guy he found for the show has a windmill and grows some shit. Again, the real story is how absolutely dependent society is on things continuing as they have in the past.

News article about how fucked Tulsa, Oklahoma is. That’s a hundred miles away and has a population of 400,000, and a million in the metro area. Cutting some funds for police, fire, road repair – the usual suspects. Nasty little inner city “activity”, too. Tulsa seems to be my canary in the coal mine – wouldn’t it be funny if the first metro area to go bazzoo and have the troops called in happened to be right next door? Okla fuckin homa – who’d a thunk it? At least we get to see if Ammo and Camo Bubba goes to the dark side or fights for truth justice and the american way. My money says they’ll join in the riots and “blame it on the niggers.”

So they’ll raise taxes and cut back on services. People who can leave will leave, walking away from their mortgages and jobs and broken lives heading for mom and dads and the great whatever in the hinterlands. The smart ones, that is. Those who know when it’s fourth and long you fall back and punt. Go Sooners!

Regarding the financial yada yada post, it’s been kinda fun to be in this mindset – Go Bernake, Go! Keep it all alive if you can. The Romans musta felt the same way at Christians vs. Lions, You know how it’s going to end but it’s fun to watch them run like hell.

I’m so bored – just bored out of my mind. Garden is only half planted and I don’t really care about getting on it. The focus is on the rental house rebuild – how many more days on the flooring before I can finish up the sheetrocking? Paint and trim in a far distant future… I knew going in to it that it was going to be my last big hurrah – I’m officially middle aged and looking forward to going back into retirement.

Tomorrow is opening day at the Farmer’s Market and I’ll load up the tiller and hoes and work in the community garden across the street. Less than a half dozen plots spoken for so I’m going to load it with cowpeas corn and winter squash and watch it all turn into a beautiful tangled mass of food for a pig. Pathetic – weeks gone by at the sale barn without any weener pigs – cheap or not – so it looks like I’ll have to shell out 35 bucks to some guy on craigslist if I can find his place down a tangle of Mac County back roads.

Enough rambling – it’s just a clusterfuck.

Kunstler says it real well sometimes:

This sucker is going down because the train of bankruptcies underway has a remorseless self-reinforcing power to provoke more and more bankruptcies at every stop along the line as every promise to pay is welshed on. The mortgages will not be paid and securities will not pay their investors and the banks will choke on the bad paper promises in their vaults and the pension funds will not pay their beneficiaries and the states and counties and municipalities will go broke and not pay their employees and creditors, and the federal government will not be able to “print” new money in sufficient quantities fast enough to compensate for all the money not being paid up-and-down the line… and one morning we will wake up and discover that all those promises to pay were sham promises based on no productive activity whatsoever… and that will be a sad day. Perhaps the Dow Jones Industrial Average will hit 35,000 on that day.

There’s a lot of fat in the system, here’s a short list of “normal” crap that can be discarded with very little jolting of personal well being:

Ipods and all the peripheral gadgetry – back to low power am radio.

Cell phones and calling plans etc – POTS on a landline once again.

The new car, or the second car. Insurance on 1 vehicle is hard enough.

Jet ski atv speedboat, and the dock space, trailers, and vehicles to haul them around.

Netflix, computer games, Dominoe’s pizza..

The list can go on, and the thing that I look for is indications that these are being discarded. A boat on the side of the road for sale means that household is culling fat. Stumps me why the same yard isn’t turned over to a vegetable garden. How can the climate be so bad if new furniture stores are still open – when 2nd hand shops are packed with hardly used stuff at half the price? Do you sell your jet ski and go buy a sofa set?

And who’s buying all the shit for sale? Everybody I know is just cranked down economically pummeled and yet there are 8 walmarts within 50 miles of me – and this is not a metropolitan area by any stretch of the imagination.

I’m gotten past the sense of imminent catabolic collapse but I can’t understand how shit keeps going on and on – there’s no manufacturing, no production of real goods, no real reason for people to have any pocket change at all! When a mortgage goes belly up does some entity profit, and send the proceeds trickling down the food chain enabling a quicky mart clerk to head to the mall and buy a 50 dollar pair of jeans for his kid?

It must be some kind of magic. A strange voodoo on money where it doesn’t take any to have buying power. From the same article:

And there is likewise surely a huge effort underway in the banking sector right now to cream off as much cash as possible so that when this sucker does go down they will bethink themselves better positioned to survive the consequences.

I think the huge effort part is right, but it is an effort to absorb as much devaluation as possible as fast as it can be absorbed. “Consumers” may not be borrowing much these days but they are still making those interest payments which may be the voodoo money keeping everything alive. 1 out of 10 defaults means 9 are still feeding the vampire. The financial community seems to be absorbing the defaults fairly well, and as long as it continues we can contract our way down to a bag of turnips without things going bazzoo.

So here’s to the power masters handling the decent into our agrarian peasant future – good job so far and best of luck in the days ahead. 300 million bummed out people resigned to a state of general crappiness is a lot better than 300 million going ape shit. Joe Blow used as much gas as Mr. Jet Set so peak oil is on everybodies scorecard, along with any other type of resource depletion. The typical credit card holder spent money he didn’t make just like the banksters created shit out of thin air so share the blame ‘merica – everybody is all in. The future of the sheeple is shit no matter which way it goes, but the future of the elite is still up in the air. Joe Blow is still going to mindlessly spend every dime he can get his hands on buying shit he doesn’t need if he can, but those at the top have a lot more to loose and if they don’t play their cards right it’s blood in the streets time. I’m going to root for the Ivy Leaguers on this one.

WTF Comrade? You gone soft on us? Nope. The right wing is screaming louder at the banks that the socialists ever did, so I figured I ought to spend some time making sure my reality tunnel wasn’t too ridged. It’s a luxury I can indulge in since my food doesn’t come from the Wal Mart…

I have lost the ability to interface with the mean of society…

The T.V. people for the local Fox station came out to the homestead yesterday for some show they were doing about sustainability, off gridness, whatever. (My brother in law is the station manager so that’s how I got looked at) This comes at the same time our big spring gathering takes place so all the cleaning and decrapperating came in handy, and I made sure there were nice 150 degree compost heaps cooking, grass all mowed, clean Thunder Buckets^TM a maggot bucket foaming returning Mr. Wiggles to the earth via chickens, tinder in the woodstove, milk ripening for cheese, etc. This place was seriously prepped for a full scale demo.

So camera guy and The Guy With The Smile show up three hours late – the goats are screaming to be let out to pasture, Sandy the Goat wants milked in the worst way, chickens bitching about being in the pen, and I’m all hot and dirty cuz there is no way I can be at this place without finding something to work on (I happened to be on the back end of a wheelbarrow full of manure as they came up the drive). He asks where to start first and I said the goats are pretty pissed off so lets get that out of the way. So as I’m milking he’s asking me why I’m doing what I’m doing. Wait a minute – I haven’t even showed you what I’m doing…. I said you see that asparagus in that bed over there? Go eat a piece – that’s why I’m here.

I pretty much spent the whole time trying to show “why” by direct pointing, but he didn’t seem to follow the finger. A grape arbor over the patio – where we sit in the shade and eat grapes off the vine like fucking emperors. The wife had made an absolutely perfect loaf of bread, I had a fresh cheese made up, fresh steeped chocolate mint tea freezer fulla pork etc. Showed him cute little bunnies, month old chicks, the sky was blue and dogwoods in bloom. And for the life of me I couldn’t see a glimmer of recognition or understanding in Mr. Fox – 14. Just that dumb grin and a bored camera guy.

He asked me several times if I knew anyone else living the off grid/self sufficiency thing. No, no, and hell no – I’m the only fucking person I know who grows most of what they eat and ties themselves to a barnyard fulla critters. I’m the only person for miles and miles wanting an asteroid to vaporize the local chicken plant and walmart to belly up and destroy the county’s tax base. I don’t even watch your stupid tv station’s programming for the right wing Simpsonians. I think the best I did was mutter something about not wanting to deal with the asshattery of Plasticland – that out here was real and if you got your hands in the dirt you’d know what I was talking about.

It used to be about doom – now it’s just chores and avoiding toxins from the industrial food manufacturing industry. In July when I’m hauling water out to the garden to keep the corn alive I don’t wanna see some jackass washing his fucking car in the driveway.

Mr. TV left and is probably busy cutting sound bites and looking for other things to fit his story line. I think he missed the story that was there – that if I’m the best he can come up with maybe this sustainability idea is as rare as hens teeth and that ought to scare the shit out of anyone. All I know is that I feel like a crackpot for wanting to show off a 150 degree compost heap, disappointed that the sawdust toilet never got looked at, and astounded that a fresh piece of goat cheese was declined.

It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter at all. Like I told Charlie on my visit to his ’stead at least we eat good and stay warm in winter. If I had a solar array set up I woulda been a celebrity. Instead I’m justa boob fell off a turnip truck.

*Newsflash* ….. the countryside is not fulla food. If this were an actual emergency…

As usual, I got this via Cryptogon…
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7040216.ece

Here’s the bit that jumped out at me:

Farooq Abdul Ajan, who lost two sons, two brothers, three nephews and a cousin in the raid, said that the soldiers had had no idea whom they were killing.

Now ol’ Farooq is going to look around for some way of taking out as many US soldiers as possible. The US pays 2000 dollars per kid to grieving parents so don’tcha think they could pool that 16K and buy a nice little plastic explosive and take out a Humvee or two?

I’m so fucked up – a patriotic ‘merican would be writing letters to congress demanding a halt to sending taxpayer funds to the families since it could endanger our brave soldiers… Instead (since rooting for Farroq could get me extraordinarily rendited) I’m in favor of dragging everyone involved in the raid – from the grunt on the ground to the top officer that gave the order – through a court martial and dishonorably discharging the lot of ‘em.

Wanna know my litmus test to determine if an American is a human being? Show these two pictures side by side and see if the reactions are equal.


Betcha the boy got ice cream that week…
Since I know I’m human, I guess I’m just un-american.
I’m so sick of this shit. Fuck cheap oil and opium.

But the decrapperation is moving along.

Had to chuckle at the comments – it was like seeing my head churning out excuses to keep this stuff rather than get rid of it. Keep the copper – the antenna is a bean pole, might need a socket later, etc.

No! No! And No! It’s fucking outta here. Four categories, folks – recycle, burnage, scrapyard metal, and landfill food.

The short list of homestead projects are:
Metal roofing on house and guesthouse
Car siding the living room ceiling
Sleeping loft for the boy
Cob up a smokehouse
Build goat shed/ hay shed.

And none of that stuff requires any of the crap laying around. That’s a two year project list in my head – three or four in the real world. I’d imagine full scale collapse will be on like Donkey Kong by the time I look around for something else to do.

My wife tells me to watch the show “Hoarders” No way. I will not cop to a sickness so I’ll keep feeding the burnpile. And hide the old bathtub somewhere…

I wanna see what you have going on so my thinking is maybe an Amish date? Like I show up at dawn and just work alongside of you as you do your normal routine stuff while we yak about doomer shit. Maybe there is a job easier done with two guys you can pull off the back burner.

If I can net you a couple hour gain we could use that for goof off time and you can show me around. My best days are Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. Weather dot com can help us plan the rest…

So how long is it necessary to hang on to a 2 1/4 x 1 1/2 galvanized reducer coupling? And the several dozen related plumbing cousins corroding away in a bucket that’s in the way at least twice a year? I don’t have room for critters in the barn yet numerous boxes, buckets and crates loaded with electrical crap are taking up space – some of it dates back more than 15 years to a fire station house remodeling job I did – and that crap got ripped out of there ‘cuz it was obsolete. We live in a two bedroom house and I’m holding onto 35, yes, 35 switchplate covers.

I’ve been throwing out stuff deemed to be junk for years now and the load never seems to get smaller. It is possible that every item cluttering up my world might find a use, but say I do need the odd reducer part… go spend three bucks at the hardware store. It’s just not worth it anymore. Instead of seeing parts and materials etc my view is shifting into looking at all this shit as one of 5 things – wood, metal, glass, plastic, and trash.

So I globally warmatize all the wood shit in a burn pile, send the plastic and trash to the landfill that’s located beyond my watershed, glass to the recycle joint and metal to the scrapyard for a few bucks. I’m sure I could spend a few days cleaning and sorting the hundreds of loose sockets, screwdriver bits and other tooly things and come up with a complete set or two but I ain’t got time for that! When I get a loose moment or two and decide to get serious about turning wrenches on the machinery around here I’ll go blow 300 bucks on a Kobalt mega set and shit can all the mix and match odds and ends I’ve (not) been working with for all these years.

Wanna know what sent me over the edge? Here I am hauling ass towards a pre industrial mode of living – and I have ceiling fans squirreled away? I can’t run a homestead without a functional barn so fuck being a good world citizen reusing stuff – if I need a ceiling fan I’ll whip out the credit card at Home Despot and gloat in my one percent cash back bonus.

Jes’ makin’ room for sheep…

Oh well.

Thanks for the comments people, I think I should have broken out the penicillin sooner.

Nina – he was eating fine, and yes I did say it was all cool to move on.

Charlie – this happens every spring – the ground warms up and the parasites bloom. I failed to fed them DE early enough. The wife knows the sick animals take preference over social norms, ho ho! Some day I’ll have that barn set up right. with a nice sick bay, too.

tired john – I think that the toxins are the best explanation for what seems to be happening:
“Because aflatoxin does not result in distinct disease symptoms, it is often not even suspected as being the cause of poor caprine performance. Aflatoxin suppresses the immune system, thereby allowing the goat to develop diseases that it would not likely have succumbed to had aflatoxin-contaminated feed not been fed.”

Sounds like the culprit to me, or at least an avenue to work on. Thanks, grandpa!

Mustafa Obama, our buck goat is down to about 50 pounds and is currently residing on a blanket on the kitchen floor next to a tub of chicks under a heatlamp and Mrs. Wiggles and her week old bunnies. I must have been an Alpine peasant in a past life…

Snake Oil didn’t fix him, so I went for the Sulmet to zap coccidia. No change. Last two days I’ve dosed him with wormwood, diatomaceous earth, Valbazan, and today I pulled out the rig and shot him up with pennicillin. Squirting water and corn syrup down him every hour hoping that the next shot doesn’t have to be from the 38 Special.

It’s my own damn fault. Long ago I should have had enough fence up to have separate spring/summer and fall/winter pastures in working order. Gives the parasites time to die off if the goats aren’t on the same ground all the time. My list of excuses is as long as the to-do list, but that won’t get Mustafa’s feet back under him.

I’m supposed to take consolation in the fact that the upstairs is sheetrocked and the floors are half done in the rental house rebuild. What has to die for the tractor money?

Some days just suck. Maybe he”l be up by sunday and I’ll rename him Mustafa Jebus. Walk around saying “He has Risen”. I’m fuckin’ loosing it…