Good afternoon from the mountain...

Good afternoon from the mountain, another hot day here, I am waiting on the rain.  So today started early so I could get the goats milked, and other morning chores done early, just to beat the heat.  I fed the kittens milk this morning and just a little while ago gave them some wet cat food and a bowl of water, we also introduced two, eight week old chickens into their pen.  It was a rough start, but is looking good for all.  It is important to let the kittens and chickens get to know each other.   The chickens teach the cats to get along with livestock and not eat them, and the chickens keep the bugs down.

 The kittens should be ready for their new homes in a week or two.  I want them to get their first round of shots first, and a rabies shot.  Rabies is on the rise here in the country I live in, most of the cases are from skunks or raccoons, but when you live out where those animals live you have to protect your animals.  All the dogs have rabies shots and even the horses and goats and our one remaining sheep. 

Have to shear the sheep, darn it, I need to remember this in the morning, not at one in the afternoon.  It is too hot to do it now; I will have to wait till tomorrow.  I like to do it early as there are fewer flies as well. Summer in Arkansas is like living in a moving sheet of flies; everywhere you go there are flies.  I am not fond of them, but it is part of being on the farm.  We kill as many as we can each evening, but there is always many more to replace them.   I think they are a lot like Politicians, you know they have some sort of purpose, but you just can’t figure out what it is, plus the both like poop.

Sadly their poop does not make things grow.  The news here in America today is about the president playing golf, and doing it poorly.  What an embarrassment he is to us!  His wife as well, she calls for the return of some missing girls from a foreign country and says nothing about the hundreds of girls and young women that go missing here in our country every day.  I think it is easy to see why the women and girls in America are less important to them, it is clear to see that they do not favor Christians or Jews.  I do not say this as if it matters;  because there is no changing it. It is what it is.

Tonight I am cooking roast tonight for dinner and fresh potatoes from our garden.  I just got some of our onions put up in the hose that should help them to keep for at least six months.  By then I will have new onions to replace them.  Too hot to bake bread today or can food.  Instead, I am working on bead work and math, going over the kids school work from the week.  It is so hard to image that the week is almost over already. 

What else did I want to share, I read some interesting news in our weekly paper; the government is going to be giving free meals to all area children.  It is funded somehow through the USDA, and I believe if I read it right volunteers would be preparing and serving the food.  I have been looking into the food that is provide to Native Americas, the poor, schools, prisons, day care centers, food banks and the like.  They call it commodities.  Some of this food is taken from farmers, without receiving payment, like raisins.  A portion of all raisin crops in America have to give the government its share, there are other crops as well, I can look them up if anyone is interested.  If they do not give the potion over willingly, they will sanction the grower until there is nothing left.  It is all very sad. 

The food most commodities programs use is graded, what that means is that it is not up to the standards of the company that made it in many cases.  That means that this food is not able to be sold to grocery stores and depending on the thing that is wrong with it, it is sent through the different levels of grading.  Public schools receive very low graded food items.  Most food is so much less than food anyway, more like food like stuff.  The chicken that most public school children eat is more by product than food and until recently Ketchup was considered a vegetable. 

The point is that they are feeding the worst of food to the people who need good food the most.  Feeding poor quality food to these people causes them in many cases to become ill, whether short term such as inappropriate weight gain or the latter effects, and potential for diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer.   If I were to exhibit this sort of feeding programs to my livestock, they would most likely, have me arrested for animal abuse.

 It should be human abuse if you are going to feed the poor children or the elderly they could at least feed them fresh fruits and vegetable and real meat.  The do much the same to the elderly with a program called Meals-On-Wheels, the food is loaded with salt, fat, food like products and often either 2% milk or skim milk.  I am sure there are many deaths in America every day due to food related causes like these.  If this is the best we can do for people, we should just stop.  The shear cost of medical care for people being exposed to this quality of food, I am sure is staggering.  Perhaps some of the money spent making war, could be spent to revamp sad programs as these. Just my thoughts mind you.

Anyway back to farm chores for me.

Be blessed dear ones

Shekhinah