My second full year of attempting to farm has begun. One infant walnut tree has been permanently laid to rest and the fate of a cherry tree hangs in doubt: both were savaged by deer last year whose watery eyes and flickering tails I soon ceased to find cute". Plant assassins: guts on hooves with razoring teeth and very small brains at one end. They gnawed right through the netting I had oh-so-confidently draped around my nurslings. This year wire fences reinforced with stakes will greet their nipping incisors. A particularly small garden shark managed somehow to duck under one fence last week. My wife spotted her just in time and I scared her off (the deer not my wife). Then I ran a strand of barbed wire around the exposed lower region. Shees... you raise the barrier to keep them from jumping over and then one sneaks under through a space that you would have thought too skimpy for a slithering hound dog. It never ends. As Emilio Romero wrote of creeping communism half a century ago la paz empieza nunca.
The peanut patch was another casualty from last summer. I managed to reap perhaps a pound of nuts when all was said and done. Grasshoppers were the prime suspect but to this day Im not sure of that diagnosis. Just when the plants appeared to be taking off their leaves would be gnawed away to the stalk the next morning. This happened several timesand deer much as I love to pin every crime on them just didnt check out as the culprits. Now at least weve coaxed in families of bluebirds whichI hopewill feed hungrily on insects during the summer. As long as the cardinals dont chase them off... for with mating season at full throttle weve observed an emerging problem. The bull redbirds are attacking everything else wearing feathers in their bid to attract females. Toxic masculinity at its very worst.
Potatoes didnt grow in the clay that the builders compacted around our house: trying to loosen that mass into productivity was wasted time. On the other hand the extensive raised garden I constructed offered the plushest possible bed for vegetables... but I foolishly magnified its walls with white Styrofoam; and this once the summer sun started beating down in earnest fried everything within its borders.
If you live you learn. Not everything was a disaster. My pecan trees are doing well; and the two oldest almonds despite having been ravaged themselves by the dear deer came back so strong that Ive planted several more. Apple trees pear trees peaches apricots persimmons pomegranates... the new cherry trees have already flowered... I have almost fifty plants in the ground. Well see if theyre bearing in five yearsalways assuming that Im here to see.
For you get no guarantees in life; and once you reach three score years youre guaranteed an exit of one sort or another in the not-too-distant future. Ill probably survive my little crisis with an enlarged prostate. The medical/pharmaceutical industry has lavished enough catheters upon me that I could lay a tiny plastic tunnel to Saskatchewan; and anyway I have at last found some homeopathic remedies that have put my trouble somewhat into remission. Speaking of industries... homeopathy and ruthless exploitation of the vulnerable are of two houses you should know. To be sure the snake-oil salesmen quickly nose out your complaint thanks to shared information in our wired society. My mailboxmy literal in-the-ground mailboxhas been steadily bombarded with news of the breakthrough formula that really works". Entire booklets appear featuring a leering charlatan in white coat and stethoscope on one page and a couple making steamy love on the next. I want to reach in grab White Coat by the lapels smack him a few times and explain Im not contemplating a career as a porn star moronI cant pee!"
Its all the exploitation around the edges that gets me down. I love my 25 acres. Even in a way I love the damn deer. They at least dont represent themselves as anything other than what they are. And maybe societys varied collection of scalawags and profiteers... maybe theres a kind of Darwinian defense to be made for them too. I spend a lot of time hacking away wild blackberry and polk sallet nuisances unfit for the table that run off all the other vegetation; but such is nature with ravenous parasites always ready to gnaw a pound of flesh from prosperity. Our human analogues are no less busy. My indignation concentrates upon those whose calling is supposed to be of a higher sort. The Teacher says From those to whom much is given much is expected." Precisely. Where is the high" in higher" these days?
Yes Ive avoided doctors most of my life. I did so partly because I dont believe we should run to someone for relief from every little painand partly too because my fathers and grandfathers lives were needlessly shortened in the hands of the medical establishment (and my father-in-laws made much worse during its short remnant). My own problem would have been diagnosed and treated sooner if I had been less pig-headed true enough. But then what treatment have I actually received? Of the three medications Ive been prescribed two made me instantly severely ill. The third (a muscle relaxant) I never had filled. I chose meditative techniques in its place; and meditation like homeopathy is rarely a permanent solutionbut at least like hydroxychloroquine it does no harm. (Wasnt there someone named Hippocrates once upon a time?)
Even my miraculous catheters for which Im most genuinely grateful came with conflicting instructions when I received any instruction at all. Wash carefully after every use and dont reuse for more than a week... no not that: Who told you that? Always throw away after one use! Oh and the type of catheter thats eviscerating you? Keep the blue line pointed upward. No there are no directions included... but someone was supposed to tell you."
They send you off to try out poisons manufactured in China the way a Vegas hooker tells her drunken high-roller to put his stack on Seven. They load you with expensive but ill-explained gear and gizmos that your insurance (not to worry) will pay for. And then....
And then they push the appointment youve awaited for two months another two months down the road for your own good because CV-19 targets senior citizens. Ive cleared and planted three acres of orchard with nothing I couldnt hold in my two hands... and theyre telling me that the one physical complaint ever to slow me down has to stay with me like a ball and chain due to the possibility of a weeks sniffles and fevera virus that they the White Coat Fraternity have decided to elevate to bubonic-plague gravity with virtually no objective data.
My brother recently a stroke victim now has to put his rehab in low gear; a friends pre-adolescent son suffering from strange fainting spells now has to wear some kind of monitor at home because professionals" dare not give him a precious hospital bed. Meanwhile half of the medical professionthe really expert" halfrefuses to endorse hydroxychloroquine because other white coats havent spent enough years observing its possible side-effects (the kind of effects that dont seem to concern them greatly however in the case of Flomax). And meanwhileor during the same whiletheir Peerless Leader stalls for time as his puppeteer Bill Gates rushes after an antidote" well all be required to take.
Notice that I havent mentioned a single politician. Anyone who places trust in that tribe deserves to be scalped in his sleep. But the medical community... et tu Brute?
The evening news treats us regularly (Ive seen two renditions of this script in the past week) to scenes of COVID survivors" being wheelchaired to the hospital exit through a gauntlet of applauding doctors and nurses all dutifully masked; and I ask myself Why are they clapping as they stand elbow to elbow? Why are they sending micro-deposits from their hands into the eyes and hair quite possibly of their neighbors? How can people with any medical training whatever engage in such needlessly stupidly risky behavior? Or do they know that the whole things a hoax? Is it all being staged and the masks are just costumes? Then again are they genuine but massively incompetent? What third alternative could there be?"
Those questions... I have a lot of them. Far too manyand I cant answer a single one. I dont claim the right to medical attention. Our ancestors didnt enjoy such a right. On the contrary death in the body is our common inheritance our common destiny; and though as I say I shall probably not die of an enlarged prostates complications the experience strikes me as a dress rehearsal for the big show (one where there will be no TV cameras). A stroke maybe as Im grubbing out another post hole and cussing at deer... maybe it will knock me clean dead and not simply nudge me as it did my brother. I hope so. Id like a quick exit. Me with my boots on and confused cardinals cocking their heads.
Im okay with that. Just please dont tell me that youre helping methat when you prescribe noxious garbage when you issue contradictory directions when you bill the insurance company at every turn when you schedule extra tests and then move them all back a few months... dont tell me youre doing all this for my own good! Youre not. I dont believe you. I dont trust you. Ill show up for my appointments whenever they finally fall and if I happen to remain among the living... but it wont be because Ive trusted you. Itll be because I have no other card to drawbecause I have only one roll of the dice left.
Thats exactly the feeling I get nowadays at election time. Could it be Dr. FauciMr. Gatesbecause the line even between politics and medicine has dissolved?
I love my 25 acres. I wish I could be buried here but they dont allow that... and I dont suppose Ill really care at any rate. Im ready to step through the door. I only wish I could do so in peace without the toxic miasma of half-truths and undisclosed interests and noisome mock-altruism that hangs heavily over every aspect of our public life these days. All you professionals" and experts" out there... why dont you just peddle your porn and stop with the line about how good it is for us?
My second full year of attempting to farm has begun. One infant walnut tree has been permanently laid to rest and the fate of a cherry tree hangs in doubt: both were savaged by deer last year whose watery eyes and flickering tails I soon ceased to find cute". Plant assassins: guts on hooves with razoring teeth and very small brains at one end. They gnawed right through the netting I had oh-so-confidently draped around my nurslings. This year wire fences reinforced with stakes will greet their nipping incisors. A particularly small garden shark managed somehow to duck under one fence last week. My wife spotted her just in time and I scared her off (the deer not my wife). Then I ran a strand of barbed wire around the exposed lower region. Shees... you raise the barrier to keep them from jumping over and then one sneaks under through a space that you would have thought too skimpy for a slithering hound dog. It never ends. As Emilio Romero wrote of creeping communism half a century ago la paz empieza nunca.
The peanut patch was another casualty from last summer. I managed to reap perhaps a pound of nuts when all was said and done. Grasshoppers were the prime suspect but to this day Im not sure of that diagnosis. Just when the plants appeared to be taking off their leaves would be gnawed away to the stalk the next morning. This happened several timesand deer much as I love to pin every crime on them just didnt check out as the culprits. Now at least weve coaxed in families of bluebirds whichI hopewill feed hungrily on insects during the summer. As long as the cardinals dont chase them off... for with mating season at full throttle weve observed an emerging problem. The bull redbirds are attacking everything else wearing feathers in their bid to attract females. Toxic masculinity at its very worst.
Potatoes didnt grow in the clay that the builders compacted around our house: trying to loosen that mass into productivity was wasted time. On the other hand the extensive raised garden I constructed offered the plushest possible bed for vegetables... but I foolishly magnified its walls with white Styrofoam; and this once the summer sun started beating down in earnest fried everything within its borders.
If you live you learn. Not everything was a disaster. My pecan trees are doing well; and the two oldest almonds despite having been ravaged themselves by the dear deer came back so strong that Ive planted several more. Apple trees pear trees peaches apricots persimmons pomegranates... the new cherry trees have already flowered... I have almost fifty plants in the ground. Well see if theyre bearing in five yearsalways assuming that Im here to see.
For you get no guarantees in life; and once you reach three score years youre guaranteed an exit of one sort or another in the not-too-distant future. Ill probably survive my little crisis with an enlarged prostate. The medical/pharmaceutical industry has lavished enough catheters upon me that I could lay a tiny plastic tunnel to Saskatchewan; and anyway I have at last found some homeopathic remedies that have put my trouble somewhat into remission. Speaking of industries... homeopathy and ruthless exploitation of the vulnerable are of two houses you should know. To be sure the snake-oil salesmen quickly nose out your complaint thanks to shared information in our wired society. My mailboxmy literal in-the-ground mailboxhas been steadily bombarded with news of the breakthrough formula that really works". Entire booklets appear featuring a leering charlatan in white coat and stethoscope on one page and a couple making steamy love on the next. I want to reach in grab White Coat by the lapels smack him a few times and explain Im not contemplating a career as a porn star moronI cant pee!"
Its all the exploitation around the edges that gets me down. I love my 25 acres. Even in a way I love the damn deer. They at least dont represent themselves as anything other than what they are. And maybe societys varied collection of scalawags and profiteers... maybe theres a kind of Darwinian defense to be made for them too. I spend a lot of time hacking away wild blackberry and polk sallet nuisances unfit for the table that run off all the other vegetation; but such is nature with ravenous parasites always ready to gnaw a pound of flesh from prosperity. Our human analogues are no less busy. My indignation concentrates upon those whose calling is supposed to be of a higher sort. The Teacher says From those to whom much is given much is expected." Precisely. Where is the high" in higher" these days?
Yes Ive avoided doctors most of my life. I did so partly because I dont believe we should run to someone for relief from every little painand partly too because my fathers and grandfathers lives were needlessly shortened in the hands of the medical establishment (and my father-in-laws made much worse during its short remnant). My own problem would have been diagnosed and treated sooner if I had been less pig-headed true enough. But then what treatment have I actually received? Of the three medications Ive been prescribed two made me instantly severely ill. The third (a muscle relaxant) I never had filled. I chose meditative techniques in its place; and meditation like homeopathy is rarely a permanent solutionbut at least like hydroxychloroquine it does no harm. (Wasnt there someone named Hippocrates once upon a time?)
Even my miraculous catheters for which Im most genuinely grateful came with conflicting instructions when I received any instruction at all. Wash carefully after every use and dont reuse for more than a week... no not that: Who told you that? Always throw away after one use! Oh and the type of catheter thats eviscerating you? Keep the blue line pointed upward. No there are no directions included... but someone was supposed to tell you."
They send you off to try out poisons manufactured in China the way a Vegas hooker tells her drunken high-roller to put his stack on Seven. They load you with expensive but ill-explained gear and gizmos that your insurance (not to worry) will pay for. And then....
And then they push the appointment youve awaited for two months another two months down the road for your own good because CV-19 targets senior citizens. Ive cleared and planted three acres of orchard with nothing I couldnt hold in my two hands... and theyre telling me that the one physical complaint ever to slow me down has to stay with me like a ball and chain due to the possibility of a weeks sniffles and fevera virus that they the White Coat Fraternity have decided to elevate to bubonic-plague gravity with virtually no objective data.
My brother recently a stroke victim now has to put his rehab in low gear; a friends pre-adolescent son suffering from strange fainting spells now has to wear some kind of monitor at home because professionals" dare not give him a precious hospital bed. Meanwhile half of the medical professionthe really expert" halfrefuses to endorse hydroxychloroquine because other white coats havent spent enough years observing its possible side-effects (the kind of effects that dont seem to concern them greatly however in the case of Flomax). And meanwhileor during the same whiletheir Peerless Leader stalls for time as his puppeteer Bill Gates rushes after an antidote" well all be required to take.
Notice that I havent mentioned a single politician. Anyone who places trust in that tribe deserves to be scalped in his sleep. But the medical community... et tu Brute?
The evening news treats us regularly (Ive seen two renditions of this script in the past week) to scenes of COVID survivors" being wheelchaired to the hospital exit through a gauntlet of applauding doctors and nurses all dutifully masked; and I ask myself Why are they clapping as they stand elbow to elbow? Why are they sending micro-deposits from their hands into the eyes and hair quite possibly of their neighbors? How can people with any medical training whatever engage in such needlessly stupidly risky behavior? Or do they know that the whole things a hoax? Is it all being staged and the masks are just costumes? Then again are they genuine but massively incompetent? What third alternative could there be?"
Those questions... I have a lot of them. Far too manyand I cant answer a single one. I dont claim the right to medical attention. Our ancestors didnt enjoy such a right. On the contrary death in the body is our common inheritance our common destiny; and though as I say I shall probably not die of an enlarged prostates complications the experience strikes me as a dress rehearsal for the big show (one where there will be no TV cameras). A stroke maybe as Im grubbing out another post hole and cussing at deer... maybe it will knock me clean dead and not simply nudge me as it did my brother. I hope so. Id like a quick exit. Me with my boots on and confused cardinals cocking their heads.
Im okay with that. Just please dont tell me that youre helping methat when you prescribe noxious garbage when you issue contradictory directions when you bill the insurance company at every turn when you schedule extra tests and then move them all back a few months... dont tell me youre doing all this for my own good! Youre not. I dont believe you. I dont trust you. Ill show up for my appointments whenever they finally fall and if I happen to remain among the living... but it wont be because Ive trusted you. Itll be because I have no other card to drawbecause I have only one roll of the dice left.
Thats exactly the feeling I get nowadays at election time. Could it be Dr. FauciMr. Gatesbecause the line even between politics and medicine has dissolved?
I love my 25 acres. I wish I could be buried here but they dont allow that... and I dont suppose Ill really care at any rate. Im ready to step through the door. I only wish I could do so in peace without the toxic miasma of half-truths and undisclosed interests and noisome mock-altruism that hangs heavily over every aspect of our public life these days. All you professionals" and experts" out there... why dont you just peddle your porn and stop with the line about how good it is for us?