Archive for the ‘From me to you’ Category
August 12th, 2010 | 
Author: From blogging, not from work. If I could stop working for someone else, there’d be no thought involved. I’d be gone.
I’m just not sure that I have much more to say. Not in an extended format, anyway. This is post #1478 since May 2005. More than five years.
I’ve become quite fond of Twitter in the last couple of months and use it both for personal ranting and raving as well as for Seldom Fools. Honestly, I’ve been having trouble keeping up with the blogs that I read as well.
Who knows, this may be just a summer thing. We’ll see. I’ll take a bit of a break and cogitate a bit. Whatever happens, I’m profoundly grateful to, and more than a confused by, the 80 people who have found something interesting enough here to subscribe to the feed. You’ve contributed 6,953 comments over the years and should probably get some help. 
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Have you ever made a potato cannon? Ever wanted to? We have and did. 
It’s pretty amazing how far a tater will fly powered by nothing more that aerosol air freshener. Oh, and a spark.
I wear my heart on my sleeve around here, so it should come as no surprise that I’ve been to my fair share of protests over the years. Usually, but not always, with a camera in hand. What you may not know is that my in-laws are a bunch of rowdies, too.
It all stems from Bridget’s parents. There were both politically active farmers for about half their lives. I don’t know how active they were before 1969, but that year they really stepped in and helped to found the National Farmer’s union in Canada. It’s an association more than a union, but the represent the interests of smaller farmers all over the country. John was Eastern Ontario Coordinator for the NFU for at least the decade before he died. Bridget says she grew up cranking a mimeograph machine and attending rallies with them. In fact, she celebrated a birthday in Ottawa in the middle of a protest.
After John died in 1991, his second-son Peter stepped into his shoes in various capacities and several other members of the family have done and do work for the NFU still. Peter’s wife, Dianne, is vice-president of Local 316.
The prison system in Canada has six farms connected with them. They’re classified as lower-security institutions that the inmate can earn their way out of the full prison to. There are two here and they produce very high quality eggs and milk for the prison system. Enough that they pretty much cover the system’s needs.
Apparently, I have Arrived. I got a piece of hate mail for a piece I wrote in March:
“Fabio Felici” sent me this a few minutes ago:
Subject: moron!
Yep. 155,000 big sharp knives are being recalled because 5 morons cut themselves. Hey gord im one of those morons that severed my right thumb off that will never be the same cause some company didnt spend the money to build something that was safe for a consumer to use with some type of hand guard on the razor side of machete In your eyes I may Be a moron But your a even bigger educated moron asshole. Again Fuck you gord the geek .
Thanks for reading, “Fabio”. Would you have been happier if I’d characterized the 5 people who prompted the recall as “careless fools”? Perhaps “distracted buffoons”? How about “imprudent twits”?
Honestly. The point of the post was that society has degraded to the point that we’re not responsible for our own actions any more. Quite simply, when you take a tool in hand (especially a machete), it’s in your best interests to pay some bloody attention! Waving something like that around presents inherent risks. I don’t think that 5 injuries out of 155,000 units sold is that bad. If each machete was used once, that’s a 1 in 31,000 chance of being injured. According to Reason Magazine, you have a 1 in 6,500 chance of dying in a car accident in the next year! That’s 5x more likely than being injured by one of those machetes, but I don’t see anybody clamouring to get rid of cars.
So, we spent the afternoon and evening over on Simcoe yesterday. Nice and relaxing: I mowed the lawn, while B and the boys puttered about. Just before dinner, I went down to the hives for a bit of a peek. It looked like some weather was coming, but it’s hard to judge over there. Just as often as not, the system that was heading straight for us hits the lake and suddenly heads north and away from us.
I had to trim some grass around the hives, so I rode the mower down the lane. It’s not way to save time, though: there’s something wrong with the transmission and the top 3 gears don’t work. So, I cut my pathway in to the hives then suited up for a look-see. Just as I opened up the first hive, the wind blew up out of nowhere and I realized that the thunderclouds that I had expected to move down the lake hadn’t gone far enough and I was about to get wet.
If I’d had the van or car, I would have just waited it out there. No such luck, so I hunkered down beside one of the hives. It sits in a crescent of red osier dogwood that makes an amazing wind-break. I crouched down there and watched the wind tear through the trees all around. Bits of poplar rained down while the trees themselves bent over into amazing arches. When the rain finally did hit, it wasn’t much: a few widespread, big, drops for 5 minutes or so and it was done.
This is cool. Somebody did MRI scans of an assortment of fruits and vegetables, then joined the slices together into an animated image so you can “fly” through it. I like brocolli the best:
There are more here.