Rant About Rabbits

No, I don't have a problem with rabbits but listening to the interviews and comments on the radio this morning did make me a little angry. Apparently jack rabbits are moving into the city and damaging people's trees. So opinions are divided as to whether it is best to trap and destroy or just live with it and wrap the trees. I would not complain if they wanted to release a few here as I have not seen a jack rabbit in a long time. We do have a few "bush rabbits" but the jacks seem to be at the low point in their population cycle.
What really annoyed me was a few comments stating that the jack rabbits have been wiped out in the country by "farmers" spraying pesticides on the fields. What a stupid comment. Farmers have been spraying their crops for longer than I have been around and we used to have plenty of jack rabbits. It was not uncommon to see road kill after they became mesmerized by vehicle lights at night and would do their broken field run down the road ahead of the vehicle sometimes resulting in their demise.
But it is the typical type of comment I hear more and more as the general population becomes ever further removed from their farming roots. All they hear are the extreme groups shouting about our pesticide laden grains and terrible gmo products. Not to forget the antibiotic laden beef and chicken we produce. In case you missed it the last paragraph was sarcasm. Our food is safe. If I didn't believe it I wouldn't be eating it.
Its been a long cold winter and I guess my tolerance for b.s. is dropping as time passes. There are far bigger concerns out there than this "first world problem".

Scenic but its the kind of day I really appreciate the protection of my trees.

Out And About In The Cold

I must be getting used to this below normal cold. Went out for a walk to the threshing machine on the hill after finishing cattle chores. Even at -30 it felt ok because the sun was shining and no wind blowing. Of course I am wearing my usual multiple layers of clothes. My hands got a little cold working with the straw fork but that is not unusual. Cattle were content to stay out by the far hay feeder and did not come to the yard for grain or water until late in the afternoon. They seem to handle this cold just fine. Guess its all the grain they are eating.
I wore the Gopro camera for some action video while I was doing all this so I had some new content for youtube. Not that I am making any money on youtube. They don't approve of me using somebody else's copyrighted music on a few of my videos and I don't want to give up the music so...

Cold In Saskatchewan

Its no big news being cold in February in Saskatchewan but this spell is going on for a while. Well below normal. I've been putting off a trip to town for a week now thinking tomorrow will be better. But each day seems to get a little colder. If it ever warms up to zero degrees (farenheit) it will feel like spring I think. At least the sun shines and the wind stays down (today). More to come. So its a bit cold to shoot video and my latest is brief.

The old Woody Woodpecker clock is likely almost as old as me and still works. Some of the time.

Weather Rant

I'm re-posting this weather rant here. I can't take credit for creating it but thought it was good enough I wanted to save it. Originally it was an audio clip from some unhappy Sask. guy on a CBC radio show a few years ago. The language gets pretty strong for those that aren't used to it but in this context it seems appropriate. This guy tells it like it is about some of our severe winter weather days. To some extent he is right. The weather folks read the forecast off a page and make it sound pretty nice some days. Meanwhile, those of us outdoors can tell a little different story. I can still remember the original audio and the sound of his voice.

sheila

please please please,

don't tell us how nice it's gonna be this weekend, because it's going to go up to -1.

ok?

please. because it's not gonna be nice.

because the frickin' wind is just gonna HOWL, ok?

every time it warms up, the w-, the hot air rises and the wind just howls.

so it ain't gonna be nice.

and being a person that lives rurally?

i can tell ya that when it's 30 below, ok. celsius.

you can take your mitts off for half an hour and do things outside.

ok. when there's no wind blowing, at 30 below.

but when it is zero or -5 even, ok.

you take your mitts off and your hands freeze instantly.

so i can tell ya ok, this weekend is going to be the physical shits, ok, because the winds going to be howlin, and then it's going to be only -1, so then it's going to melt and cause a bunch of hog slop, so knock off how nice it's going to be, please.

ok, it's just sickening, ok, this province is the ass-hole of the world and it will suck the life out of ya, ok, it will suck the will to live out of ya, ok, cause it's just a piece of crap with wind howlin' every day, and you're not hikin' or bikin or skiin' and you're not doing anything, ok, it's the a-hole of the world. and we pay to live here, we PAY to live here! super high taxes.

so please knock off the nice ok? i got, i get the funny feeling that you guys are just saying that so that people just won't end it, ok, cause then of course we wouldn't be able to pay their taxes to these lechers, right?

you know people go hang themselves in a god damned closet, ok, because this fuckin' place is a piece of shit, ok, so please please please knock off the how nice it's gonna be, because it ain't.

because the wind's gonna be howlin' ok,

thank you...

bye

The Irish Sweepstakes

I guess it was a time when lotteries and gambling was illegal in this part of Canada, Saskatchewan. Nowadays they are a big source of revenue for the government but not so in the 1960s. My dad dreamed of winning "the Irish Sweepstakes" and would occasionally refer to something he needed to buy when he won the sweepstakes.
I don't know the procedure it took to acquire these tickets buy my aunt worked in the big city and had access to them. So my dad gambled a little in hopes of winning a lot. I thought of that recently while sifting through boxes of old papers (the kind of stuff most people throw away) and I found these sweepstakes ticket stubs that my dad had saved. Cost was one pound sterling each which I think was about $3 at the time. And that was quite a bit of money in the 1960s on a small farm.
I wonder if our lives would have changed  a little, or a lot, if dad had got lucky on the sweepstakes?
Most likely a new(er) car and a good line of farm equipment instead of the old "mechanics specials" he could afford to buy at the time.
Update: after a little research it appears the Irish Sweepstakes was a bit of a scam. Less than ten percent of the ticket sales went to hospitals. The majority seems to have gone to make rich people richer. Irish Sweepstakes

De-Cluttering? Not me.

The "de-cluttering" fad keeps cropping up in interviews and articles I was thinking about it today as I was building a shelf to hold more clutter. Building out of salvaged 2x4 studs that I had saved by the way. Even the construction screws were second hand.  I guess I am far out from the trend as usual. I have no intention of de-cluttering. I need all that junk around me. Keep it long enough and everything has a purpose. If not for me then for someone else.
I don't think I have reached hoarder status yet but I'm always open to looking at more items :-)
So many times I have heard someone comment, " I used to have one of those and wish I'd never sold, gave, or thrown it away. I've only said that a few times and usually its a large item of machinery that I simply could not afford to keep around. Needed the trade in value.

New shelf from old material.

Messy Desk = Creative

Just listened to a review of this book http://timharford.com/books/messy/ and from the brief summary I read, I should be a lot more creative. Apparently messy desks indicate a creative , responsive and resilient personality.