This is NUTS

It appears that a company with a terrible track record has purchased the second largest lamb processing facility in the country under dubious conditions.

First, here is an article with the details on that mess. It is nearly impossible to buy US lamb unless you buy from a local farmer...nothing wrong with that, but supplies are limited. It's all imported and not of the quality that my grandma used to bring to the table at Sunday dinner for sure. I really like lamb but we almost never have it for those reasons.

Now the supply will become even more constricted in times when we should be looking for more domestic products rather than fewer. He who controls the food controls everything!

Below is an article I wrote in June of '17, a bit rambling, but enough to show that this is neither a good company or a new situation.

Yes, you read that right...slavery!

JBS Swift is one of the largest meat processors in the USA as well as the biggest cattle feeder in the world. With businesses in 150 countries, they boast 8,000 “team members” and operate more than 100 facilities in the United States, Australia, Canada, Puerto Rico and Mexico.


They are also in trouble.


Recently charges of far reaching corruption have been brought against them, which follow close on the heels of reports of skeevy meat, peddled on the markets of the world. The earlier scandal saw 63 people indicted for selling expired and adulterated meat products both domestically and through export markets. According to the Tri-State Livestock News, “All have been charged with passive corruption, use of forbidden or illicit substances, falsification of medical records, adulteration of food products or substances, embezzlement, malversation, and use of false documentation, among others.”


This may have contributed to illicit advantages over American producers, as well as leading to possible lower domestic beef prices. The same source reports that the Billings, Montana-based cattlemen’s organization, R-Calf, sent a letter last week to President Trump, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue calling for an investigation into the alleged wrongdoing, included allegedly bribing nearly 2000 politicians. “JBS is the second-largest beef packer in the United States and owns the nation's largest cattle feeding company, which the group contends was used by JBS, in conjunction with imported cattle and beef, to manipulate the cattle markets in 2015 and 2016, causing fed cattle prices to fall by more than $850 per head.”


So extensive was the scandal that there was even potential for the Brazilian government to be brought down by it. The Sidney Morning Herald said the company’s controlling shareholder, J&F Investimentos, agreed to a fine of $5.4 billion under a leniency deal, “The settlement follows testimony from J&F's owners Joesley and Wesley Batista that they spent 600 million reais to bribe nearly 1900 politicians in recent years, revelations that have deepened Brazil's political crisis.”


Seems as if the news just couldn’t get worse for the company, right?


But, wait, there’s more.


In a June 6th article, the Guardian Newspaper said that the Waitrose Supermarket chain, a major grocery supplier in Great Britain, which holds a royal warrant to supply food and beverages to the queen, recently recalled its corned beef due to allegations of what some sources are calling slavery. The paper said in part, “In a series of raids in June 2016, prosecutors say federal police officers discovered men forced to live in inhumane and degrading conditions, with no shelter and no toilets or drinking water. Prosecutors believe the workers were in debt bondage, with payments for food and protective equipment illegally deducted from their wages.”


The owner of the farm in question has also been fined in the past for illegally clearing rain forest land. Not surprisingly, JBS denies the allegations, and says that it ceased buying from the farm as soon as accusations came to light. However, the problem appears to be widespread. The Guardian claims that 13,000 people have been rescued from what amounts to slavery on cattle farms since 1995.


Unfortunately, rather than clean up their act, it appears that the Brazilian legislature may simply change the definition of slavery to accommodate the foul conditions.


These scandals shine a spotlight on a much different culture of protein production than exists here. Kinda makes you wish for Country of Origin labeling again, doesn’t it? Maybe the 100% USA beef trademark embraced by the National Dairy Producer Organization is an idea whose time has come.


In a similar light it was announced recently that Stewart’s is partnering with the New York State Grown & Certified program to offer the program label on dairy products and eggs sold in the company’s over 300 stores. The program includes product labeling, informational signage, and instore videos promoting the whole deal. Unlike many if not most other retailers, the company has its farms under contract to supply locally produced milk for its dairy products, so it can make such a claim.


According to its own website, “New York State Grown & Certified is the first statewide, multi-faceted food certification program designed to strengthen consumer confidence in New York products, address food product labeling, and assist New York farmers so they can take advantage of the growing market demand for foods locally grown and produced to a higher standard.”


Looks like a good deal for farmer and consumer alike. It is particularly heartening to see such an arrangement extended to dairy products. As things stand now, milk moves freely all over the country. The boss counts milk trucks and identifies them by state of origin while he waits for Becky and me outside the library every now and then. You would be amazed how many don’t come from NY, despite our extensive dairy industry. He spots trucks from Ohio and Pennsylvania and even sometimes as far away as the midwestern states, all hauling milk to be sold here. Imagine how advantageous it would be if more retail outlets embraced locally-produced milk, both in terms of freshness for the customer and profitability for the farmer.


Besides helping those involved in the milk to table equation, this could bring into play what is called the “local multiplier effect”. Economists believe that money spent locally returns three times as much to the local economy as money spent on products imported from other regions. Thus a buck spent on local dairy, beef, or veggies, is worth more to the local bottom line than the same buck spent on goods from far away. Add the value of extra freshness, plus the tax dollars generated by farmland and you end up with a pretty good deal.


It’s hard to put a dollar value on verdant hills, or ribbons of corn winding green and golden along the roadside, and the scent of fresh-cut hay floating on the summer breeze, but with buying local you get that too.

So now JBS appears to be in a position to bring our already struggling sheep farmers to their knees, while gobbling up even more of the domestic beef market than they have already devoured. Monopoly much?

Requiem for a Winesap

Long before I met the boss his father planted a Winesap apple tree for his mother. By the time I first visited here it was a stately beauty. In typical fashion for a heritage apple it produced heavily some years....plenty for cider and deer and yellow jackets with some to spare for spring robins after a winter on the ground. Other years it would send out only a few shriveled knobs of greenish not much.

We called it the fruit salad tree because a grape vine that the old gent also planted turned out to be too close to it, climbed right on up and flung its grapes willy-nilly across the top.

Last year its two trunks began to split. Before that we hadn't really noticed that there even were two trunks, but the split was ominous. The boss worried and fretted over it all the time.

This spring it began to look really bad and by the time Isaias threatened it was a serious threat itself, to the horse barn, potentially the cars, and Mack's dog run. He brought the big tractor down, climbed up on a tire, and chained the bad trunk to it so it had to fall north and south, where there was nothing in the way.

Good thing because it came down yesterday afternoon.

There is a sad and messy tangle of branch, grape, and log lying in the backyard. Looks as if the "good" trunk will have to go too, as it's leaning toward the driveway. Last time we tried to save a split trunk tree there was a near disaster as the remaining half nearly fell on the kids. Thankfully my late father-in-law made them move just before it crashed to the ground.

I can't begin to tell you how I will miss that tree. It was featured in many blog posts and newspaper columns. It hosted so many robin nests and waves of winter-bound warblers in the fall and Scarlet Tanagers in the spring that its loss will impact them too. 

The cider was sweet and tangy and so wonderfully plentiful the year my brother and family made it.

Jelly from the grapes on the years when they were low enough to reach them was outstanding.

I guess the bright side is that we may be able to save the grapevine at least, and if we put it on a new fence we will be able to reach the grapes.

Anyhow, it will warm our house this winter after all those decades of warming our hearts all year and helping fill the pantry too.

Goodbye old tree. Losing you is going to sting.

Because I Can

Here's an old Farm Side from June of last year. I guess I will share some of these now, just because I can. After all, they fired me......

                                    Getting the Third Degree

A bully moon in full regalia gave me the third degree the other night. Not a truncheon in sight, but she shined her blinding spotlight right into my room and chased my sleep from pillow-to-pillow. Arghh, but not-so-soft, what light through yonder window breaks, and in all-night misery the sleeper wakes?

When I rolled out of her way, she used the white paint on the door to reflect on her accusations and wake me up again. What happened to the nasty drizzle of rain that was falling at bedtime, I wondered. I am really, really sick of rain, but least it was dark then.

The first robin started yelling at quarter-after-four and within minutes was joined by a dozen more. This place is baby bird central, a veritable assembly line of fluffy fledglings. Robins are the most numerous and full of early noise and drama. Little ones dot-dot-dash across the lawn, chirping for hand-me-down worms and looking cute as puppies.

Enough baby bunnies to fill a dozen Easter baskets are lined up along the garden edge every morning drooling over the beans sprouts as well. Tiny fawns hide among the bushes in the heifer pasture. We watch the does slipping through the tall grass, all secret and sly, butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths, as they visit the places where their babies are hidden. “Nothing to see here, move along, move along.”

We know they are there though and pretty much just where. It is a wonder how they stay hidden when the coyotes hold howling fests just yards from their secret nests in the tall grass.

The moon was relentless in her questioning so I gave up on sleep to start the day. It’s summer after all, moon to noon and dawn to day’s end. I don’t want to miss a minute.

As sunlight shivered on the other horizon at just about dark thirty, that meanie of a moon fell off the edge of the west, smirking in the early fog and pointing chilly fingers as I stumbled down the stairs.

Her sleep robbing midnight rudeness could not deflect from the delight of not one, but two, Indigo Buntings singing furiously from a pair of Box Elders in the front yard. It was surround sound awesomeness at its finest. After the robin opening sonata the other birds tuned up for the adagio movement, although daybreak is not so very slow in June at all.

Grey Catbirds snap crackle popped a medley of a dozen other bird songs from the shrubbery. They can’t bring me a shrubbery, but they sure can sing me one.

“Look-up, over-here, see-me, up-here,” a Red-eyed Vireo played his cheerful flute notes, while a fledgling Northern Cardinal banged on daddy’s shins, as he sat in a tray full of sunflower seeds, begging to be fed.

A Carolina Wren suggested with his “tea kettle, tea kettle, tea kettle” that I put on a refreshing morning beverage to shake off the last dregs of sleep deprivation. I went with strong coffee instead and another June morning was off to a brilliant start.

June is my favorite month. It’s better than December with Christmas…who needs the stress and hassle anyhow? There is no need to agonize over appropriate presents in June, just a few brotherly birthday cards for the guys I grew up with. And what’s not to like about Father’s Day?

Golden June is way superior to February, chocolate hearts or no chocolate hearts. You can, after all, eat chocolate in summer too.

There is more fizz and bang in June than all the fireworks of July or the thunder that punctuates May.

It’s even better than Thanksgiving. Turkey is all well and good, but even the smell of homemade dressing in the oven can’t compare with the seductive scent of Riverbank Grapes blooming in their myriad millions all up and down the valley.

Despite delays in planting, corn is popping up all over, dressed in the exuberant shades of bright spring green. It has been a great pleasure to watch the river flats fields we pass, as the corn seedlings double in size overnight and triple their tall by the weekend.

Hay fields have been sheared and fertilized and are racing toward second cutting faster than a speeding lawn mower, only better.

June is also Dairy Month and that may just be the best part of all.

Dairy Month began as National Milk Month in 1937 and was originally a program planned to promote dairy products. Today it is still aimed in that direction, but I see it as a good reason to enjoy delicious things and have a lot of fun too.

It’s the perfect month to take a drive through perfumed air under an azure sky, heading for ice cream that tastes like Heaven.

It’s fun to change up the destination. We have a couple of favorite ice cream shops, where we indulge in a range of delights.

My favorite, and Becky’s too, Hawaiian Moon, a decadent concoction of coconut, cherry, and pineapple, is only available in summer, and as far as the Internet can tell, only right here in our area. Despite being named after that midnight nemesis that robs our sleep, we love it. We wait eagerly all winter for the first cone, and save a pint or two in the freezer for the winter wasteland.

And what’s a picnic without ice cream to follow the cheeseburgers from the grill?

There are more delicious dairy things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy!

I chased down some recipe suggestions for dairy month delights and found cucumber yogurt dip, another great possibility for picnics by the lake. Or how about a Tangerine Strawberry Creamsicle Smoothie? If you can’t find just the recipe you want you can be sure that the American Dairy Association has your back.

I hope you are enjoying June as much as I am this year, rain or no rain. After all, June is Dairy Good.

*Eh, okay, okay, I KNOW it's August but I stumbled on this and was kind of pleasantly surprised. Hope you enjoyed it.

Isaias

It's raining already and supposed to get worse before it gets better. Pretty warm out when I walked the doggo though. No time in his run for him today I guess, but he doesn't mind. Just as happy to play with his ball in the kitchen for a while. Good doggo.

They say the storm may blow in some interesting birds. I wish them well in landing so far from where they belong. And I hope I see them....just sayin'.

Stay safe and dry my friends. 

Learning Curve

This year marks the first time I have participated in a breeding bird atlas. It is also the first time data entry, maps, instructions etc. were done online.

It is exciting for me, as during the last atlas we were still milking cows, my late mother-in-law was seriously ill and we were too busy to even notice, let alone participate.

However, there is a pretty steep learning curve, at least for me, in doing it right...or at least rightish.

Since the affair began I have tried to stay within block lines for my lists, as you are supposed to do. However, the lines that I thought were block lines on the maps were something else entirely (no idea what). Thus lots of lists that were eligible for the atlas crossed those lines and I didn't submit them to the atlas portal.

Over the past few days I realized that most of those lists are eligible and so I fixed the issue.

Made me quite pleased and sure upped my stats for confirmed species in various blocks. So far I have confirmed 20 in the block where we live, ranging from Ruby-throated Hummingbirds to Ospreys.

Had a lot of fun doing it too. Today I accidentally found breeding Eastern Wood Peewees at Yankee Hill Lock. Such cute little birds.

Anyone else atlasing?

Welcome to August

Heaven only knows what this month will bring, but if the rest of the year is anything to go by we won't be ready for it.

We still go out hunting for good birds though, road farming along the way.

Hope you are all well in mind, spirit, and body, and that you are able to stay that way in this new month of new challenges on top of old problems. 

Water

A serious water main break under the truck stop parking lot down in town left the whole village without water last night. There were concerns that it might not be fixed until Monday.

Although there are those among us who have lived in a cabin in the 'Dacks for several years with no running water, when you have stock it's a problem. Thanks to the several people who offered to bring us in water today if it wasn't fixed.

Also thanks to the crews from village and others who worked well into the night to get it fixed shortly after midnight. When I got up at four AM and heard the pipes hissing and rattling I was a very happy camper.

Having lived through this scenario before I knew enough to open faucets and let 'er rip until it was reasonably clear and not too turbulent. However, I suspect it will be a while before all the air works out of all the pipes all over town.

In the meantime, there is, of course, a boil water advisory. Not a big deal as we bought several gallons of drinking water yesterday. Most importantly, the animals will have what they need.

So happy dance....and some video of Canada Geese taking advantage of the fact that the river now has water too. 

Triggered Like a Snowflake

Yes, I was indeed and now I am sorry for it.

Worst thing is I KNOW better than to react in such a manner. 

No excuses, except I will offer that everything is just so damn bad now that it is hard....really hard...not to react inappropriately.

But, as I said, no excuses.

Just I'm sorry and hopefully love will trump anger at some point.

And meanwhile, back to our regular programming, to which I truly try to stick.

We stumbled on a nice back road yesterday upon which to pursue the local avifauna. 

Neither saw nor heard anything of note, but the sheer numbers and variety were comforting in these ugly times. Were it not for the boss taking me birding I don't know how I would get through the endless days when nothing ever goes right. 

Been trying, somewhat lazily, as I am a morning person and don't do nights, to see the comet.

I think either I am looking wrong place/wrong time or there is too much light pollution and too many clouds for it to be visible. Meanwhile I am loving everyone else's photos. Stunning is too weak a word for them.

Maybe if we get a cool, clear night and I can stay awake, the boss and I will hit some of the really dark back roads with open vistas and see what we can see. Heaven knows, we spend enough time on them.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch.....Tonto, not knowing that the Lone Ranger was disguised as a pool table, racked his balls.

See you next week, same time, same station.

Photographing Life Birds

Not the guy we were looking for, although we would have liked to get a better pic

We found a real good sparrow up on Dingman Road in Fort Plain the last day of May. Others have seen it too since then and we go up that way every now and then, seeking a better photo than the less than stellar ones I have.

Then the other day another birder alerted me that someone had seen a Grasshopper Sparrow there. Oooooooohhhh....

I wanted one...having never seen one except when I was young and the fields were full of birds and eBird and record keeping were a long, long way in the future. Way back then I saw them occasionally over the course of many miles traversed on Magnum back. Birds don't mind horses much.

Anyhow, back to the current bird....Liz had yesterday afternoon off from one of her jobs so off we went.

It was a lovely afternoon until about ten minutes after we got there. The Clay-colored Sparrows we found in May were singing obligingly from several spots, but was that soft, insect-like buzzing from the middle of a hay field upon which I didn't wish to trespass a GRSP or was it not?

Hmmm....tiny fluttering tan thing floofs across the field and vanishes.

Probably, but certainly not an adequate ID to report.

We move up the road a bit and sploosh! the rain comes down in a wall.

Heh, not going to let that stop me. Ralph and I both hear little buzzes. From outside the car I can pick them out from three different places.

I refresh my memory of the sound by playing the Audubon version of it. A bunch of Savannah Sparrows come boiling up through the deluge.

Hmm, they also have a weak, buzzy call, but I am pretty familiar with them. Am I deluding myself? It's been known to happen.

But no, hot on their tails is a tiny football-shaped ball of feathers. Buffy, with a slightly darker back, open face, yep, orangey-yellow brow, it's him!

I flip my already already too-damp camera up and actually manage to find the thing in the view finder. Snap, I've got him, but before I could click again, he vanishes among the clover blossoms.

Wait til you see the picture....you won't have to wait long, it's right below. There is...or was...a bird in this photo, but I think you will have to take my word for it. 

It kinda got my goat if you know what I mean

Come and Go with Me

*click me*

Spare tire

See the dog?

Birding and road farming this lovely county in Upstate NY. Some music for your trip.

Tragedy Remembered

The Eugene Ferrin in this story was my great grandfather:

THE ALFRED SUN, WEDNESDAY, March 21, 1900

A Terrible Fire.

Eugene Ferrin’s Home Burned To the Ground Early Sunday
Morning and Two of His
Children Perish in The Flames

Last Sunday morning the inhabitants of this community received a shock,

Which, while it excited the sensibilities, at the same time touched the

Inmost hearts and sympathetic natures of all, when it was learned that the home

Of Eugene Ferrin, who lives in a house belonging to Wm Ostrander, situated almost three miles from this village on the McHenry Valley road, was burned to the ground together with the entire contents, and two of Mr. Ferrin’s children had perished in the flames.

About twelve o’clock Saturday night Mrs. Ferrin arose and put a chunk

Of wood in the stove to keep the fire until morning. She then retired again and her attention was soon attracted by a reflection of light which proved to be a fire which had started around the stove pipe hole down stairs. Mrs. Ferrin gave her husband the alarm and went to the stair door and called the three older children who were sleeping overhead, two boys in one room and a little girl in another. They answered and the little girl came down. The fire was at first apparently not very serious and Mr. Ferrin, endeavored to extinguish the flames with two pails of water which were handy; but this amount being insufficient and the water privileges being very inconvenient, he was obliged to abandon the effort.

When it became apparent that the house would be destroyed, Mrs. Ferrin rushed out of the house with her baby and little girl.

Seeing that the boys did not come down stairs in response to the call, Mr. Ferrin became alarmed for their safety and started up the stairs to rescue them but was met by a wall of seething flame which caused him to retreat. He then rushed out of the house and after procuring a ladder, climbed tot he chamber window which was located near the bed in which the boys had been sleeping. We are informed that when Mr. Ferrin broke through the window he found that the children had left their bed and were in the opposite corner of the room cut off from him by the flames so that it was impossible to effect their rescue. In his efforts to save the children he was very badly burned, the hair being burned from his head and his hands and one side of his face being entirely blistered. 

 The two boys who were cremated were aged 9 and 3 years. Mr. and Mrs. Ferrin and the other
two children escaped with nothing save their night clothes and walked on third of a mile to Mr. Ostrander’s in their bare feet. 

 The night was severely cold, the thermometer standing at eight below zero, and their feet were badly frozen from the exposure. They are at present at the home of Mrs. Ferrin’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Henry McIntosh, and it will be some time before they recover from the burns and effects of exposure. 

 Mr. and Mrs. Ferrin have the sincere sympathy of the entire community in their great calamity and bereavement, and several parties are busily engaged in collecting effects to aid them in their time of need. Surely this is a Christian duty, and we trust that all will join in bearing these heavy burdens that they may be made as light as possible for those on whom they will fall with crushing weight. The remains of the little ones were placed in a casket “together” and interred in Woodlawn Cemetery Monday afternoon.

A Theory

At least there is now water in our river
The dragonflies are celebrating
with an orgy of epic proportions

It's mid-July and so far the year has unwound like a Tasmanian Devil on crack.

Nothing has gone well. Nothing resembles normal. Nobody is having fun yet.

Besides the plague, food and supply shortages, rioting, and being cut off from most of the people and things and activities we love, there is a movement afoot to do away with our money in favor of turning complete control of our lives over to banks and government.

To me that is the worst thing yet. You have all read the reasons why so I won't repeat them.

However, I figured out yesterday WHY all this is happening.

2020 is the year of the rat!

 Sneaky, destructive of all things whether it needs them or not, tireless, relentless, and riddled with disease. 

Yep, it's all about the rat.

Am I wrong? 

I don't think so.

Factors

The eastern sky is a fire opal, molten sun rising from the depths of its midnight mine to burn away the fog by nine.

Will hay be baled by five?

A yesterday's worth of repairs, in the furnace of the season, spell we hope so in bold type.

Wish us luck and thank you. 

Ladies of the Summer Shrubbery

"Seriously, Mabel, did you hear about the Wood Duck down the canal? Dumped her
eggs in a Hoodie's nest. No better than she should be."

Grey Catbird, grumpy old dowager, all hump and rump.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird like a needle, embroiders the air over the rudbeckia....stitching up some bugs, then darting to the feeder to wash them all down.

As she turns this way and that her little motor sounds like the rumbling drum of summer.

Catbirds chatter from the ditch and goldfinches shriek about potato chips all day long.

Gossiping, gossiping, gossiping, needlework, and rocking babies in an oriole cradle. Singing about it all season long. "Swing me the cradle, cradle, cradle," calls the male from the top of the old spruce.

It's almost like a ladies' sewing circle only with feathers and flowers and all outdoors. With bugs, berries and grass seeds in place of the cakes and the cookies.

And then comes the Eastern Towhee, "Drink yer tea. Drink yer tea."

I feel so welcome out there with them all.

Actually these are hungry baby Green Herons.

I think they were clattering beaks together as if begging parents for food.
I knew there had to be a nest in the tree above, as a sheet of birdlime covered whole branches all
summer long.

However, it was another birder who first found these cute fledglings. I was happy to see them
a couple of days later. 

Gotta Love 'em

Be careful about taking that tempting bait.
 Sometimes the barbs are not visible at first

Bureaucrats that is. It appears that if one is in NY and has a business...any business, including selling a few bales of hay in the barnyard...one must certify, testify, and codify what one is doing to prevent the spread of the Asian Plague. File a plan and all....

Being a law abiding citizen I have started several times to pursue this process. Suffice to say it is absolutely asinine  not what anyone would call simple. In an effort to squeeze everybody into the same compliance box the above mentioned demons have created an apparently endless and certainly intrusive web of pages that have absolutely no relevance to tossing hay out of the mow and throwing it onto trucks. Each page takes you to another and another and another, until you feel as if you are filling out a tax return. And not on Turbo Tax either. 

This is just one page....and to add insult to injury if you pause in the completion of any of the many tasks your session expires and you have to fill it out all over again.

Almost none of it applies to anything we do....beyond the obvious meeting of the mask requirement if getting up close and personal.

In the course of selling hay, no one goes indoors ever except the boss and sometimes Liz, who get the bales and toss them down from the haymow. We don't allow anyone in our buildings anyhow.

There is no close contact with customers beyond the handing over of money, which would appear to require masks under the guidelines...and that's easy peasy; we all have them and wear them when required just to avoid pointless conflict. 

No employees except us. I suppose I could advise myself not to carpool, but since the boss drives me everywhere that seems like overkill. I wonder if the state hands out free signage to remind everyone who has been living under a rock for the past three months to stay six feet apart.

No place to wash hands.  The only things that are touched by more than one person are the hay and the cash. Can't think of any way or any reason to disinfect the hay. They can wear gloves for the cash if they want to. A lot of people wear gloves to handle hay anyhow. Personally we keep wipey things in the car to clean hands after indoor visits. Seems as if others could do the same.

There is none of this other stuff that needs to be wiped down either: "• Shared equipment; • Counters, tables and chairs; • Door handles and push plates; • Levers and steering wheels; • Handrails; • Kitchen and bathroom faucets; • Equipment surfaces; • Equipment buttons; • Light switches; • Remote controls; • Shared phones, keyboards and electronics; • Shared sleeping areas."

Wonder what will be required if somebody pets old Moon....

I will probably figure this out eventually or we will simply quit selling hay, which would probably please the powers that be no end.

Update, Scott had the county exec give me a call and he was able to suggest just how many of the regulations we actually need to worry about...so thanks to both of them. 

Meanwhile, speaking of cash. Has anyone realized that if we turn to digital currency, every single transaction of any kind or any value can and will be tracked....and TAXED? 

Not to mention the perfectly legitimate commerce that will be stifled. How ya gonna sell a dozen eggs or a couple of tomatoes on the side of the road? How ya gonna give a homeless person a buck for a sammich?

BTW, we report every dime's worth of hay that we sell, but the whole concept is as insane as mail-in voting. Ripe for corruption, a wide open door to hackers and cheats, and not needed to please anyone but the government.

Anyhow, be careful what you wish for in the name of this disease. There are things that have the potential to be a whole lot worse than it is and that will last a lot longer too.

The whole thing was too much for this frog to swallow

Puddles

It's rained a bucket or five thousand lately, pretty much every day.

There are all kinds of puddles in the driveway and the yard.

More rain is forecast for tonight to the point that the races are already cancelled.

However, some puddles are more equal than others.

Check out these puddling butterflies at the edge of the garden the other day.

Like flying flowers right in the yard.