Food Shortages --- Lets get Real

    
                  

    We can't really ignore what is going on in our country no matter how hard we try to act normalish. As soon as we do we have real life bite us in the rear to remind us. So you folks that are trying to just do what you think you have to and not watch the news or hear anything bad just trying to keep those blinders on and head down so you don't have to see or think about it you can just step away and delete now. This post is going to get real."If all you see is what you see. You'll never see all there is to see".

   Now that we have that out of the way.....
   Lets try to skip the health thing that is everywhere you look and dominating / ruining daily our lives in some way.
   We can't seem to control anything right now. We try but it is down right scary even when we are all doing the best we can. There are a few other things we need to be looking at other than the obvious health stuff. As with anything we are dealing with everyday safety and needs. Shelter, water, food, medical, temp control are the main ones.  Some may be losing their focus with all this overwhelming new life.
  There are some things we CAN CONTROL those are the things we can work with. The more we can look ahead and see what is going on and plan the more peace of mind we may have.
 Food -- it was really hard in the beginning. Seems like they have somewhat adjusted distribution. Right now I don't know where or how your getting your food but get and store everything you can. Even if someone gives you something you don't normally use or eat. If it will store do it. You can use it to trade or to help someone else out if needed. For those of you that are reasonably self sufficient on your property I am so proud of you! Please store extra for your family and neighbors if your able to.
     I have talked to some single people that are attempting to provide some of their own food growing. They have grown kids and some room for a small garden instead of the one or two plants of this or that they are growing. I encourage you to expand beyond your own personal needs. If your not physically able to do the work rope / guilt or whatever it takes to get other folks involved in learning to grow or preserve and store the chow.
    We have a world wide economy now days. Like here in the states if there is a freeze in Florida we can usually get something from California. If a grain crop doesn't do good in one state we can get grain from another. What we have going on now is it looks like China has been totally wiped out of their food supply due to extreme flooding throughout their whole country. If it isn't flooding it is drought to the point of locust and grasshoppers taking the rest of the food supply. So what does that have to do with us??  Think about it. Where are they going to get the food for millions and millions of people? I am going to include a link in here so you can watch the video. Skip any advertisements and occasional little repeat of information but watch it. There is no telling how many thousands of people were killed in all that flooding but that country has a huge over population problem still. They still have to feed their people. Don't forget any warehouses they have for products meant to sell in the USA are probably gone also. Masks, medicine, camping equipment, simple everyday things to important equipment for manufacturing.

Largest Floods in Chinese History Wiped Out the Country’s Food & Grain Supply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erONP33MBlA

US: Canned Food Shortages due to Chinese Tin/Steel Supply Chain Failures
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBOjxxCOUUc   (about 8 minutes)
this guy is big on the food supply. That is his thing if you listen to his other videos.

  I know when I was trying to buy some Throwback Mt Dew I couldn't because they quit making it and was only making the most popular. The grocery store manager said they didn't have enough cans for production. What in the world do you do without cans to store food in the grocery stores? Canning jars / glass, dehydration, more plastics we are not too sure about in the first place?

    Right now we are all pretty upset with China due to the pandemic and actually the whole society may not give a hoot about us. Still the common poor folks trying to survive are still people. They will be trying to buy up everything they can anywhere they can to feed the masses of people. How that works with politics right now I don't know. I know I have been hearing about China being aggressive in other countries. Maybe it was trying to find more land to supply more food? Who knows! Just remember... there is only so much food to go around anywhere in the world. Other countries are not having perfect growing weather and may not have enough to sell outside their own country.
    I believe the Bible says something about having enough food for 7 years? I'm not to good with those details. Can you imagine how much room that would take and learning how to actually store it so it would be good when you open it? Maybe you have family members or people like family you can work those details out with.

    Get with your other family members that live close by. Some will totally agree your need to go the extra mile to get your supplies in order the best you can. Others will think you are crazy and the government will fix it all. My favorite is God will protect us and won't let anything bad happen. Remember God also gave us brains and the ability to do for ourselves and others also ! For those family members and close friends that don't want to participate go ahead without telling them and plan on having extra if you can for them. You know they will be knocking on your door if your silly enough to tell them everyone is planning for a food supply. LOL

     I think the churches are in a good position to establish a food market for their towns. They can possibly organize growers to grow a established variety of needed foods. I am not totally familiar with the Mormon Church but what I am aware of they are really organized on the establishment of food availability. For that matter anyone with good organization and familiar with town folks could do it. Someone grow veggies, another does, chickens and eggs, someone else do lambs or beef or pigs etc.

    I know many of us are worried about a lot of important things and feel helpless. So the only other thing is try to think ahead the best we can so we don't jump the rails so bad and do alright.
   If we are lucky the president will accomplish Made In America products and medicines enough things won't get too hard on us. In the mean time we will just all have to plan the best we can.
   Don't forget, those dried beans in the bags at the store you should also be able to use as seed. No we don't know if it is non GMO or how it was grown with what chemical but does it matter if your really out of food in the cabinet? Now if you put your food in the freezer to get rid of bugs I'm not sure if that same bag of beans / seeds will grow. You may want to try it both ways. This spring germinate some that were in the freezer and then some that you left on the shelf. That should show you what would work before going to all the effort outside.

Love
Ranchmama

Beautiful Sunny Morning Break

It’s a beautiful morning 
I’m sunning on the front porch a few minutes getting my vitamin D!
    I look out and see freshly mowed pasture and hay field all done. Cow’s enjoying the shade already at 10am. 
    Wild birds scarfing up the exposed bugs from me brush hogging 
    Best of all I have quite time without a hubby needing something!
    I might actually get the kitchen where you can see a square inch of clean counter !

I know some women complain about a dirty kitchen because the sink as maybe 2 dishes in it. No I'm not like that I swear to all that when I say 1" of clean counter would be nice I am serious! 

    4 out of 7 days I am picking up and delivering help. I don't get much done in the little time they are here. Then it's do what I can either do myself or help with outside in this crazy heat and humidity. Age does not help that at all. 

    By the time I get back in the house there is down time to recuperate and then try to feed hubby make what business calls or whatever needs to be done or maybe even do a little basic cleaning to keep things sanitary around here. It's pitiful some days!

     We are having a few rainy days this week and the hay man is coming to move 100 bales that are too far away from the house to transport on our little bitty hay trailer. So today I hope it has been a recovery day for me. Surely Friday will be better. Sometimes allergies, too busy or even me picking up on other peoples emotional or physical whatever's just knocks me for a loop!  I'm ready for a break from it all. After everything I have been doing housework is almost a vacation!

 Love ❤️

Ranchmama

Morning Peace

Breakfast is done,
Table cleaned off, the rest of the mess waiting.
It can wait.
I walk out the front door and sit in the cold metal chair of my porch.
It's 52* on December 10 th dry, sunny and coolish.

I sit there in that chair looking southeast.
The sun is so bright I just close my eyes and soak it in.
The bright sun with that good for you vitamin D.
I only unbutton and show so much,
It isn't just cool, I sure don't want to scare the wildlife this beautiful morning.

I feel my skin warming on the side exposed to the sun.
Closing my eyes it is just so bright I can't see out.
I hear the far off crow in the woods,
Parakeets tweeting in the building not far away.

I shield my eyes with my hand every now and then
to view the morning peace.
Mowed fields in front of me from my summers work.
Woods across the road and across the creek,
The tired unused wood pile out by the driveway.
About 700 yds southeast on the hill I see my husbands range
It's a 1/2 plate of steel hanging between two metal pipes.
Painted yellow to see and tell where he has hit his target.
A neat hole punched in the middle of the metal
The metal is bending inwards from so many bulls eyes.

The heifers aren't up in front of the house yet.
They are waiting to be spoiled with good feed down in the barn.
The 5 new heifers we saved last week are quiet this morning
Adjusting to not having a mama to nurse for breakfast.

It is so much easier to sit here and just absorb.
Everything and nothing at the same time.
I try to push out what is churning in the back of my brain.
All the need to's, want to's and must do's
Daily, Christmas and just whatever's.

My skin starts getting hot in some places
My backside is still cold from the silly metal chair.
I give up.
I have to walk through those front double doors
Back to the need to's, want to's and must do's

Crud ! Oh, Well.
Looks like I can just run away for a few minutes.
I wonder... what would happen
If I just dumped everything in the floor,
Dirty dishes, to do lists, other needful things
Just walked around it or swept it out the door?
Better yet... walk back out the front door
To that Morning Peace and just said forget it?

Ok, I give up.
I am going back into Mama, wife and family mode.

Love
Ranchmama

12-10-2017

Heidi Ho Doggie

There once was a Doggie named Heidi Ho.....

 That is always on the goooo......

                   

   Whenever her master opens the door..... 

She tries to hurry off the floor.....

  She must scurry to hurry......

    Before the Master.....

   Slams the door on the nose ....

She waits for him to load on the coat an shoes.....

So she can check out all the cow poo.....!!!

She runs along side Ol' Blue .....

Seeing the cows numbers are all true.......

When done with that pasture she loads up.....

In the back to check out the view ............... 

The front seat to harass, help drive and to check out the road......

Each time held by the collar to keep her spot .....

When the Master goes out of the hot to the cold.....

Each day is the same .....

With sometimes a game.....

To herd the cows from here to there.....

When the day is done .....
And it's no more fun....
You will find her inside .....
Resting her tired hide....

Love

Ranchmama

Winter Cold

Sitting in the parking lot in OKC you know it's cold when the birds do their version of backing up to the stove to warm the backside landing on a freshly parked Jeep sitting on the hood an in front of the radiator trying to warm up.

   Temp is 23* with 28mph winds

Burrrrrrrrr...... 

    Cows should be good with hay in windbreaks . Ice shouldn't be to thick so they can get water . Just have to check things every now an then to make sure .

Love

Ranchmama

Bully Boys Will Be Boys !

                      The final result

One thing for sure is boys will be boys whether it is the 2 legged or the 4 legged types. Sometimes you just want to shoot'em no matter how many legs they have. Then other times you see things like this and you have to laugh.

It starts out like this... Just a itch you have to scratch on a muddy pond bank.

Then it just sort of starts feeling good and  you don't want to stop. You know the feeling sometimes and how that goes.

Then you kind of realize your getting carried away and try to shake it off .

You finally shake it off and you just have to crow about it saying "Man oh man .... That was good stuff !"

The final results are what you see at the top 

Love

Ranchmama 

( finding joy while feeding the cows today)

Forgotten Tunes

Being a Ranchmama I wear many hats . Through the years I switch them out for different types of hats. I hang them on the wall collecting as I go taking this one off and putting another one on. 

    Some hats fit better than others but the job still has to get done . 

    About every other day sometimes each day we feed cows. 

    Each time the feed is loaded up in the back of Old Blue. Sometimes Heidi Ho rides in the back sometimes up front an in the middle. Either way it can be both entertaining and a pain in the butt. That is another story another day.

  We usually have 2 stops to make after leaving the house. 

   We drive down the road in Old Blue all 3 of us ( me , hubby & Heidi Ho) looking at and for cows even before we get into the gate. 

      Many times we honk the horn getting them to move closer to the place we normally feed. Once we make it in we are always in a hurry trying to get things done. He honks an I usually holler out the window . Anyone that has a group of animals usually has a call to get them to come to dinner/ breakfast , whatever. This call I guess I Inherited not from my side of the family but from hubbies side. I am sure he learned it from his dad. That's the way it works when the family works together. He still has a aunt alive on his daddy's side I need to ask if it is the same call Grandma had. 

   The call goes something like this ... Soooo....UuuuuKkkk!! Soooo....UuuuuKkkk!! Souuua Souuua

Here cows! Come'on or a version of. 

      I don't know what happened but the other day right in the middle of calling I remembered  my daddy's call. Daddy was a horse person. He would get off work everyday stop along the highway in the summer with a sickle / idiot stick an cut a whole truckload of grass half way up the sideboards then head on out about 20 miles up the road to feed.

     I wish I could describe his horse call. Daddy was a whistler. He was always whistling. One that always stuck in my head was Down In the Valley.... Valley so low.... Late in the evening.... Hear the wind blow..... His horse whistle kind of elevated up high then dropped sharply. This would be repeated once then the other 2 times much quicker. The sound of that whistle and galloping horses has been hidden away for many years. It brings a smile and even tears to have it resurface again. I need to practice that whistle and pass it on to my side of the family just because it needs to be remembered.

Love

Ranchmama