Galen

Did anyone attend the Rock of 2024? I just saw an ad selling tickets for 2025.

I hope you are still vertical :)

Some of us are still around :)

Does anyone remember what books did JAL write?

Lately I have been buying lead. I have a new .50 rifle and ammo is very difficult to find. One box of twenty 350grain slugs cost me $42 [these twenty bullets weigh one-pound]. Then I found that I can buy soft lead at Lowes for $2 a pound. So when I cast my own bullets their value goes from $2 a pound to $40+ a pound. The only Lee mold I have been able to get only makes 550grain bullets [thirteen bullets make a pound].

Some people buy 'certificates'. Which are only paper. If you spend money to buy PMs, make sure that you hold PMs, and not paper to PMs.

There are areas where land is still cheap.

PMs I am hesitant to collect any PMs. Keeping in mind Executive Order 6102 required the confiscation of all gold from May 1, 1933, on up into the 1970s. Knowing that in an economic crisis our government will once again begin confiscating all gold, and possibly silver too. I do not feel it wise. Last year I got a new .50 cal rifle, then I began the search for ammo. Since there is an extreme ammo shortage right now. I got a lead melting furnace and molds for .50 caliber. Pure soft lead sells for $2 a pound, and cast into bullets lead sells for $42 a pound. Now I am stocking up on lead.

and within a week they are all gone. We have tried multiple times, we tried it over and over, year after year. Obviously you do not believe me, but I am telling you the truth.

We have had chickens. To each project there is a learning curve, that learning curve pushed us in the direction of doing 12-week meat birds, then they go to freezer camp. For 12-weeks each year we maintain chickens, and that gives us enough chicken to eat for a year. Since we live in dense forest, the predators are fierce. We have tried many times to allow chickens to free-range, but those efforts have never been successful. We can keep poultry inside coops just fine, but if they get out, it attracts predators and once that happens the predators hit so hard that they dig tunnels under the coops, they chew holes through the chicken wire to gain access into the coops, and they become relentless until after all chickens have been eaten. It is less work to just raise chickens for a short period of time and send them to the freezers. We have done much better raising pigs.

Maybe you should. Maine is over 92% forest, with many rivers. We bought two woodlots, one parcel with a small bit of peat bog on it for $350 an acre and the other parcel has a quarter-mile of river frontage for $770 an acre. For a total of 150 acres of land. We heat our home with firewood, and we have a solar power system for our home and recently got a hybrid car that recharges from our solar system. Property taxes are pretty low [$1.05 per acre].

I retired from the US Navy in 2001. At that time, I got active on Greasespot Cafe. I have since moved out into the woods of Maine, and re-invented myself as an off-grid organic farmer. This spring I celebrated 20 years of retirement. This summer I reached the age of eligibility for Social Security benefits. We attended twigs from the 1970s up until 2016. When we finally made a complete break from them.

I am still around.

I think there is a time and a place for abortions. When my eldest son's wife was pregnant, an ultrasound noticed that inside the fetus' head there was no detectable brain. My immediate thought was, Oh no, if you give birth to a turnip, you need to care for this drooling child for years with no hope that they will ever become a self-sufficient adult. Please, this is the proper time to abort a fetus. His wife refused to have an abortion. "The fetus is living and growing it deserves a chance at life". She gave birth to a son with cerebral palsy [hydrocephalus]. My grandson is now four years old. He can not blink, nor swallow, his heart pumps and he can breath. He can not move his eyes, nor lift his head, or raise a finger. He is fed through a tube, and he will be for the rest of his life. Every week he gets bigger, Fortunately during the week of his birth, he qualified for life-long SSDI. The burden of care is huge for his mother. Soon he will be too big for his mother to lift him. We do what we can to offer our Daughter-in-law support and encouragement. But the stress was too much for their marriage.

Are you suggesting that a baby takes its first breath sometime before it is born?