Hating women

Last September I wrote a WND column called Feminism Has Slain Our Protectors. In my naiveté, I thought it was a nice tribute to men. Apparently I was wrong.

To my surprise, the column because the focus of intense debate among a group of misogynists. I don’t use that term lightly: I mean these men seriously hate women of any sort. Here it, five months after the fact, and comments are still coming in (445 at last count).

Evidently the column made the rounds of a group calling themselves MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way), the premise of which is men are no longer feeling obligated to do anything that society in general, and women in particular, expect them to do. They will no longer feel compelled to get married or support a family. They will no longer feel compelled to fight wars or engage in professions that get them dirty. They will no longer feel compelled to open doors or assist with a flat tire. In short, they'll do their own thing without regards to traditionally masculine concepts of duty, obligation, or (particularly) chivalry.

These men are just as hostile (if not more so) toward traditional ("trad con") women as they are toward feminists.

The latest comment (from yesterday) to come in on the column was from someone calling himself John Rambo and reads as follows:

I'm a MGTOW. I'm going my own way, without a backstabbing treasonous *** dragging with me. I would help any human being. But when you 'train me' to do the job, then *** , you bloody... I can see through every intention of women.

This article is pure evil. When a man would write thing like "Women should be chained to the countertop, and should be used as baby factory", then hell would break loose.

It doesn't matter what women think, or what they want. Women get older, and they will see men turn their heads less and less. They will be desperate attention-junkies going cold turkey.

Yesterday I received an email from (presumably) the same poster (he called himself John the MGTOW) as follows, which is why I thought to check the comments on the column:

Dear Patrice Lewis.

What if men were going their own way, and simply would ignore women completely?

So no marriages, no children, no sex, no protection, no alimony, and the hard, dangerous, dirty and heavy jobs women also can do themselves.

Men Going Their Own Way, without women. That is what is happening right now more and more.

You want enslave men to do your dirty and heavy jobs? See men as walking ATM's?

We can just walk away, and never come back. And we will.

Ahh, I love the smell of victory.

Cheers! John the MGTOW

Beyond the logical question of what these men DO all day, it's clear this kind of general-purpose hatred didn’t just spring up from nowhere. It had to have a source. Obviously these men all bear similar wounds and decided to cluster together for protection against the perceived hostility of womanhood. Whether those wounds derived from an ex-wife, a girlfriend, or (most tragically) a mother, I’m sure we’ll never know.

I just think it’s sad.

And you thought YOUR job was tough...

Here's a fascinating short YouTube video a reader sent, under the category of "And you thought YOUR job was tough..."

Here's a fellow changing a light bulb on the top of a 1500-foot TV tower.

I have a pretty decent head for heights, but I think even this would defeat me. My hat is off to the unsung heroes who do this kind of stuff every day.

Most boring blog ever

Here's a comment I recently received:

You win the award for the most boring blog ever. Pictures of biscuits and posts about freezers and clock radios. Yawn. Please get real lives and stop documenting every burned out light bulb and fart you come across. You have great potential (I've read a lot of your stuff), but you're wasting it on the mundane. ZZZZZZZZZZ..............

Ah well, ya can't please 'em all.

Giving up the ghost

After fourteen faithful years of service, our gigantic chest freezer finally gave up the ghost.

This freezer has been an outstanding appliance. As I recall, we bought it in 2000 when Montgomery Wards went out of business. We walked into the rapidly-emptying store during their liquidation process and asked for their biggest chest freezer. I don't remember the price, but we came home with a 24.9 cubit foot Frigidaire. That was when we still lived in Oregon.

We transported it all the way to Idaho in 2003 (filled with half a cow -- our logic was it was easier to move the cow in the freezer than on the hoof) and since we had no place to set it up inside the house (and since we don't have a garage), we parked it outside on our side porch. We didn't realize this was the wrong thing to do, since this meant it was in full sunlight during the first half of the day. In warmer weather, this made the motor run too hard. Sure enough, in 2008 the motor died. Horrors. But we engaged the services of an appliance repairman, he fixed it up spiffily, and he told us the freezer would last much longer (and run more efficiently) if we moved it to a shady spot. So our chest freezer sat on our north-facing front porch ever since.

Over the years the lid of the freezer started giving us trouble -- the screws were working loose and the insulation was getting wet and swelling, etc.

This caused massive ice buildup inside the fridge. Fortunately it happened during winter, so the contents of the freezer weren't compromised (since it was just as cold outside as inside the unit).

Twice, Don fixed the lid.

But last week we noticed things were not as "hard-frozen" as they should be. The lid was working fine and the food was still frozen, but it was clear the motor was failing.

We couldn't complain. Fourteen years of hard work -- we certainly got our money's worth. We knew this day was coming and had money earmarked for a replacement freezer.

Phone calls to appliance centers around the area did not yield any freezers of the same size -- at least, not without waiting a couple of weeks -- so for the time being we settled on a "dinged" 16 cubic foot new model.

Here it is, in the back of our truck.

We manhandled it onto the side porch, unwrapped it, and plugged it in. The manufacturer's directions said to chill the freezer before putting anything in it.

Here are the "dings" it came with. We'll coat this with an anti-rusting agent.

While the new unit chilled, we set about the daunting task of emptying the old unit. Fortunately we're running low on beef (we'll be butchering soon) so what remained in the freezer was beef, the chickens we butchered last summer, lots of garden produce (especially strawberries, some of which are in the photo below), cheese, and things like tortillas, pork (bacon ends, some pork chops, etc.), and a few veggies I haven't gotten around to canning yet. We also discarded the mysterious unlabeled oddities that tend to fossilize in freezers.

After it was empty, Don and I manhandled the old freezer off the porch... but then were stuck with how to move it into the barn. You see, we have plans for the old freezer. Don did some volume calculations and determined it will hold about 1000 lbs. of chicken feed. It's long been our desire to buy chicken feed in bulk (it's much cheaper that way) but we were stymied with where to store it, since it would need to be moisture- and rodent-proof. The old freezer will be ideal for that purpose. After some discussion, we decided to put the freezer in the barn. But how to move it that far?

Tractor to the rescue! In addition to Don having an excuse to play with his new toy, it was the absolute best solution to moving the heavy unit without killing our backs.

We didn't want to move the new freezer using the tractor, of course -- too much danger of damage -- but we couldn't figure out how to move it from the side porch to its permanent location on the front porch. Don (brilliant guy that he is) finally rigged up a method of two loops of straps, one at either end, with a long iron pole to lift. We each hoisted one end of the pole and easily carried the freezer to where it needed to go.

This freezer has a lid that stays open without the need of a stick to prop it up, and it has an internal light (whoo-hoo!). Right now it's packed to the gills... and as I said, we have two animals slated for butchering soon. Since we still have money in our freezer fund, we'll buy a second unit in the near future and use it for beef.

Having two smaller freezers instead of one larger freezer is probably a better idea anyway, since if one unit dies we can prioritize and keep things frozen in the second unit until we can get a replacement.

Of course we've thought about what we would do in the event of a long-term power outage. The most valuable thing in our freezer is beef and other meats. The units would stay cold long enough for me to can everything up. Our stove is propane and does not have an electric start, so it works fine in a power outage. I would be canning round the clock, but we wouldn't lose much. I also keep about six dozen of quart jars empty and on standby in case of a freezer emergency.

New ebook store!

Howdy all:

Patrice is busy washing dishes, doing the laundry, cleaning the house, and cooking dinner, and the weather here is keeping me from playing with my new tractor, so I decided to take this opportunity to announce our new business.

Many of you have been kind enough to purchase the few e-booklets we've offered at our-less-than-user friendly old site, Self Sufficiency Series.com (thank you!). But one of our long-term goals has been to expand both the offerings and the subject matter available. We also wanted a way for people to buy more than one item at a time.

I think we've finally got that down by using the services of an on-line shop and e-cart service available through www.BigCartel.com. So it is with great pride (and some anxiety – we've tested the system and it seems to work, but...) that I now announce the opening of our new e-book store: www.CountryLivingSeries.com

We now have 24 inexpensive titles available, covering topics like “Moving to the Country” and “The Home Dairy,” all written by Patrice.  Each PDF booklet is lavishly illustrated and (we hope) full of useful information for those with the itch towards further self-sufficiency.  Upon check-out, an email containing links to all of the purchased booklets will be sent to the customer.

We will be adding more titles as we get them done: currently in the works are such e-booklets as Piemaking 101, Tire Gardening, Chicken Basics, and numerous preparedness-related e-booklets.

We'd love it if you, dear readers, would take a look at the new site and see if there are any additional topics that you'd like to see covered on subjects related to prepping, country living, and self-sufficiency. By way of incentive, if we use one of your suggestions for a new e-booklet, we'll make sure you get a free copy as soon as it's ready for publication.

Also...

For those of you who have the capability to help us out by sharing the site with your own readers and friends, we'd be grateful. Spread the word! Every penny earned will, for a long time, be going to tuition for Older Daughter's nanny school this summer.

Thanks,
Don

Heeeeere's Lucy!

Many of you remember last summer when we had a sweet little red heifer calf born.

Because we couldn't think of a name for her, all of you lovely readers chimed in with dozens of suggestions. We finally chose "Lucy" since, of course, she's a red-head.

Lucy is now seven months old and darling.

True to the nature of calves, she's become quite an escape artist.

I often see her where she shouldn't be. She never wanders far, though, so we're not worried.

She's become my frequent companion in the barn, where she gorges undisturbed on hay. As a result, she's fat as a butterball.

Look at that belly!

Unlike the other animals who use the awning for shelter, little Lucy uses the whole barn.

Her coloration certainly makes her stand out. I don't think we've ever had such a red heifer.

No special point to this post, just thought you might like to see some cute pix.

Lots of "home" stuff

I took this random photo the other night. It wasn't "planned" (that is, orchestrated) -- it just "happened."

What you're seeing is two bowls full of home-raised eggs, home-grown garlic (in one of the plastic bowls), homemade bread, and homemade cheese-garlic biscuits. Lots of "home" stuff.

Ahhh... life on a farm. Gotta love it.

The time is... IL 68

At long last, our bedside clock radio gave up the ghost.

This el-cheapo gizmo has worked through thick and thin for nearly 25 years. I remember buying it after a previous clock radio got soaked from a rainstorm (rain blowing in the open window) back in 1990 shortly after Don and I were married. Over the years the alarm stopped working, then the radio stopped working, but as long as the time display worked, we didn't care. (We set our own work hours so an alarm usually isn't necessary.)

This little clock even worked after getting soaked from a massive squall that came through last summer, when the wind blew so hard through our bedroom window (accidentally left open) that it soaked the carpet six feet into the room.

But two days ago, at long last, the time display died. Suddenly we were getting such creative times as "F99" or "IL 68."

Okay, time for a new clock -- especially after I unplugged it and this happened:

Don must have patched the cord together a decade or two ago and I'd forgotten. I guess he could patch it together again, but is it really worth it? We decided it was time for a new clock. No complains -- we've gotten our money's worth. A quarter-century is certainly a decent lifespan for electronics.

After a quick trip to the hardware store, Don came home with the cheapest version they had.

Seems to work just fine. As long as it tells me what time it is in the middle of the night (I have a tendency to get up at 2 am unless I can see otherwise), I don't care if the alarm or radio functions work (which they do).

I guess paying $12 every twenty-five years or so isn't bad.

Does our stuff own us?

A few weeks ago there was a thought-provoking piece on ZeroHedge entitled Do We Own Our Stuff, Or Does Our Stuff Own Us? (reprinted from OfTwoMinds.com)

The essay asked, "The frenzied acquisition of more stuff is supposed to be an unalloyed good: good for "growth," good for the consumer who presumably benefits from more stuff and good for governments collecting taxes on the purchase of all the stuff. But the frenzy to acquire more stuff raises a question: do we own our stuff, or does our stuff own us? I think the answer is clear: our stuff owns us, not the other way around."

This post got me wondering whether we (the Lewis family) fall into that category of who owns who.

We certainly don't subscribe to the "frenzied" acquisition of anything. The "normal" stuff most people think about acquiring leave me cold. I am utterly indifferent to fashion, jewelry, shoes, or other traditionally feminine interests. Yet I could (if not fettered by a budget) spend umpteen dollars on books. Hey, we all have our weaknesses.

That said, we have certainly acquired a fair amount of stuff, some of it very expensive (most recently, the wood cookstove and the tractor). These are items we feel will enhance both our livelihood and our self-sufficiency.

So as to the question of whether our stuff owns us, at this point I'd have to say "yes." But let me qualify that statement.

We moved from Oregon to Idaho in 2003 in part to obtain more land at a cheaper price so we could expand our livestock-raising efforts (we only had four acres in Oregon). Livestock, as anyone knows, ties you down. We can no longer take trips as a family; one of us must always be home. I suppose we could hire a house sitter, but so far it's never been necessary.

So who owns who? After giving the matter some thought, I realized that our "stuff" is also our livelihood. Our computers (since I'm a writer), our livestock, our garden, this blog, the shop with all our tools... all these contribute toward how we make a living.

In this regard, most people are "owned" by whatever obligations they undertake to earn an income. Short of winning the lottery, most people are not free to just jaunt off into the sunset, leaving their jobs behind them.

The article's writer states, "Frankly, I wouldn't accept a new big-screen TV, vehicle, tablet computer, etc. etc. etc. at any price because I am tired of stuff owning me. I don't want any more entertainment or computational devices, musical instruments, vehicles, clothing, kitchen appliances, or anything else for that matter, except what can be consumed with some modest enjoyment and no ill effects."

I certainly agree with this sentiment. Possessions like those listed above leave me cold anyway. I'm a Luddite when it comes to electronics, and fight tooth and nail against even downloading new computer programs (my husband will chuckle when he reads this since he knows how true it is!).

But the author of this piece seems to think those who own anything are enslaved by them. My question is, if you owned nothing, what would you do? Take off and travel the world? On whose money? Except for those who are independently wealthy, the rest of us have to be grounded enough to work for a living.

The secret, I think, is to enjoy what you do. Yes we're "enslaved" by our livestock and garden and work-at-home lifestyle, but since we like owning livestock and like growing a garden and like working at home, we don't feel enslaved. Indeed we feel freer than many people, since we can grow and raise a significant portion of our food, and we don't have to commute.

Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman once said, “Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to the job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car, and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it.”

Kinda spot-on, isn't it? Unquestionably there's a higher correlation between material possessions and work hours which can become a vicious circle. You work hard and so have less time, so you buy time-saving devices which cost money, so you have to work harder to pay for those time-saving devices.

In the book Better Off by Eric Brende, the author and his new bride lived for 18 months among a conservative Mennonite community utterly devoid of modern technology. They cooked on woodstoves and traveled by horse-and-buggy and plowed by horse and harvested and threshed by hand, etc. The book was a fascinating analysis of which tools are truly useful, which are not, and the value of labor.

At one point Mr. Brende even questioned the need for horses, pointing out how much labor goes into feeding and housing the animals that powered the community. If the number of horses were reduced, he argued, then presumably the amount of work and expenses associated with them would lessen as well.

And if this argument can be made about horses, how much more can it be made for $50,000 automobiles, massive mortgages, designer wardrobes, and consumer electronics? How much labor must people undergo to pay for those things?

Mr. Brende did admit that without the constant atmosphere of industrious work in the low-tech community, there would then be the risk of idle hands, particularly among the youth. If too much leisure occurs, what kind of mischief would then happen?

Interestingly, after the Brendes left the Mennonite community and rejoined the modern world (they now have three children), they continue to live as low-tech a lifestyle as is possible in an urban environment. Recently I saw a YouTube interview with them, filmed several years ago. At first I found myself steeped in admiration at how well they've managed to stay true to their values -- Mr. Brende points out how we spend most of our time serving the needs of technology rather than having technology serve our needs -- but then I began to wonder. Unlike the Mennonite group they lived in when first married, where everyone lived a similar lifestyle, the Brende's children are growing up in a place where they find themselves at odds with their peers. As the kids get older, will they reject their parents' philosophy and embrace a high-tech lifestyle? I don't know.

It occurred to me, as I watched my children on their laptops, that maybe it's not good for children to be TOO low-tech in a high-tech world. Once they leave the nest, they have to get along in the world and will have to make competent, mature decisions about the amount of technology they will want in their lives. But since our girls have grown up without iPads and smart phones and other hand-held wonders, they've never become addicted to tiny screens. They've never walked into walls or ditches because they're not paying attention to their surroundings.

So maybe, just maybe, it's better to introduce a judicious amount of technology during adolescence (NOT childhood) as long as it doesn't get out of hand.

On the other hand, Mr. Brende points out something very important during the YouTube interview: his home is the center of his life. He doesn't spend his time serving technology; his wife and children join forces to achieve things without the technology. Their lifestyle is family-centered and focused on what's truly important.

In that respect, he certainly has the right idea.

Gas prices

Lately we've been watching gas prices creep down down down. As Younger Daughter put it, she's never likely to see such prices again during her lifetime, so I've been taking photos to document this unprecedented event.

This was our local price January 15:

These photos were taken January 22:

These are the lowest prices I've seen. As of this writing, prices are starting to creep up to about $1.65/gallon... which is still, by modern standards, astronomically low.

It remains to be seen how long they stay this low, especially in light of the recent death of the Saudi king. I'm certain the low prices are affecting the livelihood of some people; but meanwhile it's awfully nice to get change back at the gas station.