"Flying Pig Ranch & Thistle Farm? What the hell is that all about???

Assuming my best Walter Brennan posture and adopting a curmudgeon tone, "Pigs I tell you! Flyin' pigs! All over my feeders. Flying pigs! They're just pigs!"

The first part, 'Flying Pig Ranch', is a reference to our fowl weather friends. ( That was a pun right there, just so you know. ) When the weather turns foul the Flying Pigs begin to flock to our feeders. Yeah, I talking about birds here.

Before ClimateChange/GlobalWarming/BeingCoalStupid turned Kentucky's winter into a near subtropical rain.all.d*mned.day mess we used to have a great 'Sounder' (A group of pigs. Yeah, I had to look it up.) of gold finches, house finches, three kinds of sparrows, blue jays, downy woodpeckers, yellow belly sap suckers, brown thrashers, mocking birds, morning doves, chickadees, tit mouses, cardinals, wrens, ...panting from exertion ... and the occasional red tail hawk, who comes to feast on the other little birdies. [My best run-on sentence evah.]

We got yer feeders here although not as many as my bird-lady Mom; sorta like cat-lady, which she is too. We got suet feeders, hanging feeders, seed feeders, thistle socks, a terracotta flowerpot 'dish', a hand-thrown groddy-needs-to-be-fired-again orphaned cup from one of Ken Shenstone's Anagama firings, and a cute little suction-cuppy type thing that sticks on the window next to B's chair.

We buy our feed stock at the local Rural King. Yup, that tractor supply store out by the tail end of the old by-pass around town. They built that new place back there behind the Kroger. Then the new Express Way came through and all but cut them right off. Luckily the locals have more use for the RK than that pork barrel pavement project. When the season is really cold it is a forty pound sack of Sunflower seeds and at least 5 5-lb bags of roasted <u>unsalted</u> peanuts in the shell per month.

They do like their Pig's Buffet. The cup is nestled in the corner of a post and railing. I try to only fill it two or maybe three times a day with peanuts. Mostly it's Jays. They can be so particular; pick one up, put it down, pick up another, put it down and take the first again before fleeing the scene of the snatch-n-grrab robbery. And greedy. A Jay will take a in-the-shell peanut and then try to pick up anther. The first peanut prevents the Jay from closing its beak and getting a grip on the second. Surprising how many times they will try for the second peanut before giving up.

In the real desparate times of winter food is so scarce that almost all the Pigs like the suet cages. The usual subjects, the woodpeckers, sap suckers, and brown thrashers are regular visitors, just ride the suet cages as the spin around. The rest of the pigs posture for grazing rights below, snapping up the morsels that rain down from the sloppy eaters above. As the suet cakes are consumed I will fill the cages with peanutes. The wood peckers really enjoy both. It makes the Jay crazy, trying to wrangle whole peanuts from between the bars of the of the cages. So, I gets my revenge where I can.

Better stop ranting here and go out on the porch, "Get off my feeders you Flying Pigs! Pigs I tell ya. You're just pigs!"

Two Voices: Amalgamated Dreams Haiku

 

Two Voices: Amalgamated Dreams
Haiku



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A volume of small poems by William B. Meloney VII

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It is with excitement and trepidation that I announce the free publication: Two Voices: Amalgamated Dreams Haiku.

These small poems are to be savored as individual sips of fine essences. Please enjoy them one at a time. Let each one ferment in your imagination.



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For the full article please follow this link Two Voices: Amalgamated Dreams Haiku

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Retirement Reflections - I didn't know where I was going ...

I didn't know where I was going but I was getting there too damned fast.

I naively thought I was going to $WORK until I couldn't. The $COMPANY thought otherwise.

Initially I thought I needed to $WORK. My entire identity was comprised of my work. I am my job/profession.

• You don't work, you don't eat.

• You don't work, you can't support your family.

• All I have ever done (mostly) is work. I don't know anything else.

• I never planned on not working.

Now before I go all off-on-myself I need to remember that the career that I settled oh so comfortably in was an extension of my avocation not my vocation. Years ago when I realized that I was not going to be able to "retire" from being an EMT I sought out a career path the included my hobby, my passion, my heart's desire; Personal Computers.

After two additional years of college, paid for by grants, to achieve my Secondary Education Certificate (with a "minor" in Computer Science) I spent a year, grossly under paid and overworked, in Education. Again, I realized this was something that I could not "retire" from.

I applied for, and finally, received a position with a manufacturing concern as a PC Tech. I made more money the first week than I had made the last week of my 5-year EMT service. I was more fulfilled the first day as a PC Tech than I was the entire time I was in Education. This was a career that I might eventually retire from, that was clear.

I didn't have a job, I didn't $WORK, I just continued with my hobby, my passion, my heart's desire; Personal Computers. And they gave me money in return.

Fast forward to: The $COMPANY thought otherwise.

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For the full article please follow this link Retirement Reflections

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NEXTCLOUD - LOCAL INSTALLATION (Debian/Ubuntu)

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NEXTCLOUD - LOCAL INSTALLATION (Debian/Ubuntu)

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Nextcloud offers a great Administrator’s Manual which includes in-depth instructions for installations in many different iterations (e.g. stand-alone, container-ized, etc.) as well as OS’s. Being an old curmudgeonly SysAdmin (retired), who doesn’t like to RTFM, I needed a clean, clear, and concise recipe for doing Linux based bare-metal Nextcloud installations.

Remember my Personal Rule #14 – It isn’t a good OS and/or Server install unless it has been (re)loaded at least 3 times.

Caveat Emptor: This is not a perfect document. I have used this recipe more than 3 times and I have confidence in its functionality. All that and $4 will still only buy you a fancy cup of coffee (i. e. Your millage may vary.)

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For the full article and complete instructions please follow this link Nextclould - Local Installation (Debian/Ubuntu)

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 NEXTCLOUD – I want to own my own data.

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“If you are not paying for a product, then you are the product.” - Tristan Harris

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Each time I opened Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Flickr, Yahoo, MSN, or Google (i.e. “Silos”), the words of Tristan Harris, a former Google design ethicist echoed in my conscientiousness. I began to view ‘being the product’ as synonymous with ‘being held hostage’. Big Tech was threatening me with not only the loss of my friends and family but also with the loss of my digital possessions.

Almost from Day One I was a Google user. I would later say of myself that I was an early adopter of all things Google; I drank the Google kool-aid. I was right at home, emersed in the Google Eco-sphere.

“If you are not paying for a product, then you are the product.”

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It is wonderfully ironic that this article is about Free and Open Source (FOSS) software.

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For the full article please follow this link Nextclould - I Want To Own My Own Data

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Time Dilatation - Losing the Hustle

Losing the Hustle mentality takes time.  Only after two years are the earmarks of my Hustle-loss beginning to manifest. Take for instance Pizza. In the Hustle days Pizza was "30 minutes or free".  And you can bet your boots that those Pizza folks were all about Hustle.  We played right along with them, challenging them to do the Hustle, hoping they would fail.  After all, who doesn't like free Pizza.  

Food, in the Hustle Culture, is only an means to an end.  Big Corps realized this in the forms of well stocked break rooms, and gourmet chef prepared "free lunches" [TANSTAFL].  The coveted Expense Account covered thinly veiled meetings held under the auspices of "working" lunches and dinners.  All food-based strategies to eek out a few more business minutes in an already taxed working environment.

Big projects are met with stacks of pizza boxes and cases of Red Bull and Mountain Dew.  Pizza becomes the fast food of Hustle convenience.  Then to add injury to insult, the fastest, most affordable, are the worst.  Ironically though, we all have our favorite pies.  The hand-tossed, fresh ingredient, baked just so with just the right tooth to the crust.  Yet all too often we settle for mediocre or even bad pizza.  All for the sake of the Hustle.

What does all the talk about Pizza have to do with Time Dilatation and Losing the Hustle?

Off and on over the years we have occasionally made our own pizzas.  Truth be told, it was a long drawn out process that rendered thin tough crusted disks with a splattering of sauce, a handful of sliced mushrooms, a few slice black olives, circles of pepperoni and mounds of shredded Mozz.  They ate well enough but ... it was just as easy to pick up a couple of pies on the way home from work.

Then I stopped going to work.  I stopped doing the Hustle.

I started making Pizza, at home, by hand..  Working from a simple recipe (see below) from a dog-eared and tattered copy of Betty Crocker's Cookbook I found that I could turn out a great pie.

Curiously, I noticed time both sped up and slowed down while I made Pizza.  Proofing the yeast takes a comfortable amount of time. Prepping veggies takes a short amount of time.  Letting the dough rest takes a deliberate amount of time.  Forming the crust takes a pliable amount of time.  Dressing the pie is done at a sprightly waltz tempo.  Baking takes almost forever.  Cutting the Pizza takes just a slice of time.  Waiting, so not to endure pizza mouth, takes an eternity.

In following the recipe, engaging in the process, it became clear that the Hustle was the cost-accounting, the measured bracketing of time and attention.  The Hustle would be doing something "important" and  allocating only a small specific slice of time for 'making pizza'.  The Hustle mandated, expected, demanded, that Pizza could only take up so much time.  If Pizza did not fit into it's appropriate time slot then its value was diminished.  Hustle waits for no pizza  Real Pizza, with a capital "P", without Hustle, happens in its own time.

Betty Crocker's Cookbook

Pizza Dough, yields 2 pizzas, 10 - 12 Inches.  (With personal additions.)

Preheat oven to 425 F

In a 2 1/2 Quart mixing bowl add

1 Cup of warm water (95 - 105 F)

1 teaspoon of sugar

2 1/2  teaspoons (1 packet) instant yeast

Mix thoroughly, allow to proof

Add

2 1/2 Cups Flour

1 Teaspoon Salt

2 Tablespoons Oil

(Personal additions 1/2 Teaspoon Garlic Powder, 1/2 Teaspoon Onion Powder, 1 Teaspoon Origano) 

Stir together briskly until dough comes away from the side of the bowl.

Turn out on a floured counter and knead for 1 - 2 minutes.  Cut the dough in half and form into balls. Let them rest for 5 minutes.

Fowl Weather Friends

People tell me that the Thistle Farm part of FPR&TF is self explanatory but where in the heck did Flying Pig Ranch really come from...

Pigs!

PIGS, I tell ya! Right here on the ranch...

Flying Pigs!  That's what they are, just flocks and hordes and swarms of flying pigs.  I fill the bird feeders everyday and now they are out there complaining that I haven't put out more fare today.

There are three kinds of Friends.

1. ) The cliche "fair weather friend" connotes one who sticks with you in the best of times.

2.) Conversely, a "Foul weather friend" is one who sticks with you through the bad times as well.

3.) Our Fowl Weather Friends

They were scarcely seen in September and October but when the real winter of November returns so do the Flying Pigs.  They couldn't be bothered to visit during the bounties of the fall harvest.  With morning temps at right around freezing the pigs are now flocking to the feeders.  Opportunists I tell you.  Flying Pigs!  Right here on the ranch ...

harvest feast buffet

winter wheat has slept

red tail hawk looms large

People have asked me ...

... how is retirement?  I'll have to get back to you on that. I'm still working on the finer points.

Late night visitors

Geography Bias

Geography Bias

These are the lessons that we should be teaching our smallest children.

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/1e7f582d478a4b99bd0c70fffeac4c8b?utm_source=join1440&utm_medium=email&utm_placement=newsletter

The Ritual of Habit

As autumn turns I have noticed one of the comforts of drinking coffee. Or rather, I have noticed the lack of such comforts having given up not just the habit of coffee but all caffeine. It was a simple comfort, a ritual. A steaming cup of hot liquid clutched on a cold morning. Warmth to off-set the chill.

Then I rediscovered Tea. Yeah, yeah, alright, Herb Tea. Specifically caffeine-free herbal brews. Those strange concoctions that my on-again-off-again vegan friend used to insist I try. Flowers and rose hips and Chamomile and ... I dutifully complied. There might have been one or perhaps two ulterior motives that turned me from the dark roast side, if only temporarily.

The flavors of those days return. The luxurious times. Soaking in the exuberance of youth. A time of innocence, warmth and comfort.

Warmth to off-set the chill.

I lost a Charm

Charms and Talismans are empowered by our investment in them.  We choose to, in turn, try to possess both the object and the empowerment we attribute to them.

I lost a Charm.  It seems like a week ago, maybe longer.  The power that I had given the charm was a small portion of my Joy.  The little piece of Joy that I lost was akin to the feeling of surprise and elation that a small child has seeing "magic" for the first time.  Two weeks earlier or so I lost a Talisman.  I had empowered it as a symbol, a vessel that would hold the record of personal times.  I thought of it as a snapshot of my personal history, just a few frames.  Yet it was a physical symbol.  And it was mine.

I had just gone through a sufficient amount of "Acceptance" - the last level of grief - to even consider writing the obituary for Thelonious "Chip" Munk.  I would, of course, focus on the circle of life.  The inevitability of death, following birth.  I would also reminisce about being a small boy at the grand parent's cottage hand feeding peanuts to a chipmunk.

Knowing that small rodent-like creatures do not fare well in areas frequented by predators, it was easier to accept the loss of Thelonious.  Losing, or perhaps just misplacing, the small black notebook that contained recipes, old Gin Rummy scores, future dreams, and a High School Nerd had-to-have; a circular slide rule in its own pocket protector.  Even though I have not seen it longer than Thelonious I still insist on carrying it around with me.  I am ever watchful out of the corner of my eye to spot the worn plastic seams the tiny 6-ring binder.

In each case I am still trying to possess the Charm and the Talisman.  

So I didn't expect how wonderful ... and how very bittersweet ... it would be, after more than a week, to see Thelonious perched on the porch railing waiting for the peanut pile to be replenished.  It was very enjoyable to see her/him alive. But it was contrary to my Acceptance (rationale) of my loss.

When I saw Thelonious on the rail I recognized my desire to possess my Charm.

I do not need to invest in Thelonious.  I do not need to empower Thelonious.  She/He is discreetly perfect  in their own right.

When I saw Thelonious on the rail I recognized my desire to possess my Talisman.  Then I recognized that my Talisman was possessing my desire.  Why do I invest in any object that possesses me?  Why do I empower any object?   I recognize my desire to possess my little black notebook.  I recognize my little black notebook is possessing my desire.

let things be lost

let things be

things be

be

peace

Buoyed by the river of life

 Ancient wisdom: Stand on the banks of a river and watch the bodies of your enemies float by.

For Your Consideration

Buoyed by the river of life, celebrate each bank as it passes.

 This is not a panacea.  This is the work of living.  This is the living of life.

Swimming in any river, however buoyant, is still a great deal of orientation.  We have to find out where we are now.  Then decide where we are headed.  In what direction will our Journey, Walk, Steam, Retreat, et al take us.  

We quickly realize the importance of active navigation.  If we rely only on Life's river we will be not so gently tumbled through rapids. We could easily be thrown against boulders.  Yes, there are rapids and boulders in everyone's life yet we are empowered to make healthy and wise decisions. 

Making and then acting on our good decisions takes discipline.  My working definition is: Personal Accountability demonstrated over a significant amount of time.  We cannot just dip our big toe into the river and expect to have an epiphany.  A second takes a second, a minute takes 60 seconds, etcetera.  Time takes time.  A significant amount of time takes a significant amount of time.

In order to maintain a Stay-The-Course attitude it requires stamina.  For me this means prolonged physical as well as mental/intellectual activity.  The work I am doing right now, writing this.  This is the work that each of us does everyday.  This is the day-to-day living of our everyday lives.  This is the ability to endure, to get up in the morning, make my bed and then move on with ... the work of everyday life.

I told you, 'This is not a panacea.'  That was just the Buoyed by the river of life part.  Now let's look at the celebrate each bank as it passes part ...

The wandering mendicant and his young acolyte.

In their journey the old man and the young man came to a river crossing.  There they found a young girl standing patiently, looking at the far shore.  Without hesitation the old man approached the girl and asked, "Do you wish to cross the river?"

The girl said that she did.  At once the old man picked her up and carried her across the river.  Reaching the far shore he set the girl down gently and waited for the young man.  The acolyte hastened to cross.

After the men had traveled on some distance the younger man became vexed.  He pointedly asked, "I thought we were not supposed to hold members of the opposite sex, particularly children?"

The elder countered gently, "Are you still carrying her?"  He let out a long slow breath and continued, "I let go of her at the river bank."

 Even if the moment of the bank seems harsh we are called to celebrate its passing.  We are asked to recognize the transient nature of events, on the bank, and then let go of them as we pass by ... Buoyed by the river of life.

MEN, You are no longer allowed...

 

Bucket List #...1

 View of the night sky from a no-ambient light setting.

I remember as a kid, yeah yeah, so it's true I was a kid - Thanks Rad Bradbury, staring up from a lush hay field and seeing only the night sky.  The Milky Way was clear and distinct.  Even the smallest items moving across the night sky flashed like diamonds.

All science was ...

All science was once magic. 

- Anonymous

... slaunters in *HIC* ...

 Slaunters in *HIC* ... stumbles over in the corner shadows ... unfolds, refolds a flurry of the New York Times ,,, muttering where's the darn crossword section ... jugglinging paper cat kites ... patting himself down like a nico-addict lookin for that last ... gotta have something to write with somewhere abouts here.