My job at Wal Mart

I recently got a job.  A job a at Walmart.  Now here's where it all comes to a head. I have actually pondered over this blog for several days.  That's pretty stupid.  If I were to say "I got a job as a stripper!"  Everyone would say-oh how wonderful that you're willing to support your family.  Instead, I have a secure position with people I like in a town I like for....pretty much no pay (although it is more than I was getting at the playhouse).  But it's something.

Here, there are no places to work.  I went to orientation with people driving from all over to get to work.  Insane.  But I like living where I do.  I like that I don't work with a bunch of drunks who sleep with each other.  I like that no one is trying to compete with me for the new position every few weeks.  And I like that gossip is GREATLY discouraged and there's a zero retaliation policy.  Sweet.  (And for those of you working in offices, you know EXACTLY what I mean).  I don't have to work up reports at the end of the night, keep up with and subscribe to all the journals of my field, go to seminars and conferences every other week.  Or work 20 hours off the clock and 60 hours on.  I'm married to my husband, not my career, and my priorities are God and family, not my supervisor and advancement.

So yes, I made straight A's, took all the hard classes graduated college with honors with some crazy degree everyone cringes at when they hear the name, but I work at Wal-mart.  And I like it :P!

First Harvest

We just ate our first harvest.  We collected seeds from the lettuce we grew last year and planted it in the garden this year.

 From transplants

 And in the freezer-turned raised flat

 A month or so later, we have salad!!  Red romaine, regular romaine, red leaf, and butter crunch.  Yum!

 So then, on our way to remove a previously stuck chainsaw from the tree in the woods, we notice...strawberries!

Early this year...
We haven't kept up with the weeds this year (not that we ever kept them where we should have)
This is clover, which here, is a weed.  That bend is my knee.  The clover can get over 2 feet tall and HUGE!

 Here is about half or less of our strawberry field.

 

Today's pick

 We pick every day for about 2 hours when they really come in, and weed a good bit as well.  This lasts for about a month.  We get so many, we drink smoothies, make toppings, and lots and lots of fruit leather.

 With our dehydrator.

 Just add a good quart of capped and cleaned berries to the blender with a 2-3 spoons of sugar.  Blend and pour onto the fruit leather tray of the dehydrator (which looks dirtier than it really is).  First harvest is always a good day of celebration!

Spring calves

We have a problem this year.  We have more customers already lined up than we will have calves.  That's a good problem.  But in hope, we have the first one born this year.  We named him King, just like his older brother, because he is destined for slaughter.  But, he sure is awful cute until then.

Betsy keeps him well hidden when he's asleep and she wants to go for a walk or something.  We have a hard time finding him sometimes.

 Hey dad.

 Hey son.  Fargo is the best bull in the world, and Betsy is the best mother.  Fargo really misses his boys when they leave, and plays with them when they're young.

 We bought a new cow-Pepper.  She came with lice, so she's being treated for that.  She's older, 10, but she's got the best disposition and is so sweet.  She should calve soon too from the looks of her.

 Here are the chicks we hatched for our neighbors that are pointless and rude.  Don't say come over any time if you don't mean it, and don't ask us to hatch you a bunch of chicks if you aren't going to get them.  Chicks anyone?

Religious Extremism

I go out of my way to keep my opinions to myself about religion and politics.  It keeps my job and allows me to keep customers.  But recently, I discovered I am a religious extremist.  Yes, me.  Here is why:

I follow God's commandments.
I do not believe the Bible is to be changed or interpreted other than the way it is written.  I believe in a literal Bible.  If God wanted us to be confused all the time, and try to "figure out" what He meant, He would have a riot on His hands come Judgement Day.
I do not follow man's traditions, or the current fad.

That, to me, is not extremism.  To me, extremism was adding things in that weren't really there, making it part of your core belief, and them getting violent about it.  For example, abortion clinic bombings.  God gave us pretty strict rules for a religious state, but we no longer live in that religious state, and we are now to show love and kindness even to those who sin against God.  If you feel abortion is wrong, don't bomb the people, that is bad and makes those who believe in God look bad.

What concerns me is that the "norm" is becoming less and less accepting of my religion.  For example, find me a job where I can NOT work on the Sabbath.  Go ahead, but I'm not waiting b/c you won't.  And don't say you will b/c teachers are called in on Saturday to make up snow days, workers are always called in on the weekends, and most jobs just expect you to work Sabbath as a general rule.  If you don't, you will be let go.  They will find or make a way to let you go, and good luck suing them.  And don't tell me "well, they expect you to worship on Sunday."  That's their problem not mine, and I've spoken with many "Christians" who have no problem at all working on their sabbath and think it's ridiculous to do otherwise.  If they weren't called in, they'd be mowing the lawn, going out to eat (making others work), painting the house, cleaning out the garage....

If you tell someone that you cannot do that b/c it goes against your beliefs, you are again let go, or exempted from the group (child's sports teams, drama club, etc)

If reminds me of the laws that say you don't have to give your such and such info to people trying to hire you, but if you don't, you won't be considered for the job.  So, you do have to.  I actually signed a government contract where it said "Under code blah blah, you are not required to give us your SSN, but optioning not to do so will eliminate you from consideration".  Yeah, that's real freedom isn't it...  Sort of a pointless rule, don't you think?

So, go ahead, call me an extremist.  Apparently it's something I'm going to have to get used to.  But just for the record, I have no intentions of stoning people or blowing up demonstrations, and I will still try my very best to keep my opinions to myself no matter how much others don't.

Weeding is too soon this year

This winter was very short.  And while some of you may enjoy that, we did not.  It means work will last longer and be far more miserable this year as the bugs and diseases are rampant, and weeding starts much earlier, and it may even kill off some strawberries as it is too hot for them.  I'm having to keep my greenhouse open and vented and check carefully for overheating.  It's quite difficult at times.  But, we have managed to make a start in the garden nonetheless.

As usual, business starts with the unexpected.  Hope got her lead rope stuck on the wire again.

 On to the good stuff!  Arlis and dad made a potato hiller to pull behind the tractor.  This makes much better rows much quicker than we could.  They planted 50 pounds.

 Two rows of onions and the black tarp over the corn to keep the crows away again.  Once these plants are old enough to escape the crows, we'll move the tarp down and plant more.

 PLANT ME!!  PLANT ME!!  Not yet, sorry.  Everything from lettuce to zucchini to fig trees are waiting in the greenhouse.

 The freezer experiment did finally pan out.  We took the lid off, and managed to grow cabbage:

 and carrots:

 My herb garden came back with a vengeance this year with oregano

 mint

 and rosemary (the rosemary is a bit weak)

 My cherry tree is blooming and has blossomed since this picture

 pear

 The apple tree Arlis ran over with the tractor..snicker...has actually made a great comeback!

 My almond tree (Arlis is the backdrop)

Everyone's happy this spring....except for George.  I thought I had George tamed....but if George tries to flog me one more time...we will have George nuggets.

Update of the cleanup of the Rinnie tornado

I kept meaning to bring the camera to photo the tornado area of Rinnie.  I finally remembered to bring it and noticed quite a bit of cleanup had been done.  Here are the pictures I took.  Bear in mind I'm on a highway going at 55, so they're not the best.  Click on photos to enlarge.

I don't think this was actual tornado, just high wind b/c it's so far from the tornado spot.  But I do see this barn all the time and did notice the damage as from that night.  That's a metal roof.

 Still a few trees to pick up.

 There used to be a front to this business.  You can see the rolling door is bent out of whack.  This business houses trucks that drive cramped up chickens in little bitty cages for slaughter-leghorns, cages about 6 inches tall or less, 3-5 to a cage (and people always ask why God allows such things to happen to people...sigh)

 I wonder if this is the horse that went for a ride?  :)

 Here's the house that made the news the most.  That's inside wall you looking at.  They've cleaned up a great deal here.

 The bottom two are where I tried to photo where the twister came through the ravine and parted the forest leaving a huge dirt path in it's wake.  The trees completely demolished the poles and wiring that ran through there.

Wild animals take....I've lost count now.

We've had coon trouble, boar trouble, say hello to bears!!!  I know I'm excited, how about you?  We thought it was a coon getting into our trash, nope, bear.   It started out as one/two cans turned over.  We set a trap.  We caught Boy, but no bear.

So tonight, I heard it.  Mya was going nuts.  But, what we saw did not appear to be from a raccoon.  If it is, that's a BIG raccoon.

In fact, it moved the raccoon trap to the other side of the wood pile over to....here

and drug the garbage out about a half acre.  Arlis had a high power rifle and flashlight.  I put on the gloves and picked up the trash...what is that?  We heard a LOUD noise.  The bear was tearing the T-mortal out of our neighbor's barn.  We left the trash for morning.  I don't think it would attack, but I'm not stupid.