Saturday, March 30, 2013

The TSA is planting weapons and goings on at the farm

A friend of a friend (nice way to start a post) is a pilot for one of the regional airline carriers. He was told that the TSA is going to be planting fake guns, knives, and other contraband on planes. Between flights the pilot and crew are supposed to clean up the plane and search for illegal items. Remember just a couple weeks ago when TSA decided that they were once again going to allow small pocket knives to be carried aboard? Right after there was a "rash" of bullets, knives, etc. found on some of the flights during the after flight cleanup. Why? Probably as a protest by flight crews that they didn't like the new rulings. Nothing ever came of it because if it was the real deal it would still be in the news, don't you think?

So what is TSA doing in retaliation to the flight crews? They are now going to be boarding planes (incognito of course as paying passengers, but because they are TSA will be able to pass through security) and bringing on fake contraband. They are going to be leaving it in the pockets, under seats, in the bathrooms, in the magazines, etc. If the flight crews don't catch the fake stuff and call security during their cleanup they will be fined.

What's the threat from the flight crews over this game being played by TSA? They are going to just call 911. No going to security. They are going to respond the "right" way. After all, if they see something they are supposed to say something. Isn't that what we are being programed to do? It's not making me want to fly for a while until the power struggle games subside.

Here at home things are getting a bit exciting. We had some baby chicks born yesterday and today. I'm hoping a few more hatch. I was having a hard time keeping the humidity up so I decided to put a little water bowl into the incubator. That seemed to work.

I started putting in the garden and the grandkids destroyed what I put in. Where do their brains go? I know they must have shut them off for a time or something. After all, it's spring break. I planted plants into 3 of the 12 raised beds. They decided to have races through the garden. No, first they decided to play football in the garden. Get out! Then the next thing I saw they were racing through. Stepping on the wooden beds and into the beds themselves. They are now weeding!   

With the new job being four days per week, I thought I'd get to spend Friday doing whatever I wanted and then the kids and I would have fun on the weekends. That hasn't quite worked out as planned. But this past Friday I spent lots of time cleaning out a couple of rooms in the house. Good spring cleaning... I filled up the back of my pickup with stuff for donations as well as broken toys, trash, etc. Now I just have to figure out where it's going to get dumped. I wonder if anyone has empty trash cans since the dump costs $65 minimum. I don't want to go to the dump. If I do go then I'd better to a lot more spring cleaning!

The raspberries across the front of the property are growing very well. Probably because I'm watering! Of the ten plants I put in last year (and they were all gallon plants) eight are still alive. They are sending out new plants, some as far as four or five feet away from the parent plant. The eight all have lots of flowers on them so sometime soon we will be getting raspberries. The raspberries are sending out long branches that are weaving through the brush along the fence. It's filling in exactly as I planned. In another year or two you won't even see the brush because the plants will be covering it.

Last year we hardly had any fruit. We would have starved if we had to live off the 50+ fruit trees. This year is looking good. It's supposed to thunderstorm tonight and tomorrow so some of the fruit may get knocked off. As long as it's not all it will be alright. I have to go out and thin some of the trees right now. The apricots on one tree are the size of a nickle. The cherries are all in bloom, as are the peaches, nectarines, pears, apples, plums, and everything else. The loquat tree has about 20 pieces of fruit. That's not much but it's better than three, which is how many we've had in the last five years. Sure it takes a while for the trees to produce but this year I've kept the sheep out! No pushing over fences to get to the fruit!

The orange tree and the lemon tree have fantastic fruit. We are drinking lemonade several times per week. Right now we put sugar into it. Someday it will be honey. Then that will be fully self supporting.

The Sun Oven is making dinner once again. Yesterday we had steak. Well, it didn't end up as steak. It was delicious but it turned into shredded beef. It will cook the steak as steak if you only cook it for 30 minutes during the heat of the day. I didn't. I left it in all day covered in the marinade sauce. Today we are having corned beef. It cooked for about four hours then I put in some dehydrated potato slices and some fresh cabbage. We will see how it turns out. After 4 hours the meat was just about ready. I put it in as a frozen chunk of meat. I added more pickling spice because it didn't look like there was much in it.

I've had some questions about the Sun Oven. I know you don't need hot weather for it to work. Today it is 80 but Max in Colorado Springs used his the other day to bake some bread. It was almost done when the clouds came in and it started snowing. He had to finish it up in the oven. But, it was cold out. All that's needed is the sun! I am going to try using it in my house under the solatube. I'm thinking that if it gets the shine that's what's needed. After all, the reflectors are supposed to put the light into the black box to heat it up. With that said, I don't think that light coming through a window would be able to put enough direct light on the box.








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