Random Thoughts on a Thursday

"The preacher man says it's the end of time

And the Mississippi River, she's a-goin' dry

The interest is up and the stock market's down

And you only get mugged if you go downtown"

That's the opening lyrics to "Country Boy Can Survive" by Hank Williams Jr.  I've been thinking about that song a lot while driving, trying to digest bad economic news, rising consumer pricing, and a severe erosion in the purchasing power of the monopoly money in our wallets.  Somehow we've gotten ourselves beholden to Big Politicians, Big Bankers, and Global Puppetmasters that pull all the strings.  I'd like to just ignore it, but it greatly affects everyone, especially if you find yourself on a fixed income.

But, you know, the Lord's in control.  There's an old hymn that has lyrics that are much more optimistic than 'Ol Hank's song.  It goes like this:

Many things about tomorrow,

I don't seem to understand;

But I know who holds tomorrow,

And I know who holds my hand.

God's given us sound minds and I believe we're to use them.  They're saying that food shortages, or at least even more increases in food prices, are on the horizon.  Might be a good idea to put a few things in the pantry.  We've got eggs!  We eat a LOT of eggs in our house.  But we're in the dog days of summer and the egg production has plummeted like the value of 401-k's.  This was all we collected from the hen house (and all their other hiding places) yesterday.  Slim pickin's, indeed!

Tricia has been dry canning rice and also beans in the oven at 200 degrees for an hour.  If you do it right, it'll be good for 20 - 25 years stored like that.  It kills any bugs and/or eggs in the rice and beans.

One thing we WON'T have in a food shortage is milk.  Yep, we dried off both of our milk cows.  We have been milking for a year and four months straight.  It is time for a break - for both us AND the cows.  Our plan is to bring both milk cows to be re-bred and then in late fall, we'll bring both of our heifers to be bred for the first time.  So we'll be without milk for almost a year!

The milking stalls are lonely and it is quiet in the barn now in the mornings!  It gets so hot in the summer milking in there, even with the fans blowing.

One thing that we'll save money on is dairy cow feed!  When the cows aren't producing milk, we let them just eat the grass in the pasture.  The sweet feed in our feed room is gonna really last now.  The local feed store is going to miss us!

We'll just have to remind ourselves that God is in control.  We should pray and we should take action by preparing and planning and planting.