Saturday, June 23, 2012

HELLO SUMMER

     This is the time of year that chores are done in the mornings and I hibernate during the day.  It is summer in Kansas.  We had an unusually early spring and our sand plums have been on in full force for three weeks now.  We have made batches of jelly and put away at least two years supply of berries in the freezer.  It seems that something happens like late freezes or hail so we have a bumper crop every other year.  Sand Plum Jelly is the best that there is.  Most everyone from Kansas will tell you this.  And before I start a firestorm I love strawberry and others (not muskidine, ech) that when you compare jellies, sand plum comes out on top.  It is a favorite of our guests here at Wildfire Ranch.
     The comparison to last years temps is that we have had a really mild year.  We even have had some rain so we can put a few more head on grass than last year, at least so far.  We are not out of the woods on our drought yet.
     The one thing you can count on is now that we are reaching 100 + degrees is Global Warming will be a hot topic again.  Once again I remind the chicken littles of the world and those with less than honerable intentions towards our country, it is SUMMER!
     It seems that there is enough baloney coming out of Washington and all the campaigns are putting Mr. Gore on a back stage for now.  But you can be sure that the back stage is busy with all kinds of doomsday prophacies.
     In the mean time our oil companies are producing so much crude now that refining is defining the cost of fuel.  Is it no surprise that right now the price is dropping.  Washington is more focused on controlling other parts of our lives, so the drills are doing what they are supposed to do.
      I see that the Farm Bill has been passed.  I have not seen the details (but that does not stop the critics) but I bet that the 75% of the budget, which is food stamps, has not been cut.  Amazing how people who don't know a plow from a manure spreader make policy. 
      The main reason there is a farm bill at all is the years of official "cheap food" policies that have manipulated the markets so farmers don't get the full value of their production.  Now that markets are up and people are paying a little more what they should, the old farm programs can be modified.  Just keep yer mitts off what makes real prosperity, a free market system.  Government planning never works.  Yet they want to plan your life.
     I read where the cost of sending a student to college is over $125,000.00.  So the policies of pushing attendence, yet lowering educational requirements, are making it tough to go to college.  Maybe it is time that self initiative and alternatives to the prescribed and decreed standards that are set down by those in authority be changed.  And maybe it is time to increase a little higher expectations from the parents.  Funny that the highest scores are coming from home schooled students.  One professor has even kept track of all the students he has taught over his career and his advice to parents is get them out of the Public Schools.
     Many, if not the most, of the richest and most successful people in the world were not inhibited by a higher education.  Many of the people we look up to today started with an idea and a business in the garage.  We stop kids from working and learning, let them set around texting and playing electronic violent and sexually expicit games.  Then we watch TV where they advertise telling kids to playing at least one hour a day.  We have to use pro athletes to persuade them to do that.
     Is it time to stop and reflect on how you run your affairs.  A wise man once said, "If each person would clean up their own backyard the world would not be at war".

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