Please Stand By...

Due to technical difficulties and rampant unchecked stupidity by society at large, this blog will be temporarly closed until everyone regains their common sense.
(current readers excluded)

Seriously, there's been too much going on personally-nothing scarey or drastic-for me to take the time to yak and the current events right now have me so apoplectic I can't even put it down in words, so I won't.


I'll be around...just not here.

Speaking of 'Sick as a Dog'...

Paranoia is running rampant over the latest pet food recalls, and rightly so. And even though most of the problems have been with "wet" foods those of us who feed dry to our family companions are getting a little 'noid too, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's already happened in the cat food, a dry brand recently being pulled from the shelves.

So what's one to do? Patrick the Born Again Redneck Yogi has mentioned that he feeds his "chil'ren" homemade food and scraps. That's fine if you have one or 2 small to medium size doggies but the thought (and expense) of whipping up a weeks worth of raw chow for my trio of behemoths is discouraging. These guys all weigh in at over 75 pounds each! (and yes, every single one thinks he's a 'lap dog'!)

So I've been researching dry feed manufacturers and found these guys. I'm going with them for now mainly because the only ingredients they use are domestic, mostly from the Arkansas Delta area. And 2) I've used their feed before with no problem and 3) the price is right...cheaper than the mainstream hoity toity brands that have been recalled.(and OUTSOURCE alot of their ingredients!)
I don't know if Arkat's products are available nationally, but it wouldn't hurt to check out their site and see.
They market primarily to feed&farm stores.

Just as an aside, am I the only one who got majorly creeped out when first hearing the news of a "toxic substance" in a pet food ingredient that was traced to an import from China because the implications of the HUMAN food supply being monkeyed with? Good Lord...do you have any idea of how much wheat gluten is used in almost all processed foods for human consumption?! I've heard noone commenting on that possibilty.
(note: I wrote this 2 days ago, and now it would seem the media is getting with the program and asking that question. I've read of a congressional investigation in the works about it as well. Finally an investigation I can be glad about!)


Looks like it's time to fire up that big garden in the back yard again...and get a bottle calf...or 2.

Local Ozarkers in the News

Heard about this one this morning and then tracked a link down.

Last known World War I Navy veteran dies in Maryland at age 105
Associated Press -

CHARLOTTE HALL, Md. (AP) -- "Lloyd Brown, the last known surviving World War I Navy veteran, has died. He was 105.

Brown died Thursday at the Charlotte Hall Veterans Home in St. Mary's County, according to family and the U.S. Naval District in Washington.

His death comes days after the death of the last known surviving American female World War I veteran, Charlotte L. Winters, 109.

The deaths leave three known survivors who served in the Army, and a fourth who lives in Washington state but served in the Canadian army, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Brown was born Oct. 7, 1901, in Lutie, Mo., a small farming town in the Ozarks. His family later moved to Chadwick, Mo. In 1918, 16-year-old Brown lied about his age to join the Navy and was soon on the gun crew on the battleship USS New Hampshire.

"All the young men were going in the service. They were making the headlines, the boys that enlisted," Brown told The (Baltimore) Sun in a 2005 interview. "And all the girls liked someone in uniform."

Brown finished his tour of duty in 1919, took a break for a couple of years, then re-enlisted. He learned to play the cello at a musicians school in Norfolk, Va., and was assigned to an admiral's 10-piece chamber orchestra aboard the USS Seattle.

When Brown ended his military career in 1925, he joined the Washington Fire Department's Engine Company 16, which served the White House and embassies. He had married twice, and had a son and daughter from one marriage and two daughters from the other.

Even after reaching 100, Brown remained independent, living alone in his Charlotte Hall bungalow and driving a golf cart around his neighborhood."

**************


Lutie is a little town just a rock throw from me. Brown is a very common name in this area (like most places.) The guy did alright for being some ol' hillbilly farmboy, would'nt ya say? May we all be blessed with just a whiff of his longevity.

I ain't posting a whole lot since reviving the now 2 headed beast of a computer. It's that time of year and I have gobs to do other than peck out rants and dumb stuff here. Plus, as if right on cue, I'm heading for my annual major sickness of the season. All winter long the general population around here and my younguns as well track in all kinds of flus, sniffles, upper respiratory crap...and yet I plug along unfazed. Yet just as soon as the weather stablizes and Spring arrives in all it's resplendant glory and we have a stretch of fabulous warm days and all the "bugs" seem to have run their course around here thru the population *WHAM!* I'm ALWAYS the last person in Ozark Co. to get whatever was 'goin' around'.
And no it's not "allergies". I'm talkin' major digestive disturbance and fever-unless there's an pollen allergy that can do that.
Happens every year it seems.
So I'm off to slink back under the covers for now. Pissed as all get out that it's a such a glorious day and I'm sick as a dog.