Sunday Reading - The Long Haul

 

Really hard to say where we are at right now in my opinion as a whole. From my angle in the middle of flyover country that used to be rural and out of touch the impression I get is a slow churn back to normal to be honest. Seems like what most people have to get used to figuring out now is the old problems never really left. The daddy state government has more important voters to buy off, corporations don't really care if they actually make money by giving anyone but themselves what they want, and you are nothing more than a financial battery there to milk.

I can attest that as I have observed the  traffic is down during the weekdays yet everything is looted and empty every evening but one thing I did get wrong cause until recently I have been unable to observe that there is still a lot of traffic on the weekends. That is traffic of the old style like a passenger cars or suvs always coming and going some place. The massive parades of sport type vehicles are definitely gone it seems.

Local clean up is also hard to judge. Seems like all the big damage is still there but smaller trees are already cleared up. I guess that makes sense as clean up on the branches is always harder and more time consuming that just cutting up wood sections are and no one thinks about that it seems until they are looking at all those branches tangled together.

I can't say much since it took me the better part of three days to get my brush hog back out, some maintenance down then hooked up and a short road through my main hay-field cut out so I could hook up a trailer for easier brush hauling to an acceptable burn spot.  That prep work wasn't finally finished until yesterday and the tractor is still out there because I need to unload some square bales off the trailer yet.

In the mean time I did manage to get one small tree cut up and my now way behind mowing caught up sans trimming. I had to wait each day for more rain to dry off before mowing and even then it took two passes to get it contained. Still looks like hell IMO. It is going to take an entire month of dry weather to get this place in order again. I say this as we have yet another heavy storm hitting us now with a twin scheduled to hit us again in a few hours.

It's hard to say really, there are still new immigrants everywhere but no where near the frivolous activity that seemed the norm last year. Not a whole lot of happy people in the way every where you turn either. People look worried and flustered now.

Last report I read this morning was saying like almost half a million new unemployed too, that has to hurt somewhere I would think and the local new construction that was added to our property taxes before it was even finished is still sitting there unfinished and idle. I wonder about that too. There has to be a reason someone even investing money they got free from the government is just allowing it to sit there. That is odd and makes me both happy and unsure even more about what comes next.

Happy it's quiet though and not hundreds of trucks coming by all day with gravel and back up beeps 24 for hours a day though.

No new chicken attacks however, I still have three hens around. They seem fine without a rooster too. Two of em came out while I was mowing and stressed me out cause they tend to run in font of the mower after a bug. They seem to have their own little favorite spots and stay hidden for the most part. The evenings suck though cause the rooster used to get them rounded up and now I have to go get two of them every night off my hay rake and put them to bed. The old black hen is always right there waiting like clockwork as usual.

Impression I get everywhere now is it is going to take time to settle in. Works alright for me as I got plenty of fix up repair left right now but it in making the world restless I think. Might make the change, when it happens, all that more terrifying than many want to think about.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!