Tuesday, March 22nd 2022

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/21/russia-ukraine-live-updates.html

Ukraine rejects Kremlin demand to surrender Mariupol; Russia says U.S. relations ‘on the verge of rupture’

Ukraine has rejected an ultimatum to surrender its besieged port city of Mariupol to Russian forces.

Ukrainian authorities said overnight that Moscow had demanded Mariupol be handed over by 5 a.m. Russian forces said they would spare the lives of those who complied with their surrender ultimatum and would allow civilians to leave if their demands were met.

Thousands of civilians are trapped in the city, which is running dangerously low on vital supplies like food, water and medicines.

Good morning. It’s just a few minutes before 8:00 and I’m in the kitchen waiting for this morning soup. It looks like it’s going to be another shirt sleeve day but at the moment, I can see my breath and there is a brisk chill.

I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night but I do want to mention something about last night’s dinner. I guess I am prone to these moments of reason. I like stopping and thinking my way through problems. My decision to drop cooking oil is not new but I have been enjoying quite a few fried foods lately. As a result, and I really wasn’t paying a lot of attention to this, but I was using quite a few tissues and blowing my nose often. Really, you don’t notice these things until something changes. One meal, yesterday’s dinner without oil and when I woke up last night, I was breathing deeply and clearly. Just like that.

I am not going to sit here and say that this is any kind of panacea. There are no miracle cures in this world. But losing cooking oil is extremely similar to losing meat. My best understanding of this is that it is the exclusion of fat, saturated fat or whatever name they put on cooking oil. But the moment you remove that from your diet, you have a sense of freedom. It’s a sense of cleanliness, of being clean.

I had a similar moment when I pulled the trigger on being a vegan. This was about 4 years ago and I was on the internet and looking for information about heart health. My biggest fear in the world was a heart attack and I was the same age as my father when he had his. As I was studying, the information seemed to lead to a very specific road and the scientific facts behind the thinking seemed very clear to me. Lose the animal fats, and you clean out your veins and arteries and allow better blood flow. I tried it and exactly like the situation I am describing right now, exactly like one meal without any cooking oil, suddenly you could feel the difference.

I’ve talked about this any number of times but at that time, also similar to now, I was trying to be very physical. I was doing a lot of bicycle riding and trying to get myself back together. The difference between meat and no meat was astounding. My absolute limit before was perhaps 20 km and the next day I was a complete wreck. Almost immediately by removing the meat from my diet, my limit went up to 35 km and I could repeat it the next day. Stamina, recovery and strength. 

What I noticed in this was that I had a clarity of thinking immediately but also it seemed that I was not particularly adding anything to my muscles, I was removing something that was in the way. Technically speaking, I removed things that cause inflammation. Like cooking oil for example. You remove the inflammation, and your body’s natural systems work better.

Without getting too dramatic about it, my opinion on how to best fight global warming is not to invent great machines or give godzillions of dollars to the corporations to save us, the answer is to simply stop polluting and get out of nature’s Way. The damage is done and looking for help from the people who have caused this mess is ridiculous. Leave the Earth alone and she’ll find a way to be healthy.

Before I have my soup, here is a blurb from the VK social network. I’m not sure if I’m posting it because I think it would be interesting to look at naked people covered in red paint, but in Spain, there was a mass protest against fur by animal activists. About 150 people got naked, covered themselves with mock blood and the point was that we just don’t need to exploit animals anymore. So, whether you agree with this extremely vegan ideal or you just want to look at naked people, click this link.

https://vk.com/wall-29612534_65544

And by the way, the article is in Russian so you can open it in the Chrome browser for an easy translation.

Lentils, potatoes, a little cabbage and some noodles because I like noodles. In case you’re wondering…

***

It’s noon right now and I’m taking a little bit of a break. Putting the boards up as dividers for the garden it was not more than I bargained for but there was a little bit more work making the stakes. 

It’s not that bad though and I think if I genuinely put my mind to it, I’ve just broken off enough wood to manage the rest of the boards. There is another section of garden, several other sections of garden really, but another one that could be used for field planting. I also want to divide that up into rows and put a divider there.

My biggest thought though is about whether or not I need animal manure for fertilizer. I understand this is not the only fertilizer but I genuinely do not wish to use chemical fertility and I would also prefer not doing animal exploitation.

Okay, let’s ask a question of Google.

Which is better, ash or manure as fertilizer?

Well, this is one of these Google questions where Google doesn’t really understand you. However, if you glance around, wood ash or plant Ash for that matter is a very good soil additive. I also know about this first hand because of watching locals. They tend to grow potato Fields or wheat fields with pumpkins growing down the center and they burn off the previous year’s weeds to be fertilizer for the pumpkins. Bingo.

One of the reasons that I got sold on raising lentils this year is that they are known as nitrogen fixers and green manure. The plants themselves while growing give nitrogen back to the soil adding to the fertility and then plowing it back into the land, either as compost Ash or just as it is and left to decompose is supposed to be a very good fertilizer. I’m in.

I am interested in composting. I have not actually constructed my compost bins yet. That’s not going to be the first thing to do because I want everything else in place before we start worrying about creating soil additives. But that will happen.

In the meantime, this argument is sitting there but it is moot because my local alcoholic friend who said he was bringing by a cart load of shit, has never shown up. His invitation apparently was more shit. So this makes my quandary a little easier to worry about. I would actually prefer not to use animal fertilizers if possible. However, if it’s available and cheap, maybe it’s hard to turn down.

Basically though, I think the way to play this is to do absolutely nothing and to keep working with exactly what I have right now. If my little alcoholic friend shows up someday, I might have to make a different decision. But if he shows up too late and I’ve already done something to put some fertility into my garden boxes, I guess we will have made a vegan decision after all.

Please don’t judge me too much. I’m just working with what I have locally and I myself don’t have animals, not even a cat. Perhaps a cat would minimize the mouse problem but the truth is, if you’re not baking and cutting bread all the time, you really don’t have a mouse problem. I don’t leave any crumbs anywhere ever and I don’t leave food out that they can get into. Technically, I really don’t have that much of a problem with mice. They have better fixings elsewhere.

***

It’s about 3:20 and I’m on an extended break. I was working in the sun all morning and did another one of those timed workouts. 10 rounds of MMA 5 minutes. Probably, I lost the fight.

I thought I could put the barriers in for the Bean Garden but I was maybe 5 minutes late. I was also out of strength by the end of the hour. Putting a metronome and a clock on yourself is a very good way to get things done. If however what you are doing is physically taxing, you are going to get beaten down by the workout.

I eventually finished almost everything. I still have a couple of short sections to go. And after that I might want to do one more weed burn in each box and to go around fluffing things up one more time. Then it’ll be done.

I want to finish the short sections today actually. It’s not really that much work. I just have to measure how much is left and cut down a few boards. There’s a cheap way to do this where I just cut the boards in half and say it’s the correct length. There’s not that much difference in it.

And by the time I was at the end though, I was done. My balance was off and I really didn’t have the strength to right myself.

When I was finished with what’s in front of me, I sat down on the bench and basically just existed there for about a half hour. No thoughts were going through my head and no ambitions were making me move. After this, I went into the house and found a couch to lie down on. I was shocked at how cold the house was by comparison to outside. Now I remember why this house is so delightful in the summertime. But today it was too cold to relax.

I made my way to the kitchen which is a medium heat. Not as warm as outside in the direct sunshine but not as cold as inside the house. Maybe I’m just in love with this chair because this is where I eat most of my meals.

After a bit, I got my strength back and I filled the water tanks and now I am getting ready to go out and measure and cut those last paths. If it means anything, the project looks really nice. It has exactly the look that I wanted. It’s very orderly but there is a gigantic difference between the planting areas and the walking areas. This to me is okay.

I mean, I like walking around in the forest. I like walking around where there is no particular path and you just make your way through the trees. I know that if I did a lot of forest walking, I would eventually create paths.

Actually, if I use some of the forest soil for planting soil this year, I will definitely make my impression on the forest. I don’t want to say good or bad. I am trying to grow some food this year. And digging out the canals is not a bad thing. Anything you do to make places for water to gather near the trees is a benefit.

I feel really good about everything right now. There is a lot of pain. I’m not complaining. I took this on myself and it was my decision to do all this extra work. But it hurts. And I am pretty tired.

Or maybe I’m not. Maybe I’ve got my energy back. I had a few nuts and raisins and I ate one or two mouthfuls of dry oatmeal. I talked to a couple of friends. I feel better. That’s all I needed was a little rest.

While I was resting, I thought of what else needed to be done. I have to do some deep cleaning in the kitchen because I have a new stove coming. And, if I go to town, I have to gather up my clothes. I’m not sure my ex partner is going to be happy about these jeans that I’m wearing. They are definitely pretty scruffy right now from digging in the dirt all morning. My t-shirt is also covered with pine resin from where I was carrying the boards on my shoulder.

I don’t have any poetry about all of this if you’re waiting for any. I’m just doing the best I can with what I have to work with and hoping for the best. I have a picture in my mind of what this place looks like in June or July. That’ll be about the time I get to go shopping every day in my garden for food. If everything turns out in that direction and I don’t get shot or deported or poisoned to death, it will be worth it.

Besides, I’m actually pretty proud of myself. The work I’ve done looks good. Not perfectly professional but good. It looks orderly. Charmingly orderly.

***

Well, that was interesting.

About 45 minutes ago, I was busy cutting the last four pieces of lumber to finish framing out the walkways for my bean field when I heard a familiar call. It was my name being sung in a sing-songy kind of way, if you’re an American baseball fan, it was similar to how they used to scream at Darryl Strawberry after the cocaine issue. Goooodmon. Oh Gooooooodman.

I quietly called that he should wait a second and when he kept singing my name I screamed at him with some anger to wait a second and he shut up. A second later, I made my way up to the fence and sure enough, it was our favorite skinhead cop coming to pay me a visit.

I’m just going to say right here that it was exactly 4:20 when he showed up. If you want to read something into that, be my guest.

I asked him what he wanted and he pointed out that здравствуйте would be a normal greeting. I kept silent because I couldn’t remember his здравствуйте and asked him about his rudeness for screaming my name in the middle of the afternoon. He told me that he had the power to do so because he was a policeman and I was obligated to listen.

This was an official visit and according to him, he had to check in with everybody once a year and this is his once a year. Did I still live here? Yes I did. I am the owner of this place and he nodded and noted that. He told me that he admired the lock I had on my fence. There were a lot of thieves and alcoholics roaming around and this would be good security to keep them away from me. I agreed that I have had many alcoholics come to me and I didn’t appreciate it. I guess that was some of my irony I’m so famous for.

And then he asked me for my phone number, I told him he already had it, he said give it to him again and I did. And that was it and he started to head off.

“Listen,” said I, “if we are all being friends like this today, why don’t you talk to my neighbors about their car?”

“Why don’t you go back to America!”

“Enough with the anti-Semitism already. Listen, if you are here performing your public service, why don’t you go over there and tell them to park backwards. Every time they pull out of their house, they throw Auto fumes right into my kitchen. I’m a chef and an artist, get it? Maybe I’m a little sensitive. But if they would just back into their house instead of driving straight in, they would not be treating me to a kitchen full of Auto fumes every time they come in and out. Why don’t you go tell them this. We’re not going to be friends afterwards but at least this will end the war.”

And you know what? He appeared to listen.

In fact, he walked right over into their house singing my chicken neighbor’s name with that exact same sing-songy tone, and straight to her face asked her why she insists on parking the way she does.

Now, I could hear this and I will tell you as if I had my hand on a stack of Bibles as high as the sky that this uzbeki money grubber laughed at the thought of being respectful towards me. Should we all go to court in front of Jesus himself, may he send her straight to hell for her chicken cackle.

But my man continued on and explained something to her that I could not hear. The only thing I understood was that there was quiet during this conversation.

Did something good happen? Well, we just don’t know until they start parking their cars. Should they ride past their house and then back in, providing their own family and little boy with an extra dose of automobile discharge so as to make sure somebody important catches cancer, I guess the war is over and my kitchen doesn’t have to smell like auto emissions.

Or maybe nothing will happen and when you live next door to a tsigani and a Russian, you’re going to get nothing but shit. And that’s local knowledge, I guarantee you.

I actually said thank you to the cop who did not answer anything sarcastic but just backed away down the road keeping all of his own auto fumes on my neighbor’s property.

***

Arnold tells the truth in an address to the Russian people.

***

I guess that’s about it for the day. I am pretty tired. Today was a lot of work and I guess when all is said and done, there was even some emotions and drama at the end of it. I doubt any real meaningfulness out of this. The world isn’t like that really. People do not go out of their way to do things for you. They go out of their way to be horrible I have noticed. This is not a good development.

But I am on the road to where I am going. The lower field looks nice and the middle part of the field will be much the same. I have more time for that. The weather is a little warmer than the weather reports or the almanac think. Global warming is real and I noticed how hard the sun was on me today. It has become a very hard sun. This project has a lot more to it and unfortunately, I’m going to need some money for some of it or to at least spend more than I thought. But I’ll do the best I can. We will get a nice harvest because we are going to plant a lot and take care of what we plant. Or I will plant a lot. Sorry, sometimes I forget how many people are here.