Mephistos

Some good news, especially given those who may have seen my recent notes on Facebook and Myspace,  something to help offset my recent gloom in other places.  There is quiet a bit of it to be had if I just look hard enough for it and ignore a certain few other things for the time being.  As I have been fond of making some itemized list of late, I think this one also calls for such a format.  So, in no particular order, some good news…

• I have completely converted over my home (desktop) computer to the new model, it is running great and I am very pleased with the new speed, memory, and especially the Sata II drives in it.
• Probably some of the best of the good news, today – well this morning, I got on the scale and for the first time in probably near five years I weighed less then 300 pounds.  This is where I was heading late last fall when I got side tracked and never could seem to get traction back toward loosing again until just recently.
• Last week I also purchased a new pair of shorts, to have for this weekend mostly – the good news, to get the size that fit best, I had to go two full sizes smaller in the waist then what I had been wearing.  Now, do not get to excited, I already knew that my pants were getting to big and that I didn’t wear a belt they would not stay up – but I didn’t realize just how far down I had gone.  I am still not see the size loss that much, but other folks constantly are mentioning it, so maybe it is showing some or maybe they are just trying to be encouraging?
• In combination with the weight loss, which has mostly come from just controlling what I consume and keeping that at a level that is reasonable or slightly below that, I have also been exercising somewhat regularly.  Mostly this entails getting near about two miles of a brisk walk at least every other day.  Today, Bitzer and I did it with the ten pound waits on the legs.  I need to start getting those on the wrist some as well.  The exercise is making me feel great as a general rule – and especially given the number seemingly young acquaintances that have passed of late, I think that is a good thing.
• I received my digital camera late last week.  It is a large step up from the old one, which stored pictures on floppy disks.  The new one is not top of the line, but at 7.0 mega-pixels it is not too shabby either.  I will have to get a memory card for it at some point, but it does just fine for the twenty shots or so I have made so far.
• I am making a life category posting that does not have the category frustration clicked at the same time.  Mind you, that is not to say I am not frustrated, just that there is nothing in this posting that is qualified as a frustration.
• I have made seven days in a row here on the the blog with a posting of some sort.  A few of those, I will agree the quality there of is perhaps a bit questionable and my apologies for that.  I will mention in my defense, my past seven days did not go at all as I had envisioned it going when I started that goal of several days in row with a post.  Hopefully, as I am now on a roll, I will be able to keep that up.
• The amount of traffic, what small amount it is, that is coming to the blogs is seeing a slightly upward trend.  Now granted, it hard to say for sure until it averages over a couple of weeks and the upward trend continues, but I am pleased with it for the last few days given its current trend – especially given the Sunday and Monday have historically been low days for traffic here.
• I am officially on the Gulf Wars Equestrian staff for next years war.  Had that confirmed in a conversation earlier this week.  I am not sure why I am excited about this, it means I will be working at one of the events I typically try to just chill out and enjoy the moment while I am there.
• Seems like there should be something else here, but for the life of me I can’t think of what it is – maybe I was going to say I am thankful for what I got and such as that, but that would seem kind of out of my character in general, so probably not.
• In between all the rebel-rousing I have done this weekend, I have gotten to watch some old movies that I have never seen before and some newer, but yet older movies, that I have seen perhaps 100′s of times.  They were all enjoyable, even if some brought me to levels of emotion I am not use to experiencing, for whatever reasons.
• I between the movies and the rebel-rousing, I have also managed to read a good deal in two of the books I am currently getting myself through.  Both are biographies of authors, but what a difference in styles (and times) between Mallory and Twain.  I will be sure and give some sort of note here when I complete the both of them.

That seems to be a bigger list then I thought I was going to muster, of course I should erase that one.  Anyway, I am off to bed now, as I promised Bitzer we would get up and do two miles of walking in the cool of the morn prior to work and our shower.

* – My apologies if that image is copyright, let me know and I will remove it, but it did appear with out any such indication where I found it, it was appropriate, and I liked the retro look with just a bit of sexual appeal.

Slightly more then two weeks ago I went to Horse Progress days in Ohio.  I think I mentioned it in a blog here, at least to the effect that I was attending.  For those that are not familiar with the event, it is a get together of folks that farm with horses, having as the main idea an exchange of ideas and learning some of what we have lost in our knowledge.  I believe their were 11,000 people in attendance on the Friday I was there, a large number were Amish, but not all of course.  One amazing thing was the folks that I ran into up there that I knew from here locally.

One of the greater reasons that I attended was that Lynn Miller, author and publisher of Small Farmer’s Journal, was doing a presentation.  A topic that he has spoke of in the past was why horse farming?  Of course largely in the past the folks doing horse powered farming have been motivated by one of two things:  A restriction of usage of certain types of equipment based on religious believes or just a general eccentric pleasure of a small number of folks that just enjoyed doing things in a slower pace with old fashion ways.  Anyway, Lynn thinks that with the current conditions in both world markets, gas prices, and a turn toward more local food is going to be a driving force such that in the next couple of years to where we see a huge growth in the number of smaller sized horse based farms, an exponential growth according to Lynn.

To elaborate, Lynn, like many of us, believes that a huge part of the driving force will be the energy crisis that we are currenty facing.  The crunch on fuel prices is not going to go away, it is instead going to get worse.  Keep in mind, that one the largest input costs that a modern farmer has is energy costs or products that have high energy costs.  Diesel fuel, gasoline, and fertilizer to name just a few are the kinds of things I am talking about.  Right now, it has worked for the bigger farmers to afford these huge input costs, because right now the additional demand on corn for ethanol has pushed up the price on all the major grain crops.  However, that demand is likely to level off some in the coming years as other crops are used for ethanol and the over all price drops and the prices keep going up on the inputs the farmers are going to feel a squeeze.  The smaller farmers that are a more traditional in nature are already feeling the pinch from the higher input costs.  Lynn seems to think that the cost of fuel alone will start to push a lot of smaller farms to horse powered traction.

Lynn further believes that the smaller farm will become more of a functional need scattered about across the country.  This will be coming from the fact that the expense of trucking produce and grains across the country is quickly inflating the cost to the consumer at a rate that is going to start to make that impratical for the consumer to continue to afford such items.  This will of course then lead to many smaller farms closer to the end market that are producing those foods.   As that move takes place, there will of course be a higher demand on said local foods to be produced in natural ways, with minimum to no chemical inputs (less energy required right there) and what better way to produce naturally then with horse powered traction.

Lynn also thinks that given the current situations that have occurred with the food system in the last few years there will be an even greater move towards smaller farms.  I can see some of this occurring, with recent years problems over Spinach, tomatoes and onions, but I don’t think this will have as a large effect as the fuel will have on it.  The idea of local grown food is one that I have suggested as taking of this problem more then one time.  Of course that also means eating food that is grown seasonally in your local for the most part as well.  And while I think there will be some movement toward additional small farms to come about because of this one, I don’t think that it will have the same impact that Lynn thinks, especially in comparison to that of the energy crunch.

One last thing though, and on this one, I have to admit I was rather disappointed.  After Lynn gives a seminar speaking about the wonderful values of farming with horse power and how there will be a huge movement in that direction and that we need to be ready for the massive influx of farmers that are going to interested, I walked out to see a horse drawn haying demonstration.  Now I fully expected to see any baler to likely be driven by horses have some sort of fore-cart with an engine to supply the power, though I do hear of at least one company that has a model that can do the job from a ground drive system.  However, I severely disappointed to have seen every piece of equipment being pulled with the exception of one rake, having an engine mounted PTO fore-cart of some sort.  So much for using less fuel int the process – the net effect of that is more fuel to put up more hay to feed the horses that are then pulling the tractor that is then pulling the hay equipment – minus the horses, minus the need for the extra hay, that much less fuel used.  I don’t think this really fit well with the kinds of things I have read in the past nor do I think it was really in tune with most of his message – though one has to keep in mind, he was a guest speaker not the organizer of the met.