Come on in, it’s an odd day out there, cold in the morning, moved over to freezing rain out there right now, so careful as you go. Got the coffee on and baked a nice pumpkin loaf for you to have a slice of or perhaps you would prefer a cookie?

I am amazed that this missed apple is still holding on the tree. The apples in storage are starting to turn on me, thankfully just a few but I will have to process the rest of them into either the freezer, canning or baking. So be it.. they held for over 2 extra months. I would have preferred if they could have held longer.

I wanted to talk about a number of things that I put down over the week and I will touch on a few of them.

Follow ups:

The 200 families effected by the tornado’s were all helped out by the local group I was talking about in the other posts and they did a huge Christmas drive for them, helping them get a few fixings, their families presents and help with getting a nice dinner on the table! So proud of our local folks for stepping up to help them!

I was ahead of the main news by about three weeks on talking about the potato shortage and its coming effects, it’s all over the news and in PEI, one of the largest fresh bagging factory has already closed for the season giving lack of quality potato as the reason. That’s kind of WOW as its top producer in Canada having even the most acres under till for this crop. I did get a chuckle out of the AG comment from PEI that they didn’t need more acres under crop but they in fact needed to get a higher return per acre planted.

Everyone wants that poor soil to be able to produce MORE/MORE yield, with little thought given on how that gets done. I am wishful thinking that with everything going on world-wide.. that we might stop and think.. what happens when we push to make this happen, what is the fall out at a later point in time!

So I had wanted to talk a bit about the Yellow jackets in France because it’s a force with many layers that certainly is worth a round the table chat.

However I was checking my regular reading posts and saw a comment on Miss C blog about her dealing with “trolls” and “haters” In the comment section of her blog, I saw a couple of folks that I read their blogs, who all nodded their heads and went yup. I nodded my head as well.

It switched what this post was going to be about, but it also made it a lot harder to write. I think most folks that are drawn to read homestead/farm blogs, do understand that if we have livestock, we will have losses.

It’s a tricky thing.. you can have 9 out of ten births or litters or hatchings go perfectly, and dang do they ever make the cutest photos. Most of your readers tend to understand that we spend hours or days fighting to keep that not perfect baby alive and get it healthy.

However there is a percent of readers that focus on the failures, I have read a “x-fan hate site for a fellow blogger”  Wow! they can rip her apart for anything, and I DO MEAN Anything!

It was eye-popping to grasp just how the smallest thing writing can be twisted and turned by very angry people. Now to be fair, the blogger they are talking about truly gives them so much to work with.. I have never seen a farmer of that many years who considers themselves to an expert” in many ways make the same beginner mistakes again and again.

A girlfriend and fellow reader here sent me the link to the sites to get me to read though what was happening and offer an outside view.. its like a soap opera over there.

However lets bring this back on track.. Even when we do everything perfectly, we still have butcher time at the end of the line and if we share that on our blogs, we are also putting targets on us our backs.

Start talking about not just the “good side” and you start to get questions on why you need to make the choices you are. I had some great questions, thoughts and feedback when I downsized things due to the drought/hay shortages.  I also got some interesting comments that never made the blog as they were far to negative to make it though.

I find it amazing that when you are growing your breeding programs that is always seen as a positive thing, but when you stream line or reduce your breeding programs, it’s always seen as a negative thing.

It’s really not.. in fact sometimes its the smartest thing we could do for our farms, for our critters, for our land.

I have never had a single friend every say to me.. Good Choice FG.. even those closest will give me sad eyes and go.. ah.. sorry it came to this..

HUH, it didn’t come to this.. I worked it, I wrote it out, I studied it, I lived it and then I worked it more and then I came to an answer that worked for myself, hubby, farm, land and the overall health of my programs.

Will we ever get to the point that we do not require “Growth!” to be seen as moving forward in a positive way.. maybe its wishful thinking on my part..

I will tell you right now, that over the next coming years and the next decade.

The smartest folks will take smaller risks, regroup and will stream line, they will be pulling back hard to make sure they are “living within their lands means”

The days of go big or go home is coming to a end!

However as we are finding our way, the trolls are just there waiting.. waiting to tell us every single thing they can think of to beat us up emotionally, to give us far to graphic write ups on what they would wish happen to us.   The past two years seems to have opened up the net on bloggers in a way I had not seen In the first 6 years of me blogging.

Sure we had folks that didn’t like this or that, most of them would be pretty nice about it, and I had talks back and forth with a number of them. Now, I have not had a single troll in the past year that you would even want to consider engaging with! They come across as unhinged.. I don’t know if they are or not.. but they just open up and spew hate all over their keyboards aimed right at you.

Not at something you have done but at you the person.. its like they decided that saying, I disagree with your choice is not enough.. now its.. I hate you, I hate the way you look, I hope X and Y and Z happens to you in the most painful way possible.

I had one earlier in the year that sent post after post after post..  I woke up in a great mood and then opened up my comments and went WHOA!  She was wild.. I have never had anyone suggest that my pig eat me alive.. and she just got worse from there!

Lets be clear, I have NEVER eaten anything alive, Heck you are talking about the person that avoids a whole section of a store because I can’t stand to see the live lobsters in their tanks.  I raise my food because it BOTHERS me massively at the way animals are treated in mass farming. I  have nothing against Lobster, I just don’t like how they are treated after they are caught in the mass food market.

So why is this happening? We have talked about their being a disconnect between those that live on the land, that small farm with those that live in the town/city.

I think that is a very easy answer, take it if you want to use it.. its simple to say and prove!

But the real answer is multi faced and its messy and not neat.  I have farmer friends that buy everything from the store, they only grow crops, they are in just as much “disconnect” from them to the way I live.

On the flip side. Mrs P who lives in a condo in the city is better connected to the land and to my way of thinking and living, she works her own space, starting gardens, doing this and that in all kinds of ways in the city.. She is amazing! Living in a small space with no land of her own does not hold her back from working with what she has got! You go Girl!

No, I think if I had to give you one reason why this is happening, it would be eco-chamber!

It used to be that you lived your life and you would meet and visit with all kinds of folks with different thoughts came in and out of your life. If you said, I am going to protest this, you would get every kind of answer from.. Good for you, stand up for your rights! to that’s interesting tell me more about why this matters to you to, I do not understand why you would do this to.. that’s crazy!

Now! NOW all we do is allow facebook and twitter and more to create our eco-chambers, to have them throw up a link to a group that says.. Perhaps you don’t like mass food production, facebook throws up a group that says..  Help stop this and so you click yes to the that group, next thing you know.. you are finding friends in there that are supportive to you, they challenge you.. but they are harder leaning then you.. Don’t worry, its only a matter of time before you start thinking more like them or that they will lead you from that more moderate lead in group to the smaller “select” group that is far more hard core!

We say idea’s flow back and forth, but so do the seeds of hate.. and our eco chambers if we are not careful will give us all the sun/water we need to bloom in place.

Take care what grows from those seeds..