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Preparedness POA&M: Midweek Ed. - 16SEP26 -> R.I.P. Dutch John

Writer: Lee Grey
Lee Grey
13 hours ago
4 min read

The Preparedness POA&M (plan of action & milestones) is a weekly column focusing on skills, self-sufficiency and taskers needed to shore up those areas that will allow us to be part of the solution. As hard times continue to unfold and resources become scarce, the prepared mind strives to take steps to mitigate those eventualities. In order to shepherd our cause, we must have a plan of action and continuously evaluate our progress via milestones as we consider the path onward.


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Lee's POA&M:


Afternoon, TBR Readers,


We are “back in the saddle,” as they say! With all the recent changes in Clan Grey, it’s proven to be a challenge to stay up to date with the blog. Now that things seem a little more mellow, we should be able to deliver with a little more consistency than we have been able to here of late.


Not much to report from the .gov side of things. This time around, they gave me an office, which is really nice, and it’s been cool catching up with some of the guys and gals who are still here. About half of them are still around. I had to complete a CI poly recently and things went well, as expected. I would never do a “Expanded Scope (ESP)” poly. Those are just way too invasive. No man or woman needs to know that much about my day-to-day life except for the good Lord.


This past week, I installed two new shop windows and bought three pressure-treated 2x8s to reframe the shop door. The previous framing I used was a little warped, and it just kept gnawing at me because the top quarter of the left side wasn’t making 100% contact with the framing.


The focus this week is: R.I.P. Dutch John


We purchased two Nigerian Dwarf goats during the C()v!d c()nspir@cy with plans to breed and sell them in the future as another stream of income. However, as time went on, we sort of just made them our pets and eventually decided we would rather raise sheep instead.


Recently, we noticed that one of them, Dutch John, was acting a little lethargic and wasn’t eating well. We initially thought it might be due to parasites, so we bought the necessary products from Tractor Supply to deal with that.


The next day, I saw Dutch stand up and try to walk. He was really shaky, and his head was sort of leaning to the right. I started researching things on the “inter-webs” and came across a condition called listeriosis. I learned that listeriosis is a neurological disease that can be fatal if a goat or sheep contracts it. Apparently, some of the primary risks include decaying vegetation, wet or spoiled hay, and grazing too close to the ground, where the bacteria may be present.


I researched how to raise goats extensively before we bought them, and I never came across this information. In fact, I always thought goats were somewhat indestructible. The opposite is quite true. To make matters worse, we were unable to get Dutch into the local vet’s office to have him checked out, so we had to make a two-hour drive to an emergency veterinary clinic. There, they determined that he had most likely contracted listeriosis. The vet said that once it progresses to the point Dutch had reached, the prognosis is extremely poor.


I didn’t want to see him suffer for another few days or possibly a week, so we said our goodbyes and made the difficult decision to put him down.


Folks, I’m a pretty tough guy, but I didn’t handle this well at all. I felt responsible for his condition. I felt like I had failed him as his shepherd. I have learned so much from this.


As Momma Fitz and I made the two-hour drive back to Rose Ridge, with Dutch in the back of the Super Duty, I realized that we had six years of good times with him up on the ridge. Through every season, whenever I walked outside to do chores, I would hear Dutch hollering for me.


I miss that holler.


R.I.P. Dutch and thank you for all the good memories!


Taskers for the coming week:

  • Complete my sit-ups, push-ups, and two-mile walk/run four times this week.

  • Finish setting the 6x8 treated posts and install Gate #2 toward the top of Rose Ridge.

  • My forthcoming novel, A Mammoth Resistance, is currently on hold. Stay tuned...

  • Reframe and paint the shop’s front door.

  • Read through and/or listen to the Book of Revelation.


It seems like the current administration is h, e, double hockey sticks bent on losing the midterms. The Ukraine war is the latest “forever war” that was promised would never take place, we just had the hottest summer ever recorded, and the economy is in dire straits, with anticipated diesel shortages and record-breaking fuel prices.


But hey, if we just extend their grip on power, maybe we’ll get a $5,000 check in the mail?


No thanks.


I certainly don’t want the other side to win, but with friends like these, who needs enemies?


Prepare Today | Prevail Tomorrow


Lee

Psalm 91


“I love you more than I love goats,

and you know how I feel about goats.”

-

James Patterson




Image credit: TraversersBlogRadio.com (All rights reserved).



 
 
 

Comments

In Congress, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of

Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

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       He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

       He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

       He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

       He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

       He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

       He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

       He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

       He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

       He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

       He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

       He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

       He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

       He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

       For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

       For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

       For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

       For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

       For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

       For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

       For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

       For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

       For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

       He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

       He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

       He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

       He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

       He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

 

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

 

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

 

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

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(C) 2019

P.O. Box #118

Milltown, IN 47145​​

tbr.editor@protonmail.com

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 MMXXVI

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