When You're Tired...Go Climb A Mountain.

After a few lovely, warm Spring-like weeks, our first day of Spring started off cold.
It had been getting up in the 70's to low 80's, then Sunday's high was only in the 50's, with a chilly breeze blowing.

But it was (mostly) sunny, and I knew Ryan had been wanting to get out and ride his new motorcycle somewhere further than just right around here, so I suggested we ride up to visit a place I had found online while searching for free camping for him.

John's Mountain is located in the Chattahoochee National Forest, just a little over an hour from here, and I didn't have any idea about it.
J had mentioned it before, in reference to hunting, but I just figured it was like the local WMA land 15 minutes from here....nothing but forest land and 20 minute walks to fishing holes.

John's Mountain has recreation, picnic areas, nice trout fishing streams, tent pads, hiking trails, water falls, an overlook.

You can see part of the trail in the photo, lined with green hay sprouts, or grass.
It starts way off to the left, zigs way off to the right, then zags way back to the left, at which point you're at the top of the mountain, where you see all the rocks.

Great view. Everything is still pretty Winter-dead, but it won't be but just another couple of weeks until everything will be green and colorful and gorgeous.

Nope, it's not a dog.
People were LOL'ing at us walking a cat on a leash.

At the top of the mountain was Keown Falls.

There wasn't too much to it this day. It's supposed to bigger/better after a/some good rain.

Looking down on Keown Falls, and the sharp drop down below, from the overlook.

 Saw plenty of Georgia Pines.

Because some people need it spelled out for them.

Go this way, that way, the other way...

Bridge over? the stream.

Beautiful day.

Great picnic area. I bet this is stunning in the Spring-Summer- early Fall.

R's new ride.
It's a Suzuki V-Strom.
He's a Strom-trooper, LOL.

Although there was that great picnic area where we were, we went down the skreet and found a pull-off next to the creek so J could do some trout fishing while we pick-a-nick'ed.

John's Creek.

There were several of these pink-flowering trees in the area. Not positive, but I think they are Cherry blossoms.

It was a good get-away day, and place. We definitely plan to go back soon.

But whew!
I slept on the ride home, and slept like a dead person last night.

It was a good tired, though. 

Whew, I'm ti-red.

Both physically, and mentally, exhausted.

This whole Election ordeal is killing me.
My brain explodes daily.

I am disgusted, horrified, and, just, sickened to my heart and soul.

Socialist? Are you freaking kidding me??

I just....can't even.

Most days I just have to close off FB and go outside and play in the dirt or something to try and cleanse my mind of thoughts of whatever terrible, awful disease is apparently eating the brains of so many people these days.

Socialist. GTFOOH.

I've been getting a lot of (hard) work done in the yard.
Picking up all the fallen sticks and branches and limbs from around the yard (one-and-half acres, with many large, large trees that shed like dogs/cats), planted my new blueberry bushes, pulled weeds and vines and thorny vines, digging up two Rose of Sharon bushes to make a place to plant a couple of blackberry bushes.  Burnt a pile of brush, got son to mow of part of the yard (I leave a lot of it unmowed in the Spring for the wildflowers/weeds that attract Bees that I need to pollinate my garden later). Got the garden tilled up.

We finally bought a new water pump to pump the water off the pool tarp, then I spent hours on a ladder skimming off layers and layers of leaves that had built up over the Winter. (Why, yes, it would have been easier to keep it cleaned off during the winter, but when you marry a......well, nevermind.)

I've been working on cleaning off/organizing the carport, which tends to get piled up in the winter.
Same as the back porch, we just bring stuff in, pile it back there to deal with later. Haven't gotten to it yet.

I'm also still volunteering a couple of times a week at the church food pantry.
Sigh.

(Guess how many bleeding-heart, Socialist Libs volunteer with us?
That's right - zip, zilch, nada, none-a-moondo.)

It's hard work, hefting cases of food and drink, then helping people go through the line picking out food stuffs, helping them load their haul into a buggy and out to their car. Breaking down boxes, keeping the trash picked up, garbage taken out, restocking, and so on.

It's good, hard work, but it's supposed to be rewarding work. But I don't feel rewarded.
I mean, I don't need a reward, accolades, or anything like that...What I mean is, I don't feel like I'm really helping anyone.
A few maybe, but for the most part, not really.

The majority of people that come in are on food stamps.
Now, I'm not going to judge whether they manage their food stamps well when shopping for food at the grocery store, but I can tell you that when they come in to the food pantry, they curl their lip (literally!) at foods like canned vegetables, boxes of beef broth, bags of beans and pasta, granola, "healthy" cereal, and large containers of applesauce.
They go for chips, salsa, crackers, cracker jacks, peanuts, snack cakes, donuts, and candy, candy and more candy.

I stand there and try, over and over and over, to direct the people to the...well, more healthier choices, such as they are, making suggestions about meals they can fix from the foods.
One of the cans of vegetables is Margaret Holmes Squash and Vidalia Onions. You can make a delicious squash/onion casserole, topped with the French Fried Onions that we also offer, same as like green bean casserole.

The beef stock makes a good base for the pasta and /or beans.

I've told them how the applesauce is delicious right out of the bag, but that I also made some of it into apple butter, dehydrated some and made fruit leather, mixed it with red hots candies to make pink cinnamon applesauce.
I haven't tried, but I'm told you can make fried apple pies with it.
Also haven't tried but have read that you can use applesauce in place of oil and/or eggs in baking.

We also have jars of Grape Leaves.
We basically get whatever is sent, from the parent food bank, that they get from wherever. Sometimes we get weird stuff.
Yeah, I curl my lip, too, but I made the effort to go online and search what kind of recipes there are using grape leaves (apparently they're used in Greek dishes).
I'm not sure how picky I would be if I was starving/really hungry.

Except that's the problem, isn't it. These people aren't starving, or really even hungry.

So basically, I'm working in a grocery store, for free.
Well, not totally free. I get food in exchange for my work, but in that case, I could get a job at a real grocery store, earn actual money, and buy food or whatever else I wanted to with it.

But now I don't feel like I can quit, because the one Lady over the thing is there every single day (that they're open, three days a week, plus delivery days and church meetings and whatnot). Sometimes by herself.
A lot of the volunteers only show up when there's a delivery of new/different stuff.
Several have been asked not to come back after they got caught stealing things.
Some were told not to come back after causing Drama.

I leave the place with more of a "what in the ever-living f**k is wrong with people?" than I typically have on a normal day, and that's saying something, because you know I don't think very highly of people in general any how.

Not that I especially like the Lady over the thing - she talks out both sides of her mouth, lies, gossips, talks about people ugly behind their backs - but...I don't know. I would just feel bad if I stopped helping now.

What the heck? I don't supposed to have The Feelz.  How can I feel bad about quitting?

And then there's J's dead brother who just will not die.

I thought we had him laid to rest, done and done, but this is like the ordeal that never ends.
It just goes on and on, my friends.

I get so dang aggravated, and upset, and mad.
I tell myself, stop stressing out about it. It's J's deal, let him deal with it.

And then something else else comes up to piss me off again.
And again, I have to spend a day or two calming myself back down, letting it go.

And then he texts me to tell me the date of the Singing that shouldn't even be happening, and I'm like, "OK, IDC".
Not like I'm going to it.

But it reminded me of the (supposed) reason they're having it - to raise money to "help" us with J's brother's final expenses - only, I'm pretty sure we'll not see any of the money, again, and I don't like being used as the reason to raise money that I'm fairly certain is already intended to be spent not helping us pay for J's brother's final expenses.

It's not the money, it's the principal of the thing. (And J's idiocy.)

Back when J's brother died, we decided to not have a funeral. For a few reasons, but mainly money. We didn't want to go in debt for several thousand dollars to put a dead body in the ground.

But when J told it, he was like, I can't afford it.

So, his cousin says, my church would like to do a Singing to raise money to help you with D's final expenses.
Instead of saying, thank you, but we are handling this within our budget, he's like, Great! Raise me some money!

We had a bit of a disagreement about it, nothing major, but I had the idea he'd went back and told her it wasn't necessary, we were good.

The Singing didn't happen, and we pulled off the Memorial Service and burial, and were thisclose to having done and over and, move on.

Then!
Just before the Preacher dismisses everyone to go across to the cemetery for the prayer over the grave, the cousin stands up to invite everyone to come back to the church to eat the luncheon they had provided.
ALSO, she didn't have a date yet, but wanted to let everyone know her church was going to be having a Singing to raise funds to help us out with D's final expenses.

What?! Nooooo!

As if that weren't bad enough, then the Preacher gets back up and takes it upon himself to ask everyone there to donate to help us right then!
A guy stood at the door collecting money in a hat as people exited the church.

I hated that.
I was so pissed.

We had put on a very nice Memorial Service, without spending a fortune.
We were in the awesome, vintage family church. 
We had a photo slideshow, and music, and the grave was fixed nice, with beautiful flowers, and a super nice headstone.
The cousins provided a fantastic spread of food, like a family reunion.
It was great! (For a funeral, I mean.)

Everyone should stop paying tens of thousands of dollars to funeral homes, and go back to doing it (sort of) like the good old days. Church (or, home or community center), family, and food.

But all they got out of it was, this was because they couldn't afford no better.

Then, after all that, the cousin didn't even give J the money that was raised for us.

J brought her over to me, telling her she needed to ask me because he didn't know what everything cost.
So she asked me, how much was needed to catch up?

I did, and didn't, understand what she was asking.
I understood she was basically asking, how much we needed to pay any outstanding bills we still owed as far as the expenses, any outstanding bills, etc.

Things like that take me off guard (I don't think too fast) so I didn't really understand what/why she was asking, because nothing was needed to "catch up" because everything was paid.
I mostly just stood there and looked at her like a dummy, while J was explaining we had receipts for everything, and I don't know if she said anything else, but then she walked off.

I asked J, what she was asking, catch up what?
What he got out of it was that she was asking how much more they needed to raise at the Singing to catch us all up on what we'd spent.

My mind finally started catching up, and I said, no, I don't think that was what she was saying, at all.
I think she was asking how much we needed to pay off any bills we still owed, and then she has other plans for the rest of it.

No, no, he was sure that wasn't it.

I heard her tell him later, "we" had raised $531.00, and that she was just going to hang on to the money until after the Singing.

I don't care about the money - I didn't want the damn money to start with - it ruined the whole point of the thing.

My issue was, all those people that gave money, gave it to us, to help us out with the cost of burying J's brother.
The money is ours, period, the end. We don't have to prove anything to her, if we spent two dollars and raised two thousand it doesn't matter. The money was given to us. It should have been put in J's hand as soon as he returned to the church.

If the cousin had other ideas of what to do with the money, then she should have discussed it with J, not just made the decision she was just going to "hang onto it".

I try to ignore his family and goings-on as much as possible, but I believe he said at one time that this cousin was trying to get one of his other brothers on disability, that he'd been denied twice, and this cousin had gotten a lawyer to help. (I don't know if that's true, sometimes he hears what he thinks he hears, not what was actually said.)
So, possibly, she might have decided it was J's place to take care of getting his other brother on disability (which I would agree, but he claimed he didn't know how, or what to do, so let others pick up his slack), and that she should keep the money and use it on his behalf.

Still, she should have discussed it, not just taken it upon herself to make the decision.

Besides the fact, that's not why the people gave the money.
There were co-workers of J's there. They gave money to help him out - not to help his other drunk, worthless brother be able to take more of their tax dollars, with which he will only spend on beer and cigarettes, and still beg the same people for handouts.

To ask people to donate for one thing, intending to use the money for another thing, is misleading, no matter how you rationalize it.

He thinks I'm wrong, and she's going to hand him over all the money after this Singing.
Maybe I am wrong, but logic says I'm not.

If she planned to give it to us, she would have given it to us that day that it was collected for us.

The fact that she asked how much of it we needed (to "catch up") (when ALL of it was ours) pretty clearly says she doesn't plan to give it to us.

I guess if he doesn't have enough pride to not beg family, friends, and strangers to pay for his (family's) responsibilities (and ridiculousness),
if he doesn't care that his cousin basically appointed herself his guardian and financial decision-maker,
if he doesn't care his name is being used to mislead people into donating to something different than they believe they're donating to.....
then I guess that's his choice.

I don't want to have anything to do with it, and I wish I didn't have to even hear about any of it.
But for all he thinks I'm too stupid to listen to my advice, I'm the one he vents at when things go wrong or bad.  Then gets pissy if I say I told him so. Jerk.

I wish I had never volunteered at that food pantry.
Thought I had learned my lesson at Little League all those years ago.
I obviously am stupid. 

A Week Later...It's Nearly mid-March

Wasn't really a week after my last post, but it sure seems like it. Time really flies.

So. Spring has apparently sprung around here. Really nice, warm days. The past couple of days we've been up to near 80°.
I'm ready to get gardening.
Though I probably won't until after Easter.

I've been hanging laundry out on the line to dry - my favorite thing!

My wild flowers (aka weeds) are growing in; pretty blue Speedwell, white Chickweed, yellow Dandelion, and Buttercups (not pictured), purple Deadnettle.
I've been seeing some Bees already!

I've still been dividing most of my days between working around the house, and volunteering at the food pantry. (Still nothing good to say about that.)

We got J's brother buried and had the Memorial Service.
(You don't want to hear what I have to say about that, either.
I can't think too much about it or I lay awake all night fuming.)

My chickens are doing well.  I'm getting typically 4 to 5 eggs a day now.
The Ameraucana (blue egg layer) only lays three or four times a week.

I had gotten 7 eggs one day and thought that they were each all laying now, but shortly after that, my Buff Orphington hen went broody, so it was more likely that she laid a clutch of eggs to try and hatch.
(Which would never happen, since I don't have roosters. None of the eggs my chickens lay are fertile.)

As far as I knew, I was happy with my little flock. Seven chickens is plenty for my little farmstead, I get sufficient eggs to eat and share.

One day they will stop laying and I'll have to think about making them into dinner, but that's probably another year or two away.

But then one day someone in one of the local egg & chicken groups I'm in posted a, "Coming Soon, Chick Moms!" with a pic of Tractor Supply Chick Days signs, and I thought, 'I need chicks' (?).

I never raised chicks before, and to be honest, I wasn't that excited to do so.

Still, though, it kept nagging at me. Maybe I'd like some more "blue egg layers".
Had it not been for the 25 chick minimum order, I probably would have went ahead and ordered a few.

A few days later, Cousin Joe was over and we got talking about chicks and he said if I got any chicks or wanted to hatch any eggs, he had an incubator and already has a place to raise chicks and he'd raise them for me 'til the got big enough to live outside.

I still wasn't sure I wanted to buy 25 chicks.....then a few days later, someone posted they had EE hatching eggs for sale.

EE is an Easter Egger chicken, which is a mixed breed of Americauna or Aracauna with other breeds of chickens.
Depending on the "color gene" they catch, EE's may lay blue, brown, pink, or green eggs.

So I bought (nearly) 2 dozen of eggs from the lady.
She was short four, so put in a couple of English game bantams, and a couple of Serama bantams.
One of the EE eggs was bad, so we're at 19 currently.
I figure with a..I don't know, 2/3 hatch success rate...and some of them being roosters, I should get at least 5 or 6 Easter Egger hens when alls done.
Just a guess. I may figuring too high on the hatch success rate. We'll see.

The same day I went and bought the hatching eggs and took them to Cousin Joe's, was the same day I got 7 eggs from my flock, and then my Buff hen went broody.

Poor chicky, she sat in that nest day in and day out, setting on eggs that would never hatch, not to mention I'd come steal them from her every evening.

I felt sorry for her, but at the same time I thought, 'this might be something interesting'.

I messaged a neighboring farmsteader that I knew raised chickens, etc. and asked if she had a few fertile eggs, didn't care how many or what kind, for my poor broody hen to sit on.

She did, so I went and got them and brought them and stuck them in Buff's nest.
(She was in it, I had to move her out to put the eggs in, then return her to it.)

I could have broken her from her broody by forcing her off the nest, but I thought it might be a new, interesting experience to let her try to hatch some chicks, and (hopefully) care for and raise them herself.

I like the idea of the hen(s) hatching/raising chicks the way nature intended (not in an incubator or under a light in a brooder)....even though I have to substitute the eggs for fertile ones from other chicken parents, because I want to deal with roosters even less than I want to raise chicks.