Awesome Fence!

Spring is crazy busy, but as they say, a picture says a thousand words. Love these heavy wire 16 foot fencing panels. They make a beautiful fence!

About That Carbon Tax

Ahh yes, our lust for killing the atmosphere will be curtailed by taxing our rampant overuse of carbon emitting substances - you know, things like heating fuel in a country that has 10 months of winter or gasoline in a country so large that availability to any and all services can be tabulated in time to get there rather than distance. 

Am I supposed to be happy about a few dollars extra added monthly to the Old Age Security benefit while I pay an added tax to my gas bill that annihilates the whole year’s rise in less than a week?

Should individual persons be subject to curtailing their energy use by imposing a tax on carbon when Corporations can avoid this cost by passing on the tax or buying carbon credits? 

The little people at the end of the line are getting hit - hard.

Let’s face it, like the GST, the carbon tax is just another tax grab. Supposedly revenue is targeted for environmentally sound projects. Hopefully this is true. But I wonder, in the name of national security (a  catch phrase used to justify way too much these days), does this tax apply to weapons of war?

As I sit here, both concerned and angry at our Canadian government for endorsing the recent illegal air strike on Syria by the US, the UK and France, justified once again without evidence, I remember a blog I published April 25, 2014.

An excerpt from:

Bummed out over the 4R’s, published April 25, 2014

Why is this titled "Bummed Out About the 4R's"? Here's just a few bits of info from a web site I happened upon called Environmentalists against War - Stop the war against the planet and all it's peoples.  If you're interested in the site, though it's a bit of a reality check and a downer, you can find it at http://www.envirosagainstwar.org/index.php.

GPM — Gallons per Mile. Because the military’s tanks, planes and ships burn fuel at such intense rates, it becomes impractical to talk about consumption in "miles per gallon." Military fuel use is, instead, tabulated in "gallons-per-mile," "gallons-per-minute," and "barrels-per-hour."

A B-52 bomber gulps down 86 barrels per hour. F-4 Phantom fighter/bombers devour 40 barrels per hour. At peak thrust, F-15 fighters burn 25 gallons per minute. An F-16 jet on a training mission ignites more fuel in a single hour than the average car owner consumes in two years.

The biggest gas-hogs in the Pentagon’s arsenal are the Navy’s non-nuclear aircraft carriers that burn 134 barrels per hour and battleships which consume 68 barrels per hour. At its top speed of 25 knots, the USS Independence (a 1070-foot-long aircraft carrier with 4.1 acres of flight deck and a crew of 2300) consumes 150,000 gallons of fuel a day ... Simply "'standing by' in the Gulf, the carrier must still consume oil at a voracious pace in order to purify 380,000 gallons of fresh water daily and produce enough electricity to power the equivalent of a city of 40,000 people.

Under standard conditions the Army’s M-1 Abrams tank gets eight gallons per mile. In the heat of battle, however, the M-1 Abrams tank can eat up seven barrels — 252 gallons (based on 36 British Imperial gallons per barrel) — per hour.

As long as we continue to have wars, how can we hope to make even a dent in the process of cleaning up our environment, of slowing global warming rather than accelerating it?

And here I am - faithfully recycling, reusing, reducing, rethinking (and paying carbon tax!). How can such small gestures begin to address such a huge problem? No wonder I feel bummed out.

It's been a tough winter!

Adding a pollen cake and sugar water to help the bees get through early spring, which is still snowy. So far so good. They made it through! Many, many, many still alive. Now we wait for the pussy willows to bloom, their first source of pollen.

Shearing's Done!

It really went well, very professional shearing gal from Manitoba. We used to sell our lambs to her Dad years ago when they lived in Alberta. Sometimes it's difficult to get a shearer in for a small flock so we were really happy she was in the neighbourhood (High Prairie).

First we separated the lambs from the ewes.

Ewes in waiting.

Excellent!

Gone is that heavy winter coat.

Ready for the bagger.

Beautiful and magnificent!

Artist at Work - Bread Making Day