I can't help it: back on my "the world is going to shits" mode.  Went to Columbia and bought some books on Wall street, the resource based economy and a book of Rumi (but that one is pretty difficult for a square insensitve male blockhead like me).
Eh, don't worry, just let me rant for a minute, it won't last.   And no it won't, maybe Pablo's will be alright yet, but whoever comes after us, ah screw em (politely), or as George Carlin says: "fuck em good".

2013 has been good to me: health, travels, relationship changes (I include my dogs here who are almost through puberty), buildings, friends,  motors, friends, grants, it's all been good.  We even got the O'man back in the white house, but it won't matter much. Perpetual growth on a finite planet, how come you have to be blind to rule the world?  And how come we all go along with it?  Just because it is comfortable.  I hope next year will be less comfortable for you!
We're like chickens shitting in our own drinking water, except chickens have a much higher tolerance for poop.
Going for phantom wealth, which has so little to do with happiness.  Not to end 2012 on a bitter note but on 9/11 thirty thousand kids died of starvation (and the day after as well). 

Poverty is the worst form of violence, (Ghandi). 

Really: can't we just cut it out already?  We can spend money on paving all of Texas, but we can't get some measely waterpump put in for everyone in the world?   Might cut in to the 1%.  WTF, you get 250 K a year, and you bitch because your tax goes up 4% (on everything that you make OVER250K? Slow down Pieter....  There is more to life than in creasing its speed (Ghandi) 
The cut off for any meaningful incremental happiness/dollar is around 75000 dollar per year, after that dollars really don't help much for happiness.   Every house a dish washer, 3 toilets, , our god given right... (except 50 years ago).  There is sufficiency in the world for mens' needs, but not for his greeds. (Ghandi)

Anyway, since the place is going to pots I figured I'd go get on a plane and go to Jamaica.  Talk about ecologic footprint and indulgence.  I did have the following thought though to alleviate the impact I think we should go twice as long spreading the flight damage over a longer period.  So in the new world you have a mandatory stay of 4 weeks for any flight.   What Ghandi thought about western civilization?  He thought it would be a good idea. 
 
So hopefully next year will be as good as this year: spreading wealth, bounties and eggs, snickers and rabbits, houses and land, some of myself if I feel like it, and hopefully  a few dollars  trading the fruits of my labor for your labor vegetables, and all that as locally as possible. 
And, what really seemd to help in my life last year to make it all bearable: it is famous from Ghandi, (but he stole it from my dad)

                        Most of what you do is unimportant, but it is important that you do it. 

To each his own.
A blizzard came through the other day.  About 20 fahrenheit  (equivalent of butburning cold in Celcius) and the wind was a rippin'.  Flags in Hermann were horizontal, as was the snow.  The snow was not coming down, it went horizontal.  I can vouch: it was f ing cold.  So those chickens are out there.  It is just around noon, the stove is a cranking in the house, I am comfy, more than comfy actually, good book, glass of wine, tunes on the computer.  But... chicken but, you can't leave the girls out there in their see through house.   
So for good measure  I waited till the maximum wind and snow combination wind chill factor  to go out there with a hammer, nails, plastic, a ladder and tin to give them a wind break.   Had to go back to the house three times to defrost my fingers and refuel.  In the end there was a decent windbreak on the bottom and coup covered in plastic.  Them girly chickens are out there, standing on one leg, snow and rain froze on their wings, clueless.  You can lead a chicken to shelter but you can't get them in there, and they didn't.  
No.... I am comfy here freezing my ass of on one leg.   You can't fix stupid.  Like you can't fix your brother if he lives a life you don't approve of.  What to do but accept?  So I do. 
Was over at a poker game last nite, and one of the guys says I should bolt down the coops because they could blow away in the hurrrricane, but I was comfy again and took my chances, and I will in the future.  The coops  were still in the same place this morning. 
So tonite, twelvish, I go out there, just to check, and there is about 40 of them sitting outside in a rugby huddle, hell no we aint going into that plastic contraption.  We are waiting for the Mayan calender to come, freezing like there is no to maya.   But none of them has frozen and exploded, yet.  You can't fix stupid. 
As far as the title of this blog goes:  Ladies and Gentlemen: The Beatles.  
The song link below is the first time Paul met John, my homey,  who was impressed that Paul knew all the words to this Eddie Cochran song.  So Paul was "in".  So just that you know: the first song ever the Beatles played together, or at least that Paul played a song to George and John. 

Still ramping up:  126 yesterday,148 today.
Dogs found the stash in the cooler and ate 58 eggs.  Noxious gas, dogs outside.
Actually experienced the saying: "don't put all your eggs in one basket".   I walked back from collecting eggs, and there are enough now that I need two baskets, when one of the handles broke.  Fragile those eggs and about 40 of them,  the dogs were happy, again, and again had to sleep outside.  As you can tell I am still completely enthralled by the chicken activities.  I have no trepidations about this grant or showing it off.  As a matter of fact a local producer stopped by the other day, curious and asking.   He helped get eggs and feed and water and it was a nice visit.  Told him:  fertilizer, reduced tillage, less weeds and you can see that.  Tried to get a count on the chicks the other day, Vincent counting one coup, and I the other.  Problem was we only had one bottle of wine, and since we were present the chickens behaved differently, again confirming that the mere presence of a spectator will influence the measurement. (The uncertainty principle has been frequently confused with the observer effect, evidently even by its originator, Werner Heisenberg.[5] See Wikipedia if you want the details and can't sleep).  (or count chickens in your sleep, going in up a ramp, approximately 222). Chickens are getting strange: you walk up to them and they just squat and wait to be picked up, strange... 
It really is one of the funnest things I can think of (and I can think up some shit): a bottle of wine, friends, and watching chickens go to sleep.   Actually got handshake contracts for 70 dozen a week, nice, leaves me just enough to trade with Steve Simon, the local bar owner. (Decent exchange rate: 1 draft: 1 dozen)

 I started this note last week and then all of a sudden it is a week later, but last week the flies were back, it was December first and I was outsided in t-shirt and shorts.  Globally messed up weather.  Went to town for an hour, and next thing you know it is 500 dollar later and I didn't even have any fun.  Bought bits of this and that: 60 quarts of oil, it really was on sale sale, 500 lb of chicken feed, one alternator, a new O2 welding tank from MFA, (Bruce, who works there, told me that "as a kid" after a hangover he would take a couple of good hits straight from the tank to reload his oxygen carrying capacity in his blood),
4 library books, recycling and to top it off I got 15 two by four by eights.   It all fit in the car, with the doors closed, except for myself.  That lumber was to build some new workbenches, the building was alright but then you got to clean all the crap up again, and you found stuff, and more stuff that was so carefully hidden under benches in boxes behind more stuff.

Oh, and more stuff, more stuff.  So often I think about how those two suitcases I arrived with in the USA have exploded into the fourth dimension.  Found a two dollar sprinkler at the 79 cent goodwill store, completely the bomb. 
Spinach is growing good in the tunnel, strawberries are getting covered in weeds again, but I don't mind, how can I not like Chick weed? Larkspur is coming up, some stuff is blooming into the heat, and there are still turnips and a nice salad in the tunnel.

And the latest of the greatest news:  I found my bathroom back again. It took 2 days, but there really is a white  bathtub in my house, whooopiee!  It is legal again to turn on the light and touch things.  Still looking for T.P. though.