Fiberglass Maul Handle: Replaced. Victory is Mine.

Okay. I replaced my fiberglass maul handle this evening. It was pretty simple.

I used a thin bladed hacksaw to cut the broken fiberglass handle off just below the maul. Then I used a hammer and a chisel to push the epoxy and the rest of the fiberglass out of the eye. I had to chisel around the inside a bit to remove stuck pieces of epoxy and plastic.

But that was pretty much all there was to it. It took no more than 10 minutes.

I liked my fiberglass handle so much I got a new one, and besides a fiberglass handle is just $1 more than a wooden one. I can't wait for the new epoxy to set so I can start working my way through the piles of wood in our yard again.

It's getting cold at night, so we're firing up the wood burning fireplace insert again. I'm sitting in front of the fireplace right now. My three year old has positioned large plastic animals on the coffee table so they can watch the flickering orange flame.

In 24 Hours, 600 Muskegon Families Will be "Encouraged" to Go Homeless

In 24 hours, 600 Muskegon families will have nothing. No safety net. No state help. No way to pay for utilities, or rent, or clothing, or toiletries, or diapers for their children. Nothing.

Some brilliant new law concocted by our conservative State legislature to slash the eligibility time for cash assistance and make it retroactive, maybe just to punch the children of single mothers in the gut a few more times. POW, POW, POW.

The theory goes like this:

The goal of ending cash assistance, state officials said, is to encourage people receiving cash assistance to get jobs and prevent dependence on government.

Got that?

The GOAL of ending cash assistance NOW at THIS TIME, RIGHT NOW, the reason it HAD to be done RIGHT NOW was to "encourage" people.

To "encourage" them!

Th "encourage" them to "get jobs".

Just like that. "Go on, now..." says Snyder "...you can do it. YOU can DO it! Go on now! FLY, my pretties, be FREE!"

This law "encourages" people to find jobs.

You know, like how punching somebody in the jaw "encourages" them to see a dentist.

Of course...he's sort of "encouraging" these individuals, mostly single mothers with multiple children, to march out into a jobs field where even highly educated, experienced workers with tons of free time and no children have been having trouble finding work for years....a jobs market that has U6 unemployment numbers of 20%.

What I'm trying to say here is, maybe NOW isn't exactly the best time to "encourage" people by tossing them and their children into the streets.

Andrew Stone, employment and training manager at Michigan Works in Muskegon and Oceana counties, said the job search agency will hold nine weeks of workshops in October and November about the basics of finding and keeping a job.

“Are there enough jobs out there to absorb those people now? I can just bluntly tell you no,” Stone said.

On the bright side, this move is saving the state $65 million dollars. And just in time for that new flat tax on Michigan businesses and blow a 2 billion dollar hole in the Michigan budget.

Catholic Charities of West Michigan President and CEO Deborah Nykamp said a few people get into a cycle of dependence on government assistance, but children are likely to suffer when their families run out of benefits. About one in five Michigan children live in poverty, she said.

“I never thought I would see poverty like this in my lifetime,” she said. “Kids raised in poverty are less likely to be successful. You're going to see a bigger gap between the haves and have-nots.”

Please Help a Muskegon Community Garden win $500 and National Attention

A local, Musekgon community garden in a poor to low income neighborhood is currently coming in a close 3rd place to win $500 and some national attention from a write up in Mother Earth News...and all we need is a measly couple dozen more votes to push us over the edge to FIRST place.

Please take 45 seconds to vote in the Fabulous Food Garden contest. Create an account, skip all the account setup screens with the button on the lower left as you log in, and then vote for Love Community Garden!

I don't want to get down on the other gardens currently ahead of Love Community Garden. They're fine veggie gardens. But they're not producing fresh fruits and vegetables to poor communities, or providing fresh vegetables for home bound seniors.

For the people and by the people in downtown Muskegon, Michigan. We deliver food to home bound seniors while also having 12 families who grow all natural food for home use.

The organizer, Morning Bear, holds summer programs for area children to teach them how to garden and grow their own food. They hold community concerts there, and community art projects, and offer a gathering space for people who want to organize around something important for the community.

Love Community Garden is quite an accomplishment. It was started on an empty lot owned by a local church, and the community pitched in to create a rain barrel watering system, a community made pergola, a relaxing place to sit and smell wild flowers, or pick raspberries and strawberries, and blackberries. It's a learning center, and a place of peace and respite, and source of nourishment, and a gathering place for the community.

What could $500 do for this community garden? It could continue enriching the neighborhood where it grows.

You wanna see a ray of hopefulness? A thing of beauty? A world where people come together to make their tiny corner of the world the best place they can?

This is it. THIS is it.

Plus...whenever I need advice on my own organic garden, I know I can go down to Love Community Garden in the summer and Morning Bear will be there to give me some great advice.

Please take just a minute to vote for Love Community Garden in Muskegon, folks.

Thanks!

HERE'S HOW TO DO IT!>>>>

If you already voted yesterday You're allowed to vote again each day until the end of October! And it's much easier the 2nd time.

If this is your first time voting, here's how to do it
1. Click Sign Up in the upper right
2. Enter your name and login info and click On to the next step...
3. CLICK SKIP THIS STEP for the next three screens.
4. Now return to the contest page.
5. Click the image for Love Community Garden.
6. Click the large Vote Here image found below the image gallery for Love Community Garden.

Let's make it easy for hardworking Americans to at least create FOOD

Big business...it's just another form of tyranny.

There.

I said it.

My family, we survive through small business. Not just my nuclear family. But my parents. And my grand parents on both sides.

Heck, my mother's grandfather lived through the Depression by baking bread and making candies and selling it and doing anything he could to get by. My tiny grandmother was told by old man Meijer that he would buy up any bread she could bring him. And so they brought him all they could. Of course, now Meijer is among the largest supermarket chains in the US.

My mother's grandfather was also farmer in south central Michigan. She has memories of visiting him in his home with no electricity, and pulling up potatoes and other foods from his garden to make dinner.

It's the small independence that makes for freedom. The ability to maintain our own means of production for food and the necessities of life.

And though our conservative pals would like us to believe that Government is making us dependent, they conveniently leave out the insidious creeping of big companies into our lives. They control the means of production. They establish monopolies and cartels that lock out smaller competitors, that lock out new ideas, and become the only show in town for low wage jobs where workers an interchangeable component, neither able to excel nor innovate within the workplace. Where a worker can be scrapped and replaced for any excuse.

What on earth am I prattling on about?

I don't know.

It's late. And it's been a pretty long walk of a lead in to talking about a new Farm Bill.

Nationally, nearly 27,000 midsized independent family farms have been driven out of business over the past five years, and the ones who have survived are being squeezed by a market that gives preferential treatment to big agribusinesses. The 2008 farm bill included some new reforms to protect small and medium-sized farmers who raise cattle, hogs, and chickens, but those reforms are being blocked by the handful of large processing companies that dominate the meat and poultry industries. Food & Watch and our allies are asking Senator Stabenow as Chair of the Agriculture Committee to stand up for Michigan’s small farm owners, consumers and the environment and support Fair Farm Rules.

It's the "Those Reforms are Being Blocked" thing that gets my goat. Somehow our leadership ("somehow", no doubt, being $$$$$$$$$$$$$$) is considering caving in to pressure from large farms to weaken the farm bill and make it HOSTILE to the independent farmers.

As if we want to dissuade more people from entering into agriculture. As if we want to make it harder for people, desperate to feed their families and make a go of it here, to get their hands dirty and create the American Dream from the very soil under our feet.

You really cannot get more hard working, honest, salt of the earth, hard core American bootstrapper than being an independent farmer for the love of all that's good.

Let's make it as easy as possible for hard working people to at least create FOOD. Contact your State Senator and tell them to stand up for small farmers. Especially if you're in the Michigan area, talk to Senator Stabenow.

Cutting Firewood Fast

This guy is just too awesome. If you're into heating your home with wood and cutting your own fuel, YouTube handle great789 has tips and tricks to slice up firewood nice and fast.

He's clearly cutting up pine, which is a pretty simple wood to cut and split, but the ideas are sound.

As Unemployment Climbs Again, Michigan's Assistance Programs are Eviscerated

It's a beautiful day. Little drizzly, little overcast, slight fog, but warm. It's a lazy, relaxing early autumn. There's a cricket chirping outside the open window.

It's the time of year again when I get to feel sanctimonious about the deals I get on apples at the farmer's market. Yesterday I picked up a half bushel of macintosh apples for $6 - crisp and sweet with a little tart. I tend to go for the apple seconds with minor blemishes. Dark spots.

I should not be looking at unemployment figures today.

Non-farm jobs in Muskegon are at the same levels they were at in 1995 -- 16 years ago. U3 unemployment is Muskegon is back to the 12% range again. I was feeling pretty good earlier this year and late last year. We were backing away from the near 16% unemployment mark we were at in January 2010. In April 2011, at 10.1% unemployment, it looked like we might actually drop below double digit unemployment for the first time in 30 months.

Now we're on to month 34, and seeing a rise in the unemployment level again.

Except now, instead of seeing more help for those struggling to get by, we're seeing Lansing and DC stripping help for people. Michigan's unemployment benefits have been slashed from 26 weeks to 20 weeks, even as people are well into their third year of unemployment. The State level heating assistance fund for individuals is nearly empty and the state has not moved to fund it.

A pittance of cash assistance for those most in need has been retroactively slashed to 48 months, leaving 11,000 of Michigan's poorest citizens without a means to get by with necessities like housing, clothing, utilities, toiletries starting within the week.

And even as food banks are running empty, the state of Michigan is making food assistance more restrictive and raising the eligibility standards.

Michigan has slashed child tax credits for families, removed primary residence tax credits that benefitted the middle class, and are now taxing pensions for those who held up their part of the worker contract.

As our economy moves in the wrong direction, our programs to help low income people and the rising number of people dropping out of the Middle Class do too.

Meanwhile, the wealthiest businesses continue to see their taxes cut...and as most of the housing market tanks, luxury housing sales continue to climb.

This time, 15% unemployment is going to hurt a lot more.

Something is wrong with this animal.

What is wrong with this animal?

There's something WRONG with it.

Just LOOK at it. The bigheard carp.



Look at that thing.

Something's wrong with it.

I mean, just look at it.

Ain't natural.