Gaming

 I bought my playstation 3 about two years ago now.  At that time I never played a game in my life and didn't know the first thing about gaming.  Mostly I was into trying to make some kind of contact with people.  You see I work on my parents dairy farm and relate more to animals than people, so I thought maybe a playstation could change that.  Well I did start relating to more people right away, unfortunately, most of the people I related to were horny, little boys.  That didn't quite do it for me.  But then I met someone more my own age and we became boyfriend and girlfriend.  This relationship made me very happy but I found out fast that it was very difficult to sustain a deep virtual relationship.  The virtual world, like the physical world, would go out of it's way to break us apart and finally we were separated.

  It's at this point that I tried playing video games.  At first it was extremely difficult for me to figure out how to play because the games were incredibly hard and required a lot of work on my part just to buy a game and learn how it's supposed to be played.  Since I make my living milking cows, I was good at figuring out solutions to problems in the material world and eventually this ability carried over into the gaming world.  So I put in a lot of work into developing my gaming skills over the next year.

  And so it was at this point that I got back in touch with the boyfrend  I got separated from at the beginning of my playstation experience.  We both knew that we stilled cared for each other but the hurt of separation was so bad that neither one of us had the courage to try it again until now.  I had found a game where two players, a guy and a girl, could play on line in a co-operative situation and I was finally at the point where I could play the game well enough to be a plus to whomever I played with.  And so we played this game together (he being an expert player) and all the work I put into learning how to game paid off in a wonderful gaming experience.

writing without attachment

   So I met this guy, Brad, and we hit it off right away on playstation home.  For me it was the feeling of falling in love.  I just let myself feel wonderful with this guy and I could feel how wonderful I made him feel too.  I found out that he was a kick boxer who had recently had a bad auto accident and now has pins and a plate in his leg which will stop him from doing what he does best to make his living.  It seems I am attracted to guys who are hurting and am able to heal them, at least mentally for awhile.  Anyway it was really nice until the other day when he was distracted and had to leave me to see another girl on playstation home.  I started coming down from my high and figured I would crash like I usually do when I let myself fall in love in this virtual world.
  But this time it was different.  A guy, Kent, who I have been in virtual contact with for over a year, showed up and told me how sorry he was for getting me upset the last time we were together.  He was being mean to one of my other male friends, probably because he was jealous, and I asked him to be nice but he said no, so I left him.  Now he regretted being such a jerk because he felt really bad knowing I was upset with him.  It was at that point that I understood how much Kent cared for me and he really did ease the pain of my recent feeling of being betrayed..
   Then Brad showed up, probably because the girl he left me for was just playing around with him, and wanted to pick up where we left off.  But my friend Kent was there and he went out of his way to be nice to my ex-lover, Brad.  I felt very touched that he would do that for me and told him so, which made him feel wonderful.  Maybe this is what love is really about.

Me Dancing on playstation3

hay wagons

My Pig Story

So this is an experience I've had with pigs. Awhile back our neighbors boar got out of his pen and was roaming the neighborhood terrorizing anyone or anything that got in his way. The people who owned him were away for the day so my step dad told me to take the dogs and see if I could do something about this unruly situation. So I found mister pig and had the dogs chase him over to his pen but he wouldn't go in, I guess he was having too much fun exercising his male ego(like many other human males I know) Anyways I finally had to tell the dogs to make mister pig an offer he couldn't refuse. So my two dogs attacked and to my surprise, mister pig put up one heck of a fight. I couldn't believe I was standing there watching this life and death struggle before my very eyes. Finally I went over to the place where mister pig got out of his fence, lifted up the wire mesh and got mister pig’s attention by suggesting that maybe going back in his pen might not be such a bad idea at this point. Well even male pigs, like male humans, can be stubborn, ornery, and cantankerous,but they do recognize a good idea when they are hard pressed and presented with one. So mister pig gave up the fight(which he was losing anyway) and crawled back under the fence into his pen. And we all lived happily ever after.

What would happen if the economy fails

This is a question we often ask ourselves but are generally afraid to put into words to ask anyone else because we figure nobody knows what’s going to happen as the economy fails.  So I am going to go out on a limb here and say that I do know where our failing economy is going to bring us.  To start with we have to take a good hard look at the problem.



   To attempt to explain how things came to be as they are we can begin by looking at how farm produce was priced in 1946.  At that time farmers were receiving 100% parity for their products.  In other words, the price of farm goods was proportionate to that of non-farm goods being produced and sold in this country.  Then laws were passed concerning agricultural products, and the farmer gradually went from receiving 100% parity just  after WWII to receiving less than 50% parity today.  The money that the farmer doesn't see now shows up in the economy in such forms as taxes, interest, insurance premiums and government jobs.  At full parity, everyone benefits; when the producers of new wealth, be it corn, natural gas or milk, receive fair compensation for their products, the money runs through the whole economy.  This is how everyone gets paid, from the farmer or the miner, through the processing, manufacturing and marketing operations, all the way to the distributors and vendors of the final products.  It is not a matter of bargaining; if the money doesn't enter the system at the raw materials level, it simply won't be there as capital for the rest of the economy to use.  There is a direct relation between the price the farmer is paid and the price the average worker is paid; an increase in earnings for the first means an increase in earnings for the second, so that the plight of the farmer is in fact identical to the plight of the city dweller.  When the farmer and the average worker are cheated,  when businessmen steal the new wealth and hire foreign labor to process it, the money remains at the top of the economic ladder to be doled out as the bankers, politicians and businessmen see fit.  The reason for our high level of debt is that since consumers cannot consume production from their earnings they must borrow to do it, thus profiting bankers and businessmen even further.  It seems inevitable that as more and more of the nation's money is controlled by fewer and fewer people, the middle class will start to collapse, forcing more and more of the people to live at poverty level.

 I think we all agree that this scenario is already happening in our economy.  Many people think that a political move or a new technology is going to turn this situation around.  I don’t believe this will ever happen.  What I believe is the pressure and fear everyone is feeling about the economy will continue until it precipitates a new evolutionary break through in our cultural make up.  This new evolutionary break through will consist of a leap in our conscious awareness from an economy where we produce what we need through our intellect and ego out of fear, to an economy where we produce what we need through an expanded awareness of our ability to produce out of love.  As our intellect and ego prove less and less capable of relieving the pressure of the poverty mind set we find ourselves in, our soul consciousness will move us toward a situation in which we will be capable of producing our own new wealth through our ability to love.
I realize that this sounds too far fetched to consider as a solution to our economic problem so I will now post something my step-dad wrote when he first started our dairly business which has lasted over 20 years.


When we bought the cows( which was my wifes' idea)
everyone we knew agreed we had no chance of making it
work. I looked at the endeavor as a spiritual
experience right from the start.  Getting the money to
buy the cows,  finding and setting up a barn to move them to,
hauling away the manure with just a young green
pair of horses, and feeding them with no land and no
equipment was all one miracle after another for me.
  For a year we milked the 30 or so cows we bought
and lived off the sale of the milk.  Then one day the
man we were renting the barn from decided he was going
to quit his job and milk cows for a living.  He
figured if idiots like us could make it, he should
have no trouble at all.  So he wanted us out of his
barn right away.  I remember telling Kathy we had to
wait for God to come into the barn.
    Things got very tense after awhile because the
owner didn't want us there.  I told a friend to watch
closely because I was going to pass a herd of cows
through the eye of a needle.  And sure enough God came
into the barn in the form of a cattle dealer who moved
us to our third barn 50 miles away.  After landing on
the farm a man I didn't know came up and told me he
was going to take back his mower.  I told him that at
this point in my life I didn't think anyone had the
power to take away anything I really needed.  He never
did take that mower away.


 So with our increased conscious awareness we will start to deal more directly with nature. And with our soul consciousness leading us we will find ourselves more in harmony with nature and our sense of family and community will be empowered.  Here is a post my mom wrote when describing our life style;




My husband Dennis and I bought a small herd of dairy cows ten years ago. Both of us

college-educated, both recovering from devastating divorces, we were 37 at the time, living

a simple life without telephone or television, hauling cord wood from the farm we were care

taking with our draft horses to support ourselves. We had a savings of $5000 and no other

possessions to speak of; yet a bank agreed to lend us the money for the cows.



Through the years the cows have remained the central thread of our lives, around which a

tapestry, so to speak, has been woven. One puts one's essence into them and they, thriving,

return the favor. For me the simple act of milking has time and again dispelled my fears.

For me it was the cows; for Dennis it was more the horses, at first simply his relationship with

them and later what they did together-- the spreading of manure, the planting, the harvesting.

And we are ever captivated by the idea of creating something out of nothing, the idea that through

the act of creating comes your sustenance. We have learned that somehow, if we milk our cows

work our horses and stay together, everything will be all right.



But at first it was just the struggle. We knew very little about cows and farming, and we

were renting a farm in Massachusetts where, it seems, farming even with tractors has become obsolete.

The barn was dilapitated and the machinery in varying stages of disrepair, so as we worked

and slowly paid off our loan we looked for a farm to buy.



There is no rational explanation for the fact that we settled on a 110-acre farm in Western

Pennsylvania previously owned by an old order Amishman. It simply seems that it was pre-destined.

when at last we moved we had the strong feeling of finally being where we were suppose to be,

and that we were suddenly protected from the onslaught of the raging and unfathomable forces

which constantly beseiged us and against which we had no defense.



From the beginning the Amish steadied us and helped us. We began to assemble the necessary

horse-drawn machinery and learn the fine art of farming the simple way. Often it was a

case of finding out how a neighbor was doing a certain task and doing the same thing. We

have developed variations, often because we have less help available.



As we became more interconnected with our Amish neighbors we came to understand the basic

premise underlying their philosophy; your own well-being and success depends on that of your

neighbors.



It was a hot, dry windy October afternoon when our barn caught fire. We were preparing for

our third winter in Pennsylvania by adding on a space to the existing barn for bred heifers.

We had both been sick off and on for an entire year and felt over-burdened by the amount

of work. Dennis' son, recently married, had decided against coming to live on the farm.

My daughter, Sue, was doing her best to help out with the chores and all the work of making a dairy work but in the end there was too much

stress and work, and something broke.



Within an hour the barn was down and probably half of the community had arrived. Our cows

were gathered in a neighbor's barn and trucked three or four at a time to surrounding

Amish barns. Meantime, the eldest Amishman arranged for a rental situation for us until

we could rebuild. The next day 20 Amishmen assembled at the rented barn to make things ready;

the following day we moved the cows in and shipped milk once again.



The following Monday a dozen teams and wagons hauled away the debris and with the fire

finally extinguished rebuilding started in earnest. Teams worked in the wood hauling logs

for beams, and each morning a crew of 20 men showed up for work at the barn site. Dennis

and I took care of the cows mornings; silage had to be moved over there and manure had to

be hauled; afternoons Dennis worked with the crew and sometimes I had time to bake a cake

or some pies for them. Evenings we returned to the rented barn to milk.



The barn raising took place exactly a month to the day later. Two hundred people

(mostly Amish, although some English farmers came too), ate two meals here that day, and

as the sun set the last of the metal roofing was nailed on. Three more weeks were required

to finish the barn.



The Amish foreman could see that we still needed help and agreed to allow his teen-aged son

David to work with us during plowing, planting and harvesting time. As David and Dennis

spend time together they learn from each other; our experience is truly an interesting

blend of two cultures.