Uhm, X-FILES MOVIE???

Excuse me? I just saw a preview for this, am I the last person on earth to hear about this?

Moo

Today I put a down payment on half a cow from a local farmer. A half cow is over 250 pounds of meat, it costs over 800 dollars, and it's enough meat to last two people over a year. It comes in vacupacks and will last in the freezer for officially a year and a half, but the farmer said they've kept it up to three years before.

Why did we do this? One, aside from the initial outlay of cash, it is very cost effective overtime, especially for the more expensive cuts like steak. It comes out to around 4 dollars a pound after packing and butchering costs.

Also, after seeing the recent 30 days episode where a local hunter traveled to CA to live with PETA activists, I have a renewed interests in wanting to know where my meat comes from. As per my earlier post, I am NOT an animal rights activist, I don't believe in animal rights. However, I do believe there is no need to cause any living thing more pain or discomfort than is absolutely necessary, and I disagree with factory farming. I also like the idea of supporting a local farmer and avoiding shipping costs.

If you're in the triangle area and interested in buying a half or quarter cow, let me know and I'll get you the info. You can also usually find local, humanely raised (if not organic) meat at your local farmers market.

Wall-E

is incredible. Go see it immediately. That means NOW people!!

Breed Specific Legislation

is WRONG. Dallas, Texas recently passed a law mandating all pets be altered and micro chipped, even pets that were "just visiting" the city. They also passed laws mandating the number of pets you are allowed to have. There is legislation pending in Pennsylvania and California that would make it a criminal act to even be in possession of a dog with a docked tail, docked ears, or dew toes that have been removed.

Some of these laws say that if you are even driving through a community with a certain breed, such as a dog that looks like a pit mix, it can be taken from you on the spot and destroyed.

There are several issues here, one, on a very basic level, this is a violation of my individual right to do what I want with my own dog, as long as I'm not abusing it. All of my dogs are spayed and micro-chipped, but if I don't want ot do that, why should I have to?

Second, there are legitimate medical issues involved in spay/neuter and microchipping. Many people choose not to have their pet altered because they think it is healthier, and these laws usually require having your pet altered incredibly young, rather than allowing you and your vet to make the best decision for you pet. Microchipping has been known to cause cancerous tumors at the chip site.

Democrats are being suckerd by organizations like the Humane Society of the United States (NOT affiliated with your local Humane Society!!) HSUS does NOT run a single shelter in the united states, and they are directly responsible for the death of many many pets. They are on record as wanting to end the ownership of animals in America. They would literally rather cats and dogs simply die off then we have them as pets, and that is their goal.

Like I said, Democrats are being suckered by these people. If you vote, particularly if you vote democrat, I encourage you to contact your congressman and presidential candidate and say you are AGAINST any legislation infringing on the rights of pet owners (NOT "pet guardians," blech) and against the HSUS, and you want them to come out as such, also.

HSUS is very good at hiding their agenda in legitimate pet cruelty issues, but don't be fooled. "Animal rights" is a shell game, animals do NOT have rights, they are animals. People have rights. Animals should not be treated cruelly, and people who do so should be put in jail, but these laws go well beyond the bounds of preventing animal cruelty. Don't let them take your right as a pet owner, and eventually your pet, away just because you have a soft heart.

You can contact Barack Obama here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/contact2

Zilch

noooo movement on the house. None. Nada. Zilch. Zippo. Buppkiss. It sucks.

In other news, all three of my boys are returning to the UNC b-ball team in the fall. booyah. If we don't win it all this year (or at LEAST get to the final four) we deserve to get ridiculed mercilessly, and you can quote me on that.

Update

We have now had almost 200 people look at the house online, but still no calls. We did have one couple come to our open house this weekend, but they were very quiet. We have another open house this weekend, and another realtor is coming on Monday to give us advice. Almost all of the projects are done now, so that's nice, at least.

I am trying to get my NC teaching license. It looks like I am going ot have to take ANOTHER stoopid test. Seriously, I guess I can blame the field I chose, but these stupid tests are never ending: Praxis, GRE, and now ANOTHER Praxis. I'm so over it. This is a really stupid one, where I have to answer three essay questions that are basically lesson plans. Waste of time. Waste of $130. boo.

No news

so far, a whopping 75 people have looked at my house online, but not one has called to schedule a showing. I'm hoping they are all waiting for the open house next weekend. In a way, it's kind of good, because we aren't really ready for showings, yet. We, at a minimum, need to finish painting the upstairs bedrooms and the downstairs bathroom. We are tired of working on the house at this point, and keep saying we should've done these things a looong time ago, because they look so good!