protest

Changes of plans, and look who blinked first (convoy talk)

/ Re-Farmer / 7 Comments

One of my goals for today was to start more seeds and transplant some little tomatoes, after I did some baking.

My younger daughter usually does the bread baking, but she not well today. So I did a double batch of oatmeal and chia bread, then another double batch of herb bread made into mini loaves and buns.

Of course, the phone kept being busy today! After my phone appointment with my doctor, he forwarded a 90 day refill for my prescription – but for some reason changed it from taking it twice a day, to once a day, which was not what we talked about on the phone. The pharmacy caught the change and called me about it. In the end, I went ahead and took what they could give me, while they sent another fax to the doctor for find out what was going on.

After that, I left the phone with my husband!

Even so, I happened to glance out the kitchen window while shaping loaves, and saw someone walking by with a cat carrier and some bags of cat food! He didn’t even go to the door, but let them near the cat shelter. I got outside just in time to wave goodbye to them as they drove away.

I’m assuming the guy was the Cat Lady’s husband. With no chance to talk, I quickly sent a thank you text. It turned out she’d tried to phone ahead, but … well… we do live in a cell phone dead zone, and this time, she had no signal at all. The cat food bags they left with us were very small bags; it actually made more sense when I saw them, after she told me she’d got them for only 27 cents each, but couponing. It should be enough to last us until after we get the van back and can do some shopping.

Then the pharmacy delivery guy called, but my husband was able to take care of that, while I finished shaping the last of the buns.

The down side is, by the time I finished kneading the second batch and setting it to rise, my left hip gave out. It’s still bothering me! I was able to finish the baking, but I’m afraid I had to leave most of the clean up for when my daughters to the evening chores. Which means mostly my older daughter, once she’s done working, since my younger daughter isn’t feeling any better, yet – and my older daughter has her own joint issues to deal with!

What a gimpy bunch we are. 😀

While I was doing all this, what I was NOT doing was keeping on on the Senate debates before voting for or against our Prime Dictator’s invocation of the Emergency Measures Act. They’d debated all day yesterday, and the people I knew who were watching it live were mostly incredibly disgusted by what they saw. A lot of the senators were repeating the same lies and slander our politicians and media were pushing.

I must say, though, this brief clip was probably the worst example.

The “ceased” guns she was referring to had nothing to do with the protesters, the vitriol wasn’t from the protesters, but… honk honk equals Heil Hitler?? Really? It’s one thing to see idiots saying that on social media, but coming from a senator?

There was some calm and measured speeches, though. This one is worth a listen.

The fact that she has been working right where the protests were happening, and could confirm what was really going on, was important.

Funny how people who weren’t there were the ones who complained about the disruption and noise of the protests more than people actually living there. I even had one person on my friends list claim they could hear the horns, even though 1) they live an hour away from Ottawa and 2) the honking had stopped.

A constant refrain I was starting to hear from people living there is that the police blockades were far worse than the protesters ever where.

The Liberals didn’t like it when the New York Times managed to accurately report on the police actions.

Meanwhile, organizer Tamara Lich was denied bail.

This video dives into the many problems about that.

That’s right. The judge who denied Lich bail is a T2 supporter who even ran for election as an MP, for the Liberal Party.

Then I started getting messages from people.

Our Prime Dictator revoked the Emergency Measures Act himself.

That’s right. It’s done.

Gone.

But not over, of course.

He went from saying the EMA would need to be in place for months, even though the “red zone” in Ottawa was cleared of protesters, because they might come back. His party was even talking about making some of the EMA powers permanent.

The Conservative Party had already filed a motion to revoke, which would have been discussed on Monday, should the Senate have voted to support the invocation of the Act. Under the Act, the EMA is in force for 30 days, when it either expires or gets extended by vote. Any party, at any time, could move to revoke the Act, at which point our Prime Dictator would have to justify keeping it in force again, then the House and Senate would have to debate and vote on it again. The NDP would be supporting the Liberals every time, which means it would always be the Senate that had to have the final say.

A process that could, potentially, keep happening, over and over again.

Meanwhile, it began to appear that not enough senators would vote in favour of the EMA. A number of them voiced displeasure at the pressure they were getting to just rubber stamp the invocation. They were still debating it when our Prime Dictator made a live announcement that, since the emergency was over (the emergency that was never there in the first place), it wasn’t needed anymore, so he was ending it.

I have not watched his speech, because seeing and hearing him makes me physically ill.

Trudeau blinks; the truckers win; the Emergencies Act is dropped. But it has shown us who the tyrants were, didn’t it?

Literally today, as Trudeau was writing his short speech announcing that he was abandoning his Emergencies Act, his shills in the Senate were standing up and speaking in favour of it. Imagine burning up a lifetime of political capital, only to have Trudeau walk away from it moments later. Oh well – it was a useful exercise.

Which politicians — including in the Conservative Party. Oh yes, I didn’t mention it?

The cowards in the Liberal Party who announced that they were very much against it — but that they were going to vote for it anyways, because Trudeau was “forcing” them to.

But is it over?

No, of course not.

The reasons for the protests are still there. The federal mandates have not been lifted.

There continue to be protests across the country and, even near Ottawa, there are protesters set up and ready to come back, if necessary. People’s bank accounts that had been frozen are slowly being un-frozen. The law suits are still files and making their way through the process.

Ottawa’s newest Chief of Police was going to continue his witch hunt.

Will that change, now that the EMA is no longer in effect? I don’t think so.

Will this mean that our Prime Dictator will just invoke the EMA every time there are protests he doesn’t approve of? Or will his party just find other ways to grab power? For example, while all this was going on, they have been trying to push a bill that would make vaccination – but just one specific vaccination – a condition of employment, by federal law. Never mind that making any vaccine mandatory is illegal in Canada.

This is not any sort of victory. Our Prime Dictator has simply blinked first, but not until after his jackboots used illegal and violent measures to remove a legal and peaceful protest. This is not the first time he’s tried to make a power play. This is just the first time it involved the general public in such an open manner. A lot of people who were typically on board with him, even if they didn’t like some of the stuff he was doing, have had a very rude awakening.

A lot of people have also realized what a precarious position they are in, in many ways. I saw a huge leap in people moving towards increased self sufficiency, working to get out of the cities, and some even leaving the country. I foresee the “homesteading” movement to continue to grow because of what’s been happening these past two years.

For us, we’re still going to be pushing ahead with our one original goal to be as self sufficient as possible. The only change is to see how much we can speed up the process.

This is not over. Not by a long shot.

The Re-Farmer

Sad times (convoy talk)

/ Re-Farmer / 25 Comments

There are so many people posting video and live streaming what’s going on in Ottawa right now, it’s hard to keep up.

One of the most insane things is that Parliament got shut down yesterday. The irony of using the Emergency Act to shut down Parliament, when they are supposed to be debating about invoking the Emergency Act, is off the charts. This video explains a lot of the Parliamentary process, with questions answered.

This is Andrew Scheer, who used to be the leader of the Conservative Party, and was Leader of the Opposition until 2020. Personally, I think the Conservatives have seriously dropped the ball on things, and have done a terrible job as Opposition, contributing to the state we are in now, but there is a lot of good information in this video.

One of the black marks of yesterday involved an elderly woman being knocked over and trampled by police horses. There are a lot of histrionics about what happened, with many claiming she died of her injuries. She did not. Family has spoken out. She did suffer a dislocated shoulder and, of course, it hurts, but she is otherwise fine.

The really insane thing is that the Ottawa Police are lying, repeatedly. They have claimed that the protesters were being aggressive to the police. They were not. They tried to claim a bicycle was thrown at one of the horses – complete with an aerial image with an arrow pointing to the walker on the ground, as if it was the “bicycle” in question – which did not happen. As the video above shows, there was a bicycle in the crowd, but it wasn’t near the horses, and the guy had complete control over the bike the entire time.

The Ottawa Police chief resigned not long ago, and his replacement resigned after only 2 days. I don’t know who they have now, but they seem to have found someone who is completely on board with police brutality.

While I’ve been able to confirm that the woman is all right, I have not been able to find out anything about the guy. From different angles of video I’ve seen, he tried to shield her with his body before they both got pulled under the horses. It didn’t look like they were together, but just happened to be next to each other. Of course, there are people saying that he’s dead, or critically injured, but usually from the same sources still trying to claim the woman had died.

What was interesting to find out is that she is Mohawk. Strangely, when it comes to protests right now, even though all peaceful protests are still allowed if the Act is invoked, certain “classes” or protesters are exempted from our Prime Dictator’s list, including the Indigenous, refugees and illegal immigrants.

Which kind of shows just how our current federal government views our First Nations people.

Pissing off the Mohawk is not a good thing. Just look up the Oka Crisis of 1990. Which, even though it involved the police, the military, a whole lot of guns, and the death of a soldier, did not result in the invocation of the 2 yr old Emergency Measures Act.

Oh, and while the police in Ottawa were going after peaceful protesters, there was an actual eco-terrorist attack.

It was reported approximately 20 people, some armed with axes, were attacking security guards and smashing their vehicle windows. It was initially reported that some CGL employees were trapped, but all had managed to safely leave the area.

Upon police attendance at the 41 km mark, the roadway had been blocked with downed trees, tar covered stumps, wire, boards with spikes in them, and fires had been lit throughout the debris. As police worked their way through the debris and traps, several people threw smoke bombs and fire lit sticks at the police, injuring one officer.

Amazingly, while looking up a link to the story, I actually saw a headline claiming the attack was done by “Anti-Vax protesters”.

Insane.

The Ottawa Police are not the only police branch that’s openly and brazenly lying.

I remember seeing the first story when it came out – complete with the photo – and how it was confirmed by the RCMP that the incident was unrelated to the Coutts border protest. Then suddenly, the same photo was being posted with a story about the Coutts protest being raided. Except I’m pretty sure the protesters had already cleared the area before the story “broke”.

The problem with the Federal government, legacy media and the police lying so much is that everyone is busily recording everything and posting it online for all to see. Like this one.

You can see that the police moved in all at once, on an order, not due to any aggression on the part of the protesters. The woman that was injured (not seriously, thankfully) is a reporter for Rebel News, which is funded mostly by donations. No government money. Our current federal government has been trying for years to shut them down, or at least prevent them from being part of the Press Gallery, but the courts ruled against the government on that one.

I didn’t see any tear gas in the above video. People are saying pepper spray has also been used. The Ottawa Police have claimed no pepper spray has been used. They may not have been using pepper spray, but from videos I’ve seen, they were definitely spraying something onto the protesters.

Another thing that’s been happening is a whole lot of arrests. Apparently, over a hundred. However, there are many videos out there of people who had been cuffed, taken away… then released soon after. They were arrested for “mischief”, but never told what they had done that they were being arrested for (one video I saw, a guy was arrested for flying a Canadian flag on the side of the road!). They were driven anywhere from 15 minutes away, to 1 1/2 hours away, before being released. Many described being “dropped off in the middle of nowhere”.

They all made their way back to the protest site.

Of the violence that has happened, it has ONLY happened at the instigation of the police.

In reality, there is a lot more of this.

While the government continues their action, and organizers are being arrested, they’re not succeeding. As I write this, there is a back-up convoy on the way, and I know many people who are either already on their way in their own personal vehicles, on their way.

This is far from over.

Which reminds me; the police themselves are creating their own blockade, unlike the protesters. Word is, they will be preventing food from entering the city, which will then be blamed on the truckers, as an attempt to turn support against them. Divide and conquer. This is as much a psychological battle as an ideological one.

On Monday – two days from now – there is supposed to be a vote in the House of Commons. The NDP are siding with the Liberals, so unless there are enough Liberal MPs that break ranks, the invocation of the Emergency Act will be approved by the House. However, it still needs to be voted on by the Senate, and they have stopped Trudeau in his tracks before. This is not the first time he’s made a power grab. Just the most blatant.

Assuming our Prime Dictator doesn’t decide to just suspend Parliament entirely.

The Re-Farmer

Video dump (convoy talk) (updated)

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Actually, I’m not planning to do much of my own talking about the Freedom Convoy 2022 today. Others are doing a much better job than I am!

Update: I’m putting this update at the top, because it’s basically breaking news. It’s just been announced that the GiveSendGo donations for the Freedom Convoy and Adopt a Trucker have been frozen by an Ontario court. This link is to the Globe and Mail, which is legacy media and not freedom friendly.

Here is a non-legacy media link.

Here are some of the newest, most informative videos I’ve been finding to share. Things change so fast, I highly recommend following the websites and channels for The Countersignal, Rebel News, True North, and individuals such as Viva Frei, Marcel Irnie, Clyde Do Something and Tireroasters Garage, just to name a few. In fact, as I am writing this, Tireroasters Garage is live streaming, on site in Ottawa.

Let’s start with this address to Canadians, from one of the organizers.

A lot of people are trying to bring their own concerns into things and, as legitimate (or not) as they may be, this convoy is about getting ride of all the mandates and restrictions, and making sure this never happens again. Pretty straightforward. Anything else that follows is outside of their perview.

And our Prime Dictator’s response?

Then he runs away.

Is it any wonder, his own party is starting to jump ship?

For all that the police were made to return the fuel they took before (which was returned contaminated), they have continued to take more fuel – gas, diesel and even firewood.

The trucks are still getting fuel, though.

Not all the police are good with what they’re being made to do.

Constitutional lawyers, meanwhile, are putting the police on note, that their actions are the ones that are illegal.

Meanwhile, in Quebec…

And in Vancouver.

In the above video, you get an idea of how the hateful lies, slander and rhetoric from our political overlords and media is resulting in violence and threats of violence against legal, peaceful protesters.

There are way too many smaller convoys and protests around the country to include videos from all of them, but most major cities, a lot of smaller towns and cities, many border crossings and even airports have their protests to end the illegal mandates.

Some of the international coverage is awesome – certainly better than our own legacy media coverage. This video is older (yeah, 6 days is “old” for this!), but I found it hilarious.

It should be noted that NDP leader, Jagmeet Singh, isn’t allowed back to the country of his birth because of his connections to an Indian terrorist group.

Shapiro has covered the story, too, with humour.

Because our federal government is such a joke, as are our own legacy media and pundits.

While the GiveSendGo fundraiser continues to grow, as people around the world show their support for the Freedom Convoy 2022, GoFundMe has clearly not learned their lesson.

Not only did they end a fundraiser for the Canberra Convoy, but they are refusing to refund people’s donations!

I will finish with this video, of a woman sharing her story.

As I write this, the snow system that passed over us is now crossing Southern Ontario, so a lot of these freedom protesters are probably being snowed on right now. Judging from what I’ve seen, they are will prepared to handle inclement weather. Hopefully, it means a reduction in harassment and violence from either the Ottawa police, or misinformed counter protesters.

The Re-Farmer

More going on (convoy talk) (updated)

/ Re-Farmer / 15 Comments

Well, from the feedback and traffic we’re getting, clearly people are wanting to hear more Freedom Convoy talk! Thank you to those who are visiting and responding. It is much appreciated.

The truth is, I’d rather talk about something else. This sort of thing is not what this blog is supposed to be for and about. In fact, one of the reasons I’m so happy to be back here on my family farm, even though we are having so many unexpected issues (tools and equipment “disappeared”, our vandal, the house turning out to be in worse shape than I thought, and so on), is that it allowed use to get away from all sorts of drama and other issues. Things had gotten so bad, it was not only affecting my husband’s health but mine, as well, and the girls were certainly happy to put it behind them as well. Unfortunately, the things going on outside our little “cave” in the woods are so far ranging, they effect us, no matter what. That, and I have this terrible habit of standing up to bulling, abuse and injustice, even though doing the right thing has sometimes cost me – and my family – a great deal. There are a lot of reasons why this is an anonymous blog, and some of those include safety and security.

I suppose it’s a good thing, then, that I simply cannot get too involved in what’s going on, or I’d probably be out in Ottawa, too. The most I can do to support the Freedom Convoy is keep in touch with a variety of sources, and write these posts, in hopes that it gives people a chance to see something other than the propaganda that’s out there.

Most of my resources, however, aren’t things I can share directly here, either because they simply can’t be embedded are shared on this platform for technical reasons, or due to privacy and anonymity concerns. So I try to find the next best things, which can take hours of searching. While I manage to post a lot of YouTube videos, if you do a search there for Freedom Convoy 2022 or even just convoy, you’ll get a lot of legacy media results, but almost no independent channels. If I didn’t follow so many channels already, I wouldn’t be finding most of what I do. Platforms such as Rumble, Odyssey and BitChute don’t mess with their search algorithms, but Rumble is pretty much the only one that I use right now.

With that said, here is what I have for today.

First up, remember the incident of police taking fuel that I posted about yesterday? The officers in riot gear coming in during the dead of night to take away fuel was bad enough, but to have rooftop snipers was absolutely insane.

One of the things I’d heard was that they only took illegal fuel, known as purple. This is cheaper, purple dyed fuel that is used for farm vehicles only. Now, that “farm vehicle” could be anything from tractors to pickup trucks to quads and utility vehicles. As long as they are just driven on the farm, not on public roads, purple can be used. So it doesn’t make sense to me that there would even be a stock of purple among the Ottawa supply areas.

Well, today, a judge ordered the police to return the fuel. Not just to dump it nearby, either, but to actually return it to exactly where they took it from. But do you think I can find something about that outside of individuals posting about it on their personal accounts? So far, nope.

Then there was the crackdown on people donating fuel to the truckers. Those people arrested for carrying jerry cans? Or people driving pickup trucks with empty slip tanks?

All released, without charges.

Going after the fuel backfired pretty royally.

That ban against honking?

The honking was already voluntarily limited, and is not done at night, so the attempt to restrict even that, backfired as well.

GoFundMe continues to be in trouble for their attempt to take the remaining $9million + from the truckers.

I don’t watch Fox News, nor any of the mainstream media channels, other than the occasional clips posted online. One thing I can say to their credit, though; they sent a reporter to Ottawa to cover the Freedom Convoy on site. Not even Canadian media has been doing that, other than to cover counter protestors, or to get their 30 second propaganda pieces.

GoFundMe is now the butt of jokes for what they have done.

Meanwhile, the GiveSendGo fundraiser has just broken US$7million, at the time of this writing. Clearly, a lot of people are putting their money where their mouths are, when it comes to showing support for the Freedom Convoy, and if you read some of the comments, what GoFundMe did was something that inspired them to donate even more than they had originally, or to donate at all.

That doesn’t even count the other methods people are using to contribute financially, on top of directly donating food and fuel to not only the convoy protest in Ottawa, but all the others as well.

And there are many others! Not only in Canada, but around the world.

The Coutts border crossing in Alberta is getting most of the attention, outside the Ottawa protest, largely because of the RCMP’s heavy handed and duplicitous response to it.

Interestingly, it is the police blockades that are causing more disruption than the trucks and tractors.

A new on-site video has just been posted, as I was writing this.

Just amazing!!

Meanwhile, there continue to be things like “false flag” incidents that are being used to slander the truckers and their supporters as violent, racist, white supremacist, etc. All those knee jerk accusations that have become meaningless, they are used to often.

This is next video is one of the most comprehensive I’ve found that covers these incidents.

True North is another of the independent media that has done a good job of covering the story honestly.

Police abuse of power is still going on. Yesterday, I posted about the old guy that was stopped after honking in support of the protesters, then arrested for supposedly refusing to show his ID. Here is another disturbing incident.

As you can see in the video, the police vehicle backed into the guy’s truck, even as he was trying to avoid the collision, only to be arrested for hitting the police vehicle!

Then there is crazy stuff like this; one of the things about these protesters is that they’ve been doing a fabulous job of keeping the area clean, but even picking up garbage is now being targeted by the police.

Now, the first reason given was that they weren’t wearing helmets. !!! Then, after they got helmets, the reason was that the vehicle they were using didn’t have a licence plate.

That’s a utility vehicle. I just double checked. They are classified as non-regulated vehicles, and do not need to be licensed and registered.

Our Prime Dictator did finally speak out, but in his usual disgusting and divisive manner. Oh, he uses pretty language, talking about how Canadians have all been all kumbaya together for the past two years, and the only way out of this is if everyone gets the injection. Never mind that no, Canadians have not been together for the past two years. The restrictions and mandates have torn us apart, pitted us against each other, and destroyed lives. We have never been so unified as now, with the truckers, and against our Prime Dictator.

Who, by the way, was pretty open about ending our fundamental rights.

He is getting slammed in Parliament, though.

The Liberals are, if nothing else, excellent at gaslighting and psychological manipulation, as they lie through their teeth.

Not all of them, though. Some Liberals actually still are… well… liberal.

Is the Freedom Convoy having an affect, though?

If you were to listen to the legacy media, you would still be thinking it’s just a small group of white racist homophobes afraid of needles, with little support and having no positive effects. The federal government has been refusing to even talk to them, though I’ve heard that someone is finally going to come out to negotiate with them. What there is to negotiate, I don’t understand. The solution is simple. If the government really wants the protesters to go home, they need to end all the mandates and restrictions, and let people make their own medical decisions.

The protesters have been mocked for gathering in Ottawa, when the restrictions supposedly fall under provincial jurisdiction, but these criticisms seem to be coming from people who think there’s just one small group of noisy protesters in Ottawa, and not more of them at the provincial legislative buildings across the country.

This screen cap literally just pupped up in one of my notifications.

Yup. Alberta is killing their Vaxx passports, as of midnight tonight. It’s not all the restrictions, but it’s a start. Saskatchewan is lifting restrictions by the end of the week. I don’t know as much about Quebec, but Manitoba has also announced they are “relaxing” restrictions now, with the (conditional) promise of all restrictions lifted by spring.

It’s a start, but we’ve had our “leaders” flip back and forth so many times, no one really trusts them to keep their word anymore. Alberta, for example, said they would not shut down, but suddenly did. Same with Saskatchewan. After our Prime Dictator offered millions in “covid aid” money to the provinces, but only if they shut down, but that couldn’t possibly have anything to do with it, right? /sarcasm Manitoba’s Premier, meanwhile, botched things so badly, he finally got turfed, but his replacement is even worse than he was. When an MLA met with and and show support for the truckers, she turfed him and slandered the truckers, sounding an awful lot like like our Prime Dictator. Liberal, Conservative or NDP, provincial or federal; there’s no real difference between them right now. Frankly, I think all the major party leaders need to be turfed for botching things so badly, and causing such incredible damage. Damage that will last decades, if not generations.

Thanks to the Freedom Convoy, and a whole lot of truckers and farmers, we finally have hope.

The Re-Farmer

Update:

Compare and contrast

What the protesters are like:

What the counter protesters are like:

When you’re in a hole, stop digging (convoy talk)

/ Re-Farmer / 11 Comments

I’ve been wondering how our political overlords would handle the peaceful, legal convoy protestors in Ottawa (and other parts of the country).

It seems like they are digging in their heels.

The federal government and their media lackeys continue to repeat their lies about the convoy, though there is some shift to try and say the mandates and restrictions are a provincial matter. Which is only partially true. When the federal government offers the provinces billions of dollars in covid aid – but only on the condition that the provinces lock down – you can’t turn around and say it’s not the federal government’s responsibility. Plus, of course, the federal government has brought in its own restrictions in areas of their jurisdictions. This is an intertwined situation.

Well, last night, the city of Ottawa declared a “state of emergency”. Then send in the police to steal fuel, as well as threatening to ticket and arrest anyone who brings food or fuel to the protesters.

This was actually very clearly a staged event, intending to intimidate. They came in, they took fuel, they left.

Which, as some are pointing out, is illegal.

We don’t even need to look at the Geneva convention. In Canada, if someone doesn’t pay their heat or electric bills, it’s illegal to shut the utilities off in winter. It’s even illegal to evict people in winter. The reason is simple: doing so can (and has; that’s why the laws were brought in), kill people. Such is life in the Great White North.

A lot of the truckers are living in there trucks with their families, including children. They need to keep the rigs doing, to keep warm. No fuel, no heat. No heat, and people die. Such is life in the Great White North.

Organizers quickly put out their own press release about it.

Police were also going to start arresting anyone carrying jerry cans of fuel to the truckers, and were even arresting farmers with empty slip tanks in their pick up trucks.

The result?

People started showing up, carrying jerry cans. Full, empty, whatever. They were everywhere.

I thought this one was hilarious.

May be an image of text that says "WATER BOTT TLE DRINK BOX SORT OF THING"

If you want to know why that’s hilarious, this is why…

The police have also started handing out tickets and arresting people for minor infractions that they had to hunt for. Sometimes, just for driving by and honking a horn in support.

If you watch the video, the old guy was arrested for not showing his ID – except you saw him earlier, taking his ID out of his wallet and holding it out to the officer, who didn’t take it.

Ah, but now, it’s illegal to honk your horns in Ottawa!

Now, I’ve been in a situation where the place we lived in was invaded – occupied, you might say – by noisy protestors. They literally used noise as a weapon. This was a residential community, and we spent most of a year, constantly being harassed and abused. They went after the elderly, the disabled and even children. They held a huge, illegal block party, with non-stop drumming that left people with brain injuries and PTSD in the hospital, and even dogs were throwing up from the noise.

The police did nothing. Politicians did nothing. In fact, we had federal politicians come in from Ottawa, taking part in one of those illegal parties (there were several of them), and promoted our tormentors as heroes, while we were the villains. Constant calls and complaints accomplished nothing. Video evidence ignored. The media twisted the narrative against us. We even had police liaison officers who, when I asked directly, admitted that yes, there were two laws; one for regular people like us, and one for the people who spent most of a year tormenting us. Why? Because it was a public employee union doing the harm, and we…, well, it was just our personal, private homes, so we didn’t matter. In the long term, they lost their war against us, but the damage they caused was permanent.

So I have little tolerance for the police or politicians when they suddenly decide that a peaceful, legal protest, held in a legal location, are being given a hard time for doing things in a controlled manner. The honking, for example, is at certain times, and there is no honking at night, so anyone claiming they haven’t been able to sleep because of the honking at night is flat out lying.

Speaking of lying…

There is no evidence that any of the protestors stole food from the homeless. The incident at a soup kitchen still has nothing to show that it was actual protesters or their supporters that did it. There is so much donated food, there is more than enough for everyone, including the homeless.

In fact, the only violence has been against the convoy of protesters – but that certainly isn’t fitting the narrative!

Yeah; the guy that deliberately ran into 4 people on the side of the road was a far left extremist. And the police are classifying it as merely a “hit and run”. The protesters are slandered as racist, homophobe, nazi, Putin operatives for having a party, keeping everything clean, and making sure everyone is fed, but a guy that deliberately runs over them is just a hit and run accident.

Right.

Our Prime Dictator is still in hiding, leaving his lackeys to continue lying on his behalf. They are actually getting some push back about it all, now that the opposition Conservative party has an interim leader with balls bigger than the guy she replaced.

The Liberal mouthpiece just keeps repeating the same old lies that justify keeping the restrictions, even though we’ve known for a long time, that the evidence does not back any of it up.

The thing is, while we can – and should – argue the efficacy of things like mask mandates and specific vaccines, that’s not what the protest is about. The convoy is there so that people can have a real choice, and not be punished for making the “wrong” choice. A coerced choice is no choice at all.

Our political overlords tried to get the trucks towed away, but the tow companies have refused. Now, it’s even being said towing couldn’t possibly be done. The only way for those trucks to move, is if they are driven away – and that would take days.

Our political overlords have tried to stop the flow of money from supporters. If failed. GoFundMe allowed themselves to be bullied into taking the money, and now they have several states opening investigations into them, and facing massive losses from all the people filing to get their money back through their banks, every one of which results in a bill of about US$15, and it’s devastating them. Meanwhile, the GiveSendGo account is, as of this writing, almost US$5.5 million. This amount has been raised even though the site keeps having issues from the sheer volume of traffic, on top of DDoS attacks.

Our political overlords have tried to make the police have their “surge” and threaten to ticket and arrest everyone. At some point, people were even told they had 5 minutes to leave, or they would all be arrested. As if it were even possible for anyone to leave in only 5 minutes. Well, that failed, too, if only because they couldn’t possibly have enough manpower. They are still threatening arrests, but they the sheer number of people they would be arresting would overwhelm any facilities they have.

They’ve tried intimidation. Threats. Lies. Slander. The legacy media reports only on the counter protesters, trying to sow even more division and hate.

But in the end, the protesters and their supporters remain united, and the more our political overlords dig in their heals, the more support THEY are losing, while the convoy protestors being even more united. United in joy, love and enthusiasm.

All of this could be over very quickly. Our political overlords need only call an end to the mandates and restrictions. Let people decide for themselves.

Instead, they seem to be digging in their heels, ramping up the threats. Word is leaking out that they will be staging an all out assault.

Will this actually happen?

Pray it does not. The reality is, our political overlords are just power hungry enough to do something like this. Especially our Prime Dictator, who openly voiced his admiration for China’s “basic dictatorship”.

The problem is, they are just arrogant and narcissistic enough to think they can do that, and get away with it.

But will they truly go that far?

The Re-Farmer

Well, isn’t that interesting (convoy talk)

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Today has been one of those days where I haven’t been paying much attention to things outside our little cave. I’ve been using various apps to keep in the loop about the Freedom Convoy, but simply have not been able to keep on top of the hundreds of messages, posts and videos. I have had to mute most of the channels. Otherwise, my phone would be constantly singing at me with notification noises.

This evening, I finally got to sit down and try to look at some of the stuff, and figured I’d check out some of the YouTube videos that so many people have been posting.

Well, now.

First, not a lot of related videos were showing in my feed, even though quite a few channels I follow are directly involved in some way. So I did a search. I did that yesterday and found all sorts of interesting videos, some of which I shared.

Not today.

Today, about 99% of the videos that showed up in my search were from mainstream media. Since they aren’t really covering it much, most of them are also days old. After a while, I did see more independent videos show up, but they are even older than the media ones.

YouTube is messing with the search results, and keeping people from finding videos made by anyone other than our government approved media.

The mainstream media has, of course, been spreading all sorts of lies and slander about the Freedom Convoy. Our Prime Dictator came out and made a little speech, supposedly to explain why he refuses to talk to the truckers. It was a speech filled with lies, misrepresentations, and was clearly intended to create more division and hate against the truckers. The former drama teacher was over acting again, too.

One of the few politicians that has openly and unapologetically supported the Freedom Convoy from the start has been Maxime Bernier, of the PPC; the video above has his response to some of the disgusting things our Prime Dictator said. The NDP leader, Jagmeet Singh, who is Sikh, also made some really vile comments denigrating the protestors as racists. Which would be a real surprise to all the Sikh truckers and supporters of the protest. In fact, the Sikh community has been one of the staunchest supporters. There have also been a lot of immigrants, some truckers, some supporters, that talk of having escaped tyrannical regimes. They are saying they are there, supporting the truckers, because they could see the same things happening here in Canada, that lead to the destruction of human rights and freedoms in their homelands. Of course, there are also the many First Nations groups that have joined the protests. It’s gotta be the most racially and ethnically diverse group of “white supremacists”, ever!

This article deals with the media lies. The Canadian Legacy Media’s Eleven Worst Spins on the #TruckersForFreedom Convoy

One of the YouTube channels I follow is The Rubin Report, and I still had to go looking to find this coverage.

Other platforms, such as Rumble, aren’t censoring videos.

The Rebel, which is completely independently funded, is one of the few larger media covering the protests. This one addresses the real problem of people infiltrating the protest to deliberately mess things up.

This is something everyone knew was going to happen. It’s a standard MO, really.

If we were to listen to the mainstream media and our own federal government, we would believe that there’s just a “fringe minority” of racist hicks that can’t be taken seriously, that are also domestic terrorists bent on violently overturning our (oh-so-saintly) government and the greatest threat our nation has ever faced.

Well, I suppose you could say it is an uprising. An uprising of courage, hope, unity, and love from ordinary Canadians, standing up against division, medical apartheid an government enforced segregation.

The Re-Farmer

Update: well, this didn’t take long. I just found this story, from The Counter Signal.

Ottawa moves to seize GoFundMe cash from Truckers

“Ottawa City Councillor Mathieu Fleury wants to seize the protesting truckers’ GoFundMe support account, which has raised upwards of $9 million, to cover the costs of policing the city — among other costs.

Fleury, who represents the city’s Rideau-Vanier Ward, publicly announced on social media that he asked the city manager and city solicitor to “immediately launch court proceedings targeting the millions of dollars in funds frozen by [GoFundMe] so Ottawa taxpayers are not left holding the bag for these protests.””

Morning rounds still have to be done, and more convoy talk

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After the very sad call this morning about Cabbages, I headed out to do my morning rounds and take care of the outside kitties.

Though the temperatures at the time were about -28C/-18F, it actually felt a lot warmer. At least around the house. There was a wind chill, but the wind is from the west, so we weren’t really feeling it. The outside cats were a lot more active, too.

It was feeling warm enough that I shoveled out the burn barrel again, and got it going.

We clear enough space to have room for the bags of burnables. That wall of snow is now taller than the barrel in places!

We couldn’t use the burn barrel in the summer, because of the drought, but we are now burning the wood pellet cat litter, instead of having a cat litter compost behind the outhouse. With so much snow around, I let it go down to a smolder, then put the cover on and leave it. It can continue smoking for days. As the pellets are used by the cats, they break up into sawdust. Which then freezes when the girls dump it into the burn barrel. By leaving it to smolder, the sawdust slowly thaws out, dries out, then smolders. It can take a few days, but it eventually gets burned away. It’s been so cold, though, I’m still finding frost inside the burn barrel when I uncover it, even as smoke still rises from the contents!

As soon as I cleared the area around the barrel and moved on to clear the path to the electricity meter, the space around the burn barrel got filled with cats! Not only does the space give them shelter, but the smoldering barrel gives off a bit of heat, too.

Still not as cozy as an insulated, sheltered, sun spot!

Oh, I got a peak at Potato Beetle this morning. The wound on his head seems to be healing up just fine. I could barely see the wound, and he looks more like he’s got a weird bald spot.

In other things, I’ve been keeping on top of what’s going on with the trucker convoy. This is something that affects us, even out in the boonies. We are surrounded by farms, and farmers need truckers. Heck, a lot of them have their own trucks. Most farmers have to have some other source of income. Farming doesn’t pay very well and, unlike most businesses, farmers have to buy retail and sell wholesale, instead of the other way around. So everyone around here is very supportive.

So are many others.

Last night, I heard that an estimated 10,000 truckers from various US states are heading for the border to join the convoy. Those that are not allowed to cross the border plan to stay at the border. Chances are, there are even more truckers from even more states by this morning.

The provincial convoy that started yesterday is still at the city. The national one is expected to arrive this afternoon, and they will join up and continue on to Ottawa.

In the Facebook groups supporting the convoy, I’m seeing numerous restaurant owners announcing that anyone in the convoy will be fed, for free. Food truck owners are announcing where they will be setting up to provide food. At least one of the Hutterite colonies has announced they are setting up kitchens in one of the muster points to feed everyone in the convoy.

Garages are offering free mechanical repairs.

People are offering their extra bedrooms for overnight stays, and bringing meals to the truckers.

The GoFundMe has topped $4,000,000. Because of how eager our government and GoFundMe are to prevent the money from actually getting to the truckers, there is a whole process worked out where truckers will be submitting receipts to be reimbursed for expenses, etc.

I haven’t confirmed it yet myself, but people have talked about finding the traffic cams along the convoy route are showing images of empty roads, or have simply been shut down.

The mainstream media is finally reporting on the convoy, but have been misrepresenting it like crazy. Almost all that I’ve seen have been reporting wildly lower numbers. A CBC article that tried to claim the truckers were protesting icy road conditions was so inundated by people calling them on it merely added a “correction”, saying they were talking about a different protest. Which they weren’t, because there were no truckers out there, protesting winter. Others I’ve seen have tried to say the truckers are protesting only the most recent mandate made against them. They aren’t. They are protesting to have all government mandates and restrictions for everyone, ended. That last mandate against them was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, after being treated like crap for years.

Commenters have been calling out the media like crazy for their misinformation and sloppy reporting. What’s interesting as well have been the (very few) detractors. I’m seeing people say things like, what difference does it make for them to protest in Ottawa, when it’s the US that won’t let them cross the border. Which has nothing to do with what the convoy is about. I’m guessing some media somewhere claimed that, and they believed it. Others have been calling the truckers selfish and making the usual insults about people just being scared of needles. I’m still seeing people saying that losing their jobs is just a consequence of their “choice” not to get the vaccine, and calling them anti-vaxxers. Most truckers are vaccinated, bigots don’t care about truth or reality.

I think the funniest detractors are those trying to portray the truckers and their supporters as PPC “cultists” (the PPC are the People’s Party of Canada, a new party that ran in the last federal election). Even more laughable are those trying to accuse the truckers of “dividing Canada”. I haven’t seen Canada more united over something in my life. I’ve even seen people dismissing the truckers for protesting now, instead of when our Prime Dictator called a useless, early election.

Oh, I just tried looking something up and saw that the GoFundMe has now exceeded $4.4million. Someone posted a screencap showing a $10,000 anonymous donation. I also just found this screencap.

May be an image of text that says "#TruckersForFreedom ForFreedom #FreedomConvoy2022 Rollando Lepageo Colorado 420 trucks Georgia 675 trucks South Carolina 650 trucks California 19,000 trucks Heading to Canada 1h Love Reply 2 2:55 AM. Jan 25, 2022. Twitter for Android"

If for some reason you can’t see the image, it reads:

Colorado 420 trucks
Georgia 675 trucks
South Carolina 650 trucks
California 19,000 trucks
Heading to Canada

Way to go, California!! Assuming that’s not a typo. That’s a massive number.

Not on this list are the trucks coming from Tennessee, Kentucky, New York, North Carolina, Alaska and Florida, that I’ve seen elsewhere.

The most recent update I’ve heard is that the main convoy from BC is now over 150km long. That’s over 93 miles. I don’t think they’ve even crossed the middle of Canada yet, and more mini-convoys are joining all along the way.

What I’m not hearing is much from our politicians. Including our own Premier. I might just be missing it. As for our Prime Dictator, I’ve heard he’s on another vacation. The truckers are supposed to arrive in Ottawa on the 29th. Parliament was supposed to resume today, though from the parliamentary calendar, they’re scheduled to sit in parliament for only 1 day this month, and that’s on January 31.

The truckers and their supporters don’t plan to leave Ottawa until all mandates and restrictions are lifted.

It should be interesting to see how our “leaders” handle this.

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties, a mini convoy, seed sorting and s Cabbages update

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Late last night, I got a message letting me know that a convoy was going through our area this morning, to join the main one heading for Ottawa. I was invited to be there to cheer them on. So I headed out early to do my morning rounds and make sure the van would start.

At -27C/-17F, with a wind chill of -35/-31F, the cats weren’t too keen on coming out!

Unfortunately, we’re using some of the donated cat kibble (we got one bag for the inside cats, one for the outside cats), and they don’t like it. It’s a Superstore no-name brand. I’m happy to have it, but the cats, not so much!

Once that was done, I headed out. There was a group of us that met up in a parking lot along the main road (I later saw there was another group at the one other area we could park and face the road at). Thankfully, I was able to keep in touch with someone in the mini-convoy, who was letting people know how things were going. There was a huge turnout at the starting point, with trucks, tractors and personal vehicles. An estimated 150 or so. It took them a longer time than expected to get organized, and a long time just to get through town and onto the highway.

Of course, none of those farmers in their tractors, and other supporters, were going to be joining the main convoy to Ottawa, so it was a smaller one heading our way. By the time they passed by, there was a bunch of us waiting, including a family with young kids, holding signs and making noise to support our truckers. The kids got a lot of horn honking and enthusiastic waiting. 🙂 I don’t have the winter gear to be outside for long in these temperatures, so I cheered them on from inside my van while taking video. It ended up being more than 7 minutes long!

This was the lead vehicle.

This, btw, is “downtown” in our little hamlet. LOL

As to the lies mentioned on this sign, to give one example, the CBC – a Crown corporation that gets about $1.6 billion in taxpayer dollars every year – had the most insane headline talking about the convoy leaving BC. It was described as people protesting dangerous road conditions. !! I haven’t trusted what the CBC says for decades, having had too many first hand experiences of how incapable they are of reporting accurately, but that is bad, even for them.

As I write this, the mini-convoy continues on its way to the city to join the main convoy and, from what I hear, as they pass through larger towns and another small city, more truckers are joining.

The truckers have been put through so much over the past couple of years, it’s insane. They have massive grassroots support.

Since I was there for so long anyhow, I hoped to pick up the mail on the way home, but it was still too early. The mail was in, but not sorted yet.

Of course, it was after I got home that my husband got a notification that a package is ready for pick up.

I am not going out again, today!!! It’s still -26C/-15F with a wind chill of -37C/-35F out there!

When parking the van in the garage, I saw Potato Beetle was perched on the old tire we use to keep the doors to where my mother’s car is. The black rubber is a favorite sun-warmed seat for the cats! As I tried to pet him on the way by, though, he didn’t want me to touch him.

He has a wound on his head!

He kept squirming around and wouldn’t let me look too close, but it seems like he’s had some fur torn out, a bit above and to the side of one of his eyes. It’s not bleeding, and the wound looks small. Mostly, it’s just missing fur. In this cold, however, we need to keep an eye on it.

That’s what he gets for all the fights he’s been picking! I’m guessing it was the Distinguished Guest. She doesn’t back down.

There were other cats out and about, too, but not this one…

Nosencrantz usually comes out for pets, but not this time. She was staying in their nice, cozy house!

I noticed the timer got knocked off its perch again, which means the light sensor is not facing the window. That means the heat bulb will be on, all the time.

At these temperatures, I’m good with that. When things warm up again, we’ll pop open the roof and set it facing the right way again.

We’ve got one more day of this cold, before things heat right up. I’m seeing all kinds of crazy temperatures in the forecast for Wednesday. The Weather Network is saying we’ll reach -1C/30F. The weather app that came with my desktop says -4C/25F. Accuweather says 0C/32F.

The only consensus is that we’re going to warm up by more than 20 degrees Celsius in less than a 24 hour time period!

I am not complaining. 😀

After that, we’ll be dropping back down and hovering around the -20C/-4F range and staying there for at least a couple of weeks.

It makes me want to start planting something. 😀

Last night, I went through our seed packets and sorted them. They had been sorted by how they arrived; by whichever company’s seeds arrived first. Since we have several things with multiple varieties, I sorted it by type, first. Then I put all the ones that need to be started indoors in their own box. Today, I’ll go through those and sort them by when they need to be started. The onions and luffa will be started the earliest. I’m also eyeballing what I might be able to do more winter sowing with, even if it’s just using the sun room. Oh, that might not be a good idea. That will be where Butterscotch and Nosencrantz will be recovering from surgery for 2 weeks. Butterscotch, in particular, is going to be hard to keep in there, and she’ll knock over anything on the shelves, trying to get out.

One of the other purposes of sorting through the seeds is to figure out where we want to plant things, and where we need to build new beds once things start warming up in April or May. Most of these will still be temporary beds, as we move things closer to the house, in preparation for planting trees further out. I am thinking, with all the winter squash we are planting, we may want to let those sprawl on the ground, rather than climb, to help shade and kill off the weeds. They would do better on trellises, though, and be more protected from critters. Hhmm. Something to think about.

Along with how to fence things off from the deer and groundhogs!

When I stopped to buy some honey from my cousin, after dropping Cabbages off, we chatted for a bit. They have gardens around their bee house (not the hives, but the little house they’ve got for their honey business). They have one small garden with a deer fence around it, but the rest is open. When I told him about our plans to plant sea buckthorn, he told me they have some – but no berries! They ended up with only female trees! They’re about 8 feet tall and bloom beautifully, but no berries at all. We’re getting only a 5 pack, so it’s possible we’ll have all males or all females. It’ll be at least a couple of years before we find out, one way or the other.

Oh, and before I forget. I got a Cabbages update last night. They are still force feeding her, but she did eat some food on her own, as well. I was sent a photo, and she’s being kept in a large kennel with all sorts of things to play with and climb on. She was looking right at the camera was HUGE eyes, and looking very alert. I am encouraged. She’ll be seeing a vet again tomorrow, if things stay to plan.

I think she will be fine, but I’m so glad our contact with this organization was able to take Cabbages and get her to a vet, just in case.

I will keep updating about her, as I hear more.

The Re-Farmer

But it’s a good tired…

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Okay, I just have to start with the obligatory garden photos. 😀 I took these yesterday.

The largest seed head of the Mongolian Giant sunflowers is opening up beautifully. Still nowhere near the size a Mongolian Giant seed head should be, but we’ll see what happens in what’s left of our growing season.

What amazed me, though, was seeing several of these.

The King Tut purple peas are still growing and producing! The green peas next to them are basically gone; completely died off and dried out, barely visible among the weeds and wildflowers that are left. Peas do not usually last this long, so I’m quite impressed!

I didn’t get to posting yesterday for a happy reason. An old friend from high school is in the province and was able to come for a visit. Even my husband was able to join us for a while. Aside from running into her briefly at the grocery store, we haven’t seen each other since we graduated! We had 35 years of catching up to do, and it was awesome. 🙂 Then, she and I headed out to a local farmer’s market. I’ve driven past it many times, but had never stopped in. With the crazy going on these days, I wasn’t sure if it was even a safe place to go for someone who can’t wear a mask. The mandates were over, though, so we gave it a visit, and that was awesome, too. No issues at all. Best of all, I found a vendor that has a homestead and supplies pork, among other things – and they live only a few miles away from us! In the spring, we’ll be able to make arrangements for getting a half pig in the fall, so they know how many piglets to raise. So now we have local suppliers for both beef and pork!

The place has a little bistro during market hours, and we ended up enjoying some awesome food and just talking until they closed down. Wonderful people running the place. We definitely will be coming back before my friend heads home.

Today was our city shopping trip, so I headed out as soon as I was done my morning rounds. I actually made it to Costco this time. With restrictions relaxed, I didn’t have to worry about being able to stand in line outside. It was the most pleasant Costco trip I’ve had in a long time. Unfortunately, by the end of it, my hip was giving out, so that was the only stop I made before heading home. Which was okay. I was able to stock up on the main things. It was a bit disconcerting, though. I didn’t buy more than I usually did at Costco. In fact, I probably bought less than usual. And yet the final bill was about $200 more than the last time I was able to do a full stock-up trip there. Prices have really gone up in the past few months. 😦

While I was out, I got word about a freedom rally in town this evening. I had time to get home, unload, then head out again. I wanted to be early, because I wasn’t quite sure where it was happening. It’s not an area of town I usually go to. There were people already there and even my friend was eventually able to join us, so that was awesome. The rally was to protest the school board forcing children to wear masks all the time which is, at its most basic, illegal. The government and health department can make recommendations, but cannot force, anything that goes against the charter rights and freedoms, or the human rights code. That’s actually written into the health act and the charter. Anyhow, there was a really good turnout, and I ended up meeting people in person that I’d been getting to know online, and even a family that may become “neighbours” soon! It was funny to discover we had other personal connections, too.

The people from the school board were not particularly useful to talk to. Their stance was basically, they’re just following orders. Now where in history have we heard that line before?

While there, I learned our province has made another step backwards. While I was on the road home from the city, our government announced that the mask mandates start again tomorrow, even in many outdoor venues that had been exempt before. There is no actual reason to do this. We aren’t seeing any surge in hospitalizations or deaths. It’s all been so arbitrary, and like all the lockdowns and restrictions is just as illegal as the schools forcing kids to wear masks.

All the families there with school aged children were planning to homeschool, rather than engage in government enforced child abuse. The school is going to lose a lot of funding over this. Some of the parents I spoke to told me they were getting to many calls from the school to get them to register this year, it bordered on harassment. I’m hoping to keep in touch with some of these families, since we homeschooled the girls completely. I look forward to being able to help and encourage a new generation of families taking this route! There is the makings of a vibrant local community. Something that didn’t exist, when we last lived here and were homeschooling.

The whole event just happened to be next to the grocery store, so when it was all done, I stopped by to pick up a few things I wasn’t able to get in the city before heading home. Even with the the sale prices, I still spent way too much money. 😦

One of the things I want to do is get chickens, for eggs and meat, but we are not at all ready to have birds yet. I was hoping to get to that point in a year or two, but the way things are going, I think we need to prioritize that and make it so that we can get chicks in the spring.

So, along with building high raised garden beds for next year, we need to build/acquire a chicken coop. Preferably a mobile one. That way, the chickens will be playing a significant part in soil preparation for planting.

After all the running around over the past couple of days, and being around so many people, I am feeling quite tired. It is, however, a good tired!

It has been a wonderful couple of days. 🙂

The Re-Farmer