More normal things, and freedom convoy talk

Phew.

After writing and update about Cabbages and announcing a fundraiser for her, I figured I should post about less exciting things. :-D

This afternoon was my day to visit my mother and help her with errands. She wanted me to “not be in a hurry” and not have to rush home, so… I had to rush out earlier to make sure I got to the post office before it closed to pick up some packages. :-D Mind you, the only reason it was a rush was because of how much time I was on the phone, being updated about Cabbages by the cat lady, so that was quite acceptable.

She had actually called at first to talk about these two. She still has the cat carrier she borrowed to carry Cabbages, and she wanted to make sure I didn’t need it before Monday. We do still have 2 more carriers that we can use. Butterscotch is Cabbages’ mother. It will be good to finally get her fixed! Nosencrantz isn’t even a year old yet, and she is easily twice the bulk Cabbages ever was!

After leaving kibble in the tray under the shrine, I turned around and saw this.

Seeing how deep the snow is, in relation to the size of the cats, is just funny.

They just love the paths we’ve dug for them. :-D

Once I was done with the morning rounds, and the call from the cat lady, it was a quick run to the post office to get what turned out to be two parcels, not one, then to my mother’s. While I was gone, the girls did some work in the sun room in preparation for having Butterscotch and Nosencrantz recovering in there. After one section was reorganized, they made sure to cover the windows where the inside panes have cracked, with some sheets of rigid insulation, so there would be no chance of them hurting themselves. Tomorrow, I’ll work on it some more, as I’ll be going through some of our seed starting supplies, plus I want to bag up the sunflower heads that are still there. They got knocked about a bit when Tuxedo Mask was recovering in there, and I know Butterscotch will be far more destructive!I made sure to stop at the gas station to pick up some chicken and wedges for lunch, first.

I had a good visit with my mother while we had lunch, which with my mother is not guaranteed! She didn’t get to her usual criticism until after we were done and the groceries were put away. LOL The first stop she wanted to make was to a small department store, which I took advantage of. The handles on her walker wiggle, and while there are knobs on the outside that can be turned to tighten them, I can see the screw heads on the other side, turning instead of tightening. I never have the right tools handy to deal with that, so I picked up a multi-tool, to keep in the zippered pocket under her walker’s seat. I paid for it right away, so I could use it to tighten her handles while still in the store. They still wiggle, but it won’t tighten any more than they are. Hhmm.

While there, I was also happy to see a new display of Jiffy pots that can be buried directly into the soil when it’s time for transplanting. Those will be perfect for the squash and melon starts. When I did our Walmart shopping, yesterday, they didn’t have any of these in stock yet.

After that, we did her grocery shopping. I had been encouraging her to stock up as much as she could, just in case. She’s been seeing about the trucker convoy, too, and she has started to understand what I was trying to explain about potential supply shortages. We’d talked about it before we left, and even from the incredibly horrible news coverage she has been seeing, she recognised how utterly ludicrous is was for our federal government to impose the new restrictions on truckers. I was quite happy to see her doing things like picking up larger sizes of things she would normally get. Her needs are small, so it doesn’t take much for her to be stocked up for quite a while. I am hearing about shortages in the city, but so far, that has not been an issue in the smaller towns. I recall, when the shutdowns first happened and people were panic buying, it was similar; things ran out in the cities, but not so quickly in the more rural communities.

As for the freedom convoy itself, it’s just amazing! Not only are we getting thousands of trucks coming in from the US – and from what I’ve heard, none are being stopped at the border! – but there are now freedom convoys being organized in countries around the world!

The excitement and sense of unity it has generated is absolutely amazing. The level of positivity is infectious and inspiring.

There are still the detractors, of course, that are doing everything they can to mock and belittle the truckers and anyone who supports them. Most of it is parroting the media and government narrative. One example was some commenter who, after reference was made to the convoy stretching across Manitoba, from border to border, was to along the lines of “truckers can’t do math, huurrrr, duurrrr…” Apparently, this person thought it meant the people were saying it was bumper to bumper trucks across the province. With so many trucks, there is no way to know how many there are at any given time. On the open highway, they have to spread out. Those big rigs need a lot of space if they have to make an emergency stop. Plus, there would constantly be trucks going in and out of the convoy, as they stop to gas up, eat, use a bathroom and sleep. So of course, the convoy itself is going to be really stretched out in places, while packed together in others.

There are still people saying the GoFundMe was frozen. It never was. As I write this, more than $7.5 million has been raised. Yesterday, the money started to flow. The last I heard, there were about 100,000 registered truckers in the convoy. The first priority for the funds it to reimburse truckers for fuel. Then, as needed, to reimburse for the costs of food and lodging. The organisers have been working closely with GoFundMe to make sure everything is above board.

The mainstream media and our federal government have, of course, been increasing the negative narrative. Most people know better than to rely on them. They are acting as if the truckers are intending to stage a violent insurrection, and invoking the fake-news “insurrection” in the US last year, every chance they get (never mind that the FBI itself concluded that there was no insurrection). The Counter Signal published about internal documents leaked, exposing how our government is treating this though violence is a given. You can read about that here.

What is happening is priming. The federal government and the media that relies on them to keep them from going under are doing everything they can to create the very situation they are condemning, even though it doesn’t exist. It has been very obvious, from the beginning, that violence is exactly what they want. They are trying to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. It would be just the excuse our Prime Dictator needs to do what his father did when he was PM; declare martial law.

Make no mistake. If there is any violence when the convoy arrives tomorrow, it will not be instigated by the truckers, but with the media and the feds already priming viewers to believe the truckers are evil incarnate, they expect people to believe them.

There is a problem with that expectation.

The past two years has seen our “leaders” doing everything the can to divide us. It’s been masked against the unmasked, the vaccinated against the unvaccinated, the believers against the heretics. The only acceptable thing we are supposed to shoot for is complete acquiescence.

However, this convoy has done the opposite. It has united this country at a level I have never seen before. Yes, people are angry, but that anger is being channeled into unity, positivity, excitement and joy.

These are people who are fighting for our freedoms with a giant party. Do people want our “leaders” to step down? You bet. That is because they have failed us, over and over. This gets twisted into being “hateful”, “anti-government” and “dangerous.” These leaders have imposed restrictions and mandates that have destroyed people’s lives, even causing developmental delays in children that they will probably never recover from, devastated the physical and mental health of our nation, and yes, even killed people, whether through deaths of despair, or from not getting diagnosis and treatment in a timely manner, to harmful treatment protocols. And when people try to stand up to what is happening, these “leaders” cry victim, while calling their victims the abusers. Pure gaslighting.

So what is going to happen over the next few days? Who knows. Our Prime Dictator has announced that he was exposed to Covid 19. While a rapid test came up negative, he says he’s going to isolate himself for 5 days, following the Ontario Public Health recommendations. The problem with that is, those recommendations actually say that a fully vaccinated person – which our Prime Dictator claims to be – does not have to isolate if exposed to someone with Covid. They’re just supposed to keep masking and distancing and watching for symptoms.

Meanwhile, in Ottawa, areas of the city are being marked off for a “special event”, so that people won’t be parking on the streets.

But only for 2 days.

Which suggests they expect it to all be over within 2 day, or at least under 5 days.

The truckers plan to stay there until all mandates and restrictions are lifted, however long that takes.

Thousands of them.

That doesn’t even count supporters that aren’t truckers.

How will our leaders respond?

Only time will tell. Whatever it is, it will affect every single Canadian, and possibly have ramifications around the world.

The Re-Farmer

A new path, and more convoy talk

The wind changed direction this afternoon, so I took advantage of it and headed outside to shovel the path to the compost ring that was completely filled in. Knowing we would be getting a delivery from the pharmacy this evening, I made sure to unlock the gate, first. The driver always calls when he’s close so we can unlock the gate, but I knew I would still be outside when he did.

Once I got the path to the compost ring clear, I continued on and cleared the path to the back door of the garage. It want much faster, since it doesn’t get blown in as much.

I had just reached the back door of the garage when I saw a car pulling up near the chain link fence.

To go to meet him, I had to take the path to the compost ring, across to the house, then down the sidewalk to the person gate he’d pulled up to.

I’ve been meaning to make a path from the back of the garage to the vehicle gate for a while. I wish I’d done it earlier! LOL

By the time I was done, it was getting dark. I had to adjust the lighting in this photo, just to see the new path! It now joined up with the path dug along the garden bed between the two gates, where there is a path to the driveway.

Normally, the inner yard would be cleared of snow enough for us to drive up to the house, with room towards the outhouse for turning, and we wouldn’t have needed all these little paths. Last year, we were able to keep it clear just with our little Spewie, but there is too much snow for the little thing, this year. We probably could have done it if the big snow blower was working. When I was a kid, my dad would use the old Farm Hand tractor to push snow into a pile about where the kibble house is now. It would reach most of the way between the house and the maples that our now outside the chain link fence, but used to be part of the inner yard back then. I remember one year, my siblings and I carved the pile of snow into three sets of stairs, with tunnels in between, leading to a two step platform at the top. The centre staircase had a wide, curved bottom step. We wanted to carve a throne at the top, but the snow pile wasn’t tall enough. :-D Gosh, that was fun!

This year, we’ve got snow more like what I remember as a kid.

Anyhow, without the heavier equipment, paths will have to do!

It was as I was near the garage door, and having to fling the snow ever higher, that I finally noticed just how deep it was.

I couldn’t quite stretch my arm out far enough to get a good angle, but the snow here is about hip height on me. Maybe a bit higher.

No, not all of where I was shoveling was that deep, though I wasn’t exactly shovelling right down to the ground in most of the paths, either.

After I cleared the new path, I kept on going, clearing the path in front of the garden bed, then scraping the sidewalk and clearing it wide enough for my husband’s walker. Which is really handy, when we have to use the wagon to haul stuff from the van to the house, like the sack of deer feed and other stuff I picked up today. Then I went ahead and cleared the cat paths, too, while there was still light out.

Clearing those paths is getting harder in places. The piles of snow from all the shoveling are getting high enough that the new snow I’m shovelling slides back down if I don’t throw it far enough – or falls into another path if I throw it too far! LOL

The cats were very happy with the cleared paths. :-)

As I write this, I can see more snow blowing around in the live feed from the security camera. I’m glad I got it done when I did! It’s still rather warm out – only -8C/18F as I write this. We’re supposed to have a high of -18C/-0.4F tomorrow, then it’s supposed to warm up a little bit again, and stay there for the next week. Much nicer than the couple of days of deep freeze we got, when our mini-convoy headed out, and the big one passed through our province.

That’s one of the amazing things about the convoy for freedom. This is happening in Canada, in flippin’ January. A friend of mine in the city had gone out to cheer the convoy as it passed by. She estimated there were about 150 people, just around where she was. It was about -32C/-26F where she was, at the time. In places, the convoy is so long, it took 4 hours to go by, with people outside, cheering them on, the whole way!

As the main convoy makes its way from the Western provinces towards Ottawa, more mini-convoys from the Eastern provinces are starting to make their way out as well. They don’t have as far to go, so they started later, timed so everyone gets there on the 29th. I heard there were so many trucks from Newfoundland, they got a ferry out just to take the trucks across. I’ve also heard that one of the border crossings into Ontario had so many truckers from the US coming in to join the convoy, the line stretched back 70 miles!

Our mainstream media has been avoiding reporting on it as much as possible, but they can’t avoid it any more. Of course, they are misreporting it, completely. One of the things they’re doing is wildly underreporting how many trucks there are. It’s just a few trucks, according to them. Not very many. There is also the usual, predictable slanderous reporting. They’re portraying the truckers as “anti-vaxxers” (most of them are vaccinated, and if they’re coming in from the US, they’re allowed to cross only if fully vaccinated), of course. Today, they’ve been ramping up the disparaging portrayal. The truckers are white supremacists, right wing, extremists, racists, and homophobes. You know. All the tired old insults that get thrown out so much, the terms have lost all meaning. Then there is that truly Canadian insult that comes from the leftist media that gets trotted out every election, and is being trotted out now. The truckers are inspired by *gasp* “American style politics.” Apparently, being compared to Americans is supposed to be an insult. This time, one news station even suggested that the convoy is somehow inspired by the January 6/2021 protests in the US that the media continues to lie about. They are really pushing the idea that the truckers and their supporters are violent crazies. Oh, and another claim that is supposed to be an insult: the truckers are “anti-government”. Because if you don’t 100% agree with what the current government is doing, that can only mean you are “anti-government”.

It’s all BS of course. Unfortunately, too many people believe it, and it’s endangering lives. A number of trucks were found to have their pins pulled. In one incident, a trucker who was not part of the convoy, and did not agree with it, apparently deliberately rammed his own truck into a truck that was part of the convoy. It’s been portrayed by the media as an “accident”. With the way the media is whipping up hatred and division – while accusing the truckers in the convoy of spreading hatred and division – they may very well get people killed.

And our Prime Dictator? Apparently, he’s on vacation in Costa Rica right now, though I don’t know if that’s true.

Thankfully, we have independent media who reporting on the convoy with better accuracy and truthfulness. Best of all are all the people who are documenting it themselves and posting about it. Like this guy.

Language warning!

It’s absolutely amazing! Our Prime Dictator has actually managed to accomplish something useful, in spite of himself. He has united the country. Against him! I have never seen so many wildly diverse groups, completely united in their support for the convoy and the push to end all the mandates.

The guy who made the above video is just one of many supporters, and he can only cover so much. We are also seeing many First Nations groups stepping forward in support. FN peoples are notorious about not getting involved in anything that could be considered even remotely political, with good reason. I’d mentioned before that a group of Hutterites had planned to set up kitchens to feed the truckers. The police wouldn’t let them, apparently because the parking lot was too full, so they drove 2 1/2 hours to the next major city, ahead of the convoy, and set up there, determined to feed them all. The GoFundMe has, as of this writing, reached over $5.7 million. I can’t even estimate how many hundreds of people are even joining the convoy in their own vehicles, so it’s not just a convoy of long haul truckers, but of all sorts of vehicles, too. Then there are the people getting together to prepare meals in take-out containers to hand out to the truckers, people arranging for things like porta-potties along routes where public washrooms are few and far between, and on it goes.

Meanwhile, there is stuff like Facebook deleting groups supporting the convoy, all of Toronto’s traffic cams along the 401 not working, people posting their own videos on social media are finding there is no share button for some reason, and I’ve lost track of the number of people I know who have found themselves suddenly restricted from posting on social media, and not knowing why. For all that, there is still tonnes of stuff out there, for all to see, showing what’s actually happening, and how huge this whole thing is.

Our Prime Dictator has already tried to call in the military and RCMP to stop the convoy, and they refused. So far, publicly, he’s been vocal about framing the truckers as angry (duh!) and potentially dangerous people, chastising them and their supporters for being angry, saying we don’t want to be that way as Canadians. Pure gaslighting, of course. The only truckers he’s talked to is an organization that is heavily connected to the Liberal party, condemns the convoy, but does not actually represent the truckers at all.

It’s a remarkable thing to see happening, and I honestly don’t know how it’s going to turn out. What I do know is that it is going to affect all our lives, here in Canada.

The Re-Farmer

Update: I just had to include this video, too.

In the Christmas Spirit: Il est né le Divin Enfant

Another childhood favourite. I remember singing it in choir, using what little French I learned in school to figure out how to pronounce the words, but barely understood the lyrics. It didn’t stop me from belting it out in church!