A declaration being circulated in various circles, passed on to me via a contact.

A Declaration

Whereas, on the 14th of December, 2011, the House of Representatives of these United States voted, in the form of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, in favor of indefinite military detention, without charges, of American citizens on American soil, without due process of law, at the discretion of the government alone;

    Whereas, on the 15th of December, 2011, the Senate of these United States voted in favor of the same bill;

    Whereas, on the 31st of December, the President of these United States signed the same bill into law;

    Whereas, the proscription against the use of military force to police the populous has been an essential feature of American civic life and civic liberty since the arrival of our civilization upon this continent;

    Whereas, the wanton violation of this proscription was one of the chief causes of the separation of the American people from their government in Great Britain;

    Whereas, the Constitution so chartering the government of these United States, in Article III Section III, states that “No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.”

    Whereas, the Constitution so chartering the government of these United States, in the Fifth Amendment, states that no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”;

    Whereas, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the President of these United States have disregarded the plain text of the Constitution;

    Whereas, in openly disregarding its founding document, the government of these United States has lost any semblance of legitimacy;

    Whereas, the use of such draconian measures has been an essential feature of the enforcement of tyranny by every totalitarian governments of the 20th century;

    Whereas, the use of such draconian measures is carefully calculated to quash all political dissent amongst a captive people;

    Whereas, the codification of such draconian measures effectively nullifies all civil liberties the people may hope to hold;

    And whereas, the codification of such draconian measures is an act of war against the populous at large;

    Therefore, be it declared that a STATE OF WAR formally exists between the Government of these United States and the People of these United States, perpetrated by that Government against the People.

    We, the People of these United States, declare any and all attempts to enforce the provisions of the NDAA to be unlawful, void, and of no force.

    We declare ALL WHO voted in favor of the NDAA, and ALL WHO attempt to enforce the NDAA to be traitors to these United States, punishable under law.

    We SHALL DISOBEY, APPREHEND, OR RESIST WITH FORCE, at our discretion, any person who attempts to enforce the provisions of the NDAA.

    We SHALL NOT aggress against any Federal, State or local government employee who shall not attempt to enforce or aid and abet the enforcement of the NDAA, they being as trapped as the rest of the populous.

    Such STATE OF WAR shall continue until the NDAA is stricken from the code of law, and all who had hand in the NDAA are removed from positions of power.

Critters on and around the homestead

Still getting my crap together, mentally and physically. In the meantime....

Cute.

Not so much. 

Yes, that's a bat, hanging in my living room.

Gotta start closing the door at night.

Adorable!

Not so much. 

There's a much bigger one hanging high in the tree behind the barn.

The leaves are already starting to change. Hard to believe.

Guess I better get it together quick. Winters are pretty harsh down here.

Not so wise.

I once had a partner. Now I don't. I am struggling with that fact. I am mourning my loss. I must deal with the pain. I must get past this.

I shall.

Gruesome

Warning! The following pictures are very graphic and somewhat gruesome. 

After much soul searching I have decided to release photos of the gruesome disembowelment of my trailer. If it is too much for some of you to handle, please click here:

Snow load due to build-up from no heat in the trailer collapsed the roof on the living room and kitchen area. I was trying to decide if rebuilding the trailer was worth it. On one hand, trailers are only a couple grand down here, in fact there is two currently for sale for 1K each. The real cost is in not only moving, but actually dragging a trailer up this mountain. The one that is here took three days with massive chain hoists and lots of block and tackle to get up the mountain once we got it to the bottom. The tractors and four-wheel drives we were using just spun. A bulldozer might be able to do it, but may not make it back the driveway without sinking, much less over the bridge. 

Anyway, I finally decided to tear off the damaged part and make a porch/deck out of it. I no longer needed the extra room, and this was much simpler. 

Once I stripped off some of the aluminum siding and removed a couple of the windows, I ran a log chain thru the windows at the corner and hooked it up to my rusty trusty tractor. Sorry about the picture quality. I only had my cell phone along because I hadn't planned on doing this today. While I had been thinking about it for a while, this was a decision that needed action to be final before I changed my mind again. I don't have the luxury of time to keep stalling and still get done before winter. Once the decision was made I fortified myself with an adult fermented beverage or two and proceeded to start ripping and tearing before I lost my nerve. 

The funny thing was, I had the tractor hooked up and I was really worried that when I pulled on the corner I'd pull the trailer off it's foundation. Instead, the chain ripped thru the beams and internal paneling just like a can opener. Didn't do nuthin'! Damned thing was just standing there laughing at me with a big split in the corner , just like a big grin!

So, in order to bring down the house, so to speak, I had to knock out the rest of the supports by hand. Kinda touchy, considering I didn't want to get stuck under there or hurt with no one else around. But, with a little judicious whacking, the walls came tumblin' down. I think it's gonna make a nice porch. And like my son Ben says, "and who doesn't like a nice porch?"

Now to clean up. I wonder how much aluminum siding is going for these days?

It's still a bridge!

Due to some extremely strong thunderstorms rolling thru the area, combined with the usual spring season high water level in the creek, the new bridge is undergoing some unscheduled stress testing.

Yea, it's up in there somewhere, over along the woodline. Can you see it? Neither can I. I was undergoing a little stress testing too.

The next morning the water receded enough that at least I can see the outline of my driveway. Maybe I should get one of those canal boats...

But, hey, I got a tractor. No problems!

Well...., maybe that wasn't such a smart move. Most tractors have a 'stack" exhaust that comes up the side of the engine and rises above the operators head. This tractor has a low exhaust similar to any car or truck. As soon as the water covered the exhaust it developed too much back pressure and shut down. Yes, I am standing in ice-cold water up to my knees to take this picture.
So, since I'm already wet, lets go see what the bridge looks like!

Amazing! It's still there!

Somehow the bridge is still intact although nothing was bolted down. The green oak timbers that this bridge is made of are extremely heavy. Ask Ben and Tory, they'll tell you! I'm thinking that because they didn't float easily, and the fact that they were placed close together contributed to the bridge's survival.

That, and a little prayer never hurt.

Power Problem #2

I've been cleaning around the service pole and removing some small trees that are growing close to the power lines. One tree's branches were actually tangled with the telephone lines that run under the power lines. Since the tree was leaning towards the lines anyway, I figured I had better cut it down before it caused any more trouble.
With #1 son's help, I got a rope anchored up in the tree and tied the rope to a strap so I could put some pressure on the tree, making it drop at an angle to the direction it was leaning. With time getting short for #1 son, he took the chainsaw and headed home, promising a tune-up and sharpen on the saw. After a bit, #4 son showed up with a well-used axe. That was good enough for me, so I proceeded to hack away at the offending tree while #4 put some added pressure on the anchor line.
As the tree started coming down, the anchor line started slacking. Apparently I had gotten the forgotten to take into account that the angle of descent needed to be more acute than the angle provided for by the attachment point.

What that all actually means is that the damned tree slid along the wires and landed on the transformer.

It could've been a lot worse than it actually was. Some small sparks and some glowing, smoking branches were the only visible signs of how badly I had screwed up. Oh, and me jumping around and cussing, too.

So, after making sure that we weren't going to die by touching the tree, #4 and I started trying to use the straps to pull the tree off of the transformer. We moved it a couple of feet, but didn't make any real progress.

With light fading and visions of starting a forest fire by lighting off the transformer like a torch, I sent #4 to the neighbors house for help. Help arrived by 4-wheeler with his chainsaw, cut off a couple chunks of said errant tree, and the rest slid to the ground without any explosions or wildfires to contend with.

Ain't I lucky.

Power Problem

I've been trying to clean everything up around the electric meter to make it as easy as possible for the power company guy to turn it back on. The broken latch on the meter panel cover meant that I had to come up with another cover. That was a PIA but I was able to get one at an electrical service company about 30 miles away. Apparently you can't buy a new meter panel, or even the whole box around here since they are provided buy the electric company when they install it. They stores have them in stock, but you need a work order from the power company in order to get one at any price. That was actually pretty silly in todays internet based markets because I looked on Ebay and found one there for about $40. I was pretty close to buying that one but decided to try the old electrical shop because I was going into town anyway. Chatted up the guy behind the counter and he took me into the basement where he kept all the spares. It took about 10 minutes of digging thru old panels, but I felt like I struck gold when I found one that matched! Not only that but the guy didn't even charge me a dime for it! Thanks, Mr. Electrical Service Counter Guy!