Lif Strand

Suzanna Gratia-Hupp: What the Second Amendment is REALLY For

2011-12-23T11:29:00.000-08:00

Texas state representative, Suzanna Gratia-Hupp, whose parents were killed by an insane gunman while her gun was out in the car, gives very moving and bold testimony about the REAL reason that the second amendment was designed to protect our God-given right to keep and bear arms.

This is an incredibly awesome video. Please share it!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4069761537893819675

San Augustin Water Grab Hearing Date Set - Feb 7

2011-12-13T08:35:00.001-08:00

The State Engineer has scheduled a hearing on the San Augustin Water Grab for Tuesday, February 7, 2012. PLEASE put this on your calendar and plan to be there. Our numbers are making a difference. It's hard to ignore a crowd!

Date of the hearing: February 7, 2012
Place: Socorro District Courthouse,

200 Church Street, Socorro
Courtroom 1, second floor

Time: 10AM

The hearing is on the motions to dismiss the application.

Wood Stove Comfort

2011-10-08T10:42:00.000-07:00

I’ve just come in from feeding the horses and splitting some wood. Yesterday it snowed briefly and never got above 48°. I built my first fire in the wood stove. I used wood that had been sitting stacked next to the stove since this past spring when I let the last fire die out, so it was plenty dry and fast to ignite.

The wood stove is my only source of heat in the house. I hooked up a propane wall heater a while back but when I tried it, it leaked and no matter how many times I reconnected everything I couldn’t get it to stop leaking. So wood still remains my heat source.

Trust me – wood heating is a lot of work. I’m a lazy person. The two don’t go together all that well if the person in question expects to stay warm when it’s blowing and freezing outside.

It occasionally freezes inside my house, too. As a result I have no house plants, just those potted herbs, veggies and flowers that I’ve brought inside to keep them going a while longer. They only last till the night I insufficiently stoke the wood stove before retiring, or when I go away and just let the house get as cold as it is going to get.

Lest you worry, the cats and dogs all have fur coats and deal with the occasional frostiness inside my house just fine. I don’t. Trust me on another thing: If you’re sitting around a blustery winter evening reading, you need a wood stove to keep you warm. Quilts, furs, fleece and down won’t keep your fingers, your nose or your toes warm enough.

Thing is, there’s so much work associated with wood heat. Oh sure, you can get yourself a paycheck from a 9-5 job and just buy split wood, get it delivered and stacked - but my boss is me, and I don’t get paid enough by me to spend money on the multiple cords of wood I need to get through the cold season.

My best intentions are to cut early and the wood will be dry by the time I need it. I choose trees on my own place that have been hit by bark beetles or are just fading away because of drought – I not only get wood for the stove but also provide a better environment for the remaining trees while making my land more wildfire resistant. My best intentions rarely ever pan out.

Remember my boss? She just doesn’t ever seem to give me a break. Work, work, work – I wear out the lettering on my keyboard keys all the time (good thing I’m a touch typist). Typing does not = a stack of wood.

And there are so many other reasons for not going out there and cutting wood – don’t want to do it when it’s hot, can’t do it during fire season, and when it starts raining, I don’t want to do it then either. Right now, October, is a good time of year for cutting wood, though it won’t all be as dry as it might be before I really need it in winter. I really should be out there with the chain saw today – but I think I’ll take it into town instead and get it tuned up and sharpened. I’ll cut wood another day. Probably, like last year, in the dead of winter. Hey, logs pull down the hill much easier on snow!

Even if I cave in and buy wood (it could happen!), that’s not all there is to a wood stove. There’s splitting the wood, carrying it in every day (twice a day if it’s really cold), cleaning out the ashes regularly, sweeping up all the wood debris and dirt that falls off the logs, climbing up onto the roof every so often and banging on the stovepipe to knock the creosote off the walls and of course, stoking the fire regularly enough that all the work yields a warm house in the dead of winter.

And yes, it’s worth it. There’s something about the heat from a wood stove that is very different from any other heat. It’s as if it reaches out to something in my very being and touches my core with comfort and security, not just physical warmth. When it’s snowing and blowing outside and there’s a cheery blaze in the wood stove, enough logs in the burn chamber to last the night and a stack of wood nearby to build the fire up again in the morning, when I turn out the lights and see the yellow flickering light cast by the flames through the vents in the door and I feel that warmth on my skin all the way to my bones, I know all’s right with my world.

Baseboard heaters just don’t do that for me.

Living in Freedom

2011-09-11T11:36:00.000-07:00

Terrorism isn't about blowing up buildings or killing people. Terrorism is intimidation. The attacks of September 11, 2001 have achieved a terrorist victory that we Americans gave to them: They hit the twin towers, but we've allowed ourselves - encouraged ourselves - to succumb to the fear. Full article

Living My Life: High Summer

2011-07-26T13:20:00.000-07:00

copyright (c) 2011 Lif Strand

Part 2 of the series. Go to Part 1
There’s summer, with day after day of clear blue skies, white hot sun beating down, so dry that you don’t even sweat because any moisture you produce evaporates before it can bead up. Every afternoon you bless the shadows that are finally cast, shade that feels cool in comparison to earlier in the day, even though it’s still in the high 80s in the shadow. All that wind from spring is gone and you wish it back, you welcome the slightest stirring of air to provide some relief from the searing heat.

That’s summer. And then there’s high summer, when we have rain. The brown grass turns a verdant green, a riot of flowers are heavy with pollen, lush fruit ripens and bends the stalk. That’s now.

I’m sitting in my car, engine off, waiting for my friend to meet me so we can car pool to town. Everyone car pools around here – or at least the women do – partly to save gas money and partly because most people prefer to have company when they drove a lot. I don’t – I do some of my best thinking while driving – but the gas savings is still important, and my friend generally prefers company when she drives.

It’s pouring rain. The sky is blue in two directions, black in the other two plus overhead. It could only be the Southwest in monsoon season - July, August or September - when sometimes it rains on a cow’s left horn but not on the right.

Living at the end of a long dirt two-track means extreme planning for at least two seasons: High summer (now, the rainy season) and dead of winter (January through March, when there’s the most likelihood of snow and ice). Our soil here has a high clay content – slick snot when it’s wet. It’s amusing to see the tracks of vehicles that have gone before you, leaving the wandering tracks across the road like a drunk driver's, maybe even with the bonus of a gouged rut in a ditch where the car or truck slid off the crown. It’s entertaining – until it happens to you.

So you plan. You avoid driving when it’s actively raining and for a good half hour or more after. You watch weather reports so you can get out and back while the road is still a road and not an amusement park slide. You make sure you’ve got enough supplies to last at least a week, preferably two, in case of flooding when the road can be bad for days in a row. In the winter you get out while the road’s still frozen, come in after dark when it freezes up again.

The thunder is moving on; rain now just a light shower. I wouldn’t risk driving the two miles home from here right now if that’s where I was headed even though the road surface doesn’t look all that bad. I know that’s deceptive, and that within just a few feet the tire treads would be packed and the rubber coated half an inch or more with clay. I can see from here the first spot where I’d be sweating it, a very slight curve around a juniper tree – just enough for me and others to slide off the edge. It happened so often I finally took a chainsaw to the offending branches, but it’s still not a straight shot.

There are a few other spots after that – one place where there’s a slight bump, another couple areas where water pools a foot deep, creating an additional twelve inches of mush at the bottom. All fixable if I owned the road, untouchable as BLM property unless I jumped through some expensive hoops and put myself in a position of public liability. No thanks. I’ll risk the drive as is.

In spite of all the planning, the four wheel drive, the mud tires, I still get stuck every so often. I never know until I turn off the engine if I'll make it home if I try at the wrong time. Last week I had two close calls driving in with a load of hay. The road at those places looks like a tank battle took place – and it was a battle of sorts; my skill vs. the mud pit. That time I got out, but it was very close.

You’d think that going home would be easier since it’s downhill, but when I get truly and deeply stuck, it’s always in the downhill direction. That's why I always carry a tarp for the hay – not just to protect the load from rain but from cows, too, if the truck has to be abandoned. And that’s why I always carry rubber boots and a rain coat. Even though I'm usually not a happy camper when I first start the hike back, my boots picking up the same clay that the tires would have and making them dead weights as I slog through the muck, by the time I've gone a little ways I'm at peace again with the world. I love high summer.

Living My Life: It's a tough job but somebody's got to do it

2011-07-17T16:15:00.000-07:00

July 17, 2011

There’s really only one thing anyone wants to read about: Something about themselves or that could be about themselves, or something that’s going to help them live their lives – which really is still about themselves. We’re a selfish bunch, we humans – but all living beings are. It’s the only way to ensure survival of the species.

What I’m here to tell you about is how I live my life. Everyone’s life is fascinating in the hands of a good storyteller, but some of us live different enough lives that no matter who the storyteller is or how she tells it, the story carries itself.

So here I am, a mature woman (sorry, I may never grow up enough to be a senior), raised conventionally, who turned out… different. The reasons aren’t really important now. (That’s one of the great things about having sufficient years under the belt – you start looking at the big picture and realize the small stuff is just that. You finally get to focus on what’s important and best of all, because you’re old enough, there’s no one around to tell you to pay attention to all those pesky details).

But I digress – I tend to wax philosophical but I’ll try to cut that down to a minimum. What I’m trying to say here is that my life nowadays is different enough that it might actually be meaningful - or at least entertaining - for others.

How different could it be, you might well ask. Here’s a partial list. You decide.

I’ve lived in a straw bale cabin for about 13 years. That is, a house made of straw bales and not much else. None of that plaster stuff covering the straw, so wind tends to blow through. Birds nest in the walls and a resident four foot (and growing) bull snake keeps the chick population under control. My house does have a roof (it leaks), and doors and windows though, and someday I guess I’ll get around to the plastering. I love my little place (700 square feet and no interior walls) - snakes, bugs, birds, wind and all.
I have no heat other than a wood stove. Sometimes in the winter if it’s really, really cold and I’m too lazy to get up during the night, it freezes indoors. Potted plants don’t do well in my house and it can get annoying when I don't have anything liquid to brush my teeth with in the morning, but somehow these winter issues feel more like challenges than problems.
I don’t have real indoor plumbing, unless you include a hose poked through a wall with a garden spray nozzle delivery system as indoor plumbing. For years I heated water on my wood stove (or propane kitchen stove), but this year I made a solar hot water system and it works great when the sun’s shining. My shower involves a big pot holding suitable temperature water and a quart-sized ladle to get the water on my body. It works just fine, and I suppose someday I’ll fix it, but I'm in no hurry to fix what ain’t broke.
No indoor toilet. No outhouse, either. The old chamber pot system works just fine. I compost the results.
Off the grid – the nearest electrical lines are a mile away. Solar power has its drawbacks, but the great benefit is no monthly utility bill, and for a low-income person, that’s great.
No cell phone service. Maybe that’ s not such a big deal – after all, plenty of people live in little hollows where there’s no service. But I’m happy there’s no service.
Nearest neighbor is a mile and a half away. And that’s too close in my opinion.
Nearest store is 30 miles away. Almost far enough.
I live in the Southwest, so when it rains it pours. My little valley floods periodically and I can't leave for a few days. That's like vacation time for me.
I’ve been self employed almost all my adult life. From house painter to dude ranch wrangler to technical writer, I’ve somehow avoided 9-5 jobs almost the whole 4 1/2 decades since I left my childhood home. I don’t always have a lot of money, or even enough money, but that means I improvise. I do as much of the building and repair work by myself as I can. As for the rest – does it really matter if it gets done?
I care for six horses now – down from a lifetime high of around 50 at one point in my past. There’s no shoer nearby these days, so I deal with horse feet myself. There’s no vet nearby, so I treat the horses myself. And if needed, when the time comes I move a horse (or dog or cat) on to the next plane myself with my trusty .38. It’s a hard job, but it’s an ultimate act of love.
I have little to no social life. After my husband died suddenly over ten years ago, I’ve lived alone. I found I don’t need a man in my life. I’m not helpless. I’m free to become a hermit if I want or do anything in the world I want to do. I love it.

So there you go. I little strange, but perhaps stranger even is how much satisfaction I get from living my chosen lifestyle.

I dream of even greater independence – I’d like to fully raise my own food, for instance – and I’ve been working towards that it seems forever. I’m in no rush, though - it’s the journey towards self-sufficiency that holds the fascination for me. I’m not so very good at all of it, but in the end, who cares? I don’t want to wait for perfection to do what I want in life.

Next: High Summer

Quemado Independence Day Celebration

2011-06-26T08:03:00.000-07:00

QUEMADO

INDEPENDENCE DAY

CELEBRATION

SATURDAY JULY 2, 2011

· 11 a.m. ParadeTheme: Thank You Fire Fighters

· 11 a.m. Senior Bake Sale

· Noon BBQ(Quemado Fire Department)

· All Day Vendors around town

SPONSORED BY AG COUNTRY PROPANE

BBQ meat by Matthew Massey

www.catroncounty.net/quemado

Open letter to NM Gov. Susana Martinez on AWSA projects and protection of true stakeholders

2011-06-22T08:16:00.000-07:00

June 21, 2011

Office of the Governor

490 Old Santa Fe Trail

Room 400

Santa Fe, NM 87501

Email: Susana.Martinez2@state.nm.us

Subject: AWSA projects and protection of true stakeholders

Dear Governor Martinez:

The Interstate Stream Commission (ISC) has been authorized by the state of New Mexico to assume responsibility for the design, construction, operation, maintenance, and replacement of projects for waters designated available by the Arizona Water Settlements Act (AWSA). To that end, people of the four counties of southwestern New Mexico for which the AWSA waters are available have been working since 2004 to develop projects to submit to ISC.

It is the ISC’s mandate to apply the best available science to consideration of these projects, taking into account the ecological impacts of the proposed water uses while also considering the historic uses of and future demands for water in the Gila Basin, and the traditions, cultures and customs affecting those uses.

Unfortunately, what is and should be a relatively straightforward legal process has been distorted beyond functionality by non-stakeholders who were given “rights” to participate in the process by your predecessor. Mr. Richardson added a level of bureaucracy through the creation of a stakeholders group that included individuals who are not water rights holders and who therefore cannot be directly impacted by AWSA waters decisions. AWSA project process development has operated through stakeholder group consensus, thereby effectively providing the non-stakeholders with veto power. These non-stakeholders were further aided by Richardson’s environmentalist-group-supported declaration that AWSA projects could not include planning or consideration of construction of dams on the Gila and San Francisco Rivers. Since the only realistic way to have water to use during dry times of the year without cutting into downstream flow is to trap and retain it during times of extreme flow, such as during flood or snow melt, Richardson essentially blocked the most logical and potentially viable projects that could be submitted to ISC for consideration.

The intent of the AWSA was to address the legitimate water use needs of the four county area of New Mexico. The people who hold existing water rights are the true stakeholders impacted by the ISC’s choice of projects, however these very people for whom the water was intended have to compete with non-stakeholders for projects, and ultimately for the water needed by water rights holders to live and thrive today and in the future.

The AWSA is not about creating healthy watersheds so as to possibly produce more water or about conserving water, as important as these issues are. AWSA is solely about finding beneficial uses for 14,000 acre feet of water annually. It is essentially a “use it or lose it” proposition with a 2014 deadline. Consensus veto power and non-stakeholder opinion have no place in ISC's AWSA project evaluation or decisions.

Governor Martinez, with your support the ISC can make wise decisions about projects for the stakeholders of the four county area. I strongly urge you to instruct the ISC to resist the pressures of non-stakeholders with respect to ASWA waters. Furthermore, I urge you to instruct the ISC to not consider proposals submitted by the US Forest Service, no matter the merit of the projects, given that the AWSA water was meant for New Mexico water users, not federal agencies.

Thank you for consideration of my comments.

Sincerely,

Lif Strand

Quemado, NM

CC:

Estevan Lopez, ISC Director estevan.lopez@state.nm.us

Jim Dunlap, ISC Chairman Waterjim1@live.com

John D'Antonio, State Engineer john.dantonio@state.nm.us

Craig Roepke, ISC Deputy Director craig.roepke@state.nm.us

Sourdough cinnamon raisin bread - WARNING: non-dietetic!

2011-05-23T12:46:00.000-07:00

I tried a new recipe for sourdough cinnamon raisin bread that I have been taste-testing all morning (in the interests of research only, to be sure). I got it from http://vegannomnoms.blogspot.com/2009/03/sourdough-cinnamon-raisin-bread.html

As you might be aware, I’m not into cooking, but I have this thing about sourdough – I don’t know why but I feel compelled to succeed at making a great loaf of sourdough bread. I have set my handicaps: Little patience for kneading, no cheating with electrical appliances, and, oh yeah, no oven.

That’s another story, the oven thing.

Anyway, now that my stomach is full of mildly underbaked sourdough cinnamon raisin bread, I have a new challenge: Getting the baked-on sugar cement off the pan.

See, I didn't follow the recipe exactly – I always preach following exactly the first time I make something from someone else’s recipe but in fact I rarely do that myself. In this case I didn't have brown sugar (well, I probably do have some but I didn't look very hard for it after a cursory glance at the front of the shelves). I also added a little dried lemon zest I had - I like the citrus taste in cinnamon rolls I enjoy at one particular local restaurant and thought that citrus might be a nice addition to the bread. The result is pretty good but I think orange would be better.

As for the sugar cement - the recipe calls for sealing the edges of the dough when rolling it up after sprinkling the dough with the sugar/spice mix. I didn’t do much of a job kneading and maybe the recipe doesn’t call for enough flour (or maybe I didn’t measure the liquid part accurately – it eyeballed about right, it seemed to me) but for whatever reason, there was a lot of sugar leakage.

That didn’t seem all that important at the time. I got a hint when I went to pick up the loaf to put in a bowl to rise and it started falling apart. And after being left to rise overnight, the dough was kind of sitting in some sweet liquid broth – from the raisins? Don’t know, but I poured some out. Guess whatever it was, it had a high sugar content so now I have baked sugar cement on the bottom of the pan. Also, as I mentioned above, it's undercooked – the recipe called for preheating to 450 and baking at 400, I preheated to 400 and ended up baking at 375 more or less. That’s because I’m using a stove-top camping oven that just doesn’t like getting much higher than 400. Like I said, that’s another story.

Meanwhile, the bread still is yummy - with all that cinnamon, sugar and raisins, how could it not be?

AWSA New Mexico Water for New Mexicans

2011-05-19T18:33:00.000-07:00

This is a call for help. Please pass it on if you agree! Please act if you are willing!

The Arizona Water Settlements Act of 2004 allows for an additional average of 14,000 acre feet of water to be developed in New Mexico from the Gila and San Francisco Rivers as well as $66M up to $128M for project development. People have been working since 2004 to develop plans for use of the water and money in the four county region of Catron, Grant, Luna and Hidalgo counties. The Interstate Stream Commission has developed a two tier application procedure for projects (actually Tier II is still under development).

It is important to understand that by law this additional water use cannot impact the downstream water rights. Since the water cannot cut into the downstream flow so as to reduce what people downstream are entitled to, it is obvious that the only way to get the water is to trap it during times of extreme flow, such as during flood or snow melt.

The problem is that the environmental community objects to dams and diversions on the Gila or San Francisco River. The result would be that there is no way to keep water in New Mexico and the water continues on to Arizona. This is not water that would be taken from wildlife habitat or farmers downstream - it is water that is flooding away to either just evaporate or end up in the ocean. Environmental groups are urging their members to send letters to the State Engineer, the Interstate Stream Commission and others to promote their cause. I probably don’t need to tell you the importance of keeping the water here, but suffice it to say that water = life.

If we are to live here in Southwest NM, we must have water, too. Why should only people downstream of us have it to fill swimming pools, wash cars and water lawns while many of us are not even allowed to have faucets outside our houses to fill a dog's dish? If we let this opportunity go now, it will probably never recur.

Without going into the Act any deeper at this time, I am simply asking to you to send an email letter to Mr. Estevan Lopez, Director of the Interstate Stream Commission, Mr. Jim Dunlap, Chairman of the Interstate Stream Commission, to Mr. John D’Antonio, State Engineer, and/or to Governor Susana Martinez. I am pasting an example letter you can work from or develop your own. Note: this letter was supplied by Vance Lee, Chairman of the Gila/San Francisco Water Commission. More info can be obtained at http://www.awsaplanning.com/AWSA_Home.html

Mr. Lopez: estevan.lopez@state.nm.us

Mr. Dunlap: Waterjim1@live.com (email address corrected 05/20/11)

Mr. D’Antonio: john.dantonio@state.nm.us

Governor Martinez: Susana.martinez2@state.nm.us

-------------------- sample email letter ---------------

May 19, 2011

Mr. Estevan Lopez, Director

New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission

Dear Mr. Lopez:

In regards to the Arizona Water Settlements Act and the effort of the Interstate Stream Commission to determine use of the additional water and money, please consider this as a request for the Commission to make every effort to base its decisions on keeping the additional water in Southwest New Mexico. It is unacceptable to continue to allow water that can be made available for use in New Mexico to continue to flow downstream into Arizona. I am confident that there will be acceptable proposals via the application procedure in place to develop the additional water and to put it to beneficial use.

Thank you for your consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

[Name]

[address]

Catron County Commission Demands Wolf Incident Investigation

2011-04-11T16:47:00.000-07:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

RESERVE, NM. “The wolf issue is one of the biggest problems the county has faced,” said Catron County Commission Chairman Hugh B. McKeen to Tod Stevenson, Director of New Mexico Department of Game & Fish at a regularly scheduled public meeting on Wednesday, April 6, 2011. With Mr. Stevenson were RJ Kirkpatrick, Assistant Director NM Game & Fish; Jim McClintic, Chairman New Mexico State Game Commission; and Dick Salopek, New Mexico State Game Commission. An audience of nearly 100 people attended the meeting.

In late January a formal complaint was filed by the county with NM Governor Martinez regarding a wolf depredation investigation that occurred on January 18, 2011. Catron County contends that NM Game & Fish wolf biologists Ellen Heilhecke and Mischa Larisch allegedly sought to influence or change the official investigation findings of Sterling Simpson and Armando Orona of US Wildlife Services during an on-site investigation as to the cause of death of a cow.

“Influencing or attempting to influence the findings of another agency’s official investigation brings up a lot of problems,” said Catron County’s Wolf Incident Investigator, Jess Carey. “The credibility of the game department wolf biologist is now lost.” Simpson and Orona did confirm that the cow was killed by wolves, with Carey concurring.

“Other findings of confirmed wolf kill have been changed to probable in the past,” Carey said. “How can you change documented evidence?”

Stevenson confirmed that Larisch did call and relay a message from Heilhecke to the Wildlife Services personnel while the investigation was in progress, but denied that any impropriety occurred.

“My staff said they did not say that Wildlife Services should modify the finding from confirmed to probable,” Stevenson said. “My folks called and said there were feral dogs in the area to take into consideration.”

“There were no feral dogs on this ranch,” Carey said. “Last year, several miles away, a neighbor was letting his house dogs run loose, but that problem was resolved. Mr. Simpson concurred: There are no feral dogs out there”.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Catron County Attorney Ron Shortes stated that he agreed with the Commissioners’ and Carey’s call for an independent, third party investigation of the incident.

“I think you have a conflict of interest when you say you have an obligation to facilitate this Mexican wolf recovery program vs. your constitutional obligation to the people of NM to protect wildlife,” Shortes said.

“While an independent investigation is needed, my ultimate feeling is that you have a bunch of good people with the New Mexico Game Commission and NM Game & Fish trying to do their best, but I’m wondering if they’re trying to do too much,” Shortes said. “They’re assisting the recovery program on one hand, trying to protect wildlife on the other – is there any possibility of trust while that’s going on?”

After a show of hands to see how people in the audience felt, the Catron County Commissioners voted unanimously to go ahead with their request of Governor Martinez for a full, independent investigation of the incident. Director Stevenson volunteered to provide a synopsis of the progress of the investigation by April 15, 2011.

“Catron County has taken a no-wolf stand,” McKeen said. “I’m requesting that you take a no-wolf stance, too. It’ll do us all good – we’re not only concerned about livestock but wildlife, too.”

Contact:

Bill Aymar, Catron County Manager

PO Box 507

Reserve NM 87830

(575) 533-6423

ccmanager@gilanet.com

# # #

New CritterWalls Stickers!

2011-03-21T08:10:00.000-07:00

Good day! We have entered a new season, and with Spring comes three new stickers from www.CritterWalls.com.

These stickers are in the Fairy World line, joining the two Unicorn stickers. The first two are round panels with beautifully detailed images of fairies and foliage by the incredible artist, Dede Lifgren. The third is a step in a new direction, looking through a shuttered window to see a Cinderella type carriage drawn by white horses heading towards a turreted castle.

Fairy Woodland (detail)

Fairy Woodland depicts a fairy deep in thought, sitting on a lush green leaf, fairy dust all around her illuminating the mysterious woodland foliage. 18" in diameter, retail price $29.95. http://www.critterwalls.com/fairywoodland.htm

Fairy Sleeping (detail)

Fairy Sleeping is our own version of Sleeping Beauty. Illuminated by the glow of her own magic, a tiny fairy dreams away on the back of a patient cottontail rabbit. 18" in diameter, retail price $29.95. http://www.critterwalls.com/fairysleeping.htm

Castle and Carriage (detail)

Carriage and Castle lets you look through a wooden shuttered window, past colorful flowers, to a view of a carriage that you know a fairy godmother had something to do with. Is there a princess in the ornate, pink carriage pulled by a team of white horses? Is she going to meet the price at the ball in the turreted castle on the hill? 37" x 24", retail price $29.95. http://www.critterwalls.com/castleandcarriage.htm

We have more stickers in the works in the Fairy World line - I know you'll love the whole Fairy World line and all CritterWalls stickers.

Lif's Supposedly San Francisco Style Sourdough Bread

2011-02-02T11:01:00.000-08:00

Note that my starter is iffy and my techniques are non-traditional. I get hockey pucks as often as I get good bread. The recipe below, however, is what I followed and got a really nice sour loaf - the longer rising time is what lets that sour develop.

1 c starter that's been sitting out at room temperature for at least 12 hours

1 c whole wheat flour

2 1/2 cups water

2 tsp salt

Whisk together all the above ingredients. If you whisk the starter before you measure it, you'll get a better measurement (you'll whisk the bubbles out of it).

5 cups bread flour

Add flour a cup at a time, mixing with a spoon as long as you can. When you can't mix with the spoon any longer, start kneading the dough, adding in the flour that way. You might need more flour or less depending on factors I have no clue about. I occasionally wet my hands and that keeps the dough from sticking to my skin so much, but I'm told I'm a weenie for worrying about that.

Knead bread 10-15 minutes. Let it rest half an hour or so, then divide it into loaves or shape it as you want and let it rise at room temperature, covered, till doubled. The original recipe I used said this would take 12-15 hours but it took my dough 48 hours in the pilot-lit oven to double. I use the oven because 1) my house gets cold in winter and 2) fewer cat & dog hairs get into the bread - they get on the dough somehow even if it's covered. I don't cook much so tying up my oven for 2 days is no big deal.

Preheat the oven to 375° (take the dough out first if you used the oven to let it rise!). Slash the top of the loaves with a razor before you bake it- I don't know what good that does but the instructions say to do that and it looks cool. Bake about 45 minutes. The original recipe said to bake till the inside temp gets to 190° but I've never put a thermometer in the bread - I might try that sometime, since I think that would mean fewer hockey pucks. Also, I'm at high altitude - if you're a sea level baker, the internal temperature should be 205°.

Note: If you have stronger starter you will probably get a shorter rise time. If the dough gets doubled at an inconvenient time for baking, you can punch it down, knead it for a few minutes and let it rise a second time - the second rise time will be shorter. Or you can ignore the dough for a few hours till you're ready to bake, which is what I do.

New Year's Resolutions

2011-01-02T10:37:00.000-08:00

It's already January 2 - have you broken your first New Year's resolution yet?

One sure way to avoid breaking those well-intended resolutions is to just not make any at all. Most of us are have higher expectations of ourselves than that, though, and we do want to improve. We all have that little voice in the back of our heads that not only knows what's best for us, but has no problems nagging constantly about it. In our better moments we heed that voice - we pick the salad over the fries, we walk up the stairs when we could take the escalator, we write the thank-you notes the next day instead of waiting till next week or next month.

It's so easy to slip back into slothful ways, though - and by slothful I don't only mean physical. We have just as many bad mental habits as we do physical. Actually, we have more, since the mind is where physical actions originate.

So how do you get yourself to not just pay better attention to that little voice in the back of your head, but to not end up breaking all those resolutions you make during the last minutes of a year?

You tell the right stories, is how.

We're all always telling stories about our lives. I don't mean fiction; I mean the stories of our daily lives. They're colored by how we feel about ourselves and how we are living, and they're important, not just for the information they convey to others, but also to ourselves and our little voices in the back of our heads.

Here's a scenario with a one-word story we all often tell (and are told): Guy walks up and says "Hi, how are you doing?" We say: "Fine."

"Fine?" What kind of a story is that? How often is it not even true? How often have you given that response or a similar one, when really you were in pain, or you were worried about something, or you were angry? We naturally hide our negative thoughts and feelings from others unless we know the person well enough to expose that vulnerable side of ourselves.

Here's another scenario that's too common: We talk to people all day long - and to ourselves - and we tell the stories of how we are and what we fear we're going to become. We run a repeat loop soundtrack in our minds of the problems we have, the pain we're feeling, the things we fear. And then we wonder why we break our New Year's resolutions.

Oh, my pants are tight, I need to exercise more. Yeah, but I need to find some exercise program that I'll stick to - I've never stuck to one for very long. There must be something easy to do out there. But I don't have time for exercise - it takes so long and I already have tons of stuff I need to do that I don't have time for. Maybe if I just eat less…
Oh, I'll eat a salad tomorrow. I deserve to have what I want sometimes - I don't have to be good all the time! I'll have the fries, thank you.

The stories we tell about ourselves, particularly the ones we tell to ourselves, are stories we're putting out to the Universe and to the little voice in our heads about who we are. And the Universe and our little voice believe it. Those stories, being told over and over and over every day all day long, become a huge anchor that makes change difficult, if not impossible.

You can't sail off to a new place when the anchor's still holding you back.

There is no resolution more important than changing the stories you tell about yourself, whether you tell them to the outside world or you keep them in your head. You can't make resolutions to change anything until you change the stories.

If you tell yourself and the Universe all the time that you're a fat person, you've put an anchor down that will keep you right there. All the resolutions in the world won't sail the ship of health if your anchor is fat.

If you tell yourself and the Universe you're tired all the time, you've put an anchor down that will keep you tired.

If you tell yourself and the Universe that you're financially strapped, you'll keep yourself there.

Whatever you tell yourself and the Universe, there you are.

Of course, almost everyone has experimented with affirmations and many have found them to be less than useful. Why? Because affirmations - little statements you say once or twice a day, or read on the fridge door when you walk by (at least in the beginning - eventually you don't even see them any more) - are only little statements within the big stories of our lives. They don't have the power to move that anchor.

Only you can hoist up the anchor so you can sail off. Just make one resolution this year, and stick to it: Make the stories of your life that you tell be of the life you want to live, not the life you don't want to live.

Not: My pants are tight, I want to exercise more.
Instead: I'm excited about exercising because when I do it I feel so good.

Not: I need to find some exercise program that I'll stick to - I've never stuck to one for very long.
Instead: I'm looking for the perfect exercise program for me and I can't wait to try them out.

Not: I don't have time for exercise.
Instead: I always have time for exercise because I like to do it!

Not: I'll eat a salad tomorrow. I deserve to have what I want sometimes
Instead: I love salads. Yum yum!

If you change the stories you tell of your life - every story every day every time you tell one - your life will change because you will have moved your anchor. At first it will feel like lying - but it isn't. You are the person who makes the choice of words you use and you can choose the ones that are positive and lead to where you want to go.

And the idea here is not just to say the words, but think about them, feel them in your heart, and believe them. There's no point in saying you love salads if the whole time you're forcing a piece of tomato in your mouth you are wishing you were putting a fry in there. What you think is a story you're telling, too - you need to tell yourself a story about what the tomato tastes like, how rich and flavorful it is, how satisfying it is and how much you're enjoying eating it. You need to focus on what you want rather than what you don't have - and if enjoying a salad more than fries is what you want, then that's the story you need to tell.

Hoist up that anchor and sail on into 2011 and beyond! You can do it!

Rode Inn in Reserve, NM destroyed by fire

2010-12-16T19:18:00.000-08:00

Rode Inn in Reserve destroyed by fire

by Shannon Zetich, Quemado Lake Volunteer Fire Department Chief

Reserve, NM 12/14/10 The Rode Inn in Reserve was destroyed by fire during the pre-dawn hours of Wednesday. Members of seven volunteer fire fighter departments...some as far away as Glenwood, Quemado Lake, Quemado and Red Hill (the latter is over 80 miles away) assisted on this incident. The NM fire marshall was still at the scene the next day; the cause of the fire is under investigation. More at http://blog.glenwoodgazette.com/2010/12/16/rode-inn-in-reserve-destroyed-by-fire.aspx

New San Augustin Wager Grab Resource

2010-12-02T11:56:00.001-08:00

Forwarded from San Augustin Water Coalition (SAWC):

There is a new website that you will find interesting. Our friends and supporters up north are helping to spread the word around the state about our water grab fight and about other serious water issues. newmexicowaterandpolitics.wordpress.com

Sourdough

2010-11-22T10:03:00.000-08:00

I don't know why I can't just do things like other people, but it just doesn't seem to be in my nature. Thus it is that I can't simply get a bread machine and make bread (or buy from Safeway which does have a bakery in it), no, I have to get a hundred plus year old sourdough starter, nurse it along, and then try baking bread on top of my wood stove.

The irony is, I'm not all that fond of cooking.

Nevertheless, I have been on a quest for the perfect sourdough recipe that resembles my memories of that wonderful San Francisco sourdough that used to be a staple in my diet when I lived in California years ago.

Now, it is important to understand that what makes sourdough starter do its thing is yeast. There is wild yeast in the air that naturally mixes in with your starter yeast and gives it that unique taste. Thus after a while, a starter is going to taste like the local yeast, no matter what you do. Since I don't live in San Francisco or even near it anymore, and I doubt that any wild yeast around my starter has even heard of California, naturally my starter and the resulting bread is never going to taste like San Francisco sourdough. Yes, I could buy SF starter regularly to add in to my own but that's cheating!

Still, I try.

Aside from not liking to cook, I don't much like kneading bread. It's supposed to be meditative and all that, but I can't get into it. For one thing, dough sticks to my hands. Ick! Everyone says to just dip my hands in flour, but I do, I swear I do, and the dough still sticks. Then there's the problem of the flour itself – it gets everywhere, and cat hair gets into it. I’m sure I’ve mentioned sometime in the past that I’m no housekeeper, and so there is cat hair floating in the very air all the time (if you’re allergic to animals, you don’t visit me). I’ve gotten used to pulling little hairs out of my food but I’m not fond of it. So it does annoy me when I see a hair floating in the shaft of sunlight downward, downward and over just a little to the left… to land right in the pile of flour on the mat I’m using to knead the bred on.

Hands full of flour, sticky with dough – just how do you get that one blasted hair off the dough? I’ve perfected a technique but it’s top secret so I can’t share.

Yesterday out of the blue I decided to make a loaf of sourdough. I got the starter jar from the fridge and noted that the liquid on top was an ugly shade of gray – kind of the color of dirty bathwater when you’ve been out mucking horse pens and such all day. That didn’t bother me, because I’ve read that it’s only when the liquid has turned purple that the starter is too far gone. However, this gray liquid was an indicator that I hadn’t fed my starter in too long. Let’s see – I calculated that the last time must have been… oh, maybe October 9 or 10. Poor starter! You’re supposed to feed it weekly if you aren’t using it!

That was strike one.

So I poured off some of that nasty gray liquid, divided the starter into two batches: The base that goes back in the fridge and lives on to start bread another day, and the starter with yeast that’s giving up its life for the thrill of a quick feeding before being baked to death. I figure that in yeast years, the hours between being fed and baked is something like a few lifetimes, so I can handle it. Disclaimer: I’m not a scientist and have no idea how long a yeast lifetime is.

I added some flour and then thought about how bland my bread has been, so I poured a pile of salt into the palm of my hand (good, expensive mineral salt – none of that cheap pure stuff for my bread) until it felt right and dumped that into the dough.

That was likely strike two.

I mixed in flour (organic! less than a year old!) with my special sourdough bread mixing tool (extra long chopsticks) until it was thick enough that I feared to break the wood, then turned it out onto the mat and began the tedious and tricky (cat hair issue) kneading process.

After a while I decided that was enough (I'm counting this as a foul, not a strike)– the dough looked like dough although it wasn’t that silky texture I keep reading about and have never achieved. I made a nice round ball of it and set it aside to rise for a little.

This was when I knew that I wasn’t going to have a perfect loaf of sourdough bread: It stubbornly refused to rise. I watched and waited and watched and waited and finally had it with the rising part, so I set up my version of a stove-top oven, which actually works OK, all other things being equal – and in this case they weren’t.

I started baking the bread around 5 PM. It's possible that the fire in the wood stove wasn't quite big enough to be baking bread, but it wasn't that cold so what could I do? (Another foul, perhaps?) Sometime around 9 I tapped it and it finally had something resembling a hollow sound – another thing I read about but have never really achieved. I took it off the stove – this little, but very heavy, ball of bread - and set it on the counter. I resisted trying it till it didn’t burn my fingers to handle it.

The taste: boring (I ate two pieces, just to be sure). I just don't understand - only two strikes and two fouls - that doesn't equal being out, does it? Next time I know I'll do better, really. Maybe if I don't wait six weeks to feed the starter that would help. Maybe I could measure the salt more accurately? I don't know - there must be something that people who bake real bread know that I don't - but I will persevere and one day I will bake the perfect sourdough loaf on top of my wood stove, that I do know.

NaNoWriMo

2010-10-31T10:45:00.000-07:00

NaNoWriMo is about to begin. It would be cool if Catron County writers who're going to do this could get together to write - probably not physically, but we could support each other virtually via Facebook or this or some other blog.

Meet the Author: Steven Havill

2010-09-29T17:09:00.000-07:00

Meet the Author: Steven F. Havill
Friday, October 8, 2010 at 6PM
Round Valley Public Library

Join us for an open talk with author Steven F. Havill who will talk about his books and take questions from the audience. There will be free refreshments and Mr. Havill will sign books after the talk.

Steven Havill's first book, Heartshot, was published in 1991 and was the first of four westerns. Havill has also written 17 mystery novels set in the fictional New Mexico county of Posadas (including one available in 2011), and 2 medical/historical novels set in the northwest.

The Library is located at 179 S. Main St., Eagar, AZ. Please call 928-333-4694 for more information

San Augustin Scheduling Conference

2010-09-29T17:07:00.001-07:00

San Augustin Plains Ranch LLC scheduling conference is set for November 9, 1:30 PM at the Macey Conference Center, NM Tech. The purpose is to describe the OSE hearing process, to clarify issues in dispute and establish a schedule for the hearing.

Stovetop Sourdough Bread

2010-08-16T21:10:00.000-07:00

Stovetop Sourdough Bread
Copyright © 2010 Lif Strand

I love sourdough bread – what can I say? It’s bread – that’s a big plus right there, since I really love bread (especially fresh and warm with lots of butter on it). I was introduced to sourdough in San Francisco in 1968 and from that point on, San Francisco style sourdough bread was the non plus ultra of breads for me.

I’ve been trying to make my own sourdough for the last four decades with poor results. I’ve used all kinds of different types of starter and ended up with lots of hockey pucks and bread that was OK except for not being sour.

Now I’ve added another hurdle: I decided I wanted to make sourdough bread on top of the stove. I started this process this past winter when my wood stove was providing the heat in my house and it seemed natural to use that heat for something more, like bread making.

Did I mention I don’t like to cook very much, and I don’t like to knead bread? Never mind.

To cut to the chase, this is what I did to make the best sourdough bread I’ve ever produced:

1. Find some sourdough starter on the web. When it arrives, follow the directions for a few weeks till you have enough to split the starter I half. Give some to someone who actually knows how to make bread, so she will tell you if the starter’s any good. Meanwhile, keep using starter as directed (either the instructions that came with the starter, some recipe on the web or even cook book instructions) to make hockey pucks.

2. When the starter’s about half a year old, start abusing it. In the summer it’s too warm to cook anywhere much less on the wood stove, so that’s a good time to take this step. Don’t feed the starter any sooner than two weeks apart. Don’t remove some and replace with equal amounts of water and flour, just add about half a cup of water and half a cup of flour onto the old starter and mix well. Keep it in the fridge and forget it for as long as you can without it going bad. When you think you’re right on the edge, add some more flour and water to keep the starter alive.

3. When you’ve got starter that smells really, really sour and has about an inch of icky looking gray liquid on top, divide it in half and add one cup of water and one cup of flour to each batch. Mix well. Put the starter you intend to abuse forever back in the fridge, put the starter you’re going to use now on your kitchen counter with saran wrap over the top. Hopefully this starter will be in a mixing bowl (I don’t like to wash any extra dishes, myself). Let it sit there and bubble overnight and when it’s looking real nice, put it in the fridge and ignore it for a week.

4. Just when it looks like the bread starter is going to separate and make that icky water stuff, take it out of the fridge, mix it and let it warm up to room temperature. Then keep adding flour and mixing until you can’t mix without bending the spoon (or in my case, breaking a perfectly nice wooden spoon you’ve had for a long time). Oops, you should have added salt when it was still easy to mix. I don’t know how much, but the amount I added wasn’t enough.

5. Put some flour on a clean non-porous surface and scrape your dough out onto the pile and start kneading it. You don’t have to be vigorous and I do recommend having a book nearby that you can read while you’re kneading. It shouldn’t be a library book that the librarian will make you pay for when you return it with dried dough on the pages and cover. Knead till the dough is more or less not sticky or until you get tired of kneading. I don’t think you can knead too much but I wouldn’t know, as I’ve never lasted very long at the job.

6. When you’re done kneading, shape the dough into a loaf. I make a ball of it by turning under the edges so that the top looks like a loaf of bread and the seams are on the bottom. I don’t know why this is important but all the cookbooks say to do it.

7. Put the dough in the pan it will be cooked in that you’ve put cornmeal on the bottom of to prevent sticking. I was given a heavy enameled cast-iron round pan years ago that is supposed to be for bread making I think. It is now. Put the bread pan in a Dutch oven or heavy cast-iron equivalent. Put that on top of a piece of steel that itself goes on top of the gas burner. The steel could be from an old wood stove or anything that is heavy and will hold the heat. All of this goes on a medium-low flame, and the lid of the Dutch oven should be slightly ajar so the moisture from the dough can escape and you don’t end up basting the bread. Also, you can put your oven mitt or a folded dish towel on the top of the lid to hold the heat in. Just don’t let it slide over the edge and catch fire.

8. Go do something else because at that temperature and with that much iron between the dough and the flame, it takes a long time to bake. My bread took almost two hours. Maybe I could have used a slightly higher flame, but I’ve produced too many hockey pucks with scorched bottoms to try a bigger flame. When you can’t stand to wait any longer (smelling the baking bread for that long is torture) flip the bread over and tap the bottom – if it sounds hollow, turn off the heat and let the bread sit upside down for a while – it gives just a little brownness to the top that looks nice.

That’s all there is to it. If you try this recipe, let me know if it works for you.

Catron County unofficial election results

2010-06-02T21:29:00.001-07:00

http://catroncounty.blogspot.com/

Ride the Divide

2010-05-22T07:43:00.000-07:00

We're looking at nice weather for RTD: Chance of T-storms Thursday and Friday but sunny and warm Saturday, in the mid- to high-70s during the day and low 40s at night. Should make for great (non-dusty) trails!

Endurance Horse Races

2010-05-19T07:17:00.000-07:00

Thurs. May 27-Sun. May 30
Second Annual Ride the Divide Horse Endurance Ride

Enjoy riding either a 35 or 50 mile trail any or all of 4 days. Riders will start from base camp at the private El Caso Campgrounds east of the USFS campgrounds. These races are sanctioned by the American Endurance Ride Conference and horses are monitored throughout the races by AERC qualified veterinarians.

Location: 3 miles east of Quemado Lake. For entry information go to www.discovercatron.com

County Commission meeting date change

2010-05-07T08:06:00.000-07:00

Public Notice

The regular scheduled Catron County Commission Meeting for Wednesday, May 19, 2010 has been changed to Monday, May 17, 2010. The next regular scheduled meeting will be Friday, June 4, 2010. Meetings will resume their regular schedule Wednesday, June 16, 2010. All meetings will begin at 9:00 AM. Meetings will be held in the Commission Meeting room on the 2nd floor of the Catron County Courthouse. Agendas will be available before the meetings at https://www.mylocalgov.com/CatronCountyNM . For more information, contact Bill Aymar at (575) 533-6423 or by email at ccmanager@gilanet.com .

/s/
Bill Aymar
County Manager
STATE OF NEW MEXICO
CATRON COUNTY
RESERVE, NEW MEXICO 87830

Live for today or tomorrow?

2010-03-28T12:25:00.000-07:00

The old ant vs the grasshopper story - the sun is shining, the temperature is mild and the wind isn't blowing, so being outdoors calls to me. But the list of backlogged work is so long. Do I live for today - the sunshine and the beautiful spring day - or for tomorrow's paycheck?

It's Sunday. I'm going outside to play. No wait - the Tracker hasn't wanted to start for days. I think I'll open the hood and check out what's going on. I'm no mechanic, but I can wiggle wires and such with the best of them.

---

Temperature this morning at dawn: 13°.
Two years ago this day: First asparagus peeking out of the soil. No asparagus yet this year!

HJM 48 - act today!

2010-02-15T10:27:00.001-08:00

One more effort from all of you who have been working for more equitable treatment of ranchers in the Mexican wolf fiasco can make a big difference.

New Mexico House Joint Memorial 048 has passed out of the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee today and goes to the House floor. Your continued support of this memorial for fair compensation for our ranchers is vital. Call or email your NM congressmen today!

More at www.amprowest.org

I'm a winner!!!

2009-11-29T23:27:00.001-08:00

Isagenix cleanse update 11/09

2009-11-09T08:59:00.000-08:00

Well, not so good this week. I only lost one pound and no inches. I will confess that every day I went into town and had a large decaf breve at a local (non-Starbucks) shop. (Theer's a story in that, but I'm not going to confess). Now, I know there aren't enough calories in a breve to add up to anything, particularly since I was following the plan as directed otherwise. Well, maybe not. I suppose those sandwiches I had a couple days were a bit non-plan.

OK, ok, I was bad. But really, not all that bad - with this last pound, I've lost 29 pounds in the last year and that is good for something! And while I cheated, I didn't lose any ground.

The holidays are coming up, the parties are starting soon. I'm going to go off the cleanse but I will have an Isagenix shake every morning and *try* to be good the rest of the time. At least then when I start up in January I won't have backslid (too much).

I'm at 140 lbs right now - I could stop because at a bit over 5' 7" no weight chart says I'm overweight. But I know that I would be happier if that last bit of flab disappeared, so if I can fit in a 9-day cleanse between now and after the holidays, I will. There's a program for that, too - I haven't tried it yet.

Thing is, I really like losing the weight, I like how much better I feel. That's a good reason to keep with it, even though I'm sliding a wee bit.

Isagenix cleanse update

2009-11-03T09:23:00.000-08:00

Sunday was a cleanse day - liquid fast all day using a cleansing drink. You do a cleanse day every 7 days and the first is the hardest, at least for me, but I got through it just fine.

Here's the results: 2.5 inches and 5 lbs in one week! My pants feel noticeably looser and I feel really great. When you lose weight so fast, you can really notice it and I love that!

Cleansing for Weight Loss

2009-10-27T11:59:00.000-07:00

I'm doing the Isagenix cleanse for health benefits (detoxification) including weight loss. I've been on and off of Isagenix for over a year now and it's quite amazing. I started out at 168 lbs and immediately took off nine pounds last year - not so many pounds, but because of how detoxing works, I lost enough inches to get into a smaller size of jeans.

I didn't go back on the full Isagenix cleanse program again till June of this year. During the hiatus, I didn't gain any weight - again because of what happens when you detox.

Why cleanse?

The residue of toxic chemicals is stored in the bodily tissues of every single person and animal on the planet. Living bodies have systems to expel toxins from the body, but in the last 50 or more years, human-created toxins are now found everywhere, and the average person, at least in the US, ingests tremendous amounts (pounds!) every year in the form of hormones, antibiotics, food chemicals, additives, artificial sweeteners, and MSG in processed and store-bought foods. Let's not forget air and water pollution (smog, industrial/agricultural chemicals and "innocent" chemicals such as chlorine and florine in water).

Our bodies can't expel the overwhelming load of toxins - kidneys and livers can only do so much! - so what isn't expelled is stored in fat in order to keep the body from dying from toxic overload.

If you've been dieting to lose weight, your body does everything it can to fight the release of these toxins back into your body. Your metabolism slows right away. According to the 2003 report "Energy Balance and Pollution by Organochlorines and Polychlorinated Biphenyls" (Obesity Reviews, 2003) dieting releases pesticides (organochlorines) and PCBs (from industrial pollution) from the fat tissue, where they are typically stored, and poison our metabolism - our bodies work hard to prevent the resease of those toxins, which also prevents us from losing weight.

In other words, you probably have too much fat because you have too many toxins stored, not because you eat too much.

So - to lose weight, get rid of that toxin-storing fat - not by simple dieting, but by cleansing, using a program that will safely get rid of the fat *and* the toxins. This is what I'm doing, and I'm willing to provide my results to show you that it works!

My Cleanse

I'm using the 30 day Isagenix cleanse program - there are others I'm sure. I like this one because it was recommended by a nutritionist I trust, and there's no weird stuff to do.

The program has you regularly measuring your body in 14 places plus weighing yourself. The places include: Neck, upper arms, chest/bust, rib cage, waist, abdomen, butt, upper thighs, knees and calves. I’m not such a public person that I’ll provide my individual measurements, but I will say that adding all those measurements up, I started at a total of 321 inches this past June, at 159 lbs (note no weight gain since the previous fall!) and after 30 days, I’d lost a total of 3.5 inches and 9 lbs.

I took a month off and started again. My only diet restrictions during that time were that I had an Isagenix shake for most breakfasts, and I avoided processed foods (packaged foods, anything with stuff in contents labels that I couldn’t pronounce or identify) and purchased organic foods whenever available at the store. I confess that I didn’t look closely at the labels of the occasional Haagan Dasz bars.

When I started again in September, my body measurements had increased a little, but by the end of that 30 days, I’d blown past that and was down to 306.75 inches and 146 lbs.

After almost 30 days off, during which time I went to a retreat and was fed awesome home-made meals three times a day, plus home-made snacks in between for 4 days, I’m starting this next 30 day cleanse cycle at 308.5 inches and 146 lbs.

My next report will be next week when I measure again.

Mongol horse race - guaranteed to kill horses

2009-06-29T09:29:00.000-07:00

The largest non-sanctioned endurance race ever attempted is set to be run this summer in Mongolia. Nearly a thousand under-sized native horses have been drafted into an effort which deliberately flaunts international endurance racing rules. Worse, none of the 25 amateur riders have any previous endurance riding experience and all will be riding Mongolian ponies they have never met before. No safety arrangements are provided by the promoter, no water or food for the ponies, inadequate numbers or no veterinarians - how many of the 800 equines will be dead before they reach the 1000 km line, how many more will die afterwards as a result of the abuse they will receive?

This is an atrocity. While US and other legitimate endurance riders and organizations are protesting their outrage, where is even the slightest concern from PETA? From any animal welfare organization? From any rational, reasonable government?

And if all that wasn't bad, the UK charity, Mercy Corps, has accepted money to lend their name to this race. This is what I wrote to them on their comment page:
"You should be ashamed to quote Ghandi on your pages and yet sponsor the Mongol Derby. The fact that you accepted bribe money to lend your name to this event - guaranteed to cause terrible injury and death to many, if not most of the Mongolian ponies - is enough reason to question all you do."

Of course, the comment page on the Mercy Corp website actually goes to the Mongol Derby website (http://mongolderby.theadventurists.com/index.php?page=contact), so I also emailed them using another comment page at http://www.mercycorps.org.uk/contact.php

I also emailed my legislators and asked them what can be done to stop this event. I don't care if humans want to injure or kill themselves in an extreme event, but why force animals to suffer for human folly?

More info about this killer event at http://www.thelongridersguild.com/mongolia.htm

Spiritual Horsemanship

2009-05-28T14:00:00.000-07:00

You might check out my alternate blog at http://spiritualhorsemanship.blogspot.com/ I'm starting a thread on an orphan foal at my place.

Risk

2009-01-01T16:10:00.000-08:00

There is no risk if you only live in the past or the future.

Without risk, there is no adventure.

Without adventure, there is no life worth living.