Jest Another Day in Pear-A-Dice - Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm in Alberta

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

Where the "XXX" are...are where photos should go...no service from service provider...no surprise. Beautiful day here and everyone must be inside clogging the lines...happens every year here when it gets nicer weather going. No matter as I should be use to it by now <agh!>...Internet service provider bills have been $80Jan, $100Feb, and now $120Mar for the last three months...incredible! Technology is like that...progress I think they call it??? The candy bar gets smaller, new packaging the consumer pays for when they jack the price for less but more cost. Nothing surprises me no more's.

Dinner last night.

aXXX​

No, I cannot say that I did not choose to cook shrimp for Rick and I...I chose shrimp and steak for Fixins. Trying to balance what she eats...egg, cottage cheese, liver, fowl, beef...now some seafood...SEE food and EAT it!

bXXX​

Quote:

Mornin' AJ...

Quote:
You are most welcome...here is one thing Rick did yesterday.

1XXX​

Had this headliner IN the house, he says for a year now. LMBO

2XXX

Lookin' spiffy, eh!

3XXX​

And lots of helper from dog dog...

4XXX

She was out and about making her inspections yesterday

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And out and about making inspections on the proceedings again today! (I can't even get service now to add smilies...yeh...wonderbar! :-/)

5XXX

A few laps around to see what Rick is doing...and

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A greeting!

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Few more laps around and then back to house for another nap.

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After the rest up...then back to see what he's doing... he cannot be trusted to know what to do without Fixins...

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Back out to inspect.

10XXX
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Lookit, he's installing the new door panels...affixing the pockets

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Old panels are off and truck is awaiting her new outfit

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Good thing the dog was there to make sure things are they are suppose to be. :-D

13XXX​

Yeh, close your eyes and envision a house with plushies and plastics for genetics lessons...a house that contains various vehicle parts. Yes, a comfy home that is a functioning FARMY kinda house where one knows better than to go digging too deeply in any of the freezers...LMBO. There is colostrum in thar from various beasts...a placenta I finally threw out five years back of a cria...use to have various poultry carcasses awaiting burial in the Three Kings Pet Cemetery plot (Stephen Edwin King wrote on that one)...but lost NO birds this winter so that was good...even so, it did get warm a few weeks back, so coulda done buried what needed burying eh. How morbid huh? We have special pets like Quasse Motto and one of my first bantam ducks Buffy...

Quote:
Ah yes, the warm weather pleasures of no internet service and then the proper pleasures...of the CORNy kind!

I am looking at corn seeds of not the usual bi-colours, eh. Not sure if I will have the weather here for it, but would like to maybe get this combo for NEXT year. I am bad as I am thinking...hmmm...with all that composted bedding along the one stretch of pasture...that Rick just tilled...I could do up a t-post and combo panel growing area...then there are the squash (or was it melons, or beans...hmmm...) that use the corn stalks as supports to grow up. I am doing alot of hmming right now...not sure my energy and time levels...if it is a DRY year, do I want to be hauling water to make sure the plants grow...dunoo... Funny that, lots of hmming going on.

http://www.sandhillpreservation.com/catalog/specialty.html:

I do have Fire Pink Calico on my getting littler all the time seed list. Hmmm...

Five pages in his paper catalogue on corn alone...oh it is so HARD to choose just a few...my my my...brown, or blue, or pink or purple, or white, strawberry, or rainbow...dent, flint, flour, sweet...

I may save this Strubbes' corn collection for buying up next year and do some pre-planning...get the area all set up so all I gotta do is walk along and drop seed and cover...Hmmm.... Then hope like mad that it is a long good season for growing corn here. I have done corn successfully here, but it entails babying it. Start it in peat pots (corn HATES its roots disturbed...) and put them under cloches (plastic milk jugs with cap off, bottoms cut out). When I lived on the WEsT Coast...I would also have the luxury of doing that the Indians did, put a fish below in each corn hole...(for the extra nitrogen was it?) and man alive could I grow corn there. Not suppose to on the Northern end of Vancouver Island...far too cold, damp and dreary...would not sprout outside, would rot and get all sorts of wet plant issues...but for whatever reason, I grew respectable cobs of BABIED corn to harvest in the garden only after the pot of water was on the boil on the stove...Now I put cobs in cold water and turn on the heat...when it boils, cover and shut off...done perfectly. I have a recipe that calls for a 1/2 cup of dry white wine to be added with some sugar, but I skip that part...perfect corn is the kind you can GROW yourself and harvest quickly to consume moments later!

My Gran sent us home...long train trip there to Winnipeg from Nor Island, but she sent us home that one summer, my Sis and I, with corn in the husk, with butter dripping, hot wrapped in tin foil. From her huge century lot garden...she's the one that hid chooks in her garden shed in the city. My renegade Gran. I miss her...so much...she would be SO proud of us and what we are doing here.


Yesterday we noted that Fixins is getting progressively weaker. Expected.

XXX1

Sleeping Beauty

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She does alot of sleeping and when out for a walk-about, she staggers sooner.

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Making a pit stop for a cool drink outside

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She enjoys her outside time

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Made up a plate this morn for her breakfast...

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She would not take any pieces from me. Uh oh...but no worries, it was NOT the making shwimps and steak that was the problem...turns out it sure worked...

While this morn she turned her nose up to ME feeding her for the first time. It was Rick to the rescue! He saved her some steak slices and he went to the kitchen to retrieve it from the fridge where I had stowed it away from last night's din. Yeh...she eats...praise the powers that be. SHE EATS...she drinks, she still takes a leak...she EATS...she lives another day! YAH!!!!

Dad came to the rescue...

XXXa2​

It wasn't the FOOD, it was the FEEDER she wanted and she makes her wants well known...​

Well good on Fixinsr...she knows how to speak her mind and her mind said it was, "Dad that was going to feed her this morning"...pretty sweet eh! Them Cattle Dogs always include everyone in the Fam in some way. Today, Fixins said, "Dad feeds me breakfast!"... too cute! <hugs>


So hoping service comes back ON so I can post all the XXX's on here as actual photos. A minor irritation at first but over the past three years now...this is one of those ones that is progressively getting worse & worse (dial up was never this bad--we had service even if we could not do much data exchange...at least it reflected that and was cheap cheep! I still have service, not nothing like now) and may have irreversible repercussions if they keep this up; jacking our bills because of their inabilities to provide a service they say they can. Not in my control and seems to be costing us some serious $ more and more...I feel that $300 for 3 months (phone is not in there) is ridiculous and that would have easily covered my current seed bill that I have been shaving items off to make more affordable. Not sure...not sure where this is going...

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[perchie.girl]

Heel low:

Where the "XXX" are...are where photos should go...no service from service provider...no surprise. Beautiful day here and everyone must be inside clogging the lines...happens every year here when it gets nicer weather going. No matter as I should be use to it by now <agh!>...Internet service provider bills have been $80Jan, $100Feb, and now $120Mar for the last three months...incredible! Technology is like that...progress I think they call it??? The candy bar gets smaller, new packaging the consumer pays for when they jack the price for less but more cost. Nothing surprises me no more's.

<snippage>

So hoping service comes back ON so I can post all the XXX's on here as actual photos. A minor irritation at first but over the past three years now...this is one of those ones that is progressively getting worse & worse (dial up was never this bad--we had service even if we could not do much data exchange...at least it reflected that and was cheap cheep! I still have service, not nothing like now) and may have irreversible repercussions if they keep this up; jacking our bills because of their inabilities to provide a service they say they can. Not in my control and seems to be costing us some serious $ more and more...I feel that $300 for 3 months (phone is not in there) is ridiculous and that would have easily covered my current seed bill that I have been shaving items off to make more affordable. Not sure...not sure where this is going...

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

Oh gosh I was going to ask about the XXX's and only read the last paragraph now during this post.... I am guilty of looking at the pictures first and reading around them as I go....

deb

 

[drumstick diva]

I thought clicking on the xxxx's would make pictures appear. Wrong!

 

[hennible]

Lol

 

[drumstick diva]

Tara . that is robbery. such high charges for internet.

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

Still cannot load photos on the first try...now it is three times and not fast at all...yeh...last night could not even load up text...incredible! :-/

I agree, hundred bucks a month over three months average...that IS highway robbery (like I am going to trade a set of turkey tail feathers or 1 1/2 sets of sail feathers to have internet service for three months! Sheesh!), but seems to be linked somehow to the fact you need to be "online" on BYC and get streaming advertisements probably backfeeding--is the only difference on this forum than all my other ones that I post to. I reviewed the size of my last post that included photos and it is small. So something is up. Not sure what it is but not my issue since I don't have time to deal with this now to figure exactly what the issue is. My forte is fix the problem and get back to the having FUN PART.

I am going to make a decision on the fly here because I don't want this "inconvenience" and being held for ransom like to stop our FUN. It is about having fun, not being held hostage by entities that benefit whereas our own hard earned dollars are being absconded with...so, a change in the makings then.

I will do a post like I normally do and see how long it takes certain sizes of photos to load and how many times (keep in mind, every attempted try I PAY for...I PAY FOR THE DATA loaded, whether or not the photo actually loads on here or not). Never mind that I have limited time and energy to focus on something that has always been a given for me...you load a photo, it goes up. Simple until something starts up to make it not work. Rick and I are not going to pay $100 average a month just to update a forum on our fun here.


So here is how I am gonna fix this and fix it quick...I don't need to be distracted by one forum like this.

Anyone that wants to stay in touch (seeing as this lack of service issue tends only to increase as the weather warms up here and we are going warmer and nicer here every day!) with us, please send me a private e-mail using an address where I can send you an e-mail with photos attached as updates since we have made so many "fans" here (thanks guys, eh!). I am predicting that if I go back to this "old school" method (done that for years...a circle of friends we just e-mail to, skipping forums and other whatnots) and do a blind carbon copy (nobody else has access to your e-mail addy but myself) to those that do want to still get updates as to what's up at Pear-A-Dice...that I expect this to happen at most once a week, more likely once ever two weeks, tops once a month as in June and July when we are the most busy outside having FUN. Am going to get extremely busy from now till about October and that is a great thing!


Got Fixins to be concerned about, cooked her up another batch of baked liver...special pupster that she is.

Getting ready to fire up Buster the Bator...it is close to the middle of April when we get 14 hours of natural daylight per day. Maximum male fertility...so fire things up and get on this--hatching out the fuzz busters.

Need for the ground to unfreeze so I can till the Veg Garden. Got spring cleaning to do...oh how I wanna get on that too...yup, can tell the RUSH for the races is on...warm weather means way too many things to be doing, eh.


So updates on waz up here from all the regular items like the cooking & foods, the veg garden along with flowers and fruits, the poultry (of course!) and the wilds like the Swans and Mandarins and Ruddies, then there is the beasties like the ruminants and dawgs...vintage truck workings, time spent on the Man Porch, wildlife visitations, loser laps to the city to annoy the residents and leave back for the hillbilly hills, my colour genetics endeavours and teachings...yeh all the things this thread is expected to have in it. That way I will know how much data I am sending off, not this pondering on what is knocking on my backdoor without my permission. Most likely the ads; see I don't DO videos but that don't mean the videos aren't loading and streaming because to load photos, I have to be online to load to this site. I can probably do a bit of text posting, composed OFF line so the streaming won't go down. See if that works when I get a moment otherwise to play on that...but in the meantime, if'n you wanna get posts AND the accompanying photos (which will be the SAME small files I load up here...costs me money to send large ones and I don't see the value in that since stoopid unnecessary spending of the $ is the issue I am facing here)...you'll hafta ask me via an e-mail to me private e-mail addy...send me an addy I can send you the post that would have been posted here, had this issue not occurred. Agh...

[email protected]


So I am experimenting here...

You all know how much I like to see us heritage poultry persons ensure we get top dollar return on our premium superior products...here's a post on the feather, egg, and meat aspects of heritage poultry...I have addressed it here before...I address it here again and see how the photos and text loads up.

First, the heritage poultry as in their FEATHERS... :-D

<<212 kb's...took ten minutes to load and had to be loaded THREE times before it fully took...ridiculous!>>​

Bird feathers are a renewable resource--like wool, there is a feather crop you can collect up...you don't have to harvest your birds to harvest the feathers they shed. Keep them in a clean and healthy environment, with lots of space and good eats and drinks...your feathers reflect the good husbandry skills and you can collect up the moulted feathers. Awesome opportunity...

<<This one is 273 KB's and took three tries and 15 minutes to load...I finally went and cut the baked liver I made for Fixins...I got so bored waiting on it>>​

So you will see (now that the dang photos have taken...agh!), there is one SPECIAL turkey feather thar with a white piece of paper taped to the quill. On there is the date, January 26, 2013 for when Rick took me and one of his sisters to a Fly Tying extravaganza...did a bit of research on the quality of what we produce here as far as feathers. There was a very special guest in attendance...Davie McPhail is a world renown fly tyer who heads outta Scotland. I brought him some samples to see and when I showed him this feather (which I already knew was a FAB feather for fly tying), his eyes near fell out. He said to me in his accented English..."You do know this is a twenty dollar feather?" Yup...I knew that...I also know that my take on this version by adding the barring in the other lines of this very variety I was working on...a lilac with a grey down...with or without the barred allele...was a most desirable feather pattern to the tyers.

There are people that are focussing on the long hackled breeds of chickens, but the one farm I spoke with in 2013...he had tried out turkeys and did not like raising them. There are a few of us world wide doing the turkey feather breedings, but not alot of us. And indeed, now with what the States has done over Muscovies and heritage turkeys...the sales of turkey feathers for residents of the States has become quite complex. Deemed WILD, the heritage turkey has special laws now in place that affect the Americans...thankfully, not me! I believe the resources were pretty limited to begin with...there was ads there for turkey feathers past the simple Bronze or Whites but like seeing a Mandarin skin for sale...good luck on there being something there to buy. Listed on some sites, but never much of a supply to be actually purchased.

So back to this special feather that Mr. McPhail liked...stuff like this does not happen overnight and you have to be somewhat of a keener in the colour genetics aspects to work on colour varieties of feathers, especially in the turkey aspect. Most just sell the marabou substitute...the downy feathers and some do the wing feathers, tails and such. But not many are breeding for NATURAL multi coloured marabou, never mind the feather aspects in their flocks. You can find supplies artificially dyed...hot pink, purple and such which do make good salmon flies, but there is the aspect of natural feathers...like the hand spinners in wool that want black and lilac in say my Jacobs...for hand spinning. NO artificial dyes, real in the fiber (and this case feather) patterns and colourations. I can only imagine someone TRYING to dye a feather barred...hee hee...good luck making that profitable, eh!

Over the years, I have fashioned up several special turkey bird lines. One of them has a grey/blue down that is tipped in black and then bright gold barred...in other words, you are looking at some very BUGGY patterns in jest the down feathers, never mind the webbed up proper feathers used on wings and tails of the flies...this makes for a body material that is superb for enticing fish to strike--the whole point of tying a fly, eh! The proof a feather is good for fly tying is what fish are enticed to bite the fly made...

I have turkey varieties not found anywhere else. There are Rusty Blacks...but nobody I have seen yet that has the diluted version...Dilute Rusty Black...and when tying flies, the subtle differences in colourations mean all the world to a fisherperson...to entice an spoilt fish to take a taste...and get itself hooked...so to speak...LMBO

Dilute Rusty Black - processed this tom for dinner...Thanksgiving Dinner...here are a complete set of his tail feathers


<<133 KB took one try but ten minute load>>
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Cackleberries, the EGGS...

EGGs are a given in superior quality for our home raised heritage birds...you've seen me post photos comparing the "free range" (defined as birds having access, not necessarily using, but a door opened to the outside that can be like 3 by 6 feet open area...for an entire barn fulla factory farmed eggs)...Omega 3 (yeh, like what egg you know of that has NO Omega 3 in them?) compared to our REAL farmy heritage chicken eggs. The Sing Brightly Heritage Chantecler Hen flock produces eggs of a quality that cannot be bought in any grocery store. What we feed and the water we have, the stress free environment, the breeds of chickens living REAL lives...that is what you can taste in their eggs--HAPPY eggs. It simply cannot be replicated by commercial factory farms. You scrimp one one item, like the feed (ever note, there is barely any shell on a commercially fabricated egg...just enough of a shell to get it to the consumer...yeh...we entered our eggs in an egg contest and received comments by the judge that we had the BEST EGG SHELLS! Yee haw!) and it shows in the output, the overall quality of the eggs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-range_eggs:

<<This photo is what Reese uses to sell his chickens with and is under 99KB sized--loaded up with a five minute delay>>


You get FREE shipping on orders over $349 (not on lambs though), so these would be prices of just the meat unless you order that value.

Note the prices per pound range from $8 to 17.20 per pound. Read that again please...price per pound--bone in too!!!


https://store.heritagefoodsusa.com/poultry--waterfowl-c47.aspx:
GOOSE -
Embden or American Buff
9-11lb - $155.00
$17.20 to $14.09 per POUND

TURKEY -
2014 Heritage Thanksgiving Turkey 18-20lb
HERITAGE TURKEY
20-22lb - $209.00
$10.45 to $9.50 per POUND

2014 Heritage Thanksgiving Turkey 22-25lb
HERITAGE TURKEY
22-25lb - $234.00
$10.63 to $9.36 per POUND (far cry from $0.99 per pound, eh?? At minimum, round about TEN times that price...)

CHICKEN -
Heritage Rare Breed Whole Chickens
WHOLE CHICKENS
Two, 2-3lb each
New Hampshire - $49.00
$12.25 to $8.17 per POUND


POULTRY SAMPLER - Chicken & Duck
One 5-6lb Duck & One 2-3lb Chicken - $59.00
(Poultry Sampler - So take away the $25 for the chicken...that leaves $34.00 for the 5 to 6 pound duck. $6.80 to $5.67)
$12.25 to $8.17 per POUND for chicken / $6.80 to $5.67 per POUND or duck

Any person selling a turkey, goose or chicken...read this and know...you should be pricing YOUR birds at minimum---

$25.00 for a chicken, that's a DEAD inspected meat price.
$209.00- 20 to 22 pound Turk
$239.00 - 22 to 25 pound Turk (jest so you know...a heritage 33 pound tom processes to a 25 pound carcass...)
$155.00 - 9 to 11 pound goose (ours are like 20 to 25 pounds live...so these must be SMALL Buff American geese to process to only this size? 75% live weight = processed)
$34.00 - 5 to 6 pound duck

Are you reading these prices...from $10.63 as the high to low of eight bucks for LANDfowl to a high for WATERfowl of $17.21 a pound with a low of $5.67 for a duck.


Hmmm...$17.20 per pound...and we have four Buff ganders I am getting ready to process. Yeh...light shall be the work to process them. :-D

Now realize, to sell birds as MEAT, you do have regulations to follow for your country and province...what may be done to ensure the meat is inspected, you get the buyer to pay you for your birds and you may then deliver them to the abattoir (I've done this with purchasing two lambs when I did not have sheep), where the birds are processed and inspected, cut and wrapped as per the buyer's preferences they have instructed the abattoir to do...the buyer then goes to pick up their meat and they pay the ABATTOIR for the kill, processing, inspecting and wrapping fees.

So you would not be charging say seventeen bucks a pound for a goose because you would need to reserve outta that cost the fee to process and inspect the meat...so let's round it to fifteen dollars a pound to be fair...so a 20 pound goose should not be sold under meat prices...20 pounds x 0.75 live to processed = $225 for a 20 pound live goose. If we cannot sell our heritage birds and recoup the MEAT prices for our live stocks why are we doing this then? To subsidize others with our labours of love, costs of feed, bedding, housing, replacement of equipment we wear out, power to pump water, have lights, etc.!!

In my opinion, asking for under meat prices for live birds...well that is just ridiculous to cut our own throats so oterhs benefit from our resources! A pair of breeding geese EASILY makes a six to ten goslings if you allow them to set on the clutch...if you collect up eggs, you should expect 20 to 30 goslings from ONE pair at minimum...

Do the math yerself and start figuring this on out...how much should you really BE selling a productive breeding pair of geese when meat prices deem your ONE dead inspected bird is worth ... $155.00??? A pair is twice that at $310.00.

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[drumstick diva]

Tara, you know I want to keep hearing about Pear-A-Dice, you, Rick and of course Ms.Fixins. I know you have my email addy but, if you lost it, I can re-send. I agree with your decision - let your internet service 'fuss' with someone else.

to you all and Ms.Foamy, if she will accept it.

 

[vehve]

I wonder if complaining to your service provider would help. They are after all supposed to be providing you with the means to communicate, and if the latency on that connection is that bad, ten they're not doing a very good job of it, ergo, you're not getting the service you're paying for. Might be worth your while shooting them an e-mail or calling them.

 

[scottcaddy]

Sent an addy
edit to add, when byc gets slow for me I turn off 'shockwave" and those da** ads stop bothering me

Scott

 

[CanuckBock]

Tara, you know I want to keep hearing about Pear-A-Dice, you, Rick and of course Ms.Fixins. I know you have my email addy but, if you lost it, I can re-send. I agree with your decision - let your internet service 'fuss' with someone else.

to you all and Ms.Foamy, if she will accept it.

Thanks for the support my dear DD...

Sent an addy
edit to add, when byc gets slow for me I turn off 'shockwave" and those da** ads stop bothering me

Scott

Thanks for the support my dear Scott...

I just don't have the sleuthing wanna in me right now to figure out how to fix this past just going old school. I gotta do this or keep paying $100 a month and that's just idiocy...

I wonder if complaining to your service provider would help. They are after all supposed to be providing you with the means to communicate, and if the latency on that connection is that bad, ten they're not doing a very good job of it, ergo, you're not getting the service you're paying for. Might be worth your while shooting them an e-mail or calling them.

It was interesting to say the least when we first reported these NO service incidents. Long and short of it...two (or was it three?) years back we did get some credits back, but since my son is in the communications business, I got a bit of the scoop on what one is up against. Telus (nfi) got bought out, or almagamated or whatever companies keep doing...head office I believe is in Ontario some place (center of the universe if you are not aware, eh!) when it use to be just two provinces only. Becoming bigger is not always better, for the little guys like us over here in butt frig no where. Hee hee...the majority of service provided goes to the city dwellers and they have some very nice service indeed but even they get dropped calls...the increase on phone numbers has risen so we now have more three digit area codes we hafta dial before the seven digit numbers. I cannot tell you ALL the hoops we have jumped to ensure Rick has had phone service in the middle of the boonies--he works by himself and there are times where it is life and death (as in window knocked out by a trig off the tire chains, or machine broken down...winter cold at -35C and lower to KILL him if someone does not get sent out with the parts to get it running again). He carted around a bag phone with all sorts of booster upgrades (recall our Kid is in communications--computer engineer is just one of his many hats so to speak)...the bag phone was almost as funny looking a BIG bugger as those large cel phones, what from the 1980's? Nothing to laugh about but if he can't call out, he's dead...literally.

Yes, we have complained, documented and recorded all the necessary items...even to the point where we have gotten the big old "reporting it number" or incident, whatever term they call it. Then it goes on up the ladder of responding. <<head banging brick wall icon>>

There are not enough of us purchasing their services out here to justify the amount of capital to improve the one tower (where all the campers camp under in the warmer weather and thereby capture the signal us who live here 24/7 all year round use to have when it was bitterly cold and winterish). I am thinking the immigration/migration out here is earlier than usual...as I noted many people have packed up and moved out here to live in their RV's to avoid all the bill collectors and repo persons. Oilfield sites now upload data automated like and send that to Calgary head offices...eliminates the need for man power to go around reading & recording information, making daily reports...efficiency that clogs an already over sold commodity and eliminates yet more jobs, eh.

Not rocket science here...it is pretty easy to predict when you do the math as to what is up. Christmas was four months or so ago...bills have already come in, 1, 2, 3 notices of payment required before services are shut off or items repossessed. I'm a retired accountant that worked for several governments back in the day; one was the BC Min of Attorney General. The program that was offered was called Debtor Assistance and is hinged on federal laws regarding an alternative to bankruptcy (where you don't pay your debts off). Basically the Debtor gets to consolidate all their debts, they meet with their creditors and once the court order is completed, they get an R-9 reading on their credit bureaus. They make a payment once a month to Debtors' Assistance where this is redistributed as payments to all their creditors. Liens are put on any land or property they have an interest in...so one may still keep their place that they reside in...they get to keep their dignity in that they have paid their obligations. After the Debtor pays their debts off (no credit cards or credit allowed of any kind until then), they will eventually have a clean record, some 7 years post starting the program. It allows people to pay their obligations but at like a greatly reduced rate of interest, not like 28% and higher that many of the companies offer on their credit programs. It made me laugh...the creditors sure never liked it when the Debtor found out they had an alternative to declaring bankruptcy...and at a greatly reduced rate of interest...it was like the key to the golden lock of freedom from being hassled...and for the creditors, for which many wanted that interest payment more than the principle paid off...many of them seemed pretty PO'd when they were told the Debtor was going DA consolidation of their debts. Pause a moment...how many times have you gone to some place like department store where they encourage you to put it on your card...it is not the purchase of the item, but the INTEREST they are rubbing their grubby paws over. Heck, in many instances, I could see them GIVING you the purchase...because so many max that card out and only pay the minimum balance...forever! LMBO

At one time, being given credit was something you earned...back in the day when my Grandfather needed a loan, it was horrific the hoops you had to jump...may as well have saved the money for all the effort and backing you required to be given a measly loan. Nowadays, even back when I was at Debtor Assistance...single mother, welfare subsidising her day care...her working at McDonalds for minimum wage...pre approved credit card for $1,500 and the balance kept getting upped. They did not care if she charged baby formula or beer and cigarettes...so long as she made the minimum payment...things were good. You don't earn credit nowadays, you avoid the strangulation hold ... the snare set to bog you down into financial grief and strife.

I have never been so happy as when we sold our house on the WEsT Coast, cut up both our credit cards (between Rick and I...we could have bought a brand new Corvette...how sinful it that...without even asking someone...a new VET!) and resolved to live within our means. Ever pay cash at department stores...the one employee in Kamloops commented when we said, "Cash..." that it was a poor man's currency. Really, eh? Didn't rope us into the 28% interest...I remember being phoned and asked if we wanted to pay our telephone bill using our <<insert department store name>> card...really? You will pay my phone bill and then add that to the balance...wow--that desperate to snag us that you are going to cover utilities now...incredible!

I call credit cards "the beginnings to the haunting" ... whatever you felt you needed to have that was on sale and so necessarily important...by the time the bill for it comes in at the end of the month...do you even remember why you HAD to have it? We rented a hotel room for a sanctioned bird show...2006 I think it was...no credit card...the clerk told us there would be no six pm hold and we said we'd be there before six. We took Makins along...we left $300 cash at the desk as the "damage deposit" but you could see they were not pleased on that. Got told only "drug dealers and gang members" paid cash for rooms...yeh, Rick and I look just like those sorts with our sucky dog Makins and assorted show ducks...whatever...sure glad we stay home and mind our biz here. Only day trips thanks.


So here in mid April, people are now at the realization point that Poggie ("unemployment" runs about six months to a year at 65% of your employed wage...given the unemployment stats for the area you reside in of course, the payment is variable). The facts are that the majority have been laid off for about four months now. They are balancing on the point of collecting poggie and now after being laid off from their employment going on, what four months...so if you move into your RV and live in the bush at "no fixed address" then you may have a chance to survive. Most homes here in the small towns run about $400,000+ and most went in for long amortizations with nothing down...so they owe more than they own. Turning the keys in to the bank when the bank don't want to own homes...yeh...you see where and why this is happening. The influx is early because we have people hiding from their debts out here in the bush.

Campers living here would then want internet service because while they might be avoiding the bills, but they still need to be entertained, eh. :-D


How do you know it is getting bad in a financial sense here? Rick went for a haircut (spring has sprung, new growth must be tamed!)...fellas there at the barber (where is the BEST news to be had...at the local Barber Shop!) said break-ins were on the increase. Rural acreages were being cased and lots of weekend places were being ravaged during the weekdays when nobody was there. The local Ford Store (nfi)...overnight a few weeks back, they had tires and rims stole off their new trucks--another repeat action...one vehicle had $17,000.00 rims and tires scooped...I can't even IMAGINE paying that for wheels but whatever. The RCMP were involved...but even tho the place had had new lighting and surveillance equipment upgraded, they still got robbed AGAIN. Then we had the gas company send a fellow by to change out the meter, new one...my time flies when you are having fun eh...I said "Weren't you just here?" and he replied, "Yes, NINE years ago...!" Yikes...anyway, he saved us a new special one and should be good for another 15 years maybe, give or take. He told Rick that same news, acreage owners getting robbed all over the area here. Nice, eh...when your neighbours feel the need to help themselves to their neighbour's possessions...whatever--hard times bring out the worst in some persons. When times get tough, the tough get meaner to keep what we got honestly as ours I suppose. :-/



So anyone wanting to subscribe to the updates for Pear-A-Dice, please e-mail me ([email protected]) with an addy you want to receive them at. I will gear up to send out the first of the ongoing posts and photo updates in a coupla days. This will only work out if I have a list of persons to send the e-mail to all at once, at one time. Back issues of having to resend out an already sent e-mail won't make it any better than posting on BYC has been. So a warning, no back issues once I start sending these out. Newbies will have to pick up the thread; as is, where is. Hope that is not too harsh but I don't really see any alternatives to resolve this.

Besides, that last post with the XXX's, that one basically just sucks without the pics to go along with all them stories <<lies, it is all LIES I say!>>, eh. Those will be the FIRST photos I'll be sending along to complete the original post. Nobody believes me otherwise...proof is in the pictures of the puddings!

Pictures, worth a 1,000 words indeed! I always say, "Don't TELL me something...SHOW me!" But then again, I also do the wordy words too...so more inclined to be a Show & Tell...

Dog and Pony Show anyone?? LMBO​

Thanks eh. For those that have sent me an e-mail addy...please expect to see: Volume one (number of years published), Issue one (first one for the year) in the next few days ... I think that is how it is done. :-/

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada