How did we get here?

Hello Folks,

My name is Jenaka and I live in Wyoming, in the middle of nowhere with, 7 dogs, and one horse, my grandson, his girlfriend, and two great-grandsons living also on the same property and are a great help and joy.

I posted this 2 years ago on a Rant Blog and I like to repost because it is just valid today, maybe even more so and it falls right in line with yesterdays post:

   July 30th, 2020

Partially posted by myself already on Facebook, but I am elaborating on this subject here a little more. All and everyone is welcome to leave feedback and brainstorm!

I promised myself that I would stay out of politics after this last election. It does not look like I am going to keep that promise. I and my big mouth just have to get the 2 cents worth of nonsense (or maybe not so nonsensical) into this subject.

This Caravan thing is just getting too much and I already stepped into that proverbial pile of s**t.

It seems that this is tearing our country even more apart than the last issue we had to live through. Forgotten are gay rights, forgotten are abortion issues and all the other important and not so important happenings we got all riled up over. That will show us just how important the baker is that refused to bake a cake!

But now to current issues: The Caravan, migrants, asylum seekers, invaders, and a few other descriptions I was informed off. As a fringe issue, I also like to mention the migrant, asylum seeker, invader, and other descriptions that are creating the same, if not bigger problems, in Europe.

To some folks, they are poor helpless people that only want a better life, that is not a base for asylum, for others they are people that live in fear of their life, a very valid base for asylum because they do not agree with their political climate in their own country. However, to just not agree is again not a base for asylum in a different county.

Now I ask myself if that is the case, and there are an estimated 200,000 rock-chucking, flag burning people that want to come to the USA, what is wrong with them changing that political climate, changing their country into a country they can live in? Most of them are young and healthy men, military age, and ready to fight. I think they are confused about what they are supposed to be fighting for.

I spend half of my youth in Post-War Germany, born in 1953, and there was no migration of people because life was too hard. And let me tell you: Life was very hard on the German people right after WWII.

People rolled their arm sleeves up and cleaned up the rubble, set their country on a good path again, build gardens, and raised livestock to keep going in their own country. Not only Germany but all the other countries that had extensive war damage. Yes, it took the Allied Forces to get a madman out of power, but it took the people of the respective countries to rebuild after Hitler destroyed whole countries, and The Allied Forces just about destroyed every city in Germany.

So why can we not learn from history and repeat that little exercise? Keep these people in their own country and help them get into a better situation than they are in? The Spirits only know how much these countries are getting on support from all over the world. The US sure is faithfully sending their share.

Maybe it is because they have been promised free everything in the US? Maybe they are just depending on us to take care of their every need? Or maybe they are getting paid to overrun this country.

Little voices keep popping up here and there, Soros is mentioned, the NWO is mentioned and pre-paid cards being distributed to immigrants, supposedly paid by Soros, be it here on this continent or in Europe are being brought to light.

Europe is being taken over by Muslims, all of Europe, is that our fate too? Are we being taken over by South Americans followed by Muslims? Maybe we should take that dangerous idea very seriously and learn from the Ottoman Invasion and the Ottoman Empire.

Anyone that has not read Agenda 21 in its entirety and all the follow-ups to it needs to do that. Everyone and I mean everyone needs to be aware of what the plans of the NWO are. One can not just stop and wonder what the powers there are up to.

This is the Great Seal of the United States originating in 1776. The words on the reverse side: NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM is Latin and translates into "New Order Of Ages"

All this dividing bullshit that is going on in this country is tailored to the fact that divided we fall.

Read up on that, study it, get angry, and study it some more. Only united can we survive as a free country, only united can we guarantee our future generations a free way of life. And only united can our Constitution survive without getting hacked to pieces.

Remember the Rainbow Family Clan? They only took the easiest from all believes and religions to create their own, this reminds me so much of that. Our Constitution is not an easy document to follow, but it assures each and every one of the Citizens of this Great Country to live in a free country, not to be oppressed by a handful of power-hungry families.

The way we are going about it in this country will guarantee us a take-over of NWO and our future as pawns and slaves to the NWO, that is if we are worthy of living in their eyes. Already we hear from UN leaders that a certain percentage of the world population has to vanish in order for the rest to thrive. Is it you, me, our brothers and sisters, whole ethnicity groups? Who?

This is my rant today, coming to an end, but I invite you all to give input, lots of input, and please do keep it civil.

July 29th, 2020

I am a very very active Facebooker and it keeps me in touch with friends and family all over the world.

Lately, however, Facebook is a source of unrest, discontent, and anxiety and it is not getting any better.

It is OK to have an opinion and it is OK to voice that opinion, it is not OK to attack the ones that have a different opinion and that sort of thing is happening massively on all social media platforms now.

So I decided to start this blog, voice my opinion, give some of my knowledge, and hopefully have a civilized debate with Folks that are not of my opinion or have Folks chime in and elaborate or add to what I have written.

What I am aiming for is a clean and comprehensible blog everyone can voice their opinion and add to the learning experience. We may all learn something new and begin to understand what is happening to our world.

So, I want to jump right in and start on the reason and purpose for the NWO (New World Order)

The NWO has been around for a very long time in one form or another. Mostly headed by European Royalty and Old Money, they are the top 1% of the world. Kings and Queens, Earls and Lords, and the richest of the rich have always pulled together to rule the land and the world.

Germany, England Russia, the Scandinavians, all are related through marriages that have been in one or the other country's interest. 

If we go back far enough, we will find that the Romans and the Ottoman Empire had been very much at the start of this all. All wanted a piece of this world or at that time their world,  if not all of it. Ghengis

Khan conquered most of Eurasia and Western Europe. Napoleon marched all the way from France to Russia only to be stopped by Mother Nature, to conquer and rule. The Norsemen took their life into their own hands and set sail for the Isles in the south just to take over most of them. They had only been stopped by other forces that wanted a piece of that pie at the same time.

Yes I know, I am all over the history timeline, but that is not so important in this context. What is important is the fact that all of what we experiencing right now has been tried before, many times.

Many conquered, occupied, and lost it again, many left their culture and civilization behind and all put their mark on the country they overran.

The United States of America has a double whammy against it: They came they saw and they conquered, but it was not only one country, one ruler that wanted this pie. The Spanish, the English, the French, and even the Dutch came here to create a new country in their image. They came, only to find that this country would change them into independent and free humans that wanted their live their life in a way they have never before had the chance. They took over, fought, stole, and traded, and in the end, they fought the British for freedom.

I believe the British have never forgiven the American people for that, and over the years they came to understand that if they unite and build an exclusive club with only the wealthiest and most powerful in it, they will eventually get this big Island back into their fold. You see, they been screaming and planning for this for a very long time. Plans were made and revised all the time. Yearly meetings in secret had been held and sons and daughters had been groomed to keep this going. They have been promising top positions to the likes of Angela Merkel and Obama if they destroy their country from within. Only then can the bobbleheads they created swoop in and be the saviors of the people. 

Obama gave it a good try and he had been groomed by the NWO groomers since Highschool in Hawaii. But even before Obama, the social life of the people had slowly deteriorated. Schools started to change their teachings ever so slowly, morals got corrupted with cries of freedom and self-determination. They got to every single layer in our society and the fabric that had been created at the beginning of this country started to root away, but ever so slowly and we all did not realize what was happening. We all had been proud of our newfound self-worth and freedoms we whittled away from the Government.

More in the next blog. Feel free to comment and add to this.

 

Creative Barn Building 2

It is taking shape

   Good morning Folks! Part 2 of building this Barn.

   So here we are, early morning, Ken, our permanent helper was all ready to go to work with his measuring tape, stakes and rope to create the size and who would know, Husband came out and told us to move it here and there and then it was too small. So we spend a whole morning just laying the thing out. Plans in my head had to be reworked and I just absolutely do not like when I got something already all worked out, someone has a different idea and insists that it had to be done his/her way. Frustrating! Well, I finally broke down and compromised, the building got a bigger footprint by the minute, but that was OK. We had enough material. We could do that. I swear, even the horses shook their heads in disbelieve over the foolishness we created. Digging holes and covering them up again just to dig another hole 2 feet away. then the pallet measurements did not compute, again we measured and dug more post holes.

Finally, all corners where determined and the digging to set the poles started. three-foot deep and a little bigger than the diameter of the tree trunk. Six holes, four corners and one each in the middle of the longer part of the building. In our dry and hard ground, that is a job and a half all by itself. But with a little sweat and muscle power, and water, it got done in one morning.


  Getting the trunks to the holes, however, was a different story and took some creative engineering. We rolled and moved, rolled and moved until the big end of the tree was right over the hole. Between Ken and I, we muscled it in the hole and set it up straight. While he was holding it up straight, I braced it with three brace boards. Then put the dirt back in, watered it real good and left it sitting to pack in. Watering is an essential part here in our hard clay dirt, it settles the dirt and packs tight around the trunk, much like cement would do. By the time we got all four up, the day was done, the sun was setting and we were worn out. I think the both of us fell asleep that night as soon as our heads hit the pillow. But it was a good day and a good start.

  The next morning started with me checking the poles, putting more dirt in the holes since the dirt we put in the day before had settled almost 1/2 foot and dried, and tamping it down with a heavy tamper. That was all done before Ken even showed up for work and I was ready for a nap before work even got started that day. Oh well, half a pot of coffee later, we got to work setting the first row of pallets. and determining doors. I wanted three doors, one from the tack room (that idea developed the day before with the changing in plans), one single door to the pasture and one big double dutch door into the barn from the yard. We started by getting rough door framing up that would fit the doors we got from the dump, the dutch door would have to be built. That done, we set the first row of palettes, That took a lot of moving and adjusting, but we got it done, nailed 2x4's all the way across to give it stability and set a dividing row to mark the tack room. 

A power nailer was a godsend and made things a lot easier and faster.

 Already it was looking good and we could imagine what it will look like when all the pallets are up. We figured that two rows would give us enough hight for this monster we are building. We got the Horses approval on that and called it a day. Yes, it is important to get the horses approval.

The first row of pallets well on the way to be set in place.

 As you can see in the picture above, it is starting to look like a building and we can see just how big we went with it. However, there was a hard lesson to be learned the next morning. When you live in a windy country, secure, secure and secure some more if you have only a temporary structure. We had a big windstorm coming up the night following building the west wall and it took that whole west-wall down. Thankfully nothing broke to where we could not repair it, but it took another whole day to get that wall back up and secured.

   But the two rooms are defined, big room for barn purposes, smaller room for tack and storage. In hind-side, however, I got to say that the smaller room is not big enough and the bigger room could use some extra footage too. Reckon we are never happy.

                          

Rafter poles are up and inside is taking shape

The rafters are up and secured, The Tack Room is floored and insulated with whatever we could find, mostly styrofoam I have collected from my husband's meal deliveries, then covered with the big and cut open dog food bags I also collected over the months. 7 dogs eat a lot and there are a lot of bags I had squirreled away for one or the other purpose. They all had been stored in tubs under the trailer house.

   The door came from the dump and has all the hardware still on it, so we build the doorway to fit the door and we did that with every door we put into this building. 

   Electricity came from Solar panels and a Generator, I think my biggest expense so far was the gasoline for the Genni and for screws. We tried to use screws as much as we could, mainly on structural important parts, like walls and beams. Nails will work themselves out of the wood in this area, but if you live where there is little wind, you should be OK with using the cheaper nails.

                                                       Outside is starting to take shape

OSB on the outside and it is starting to look like the building I had in my mind. These are 4X8 foot sheets and you can tell that the building will be 8-foot high. on the lower side, 10 on the high side. I decided that I really need to put new OSB up because of the strength it will and is giving to the walls. It was a bigger expense, but well worth it.

We also put on the roof and there we had it, our basic barn-shaped building.


It's time to move on to the inside and out of the sun!

The inside is starting to come together, The tack room is all separated and framed in, tools all over the place and we are having a hard time with the heat. It is only going to get hotter, so we decided we only going to work early in the morning and late in the evening. That will drag the building time out some, but it will also save us from having a heat stroke.

This is the finished tack room, ceiling all in, Walls are insulated and up, the floor is also insulated and put down. There are pallets under that  OSB that got stuffed full of insulating material.
The door was a dump find and we framed it to size. It leads to the feed and water stations for the horses.
So a little more cosmetics, some shelving, and that room will be done.






A few days later and my can good storage room is all done and I have already started to fill it up. The door is still missing and will be on there a few days after this picture was taken. I build shelving right on the wall, roll shelving on the side where I can store many cans and rotated them at the same time because I take the bottom ones out. You see in the picture below, these have been build also right on the wall               
           

Hooks are on the wall, Saddles are starting to move in and the food is getting stored. This room is about done.

The door is ready to be put on there to hide the food storage area and I decided that this tack room needs some additional insulation, so I am going to put some carpet in there.
Yes I know, crazy idea, but it will keep the cold out more.

Wyoming winters can get crazy cold.

Now we can move on to the bigger part of the Barn.
Sharon and Otto had found a big load of siding that we can use to cover the palettes on the inside and it is starting to look a lot better then what I first thought it would look like.
I ripped all pallet boards off again and we started to install the siding, Here is the north wall, we cut some rings out of an old PVC pipe and there we have storage for rakes, pitchforks, and other long-handled tools.
I put pallets on half of the floor space because I did not want the hay to sit on the floor and get rotten. The way into the tack room is also floored with pallets and siding boards on top.

                              

The west-wall is almost done with siding and the work-space I have envisioned for myself is starting to take shape.

The door from the main room in the barn to the pasture is framed and put in and soon we can dismantle the buck fence outside of that door, we now have a door to stop the horses from just walking through and escaping.

I wanted a Dutch door on there and we build one, put it on and it lasted all of one week before Curly decided it was in his way and kicked it down. So we had a metal door and adjusted the frame and put that on. One of these days I will build a solid dutch door for that frame again.

This is the west wall of the Barn, before and after I build a work table there. The multi-colored boards are actually outside siding we sourced from the dump and we got enough boards to cover all the walls in the bigger room of this building, Totally cover the OSB on the roof and have left enough left over to cover the roof of my woodshed that had been in bad shape.

W did leave spaces for breathing holes under the rafters, after all, I am planning to store Hay over the winter in there and that needs breathing space.
The workbench you see here will eventually go the whole length of that wall. All build from resourced tabletops from the dump and 2x4's that also have been resourced from different construction sites and the dump.

This is the north wall, facing the pasture/feeding station. The buck-rail fence is still up so we won't get surprised by a tool- stealing horse. Yes, I have one of them. My Scar has this thing where he takes tools out in the middle of the pasture (we talking a 20-acre space here) and literally laughs at us when we have to walk out there to retrieve the hammer or any other tool he can get his teeth on.
Two doors, one into the tack room, one into the main part of the barn. The door for the tack room is already on there, the barn ha to wait a few more days.

The north and south wall finished, well sort of.
There is still a lot of chaos going on, building materials everywhere and the big dutch door with a walk-in side door is not on there yet.
But as you can see, we got a building and the estimated cost so far is less the $900, most of that in the OSB.

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Creative Barn Building 1

The Confusion of the first few Days has begun!

Humble beginnings

    Having Horses and not a Barn is not a conducive way to store Hay and keep the horses safe. It leads to wasted feed and unhappy critters, especially here in Windy Country. The wind will blow the feed into the next county and the snow and rain will destroy what is on the ground. One of the Horses was a Houdini comeback and he got to where he wanted to go no matter how strong I build the fences or how secured I thought he was in the pasture.

   So I got this crazy idea of building a Post and Pole Hayshelter with pallet walls. The idea was to build 4 walls and a roof and use pallets as a wall to keep the hay out of the wind and save from the wet stuff that falls from the sky. I have seen that done and I thought I can do that with just a few dollars for screws and roofing.

   I had no idea how big this will end up to be. As in all my building projects, ideas come and go and most of the time, the project will be a lot bigger then it was originally planned on being.
Thankfully, where we are, we do not have to get permits and building plans for barns and sheds, so I went sort of overboard with the building.

   But first things first.
I started to collect and grab pallets wherever and whenever I had a chance. My local Lumberyard was very helpful and they had been free. They also let me take all the scrap lumber I could get on my truck, for free. Nice people and I can not praise them enough. It is a good idea to keep the Lumberyard Folks happy. Every so often I bring them a box of goodies to enjoy. It does not cost me much to bake and it keeps the guys and girls happy there. The Local ACE store was/is also a good source and so was the Feed Mill/Hardware place. We collected pallets wherever we went and brought them home. Every trip to town ended up with filling the bed of the truck with pallets.




   Over the next two months, the lot I use for firewood, filled up with odd size 2x4's, stacks and stacks of pallets (they do come in different sizes), poles and finally six huge 16-foot tree trunks, courtesy of my firewood guy. I would strongly advise setting plenty of space aside for this purpose. Things that are unloaded helter-skelter and not sorted out can magically disappear and come back when not needed anymore.

   Friends did some dumpster and dump searching and came up with all sorts of goodies that we can use, like windows and doors, siding and shingles that got thrown away, our 2 local dumps had been gold mines for us. We spend many hours collecting.  With the price of lumber, I am not too proud to find most of what I needed and use it.

Here is a very important tip: If you live in Rattlesnake or any other poisonous snake country, I would advise carrying a long and big stick. Stomp the ground with it to let them know you coming and give them time to get away. Listen for the rattle and look, look and look again.

My friends Sharon and Otto are very resourceful in finding these things and having the local Highschool in construction and them throwing a lot of good and usable lumber away, and I mean a lot of usable lumber, we struck pay dirt many times. We also checked out other construction sites and ask what they are throwing away and if it was usable we ask if we could have it. Most times they did let us loaded up because they did not want to cart it off to the dump. Sometimes they even helped us load.

   Slowly my yard filled up and we had to stack things outside the yard.
I believe most of the work was in finding materials and stacking them according to size and usability. After collecting about 2 months, here and there, we thought we are ready to start building. Sorting by size and shape is very important, you really do not want to search for a particular piece in a 5-foot tall stack of lumber. It may seem silly at first and whoever is helping will make fun of you, but come building time, you be happy you did this. My yard looked like a Tornado went through it many times and every evening, we stacked and restacked just to get a grip on the materials we had available.

   Screws and Nails had to be purchased and I did that over the previous 3 months, little by little. On a tight budget, that is not a cheap thing. But we got it done. Every time someone asked me to do something for them and what I would want in return, I told them I wanted a box of screws, nails corner brackets or whatever else they are willing to give. It was a bartering fest at its finest. I bartered for anything that I could use in building this for work or chore runs. I bartered for beadwork and sewing, for baking bread and cooking at gatherings. Whatever came up, I bartered.

                               

  The above pictures are the first tree/corner post that went in and the sort of frame for the door into the pasture. You can also see the four-legged critics that hung around just to make sure we do the right thing.

More in the next post. The construction has started.

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You too can have a Good Life on a Limited Budget

"Making Due" 

is a blog about living in the country on a limited budget.

You too can have a comfortable Life!

There is no need for anyone to stay on the outside looking in! Well, maybe it would be better if Curly could not come in the Tack Room!

I will show you, over the course of several, ok many, blogs, how to use free or almost free resources to create a better Life and extra income!

 Many of us have to scrape every penny to make it through the month,
I can relate to that very intimately, and hard times creep up quite frequently.

How we handle these times is totally up to us individually, but we all can learn from each other.

My Husband became very ill and eventually disabled in 2000. We lost our business, we lost our house and we kept going.

Others have enough but there is no room
for extras.
Most of the time we feel more like we are on the outside looking in and can not open the door to get in.

It can be a very helpless and intimidating feeling. Much like my Curly Horse in the picture above.
 I do have got to let you know that I learned a lot from this Horse. He was very strong-willed and found ways to get what he wanted.

But there is a pot of gold (maybe not gold, only butter for the bread) at the end of every Rainbow, all we have to do is look hard enough.


This blog is being created to help you find that Rainbow, find solutions to get over that hump that is in your way of a goal.

   My goal with this blog is to make life a little easier on the people that are struggling every month and also for the ones that do not have the Dollars to lay in massive amounts of food and other commodities that are necessary for daily life.

My family has survived on some very creative and unusual actions, on hard work and sweat and sometimes on straight hope and prayer. sometimes with the help of good friends I will ever be thankful for. 

I am here to share these experiences with you and to maybe help make life a little easier for some.

   Some of my posts could get very long since I am known to ramble on about the things 

I feel very passioned about. 

So stick with me through this, it will eventually all make sense and you may even get a piece of wonderful knowledge from me and collectively from the people that are willing to write and discuss my writing and experiences.

 Secretly, I am hoping for massive responses and eventually a community of like-minded people.

   Everyone is invited to voice their concerns and opinions in the comment section, give me your tips and tricks for making it through the month. I am not opposed to creative criticism. 

Together we can do this, we can actually support each other with tips and tricks to stretch that last dollar a little further. Fact is, I am asking my readers to get involved with my postings, add to them or correct me if I am wrong. There will be no hard feelings if you do.

 My Grandmother always told me that a day without learning at least one new thing is a day of life wasted.

   If you believe that we can and will be able to help each other, subscribe to this blog, let me hear your take on my writing, your opinion (yes I would like that very much), and let me know how you get along in life or even what I could have done to be better.

Cloudy skies will eventually turn back to bright sunshine, all we have to do is believe and then make it happen.




   I will add to the pages from time to time, so come by often and see what is new and interesting.

   As a start, I will write a multi-page blog about the barn we build with little money and much ingenuity. Click on the Barn links and it will bring you to those pages and the adventure of frugal barn building.
You find the links to them below.
Next will be my Herbal blog where I will explain 24 common healing Herbs and Spices that you probably already have in your kitchen.

  Please subscribe so you won't miss out on the series.

Please be kind, leave a note to let me know you been here and maybe even subscribe to the blog so you won't miss out on future postings.