An eclectic mix to start the morning. Thanx. Sorry 'bout Dog #3. Congrats to Husbandmouth. Did that for a few years. In the prehistoric era. When truckers were cool. (As opposed to being "a small group of racist, misogynistic dissidents"- J. Trudeau)
Around here they're still pretty damn cool. Our favorite junkyard/scrap place is run by a retired trucker and he has a zillion cool stories about his life on the road.
Was looking for you yesterday and now you made my morning! Happy for Gutterhus😀. I have left healthcare to return to food service and tending bar (in my upper middle age years). Your flag is beautiful and seems like a hard worker. Veterinarians are highway robbers but what can we do? All my kids are canine.
Thankfully our regular vet is quite reasonable, but they were full up today and redirected us to emergency care. Fortunately, their policy is to give us itemized costs up front, as they go, so I can reject the diagnostics I don't want to waste my money on. So it could be worse.
My experience of many vets is that, like physicians, they are quick to overprescribe and overtreat (so they can overbill). My dogs visit the vet as infrequently as possible and are insanely healthy and strong (but then again, live on a farm with literally acres to roam on and an entirely homemade diet of fresh food since birth).
over 600$ this week to clean out, stitch, ( and re-stitch after she de-coned and ripped back open) an open wound my cat chewed into her inner rear leg/groin area.
I've paid less each for all of the last 3 cars I bought.
not being willing to deal with her having to suffer from gangrene or whatever else she could've ended up with from having her innards open to the air overrides my attachment to my last month of over the table pay though. maxed out two credit cards for the two visits...
I find large animal vets less robbery and far less likely to play on emotions than those treating pets. I love my dogs, but they are not my babies - which surely will land me in puppy prison. Long ago my dog had cancer. Because I did not want to subject her to cancer treatment - the vet decided I was some sort of monster. Meanwhile, ewe with gestational diabetes and vet tells me how to deal with it and I do what is right without wailing and gnashing of vet teeth (short version: mama died, 2 of three lambies lived).
Truckers are way cool. Many of the hauling companies in the rural parts of Sweden (75% of the country I think) approve of the drivers customising the company rigs, personalising them with art, decorations and so on, because many of the bosses are former drivers themselves. The corporate clone-look is frowned upon as "not the real thing" by many.
One of my best friend's father was such a driver, and man could he tell tall tales to make your ears burn no matter how much a hardcase one might fancy oneself, especially since he could speak both docker's cant, chimney sweeper slang and an odd blend of prison slang, yiddish and gypsy language. He had that body shape where a man is large without being tall, and rather than a waist has developed an equator. Snus, handrolled smokes and chewing tobacco. Always a friendly word of advice, to the tune of "If stings, wash it: if it Burns, see a doc. And tell the lady in question about it."
Brought his sons and daughter up right too. "Never buy anything on a loan or a lease, unless it's a house. And then pay it off to the [politically incorrect term for bankers] fast as you can, even if you have to eat dog food! Never go into debt!"
It's very true about vets, what you write. When one of our old (now dead for two years) dogs needed surgery for a big tumour hanging out in a skinpouch between her ass and bitch parts (size of a man's fist, grew that big in two months) I had a great bloody row with the secretary at the clinic, because when we came to pick her up - nails gnawed off to my elbows as she was 12 years old and could of died when going under - the expletive expletive of the run off of a sailor and dock whore refused to take my money.
And standing there waving a wad of the eq. of $1400 in her studid face roaring: "My money not good enough for you? Huh? Why in Hel not, why! Tell me you mother---- it went on like that until one of their accountants from two floors up came down to see what the bloody ruckus was about.
Yong lady, maybe 25, good looking if you're umarried (I'm not): "Is there a problem?"
"Yeah, I can't get my dog (my wife was sitting on the floor crying by now, that dog was like the daughter we never had to her) back because this lots of swears won't tak my money!"
"Oh that's no problem, let me handle this."
Five minutes later we walk out the door with the dog in tow, happy as a puppy. It's a mercy I'm not in jail for murder.
What a cool character your friend's father was. Thanks for the fantastic story. I particularly appreciate the wisdom he raised his children with: it was exactly the same kind of fiscal responsibility my parents drilled into me from a VERY young age- I started having an allowance very young, I want to say maybe 4 years old, a tiny amount but it gave me a practical exercise in keeping and saving money and 'when it's gone, it's gone.' It got my husband and I into a home when virtually all of our peers were approaching middle age as permanent renters or had lucked into taking over deceased parents' houses. We threw extra money at our principal every chance we got when money was good, which was probably the only reason we were able to make a cash buy to move out of NY last year, which was a desperate, now-or-never escape.
On the subject of vets, that was yet another casualty of civilization we suffered in NYC; all our local vets stopped allowing people into the buildings with their animals. We had to be met outside in our cars (which we were asked NOT to exit), talked to through a window, and our sick or injured animals led or carried away from us into a strange place where we could neither supervise nor question what was going on. Because COVID.
We did pretty much the same, only a couple of years before Covid struck. Only not "Escape from New York" obviously. We had for a number of years lived in a kind of collective, with a couple of simple rules: stay out of people's rooms, pay your share of next month's bills in avdance and do anything which annoys any one else. Simple and basic. No BS like "this shelf in the fridge is for vegan food" or "I feel threatened by the way you sit", such people were vetted.
Due to stuff happening (me finally getting the message that work was getting to me insuch a way that it was either get out of Dodge or climb a clocktower was one such thing) we had to up sticks and leave. The wife found an ad for a house in the area my family comes from - and by chance or providence the price was such that my savings covered the down payment and the cost of moving. Her dad (yet another of those men who shuns debt like the plague) could stand as bondsman for the bank. Our house cost $35 000 and swedish law requires buyer to pay 10% immediately, to curb specualation in real estate, it being a real problem in the cities.
So my poor brother, 12 years younger, drove the lorry with all our stuff on December 23, 850 kilometers, helped with the unloading, spent the night, and then drove back to return the car (and brother lives in the same area we moved from anyway). That's some christmas gift, that is. Sun sets at about 15:00 hours that time of year. 15:30 it's pitch black. And half the way it was snowing heavily. -20C outside, allmost all our plants had withered inside the lorry.
Soon as we could we payed off the bank. It was like remiving a stone from my chest I didn't even know was there, that's how it felt, and best of all the old dogs (the female mentioned above, an eight breed mix and her male, an alsacian/golden retriever got to live out their last years here in the wild. I'll always get a tear in my eye when I think of how he looked at me when he realised we weren't just visiting, we actually lived here.
Sory, misting up a bit here, but that dog saved my life.
>> I love the subtle, unrelenting assault on all things CDC, every time.
Well, I never thought a distant, government advisory agency would suddenly gain the authority to dictate literally every dimension of my life and get to pretend it didn't. "They're just guidelines," they bleat, "we can't help it if literally everyone bases enforceable restrictions and mandates on their apparent scientific authority."
The progression by which CDC "recommendations" become the justification for stripping millions of their livelihoods and forcing experimental poisons into us has every bit the frustrating unfalsifiability of a Church justifying the every action of kings.
An eclectic mix to start the morning. Thanx. Sorry 'bout Dog #3. Congrats to Husbandmouth. Did that for a few years. In the prehistoric era. When truckers were cool. (As opposed to being "a small group of racist, misogynistic dissidents"- J. Trudeau)
Around here they're still pretty damn cool. Our favorite junkyard/scrap place is run by a retired trucker and he has a zillion cool stories about his life on the road.
Safe travels to hubby. Way to make it happen at Mouthfarm.
Yes to IMI Desert Eagle vid please.
Was looking for you yesterday and now you made my morning! Happy for Gutterhus😀. I have left healthcare to return to food service and tending bar (in my upper middle age years). Your flag is beautiful and seems like a hard worker. Veterinarians are highway robbers but what can we do? All my kids are canine.
Thankfully our regular vet is quite reasonable, but they were full up today and redirected us to emergency care. Fortunately, their policy is to give us itemized costs up front, as they go, so I can reject the diagnostics I don't want to waste my money on. So it could be worse.
My experience of many vets is that, like physicians, they are quick to overprescribe and overtreat (so they can overbill). My dogs visit the vet as infrequently as possible and are insanely healthy and strong (but then again, live on a farm with literally acres to roam on and an entirely homemade diet of fresh food since birth).
over 600$ this week to clean out, stitch, ( and re-stitch after she de-coned and ripped back open) an open wound my cat chewed into her inner rear leg/groin area.
I've paid less each for all of the last 3 cars I bought.
not being willing to deal with her having to suffer from gangrene or whatever else she could've ended up with from having her innards open to the air overrides my attachment to my last month of over the table pay though. maxed out two credit cards for the two visits...
but whatcha gonna do.
I find large animal vets less robbery and far less likely to play on emotions than those treating pets. I love my dogs, but they are not my babies - which surely will land me in puppy prison. Long ago my dog had cancer. Because I did not want to subject her to cancer treatment - the vet decided I was some sort of monster. Meanwhile, ewe with gestational diabetes and vet tells me how to deal with it and I do what is right without wailing and gnashing of vet teeth (short version: mama died, 2 of three lambies lived).
Truckers are way cool. Many of the hauling companies in the rural parts of Sweden (75% of the country I think) approve of the drivers customising the company rigs, personalising them with art, decorations and so on, because many of the bosses are former drivers themselves. The corporate clone-look is frowned upon as "not the real thing" by many.
One of my best friend's father was such a driver, and man could he tell tall tales to make your ears burn no matter how much a hardcase one might fancy oneself, especially since he could speak both docker's cant, chimney sweeper slang and an odd blend of prison slang, yiddish and gypsy language. He had that body shape where a man is large without being tall, and rather than a waist has developed an equator. Snus, handrolled smokes and chewing tobacco. Always a friendly word of advice, to the tune of "If stings, wash it: if it Burns, see a doc. And tell the lady in question about it."
Brought his sons and daughter up right too. "Never buy anything on a loan or a lease, unless it's a house. And then pay it off to the [politically incorrect term for bankers] fast as you can, even if you have to eat dog food! Never go into debt!"
It's very true about vets, what you write. When one of our old (now dead for two years) dogs needed surgery for a big tumour hanging out in a skinpouch between her ass and bitch parts (size of a man's fist, grew that big in two months) I had a great bloody row with the secretary at the clinic, because when we came to pick her up - nails gnawed off to my elbows as she was 12 years old and could of died when going under - the expletive expletive of the run off of a sailor and dock whore refused to take my money.
And standing there waving a wad of the eq. of $1400 in her studid face roaring: "My money not good enough for you? Huh? Why in Hel not, why! Tell me you mother---- it went on like that until one of their accountants from two floors up came down to see what the bloody ruckus was about.
Yong lady, maybe 25, good looking if you're umarried (I'm not): "Is there a problem?"
"Yeah, I can't get my dog (my wife was sitting on the floor crying by now, that dog was like the daughter we never had to her) back because this lots of swears won't tak my money!"
"Oh that's no problem, let me handle this."
Five minutes later we walk out the door with the dog in tow, happy as a puppy. It's a mercy I'm not in jail for murder.
What a cool character your friend's father was. Thanks for the fantastic story. I particularly appreciate the wisdom he raised his children with: it was exactly the same kind of fiscal responsibility my parents drilled into me from a VERY young age- I started having an allowance very young, I want to say maybe 4 years old, a tiny amount but it gave me a practical exercise in keeping and saving money and 'when it's gone, it's gone.' It got my husband and I into a home when virtually all of our peers were approaching middle age as permanent renters or had lucked into taking over deceased parents' houses. We threw extra money at our principal every chance we got when money was good, which was probably the only reason we were able to make a cash buy to move out of NY last year, which was a desperate, now-or-never escape.
On the subject of vets, that was yet another casualty of civilization we suffered in NYC; all our local vets stopped allowing people into the buildings with their animals. We had to be met outside in our cars (which we were asked NOT to exit), talked to through a window, and our sick or injured animals led or carried away from us into a strange place where we could neither supervise nor question what was going on. Because COVID.
We did pretty much the same, only a couple of years before Covid struck. Only not "Escape from New York" obviously. We had for a number of years lived in a kind of collective, with a couple of simple rules: stay out of people's rooms, pay your share of next month's bills in avdance and do anything which annoys any one else. Simple and basic. No BS like "this shelf in the fridge is for vegan food" or "I feel threatened by the way you sit", such people were vetted.
Due to stuff happening (me finally getting the message that work was getting to me insuch a way that it was either get out of Dodge or climb a clocktower was one such thing) we had to up sticks and leave. The wife found an ad for a house in the area my family comes from - and by chance or providence the price was such that my savings covered the down payment and the cost of moving. Her dad (yet another of those men who shuns debt like the plague) could stand as bondsman for the bank. Our house cost $35 000 and swedish law requires buyer to pay 10% immediately, to curb specualation in real estate, it being a real problem in the cities.
So my poor brother, 12 years younger, drove the lorry with all our stuff on December 23, 850 kilometers, helped with the unloading, spent the night, and then drove back to return the car (and brother lives in the same area we moved from anyway). That's some christmas gift, that is. Sun sets at about 15:00 hours that time of year. 15:30 it's pitch black. And half the way it was snowing heavily. -20C outside, allmost all our plants had withered inside the lorry.
Soon as we could we payed off the bank. It was like remiving a stone from my chest I didn't even know was there, that's how it felt, and best of all the old dogs (the female mentioned above, an eight breed mix and her male, an alsacian/golden retriever got to live out their last years here in the wild. I'll always get a tear in my eye when I think of how he looked at me when he realised we weren't just visiting, we actually lived here.
Sory, misting up a bit here, but that dog saved my life.
"Our septic field apparently has all the integrity of the CDC..." 😂😂😂 Nice. I love the subtle, unrelenting assault on all things CDC, every time.
Sorry about the dog.
People are still doing the covid thing and masks, huh? I saw doofus walking his dog again this morning, still N95'd up.
https://bherr.substack.com/p/the-walking-dead?s=w
>> I love the subtle, unrelenting assault on all things CDC, every time.
Well, I never thought a distant, government advisory agency would suddenly gain the authority to dictate literally every dimension of my life and get to pretend it didn't. "They're just guidelines," they bleat, "we can't help it if literally everyone bases enforceable restrictions and mandates on their apparent scientific authority."
The progression by which CDC "recommendations" become the justification for stripping millions of their livelihoods and forcing experimental poisons into us has every bit the frustrating unfalsifiability of a Church justifying the every action of kings.
BTW I suspect your local doofus is broken and will leave that thing on forever. I don't see a way back for a lot of people anymore.