CathInfo.com

Quote from: SeanJohnson 1/31/2022, 4:57:43 AM
“The ‘J. Edgar Hoover of public health’ has presided over cataclysmic declines in public health, including an exploding chronic disease epidemic that has made the ‘Fauci generation’ -children born after his elevation to NIAID kingpin in 1984- the sickest generation in American history, and has made Americans among the least healthy citizens on the planet.  His obsequious subservience to the Big Ag, Big Food, and pharmaceutical companies has left our children drowning in a toxic soup of pesticide residues, corn syrup, and processed foods, while also serving as pincushions for 69 mandates vaccine doses by age 18 - none of them properly tested...

“Under Dr. Fauci’s leadership, the allergic, autoimmune, and chronic illnesses which Congress specifically charged NIAID to investigate and prevent, have mushroomed to afflict 54 percent of children, up from 12.8 percent when he took over NIAID IN 1984...

“What is causing this cataclysm?  Since genes don’t cause epidemics, it must be environmental toxins.

“As we shall see [Fauci’s] capacity to curry favor with these merchants of pills, powders, potions, poisons, pesticides, pollutants, and pricks has been the key to Dr. Fauci’s longevity at HHS.” (pp. xxi, xxii)

I hate reading stuff like this, particularly reading about how bad our food supply is, because frankly we are dependent on the local grocery store for our food. Here in south-central Texas, even if we could really get our act together and have the best possible garden this spring, the most we could hope for is some okra, squash, cilantro, onions, spinach, and tomatoes. You can't live on that. Our soil is what it is. We have a multi-month drought every year. We recently moved to "back-to-Eden" style gardens, but last year we discovered the hard way that pill bugs eat LIVING plants as well when they're tender and young. All that mulch has raised a huge crop of pill bugs. Before 2021 I would have told you that pill bugs were decomposers, breaking down dead things into compost. You learn something new every day! So next time we'll put out decoys, as well as tuna cans filled with water (to drown them -- it does work), and pull back the mulch from anything we transplant into the ground.

Anyhow, my point is -- we do the stuff we can. The stuff that doesn't take time. We shun all vaccines. That's an easy decision, one and done, and I believe that's a huge chunk of the damage we're talking about. And we live in the country, so the air is much cleaner than some big city, or even a medium city. And we generally avoid doctors/hospitals/Big Pharma as much as possible. We are firm proponents of "benign neglect".

But pesticide residues? I just hope they don't harm too much, because we're ingesting them every single day and we can't stop. Because of the size of our family and our lifestyle, we avail ourselves of many processed foods. Think about it: Baby Boomers didn't exactly do "mostly home cooking", and they had only 3-4 kids and sent those kids to Public School. Heck, the establishment of boxed/processed foods as a staple of the American diet happened almost completely on their watch. So my family of 9 kids, homeschooled, with all the usual household things to take care of -- yeah, we're even busier. We're still changing diapers around here and dealing with fussy babies -- while we try to homeschool (2) high schoolers and (4) other big kids. And we opted to raise our kids in the country, for various reasons including privacy and space, so taking care of 5 acres adds a bit of work as well.

And we'll leave aside the issue of "the state of the Catholic Church" in 2022 vs. years in the past. Even during the past 50 years, Trads had it better than today -- at least 95% of them had an SSPX chapel within an hours drive, on average. Today, even that is being taken away, and we're on life support in the sacraments department.

But the problem I have is: How do you grow your own food under those circuмstances? Despite having the knowledge (red-pill about Big Ag, pesticides, etc.), and the desire/ideals, I just can't do it. I can't make it work, not even in my mid-40's. It's an area of life I'm pretty ashamed of my performance in. Years ago, when we didn't have land, and just 1 child, I grew tons of vegetables/fruits in the back/front yard. We had fruit trees that produced -- and those were trees that I planted! And we only lived there less than 4 years.

Most of the online videos featuring sustainable living, growing your own food, etc. feature childless couples or at most 1-2 kids. And then there are a few super sustainable almost self-sufficient "compounds" like the Hebrew Israelites. Can't do that either; Far from having other Trad families to work with, I actually have no friends IRL. I have a few ham radio acquaintances, and that's it. In the average month, I don't talk to anyone but my immediate family, my mother-in-law, and maybe a few acquaintances like the guy who fixes our cars, or a couple guys on ham radio. Just our monthly Mass with Bp. Zendejas (or one of the priests working with him), when a few cars show up. I do enjoy talking to fellow parishioners, but they are few. And that's about it.

I thought I'd have my kids out there farming when they were old enough -- another reality check.

1. If you don't do it with them, they aren't going to get into it. Also, Nemo dat quod non habet. I'm not a farmer; so I can't easily make my kids into farmers.
2. I had no idea how busy highschool-age homeschoolers would be. I spent 6 hours a day at public school, including travel time. My kids spend more than that doing ACTUAL WORK in homeschool. No travel time or commute, no hall passing time, no time wasting, no school plays about Martin Luther King, no socializing about nothing with their peers, no terrorist or fire drills, no waiting for the teacher to deal with troublemakers and/or slow kids -- and STILL my kids probably spend more time "in school" than a public schooler.

Because we decided to take it seriously. Unlike my little brother, who did 1 hour or less of homeschooling a day. He is currently working as a cashier at Aldi's, at the tender age of 31.

My mother (who started homeschooling when I was a Junior in High School) convinced me that by taking out all the "fluff" I listed above, one could do homeschooling in 1/2 the time as public school. But apparently that isn't so. So I wasn't ready for the reality of homeschooling, I guess.

Yes, I've known families that faked homeschooling where it amounted to about an hour a day.

I think before you can turn kids into farmers, you have to foster love for growing their own things and make it fun. Plus, some of those activities may count as homeschool work.

My son takes pride in seeing his plants grow. He is 4yrs old and I always try to grow something that is exciting for him, like sunflowers or mint (we make cucuмber and mint lemonade), he also has a small apple tree and he loves harvesting. Some mornings he is the one that comes up to me asking me to go with him to check out his plants. He has nice little watering can, gloves and small tools and we do some work.

We used to have chickens until the coyotes and racoons got to them, we also had a couple of encounters with hawks trying to take a chicken or two. I have not brought chickens in again because I do not want to attract predators. The chickens were given a free range a large backyard and they would lay eggs in hiding places and makeshift nests and in the afternoon we would put them into the chicken coop. Every afternoon we would go on an egg hunt.

By the way, I'm not a farmer and my son is learning how to grow his own food along with me. He is not only learning new skills, but learning from me, how to get new skills. I think a problem with public education is that things are given to them instead of fostering curiosity and teaching them how to learn on their own.

My son loves this thing: