Yesterday went well and I’ve reduced the number of plants I have by one tray. Now to do that 10 more times so we can have our house back. Last night was also (supposedly) the last cold night of the season so for the most part, I can leave the plants outside from here on out. I’ll be getting the ones I’m keeping in their beds or buckets this weekend, and may even run to the city to get some cocoballs for my wife’s hydroponic tower. She usually eats like a picky 5-year-old and won’t eat anything I’m growing in the garden, but recently said she’d eat Caesar salads if I grew Romaine lettuce, so that’s what I’m going to do.
My neighbor was still here hanging out and chatting when the guy arrived to till our field and let me know that they have a tiller attachment for their tractor and I could use it anytime I needed. I’ll definitely be reaching out later this summer when I need to till the clover into the ground and start the next round of seeding.
Community – something I haven’t felt in many, many years, a sense of community. I sort of felt it when I was young and my family lived on a court with other young families. The kids would all run around together and play, everyone knew everyone, and it was nice – I was fortunate to be able to grow up in that environment albeit relatively briefly. It wasn’t long until all the kids grew up and everyone started going their separate ways – different cliques in school meant not hanging out with old “friends.” But it’s much different now as an adult.
I live a few miles outside a small town now, and I now know what a true sense of community is like. Moving here was a bit of a shock and as much as I thought we were prepared, I hadn’t considered many things – in particular, the equipment and machinery for maintaining acreage, along with many of the common things for homestead maintenance and management. But it didn’t take long for for the community to help – hell we had one neighbor over and offering assistance before the movers had even unloaded their first box.
One time, we had a contractor stop by to look over a couple projects, and a few weeks later he showed up with parts leftover from another job and installed a rain gutter because he knew it was a hazard. He refused any payment and said he takes any leftover supplies from his paying jobs and uses that stuff to help around the community.
I was in the hardware store getting some supplies for some projects and just casually quipped to my wife that now I needed to find a tractor with tiller attachment as the neighbor who had offered to loan us their tractor didn’t have a tiller for it. An employee overheard and offered to assist – that was the gentleman who stopped by yesterday and tilled our whole top field. He accepted payment, but kept telling me to not worry about it – it’s what neighbors do to support each other and help the community.
Community, there’s that word again.
It certainly is a feeling that is disappearing. Sure, when living in the urban sprawl, I met and talked to my neighbors, but there was never anything like this. A few years ago a road washed out during a storm – within hours supplies were being packed in and within a few days the community had rallied and had the road rebuilt.
I’ll admit that I’m not as good of a neighbor as I could be – my mind is still trapped in the framework of urban life. I’m still a bit guarded in my interactions with people, but I’m working on that. I’m still not used to the openness and lack of a nefarious motive when strangers approach me. It doesn’t “feel right” that interactions aren’t a zero-sum game here – that people help just to help, and not for any personal benefit.
Yes, this is the way that life is supposed to be lived, and I damn well am going to adjust and get used to it. Maybe I’ll stop and visit all my neighbors on the hill and offer them plants for their gardens – after all, isn’t that what a good neighbor does to help benefit their community?
Interesting Tidbits
Why DOGE Failed – “Elon Musk promised $2 trillion in cuts but delivered only a tiny portion of that total. We asked seven policy experts to explain what he got wrong.”
noyb sends Meta ‘cease and desist’ letter over AI training. European Class Action as potential next step – “Instead of allowing users to choose between saying “Yes” or “No”, Meta is claiming that is has such a ‘legitimate interest’ to just take their data for AI training. This leaves users with only the right to object (opt-out) under Article 21 GDPR. But Meta is even limiting this (statutory) right by saying that it only applies if people opt-out before the training has started.” Hopefully this will be the beginning of the end for AI companies harvesting your content and personal data to train their machines without your expressed consent.
New Orleans Police Secretly Used Prohibited Facial Recognition Surveillance for Years – “The New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) secretly received real-time, AI-generated alerts from 200 facial recognition cameras throughout the city for two years, despite a city ordinance barring generalized surveillance of the public.”
My Father Prosecuted History’s Crimes. Then He Died in One. – an interesting essay by the son of a “Nazi hunter” who died in the Lockerbie terrorist attack.
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