Nothing to Do ??? BS !!! Part II

Nothing to Do ??? BS !!! Look Around. Do it. Part II

Well back to one thing leading to another.

Let me start with my own house, my self, my neighborhood, my county.

Throughout the summer my garden demanded a lot of work, I had learned a lot from last year and tried some new things.  Some from reading but mainly talking with neighbors and farmers in my area.

The harvest was great.  I was able to freeze green beans, corn and Turnips and turnip greens.

I also did my first canning.  I managed to can 15 half pints of Strawberry Jam, 7 half pints of Grape Jam, 7 quarts of carrots, only 3 quarts of tomatoes along with 3 half pints of tomato paste.  Along with that I have roughly a year’s supply of potatoes and onions.  Along with a few parsnips of which I am the proudest.  I had been trying to grow those for 4 years and never even a single one till now.  This time about 15 grew to maturity out of about 100.  They are still in the ground, as they get better tasting once they feel some frost.

My Broccoli came out great.  Grew my first watermelon and it was sweet along with a bunch of acorn and summer squash and my first spaghetti squash, I had it for dinner last night with some butter and brown sugar, it was excellent.

My wood again is all cut and split ahead of winter, racked and tarped – enough for two years.  This is now the 2^nd year I’ve managed that.

This Thanksgiving I will indeed give thanks.

My job as Road Commissioner has the added blessing of giving me a reason to get out and meet people from throughout the county.  Forgive me if I spend a little extra time with those that farm or garden.  Believe me, I’ve been traveling some pretty small two tracks finding roads, places and people I didn’t know.

Much as I did in Muskegon, I’m spreading out across the county meeting people and seeing the different areas of Oceana County.  Kind of one person, experience leading to another.  

I’m also going to the different township meetings.  While I hear a lot of complaints about the roads, the people are usually pretty polite about it and seem happy that I came out to see them.   They after all are the people who know (their) roads better than anyone.  At some of the outlying township meetings I have been the only person in the audience.  In one Township the Supervisor said that I was the first Road Commissioner to actually sit in on one of their meetings since he could remember.  I felt good about that.

This just reinforces my idea that what we need to help us change things in the big picture is to start the change at the bottom or local level and working with the next level on up the ladder.  This way generates a groundswell instead of a "flash in the pan".  Getting on a township board is relatively easy and is a great place to start to learn how government works.  

However it takes some work and then time actually doing it, but speaking for myself who thought it would be easy, I’m learning from the Road Commission that there is a lot to learn and then of course the politics of the job comes into play and that is another skill one learns from the doing and I think it's worth it. 

Remember starting out small is a great way to begin to make a difference, especially if you make a mistake or make a wrong decision, this is where it will affect the fewest number of people.  Before you start on a high horse about mistakes – take note you as well as I are human, we all are and humans and we all do make mistakes, in fact that is how we seem to learn best.

Out in my townships, I've been meeting smaller farmers that take the whole idea of self-sufficiency back to a level that it was meant to be.  These are the entrepreneurs that know what government regulations are all about and how they can hamstring a start up and small to midsize business.  It still surprises me that many of them vote Democrat.  This is where the conservative message needs to be spread.  This is where it will be of the most help to the people that need it desperately.

Perhaps if more legislators got out into the weeds of their districts and met these fledgling entrepreneurs vs. the big companies/donners,  they too might learn from them the true cost of over regulation. 

One family farm (the Wrights) raises chickens and lamb for sale, cattle for themselves along with other wild fowl.  They also grow a lot of farmer’s market produce which they sell in person locally and as far away as Chicago.  It is great to see how the whole family pitches in.  One boy specializes in the produce and with the help of the rest has erected a couple of hoop houses to prolong the growing/sales season.   Another boy raises lamb and has learned to shear them pretty well.  That single skill has allowed him to travel as far away as Colorado for sheep shearing competitions from  which he was hired to shear some sheep there and the whole thing paid for itself and then some.

Last time I checked they had a heard of over 30 sheep.  They also raise some pigs, and a horse or two

.

Another similar farming family I've met just down the road from me are the Hendrions.  They raise a lot of chickens in chicken tractors.  This is a method of range feeding chickens enclosed in a small floorless “coop/tractor” that you move ahead each day to provide fresh forage for these “broilers”.  To further this, Mr. Hendrion and his family built a brand new FDA approved chicken processing plant on their property.  The whole craziness of government regulations really hits home when one is confronted directly with this kind of process.  Mr Hendrion said that the State and Federal regulations were pretty straight forward and he really didn’t have much of a headache until he met up with the township and their interpretation of the regs.  They caused him a lot of grief he said.  The grief came from not understanding the regs and what he was doing.

The whole “Chicken Tractor” movement was started by Joel Salatin who has written many books about self-sufficiency on the small family farm.  One of his books that points out problems of the interface between the government and individuals is aptly titled “EverythingI Want to Do Is Illegal”.

Also since my last post as Chair of the County Republicans we put on our Annual Brat Fry.  While I tried some new things to boost attendance from within the community, they didn't seem to work.  The food was great and our speakers Sen. Goeff Hansen, and Rep. Jon Bumstead were good, but the turnout was below what I was hoping for.  The excuse of it being a non election year has some validity but I wanted to see an increase at all our event, all excuses aside.  We need to come up with a new way to get people to come out.

Along the same lines, we held our 2^nd “Adopt a Highway” cleanup hosted by the Republican Party and that went very well.  Rep. Bumstead was there and a group from Ferry Township showed up.  I had gone to their township meeting and let them know we would be cleaning up part of M-20 in their area, and 4 of them showed up.

One thing continually leads to another if you let it and keep an open and flexible mind.

I’m also trying to set up a multi-county Republican bash with US Senate Candidate TerriLynn Land as the guest speaker.

I’vw just started thinking of starting a Conservative Movie Night and feature movies like Hating Breitbart, and some Reagan flicks.  Need to find a place etc.  This idea came from the Unleashed movie night in Hart sponsored by the Baptist Church.  As with the Cozy Conservative Corner we continue to have, I hope to promote unity of conservatives not disunity.

So from the Bottom Up I continue to let one thing lead to the next and see where it takes me.

My new signature.

Regards, Live Dangerously be a Liberal Conservative

PS.  For an explanation of the reason for adding the word Liberal see this post in my other blog.
http://conservativeinmuskegon.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-outsourcing-of-americandream.html

See the last Part the PS.

Nothing to Do ??? BS !!! Look Around. Do it. Part I

This blog is to catch you up on what I've been doing since early Spring, mainly in politics.

There are a lot of pictures to break up the legnth of this post.

There hasn't been much down time in my life as a retired person, I'll tell you that much.

First a recap from just before I moved to Hart till this early spring.

If you know me, you know I'm a transplant from the "Little House in the Hood" of downtown Muskegon, to the "Little House in the Wood" of Oceana County. I've lived here now going on 3 years in a small beautiful house on 20 acres. I really do love it here.

This post is about what I've done as an individual person along with my new friends. I'll let you decide whether what I've done has made a difference.

The first thing I did was to start up a weekly breakfast coffee clutch for conservatives. I did this actually before I moved up to Hart. Our first meeting was at Morat's bakery in Hart at which 4 people including myself showed up. Pictured above. This was a copy of the successful Carmen's Group coffee clutch I and Jim Riley started 2 years prior to that in Downtown Muskegon and if I might add, both are going strong to this date without a break. Muskegon's next meeting will mark 267 consecutive Thursday morning Carmen meetings and 141 consecutive meetings of Hart's Cozy Conservative Corner. This tells me that there is a desire out there for the conservatives to get together.

I always remind myself that if what I do doesn’t catch on, it is because I did it wrong not that there isn’t the desire by the public.

The idea for this “coffee clutch” came from an article Peggy Noonan wrote about how a single guy, Grover Norquist was responsible for the Republican Revolution back when Newt and the boys wondering what to do in the minority. Noonan said it started with Grover setting up a Conservative "Center Right" weekly breakfast in DC and it soon became a focal point for the Angst out there for change. Well I stopped what I was doing and said I can do that where I live. I did, then I moved and did it again.

Our Cozy Conservative Corner in Hart is every Tuesday morning 8:00 AM; at La Fiesta downtown Hart. All are welcome. If you are a conservative socially or otherwise or think you might be, you will be welcomed. Dutch treat of course - we are conservatives after all. The purpose is not to build the Republican party, or the Tea Party or any religious or other conservative thing, the purpose is to gather conservatives over good food and fun to explore what we have in common – and hopefully figure out what to do about it that helps us all.  As they say a rising tide floats all boats.

And here let me be blunt, even hard. The people who fight amongst themselves are cowards. They are too afraid to fight the real enemy, which is the "Organized Left" and simply withdraw to live in a cocoon made up of snappy catch phrases and all the gimmicks of ideologues of the right and the left.

Andrew Breitbart was not such a person; he would wade into it with anyone from the far left and argue with them, as the new terminology goes he demanded the right “Stand their Ground”. The last thing he did was put out a movie “Occupy Unmasked”, in which he debunked the Occupy Movement as a spontaneous affair. He showed how it was run by the unions and how they bussed in people and got all the far left groups together. The best part was footage of him wading into the Occupy LA scene yelling in their faces to “behave yourselves”. The movie is available on Netflix.

Andrew Breitbart had great success; we lost a valiant warrior with his passing.

Well forgive me for diverging, back to what I’ve been doing.

Then through the people I met at both the Cozy Conservative Corner (CCC) and the Oceana County Republican Party, I organized the first ever Oceana Tea Party. I couldn’t have planned it better as the CCC had as its first members, the leadership of the Republican Party and I was the leader of the Tea Party, so it worked out as long as I made sure the meeting didn’t turn into one or the other.

I had great success with the Tea Party and got some great speakers including our State Senator and Representative. We also had a debate with all the 7 candidates for the US Senate in Hart.

I stepped down after a year to set a precedent and the Tea Party is going strong to this date. Below is a picture of our own version of throwing some Tea into “Hart Lake” at our 3rd annual “March to the Park”.

During my tenure as Chair of the Oceana Tea Party I was always pushing the idea of getting into politics at the local level. I called it “Bottom Up Politics” after the name of this blog. At about the time I stepped down, my plans crystallized into running for County Road Commissioner. Below is a pic of my sign and slogan, Put a Carr on the Road --- Commission”.

Below is a pic of me living up to my slogan, as I’m checking out a broken culvert.

I won with the backing of the Republican Party faithful and the friends I made in the Tea Party.

Next came the County Republican Convention at which our long time chair decided to step down and I was the one who filled the vacuum.

Let me make it clear that the reason all this happened was not because I was the sharpest tool in the shed, but because I always tried to think “What can I do today”, not “Who is doing something wrong today”.  I then always followed through and “Jumped in”. I’m a firm believer that we need to start doing and then learn from that experience. No one is perfect and no plan by man is perfect and the only thing that matters in the end is what we do, not what we talked about doing.

To show how interconnected things are; the fact that I first started blogging then the fact that through blogging I met the Muskegon County Clerk whom I volunteered unasked to help in her re-election bid, and all of that got me into the Muskegon Republican party and raised my standing there. The fact that I started the web site for them and this blog and later a 5 county Republican blog helped not only in the Muskegon, but the other surrounding counties of Lake, Mason, Oceana, and Newaygo. then the fact that I started to go to their meetings helped me also. The fact that a State Rep from Hart (100th) decided to run for the Senate in the 34th which included most of the above districts brought him to read a blog I made about the struggles of the East Muskegon Fair. As I was sitting at that picnic table talking with the Pancake makers I got a phone call and it was the State Rep. Goeff Hansen who was just pulling into the area and wanted to know how to get there and that he wanted to meet me.

That was the beginning of my relationship with Senator Hansen. Yes he did win. I like to think I had something to do with it. Like I told him, I would be happy to introduce him around to some of the small shots I knew from blogging but he would have to get to know the big guys himself. It soon became an obbession for me to help him get elected. It was because I was a little dispirited after Karen Bui our Musk. County Clerk lost her election in which I had helped. I was more determined to do what I could to help Goeff over the finish line in first place. I did all I could, including inviting him to Carmen’s Group, to Tea Party Meetings, introduced him to Karen Bui who was the head of the Black Women’s Caucus in Musk. I also introduced him to the owners of the new “Mia and Grace” restaurant and they hit it off as their idea was gourmet “farm to table” and Goeff knew the farm and the grocery business. Also the owner and manager at Carmen’s restaurant fell in love with him.

Between those two races I must have gone to 50 parades sometimes 2 a day, year in and year out.  I've put up yard signs and gone door to door. 

The point I’m making is that all those little things a person does are really very interconnected with each other and they tend to feed off each other if you give them a chance.  First though, you have to take that first step.

Also luck plays a part. It was really just a coincidence that the house I found to buy was in Oceana County. Pure chance, kind of a last ditch shot in the dark.

Now to early spring, the pic below is the last of the ice on my little pond, which over flowed and is just now back within its banks.

Then the next pic reminded me that I live in Mi. as a blizzard happened the next day, but it was winters last gasp and spring had sprung.

Still the annual Ocean Tea Party’s “March to the Park” was a cold affair as we again threw our Tea into the Harbor, well ok Lake.

Below is a pic of Newaygo County Chair Sam Chansler at their Lincoln Day Dinner.

A next pic is of a CCC breakfast.

Next my first asparagus shoot and my roto tiller action in my garden. By now my garden was planted and starting to sprout.

The Hart Parade was also gearing up and I was there to help Senator Hansen and Rep. Bumstead.
Below are pics from that event.

This year is the start of my sixth parade season, Man have I given out a lot of candy. !!! LOL

This marks the end of “Nothing to Do?” Part I. More to follow. Shortly.

So don't tell me there is nothing to do.
Better yet give me a call and I'll hook you up with something to do.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be a Conservative

Cory Booker/Chris Christi

Cory Booker/Chris Christi.

I first heard of this guy when he won the Mayor ship of Newark NJ. He made a splash in the news and I followed up with some research on him. Wow, this was a guy after my own heart. Booker was a fighter for most of the things I believe in. He is a Democrat and I’m a Republican and a Conservative. Sooooo-How can this be?

You watch the video “Street Fight” and maybe you’ll see what I mean.

-----Link-----

http://www.amazon.com/Street-Fight-Film-Marshall-Curry/dp/B002SAMMLU

---------------

Irony is dripping here; especially after the 2012 election.

Is Mayor Booker a community organizer, Ivy League educated lawyer? Yes he is. Is he just another Barack Obama? A resounding no.

If anything I would compare him to Rudy Giuliani when Rudy was Mayor of NYC.

Cory campaigned for Obama but he was not afraid to stand up for what he believed. If you remember the hot water he found himself in when he took the Obama campaign to task for trying to smear Romney for being a venture capitalist. Not only did he think the smear tactic had no place in the campaign but he actually said that venture capitalists were a necessary and good part of the system. Mr. Booker actually said this about the electioneering of both sides.

“This kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides,” Booker said. “It’s nauseating to the American public. Enough is enough. Stop attacking private equity. Stop attacking Jeremiah Wright.” (Italics added).

The reason I’m writing this is in reference to my previous blog about how the Republicans need to have a change of attitude, how they need to face the facts of the last election. How we will not do well until we start to practice what we preach. How we need to show how relevant our message is in all communities. We need to do this by doing what we talk about by living up to our ideals. We are judged by our actions and how they match our talk. All people are.

-----previous post link-----

http://bottomuppolitics.blogspot.com/2012/11/virtual-vs-real-world.html

---------------------------------

Mr. Booker has constantly lived up to his talk. Throughout his career he has done good deeds as well as talked about them. Several instances come to mind. A constituent twitted about how an older relative needed his walk shoveled. Cory went and did it; others picked up on it and shoveled others out. At a fire Cory burned his hands and suffered smoke inhalation rescuing someone from a fire. During this latest Sandi crisis, he’s offered to put people up in his house. We would never expect to see President Obama do this, even in his earlier days. I just cannot even picture it. Romney I can, because he has shown several selfless actions of this sort.

Be that as it may, Cory Booker has cut Newark’s deficit drastically, he has cut the crime rate drastically, and he has given his constituents a choice in education. His education plan was so exceptional that NJ. Governor Chris Christi put him in charge of a reform program on education for the state.

I just reordered the film “Street Fight” from Netflix. Watch it I dare you.

With all the news about Governor Christie and Hurricane Sandi and lately about all the rumors of Booker running against Christi for the Governorship; watching the movie and doing some research, the back-story will become clearer. This is a story of two straight talking pragmatists from different parties. Either way and the best part of that conflict will be that in the end either one will continue working to actually fix what’s wrong and not just talk about it.

This is called leadership, this is what people want. I hate taxes, but if I see something being done constructive with them, I hate them less, hence I hate the people in charge of taxes less. On the other hand I hate it when a government benefit of mine is cut, but if I can see that this is happening for good reason and being done fairly, I hate the benefit cutters less.

While all the rest of you pure of hearters continue to dump on Christi for the Sandi/Obama thing, and while the other side dumps on Booker for his bucking the Democrat machine, something is getting done in NJ and Newark. Something all the talking in the world did little to change till Booker and Christi took the bull by the horns and fought a tough battle against an entrenched cronyism both within and without their parties and to battle this was always outside of their comfort zones.

I too now need to start doing. Our Party needs to start doing. In my opinion all this negative talk including impeachment and all the rest is playing into the hands of our enemies. It used to be that it was mainly the Democrats who when they lost the argument would use personal attacks and smears, I hate to see us stoop to such levels. If we believe our message is so true then we need to practice it in the face of those who call us names.

“Kill them with kindness” may be politically incorrect but it remains an unbeatable tool to use.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative

Virtual Vs Real World

Doing vs. letting others


What we Conservative/Republicans should learn from this election is simple.

We definitely need to get out of our comfort zone.

By that I mean we need to stop continually surrounding ourselves with those who think like we think. I’m an alcoholic and that is exactly what I would do when I was drinking. I would sit in a bar with other drunks and we’d talk of how great things were. Things got worse.

Ask any football coach; sure we need the occasional rah-rah speech and pats on the back but if we really want to win we have to face up to the reality of what is. What went wrong and our part in it. We have to accept that we missed that tackle or dropped that pass, only after that can we see how to get better.  In other words it involves alot of work along with the right attitude.
We have to admit our part in it. More precisely, that what we worked at so hard didn’t work.

I’ve already heard too many people tell me that they did all they could do.

I’ve told myself that. It’s a way to shift the blame, blunt the harshness of the reality that was this election, to make myself feel better. We did work hard, and to some extent our efforts were rewarded. Examples abound but look at this one. President Obama and Andrew Jackson were the only two Presidents in history that won re-election with fewer votes than they received their first time. But Obama was still elected regardless of our efforts.

Maybe it was not that we didn’t spend enough time doing things but that we should have been doing different things, smarter things in different ways.

Our first job is to admit that all the efforts we made didn’t do the trick. This admission opens the door to the possibility that there may be other ways to change things. It then becomes our job to find those better ways.

We need to look at the basics of what we do to try to win elections. As an example that most of us can sympathize with; do we need to make even more robo phone calls or should we look at whether robo calls give us the “bang for the buck” we need and for that matter whether we should be after the bang or the buck?

The title of my blog is Bottom Up Politics and so I turn to what I/we can start to do to immediately change from the bottom rungs of our Party. This is where we have to think out of our comfort zone.

I just today got a call from a lady in another county who was pretty upset with the election both nationally and in her own county. We decided we needed to sit down and brain storm some out of the box ideas on how to change things. That can be a start in our little neck of the woods if we keep to the task at hand and not call up a political analyst to tell us what to do. LOL.

First as with most things, getting back to basics seems, well basic. It is time for us to clear the brain and start putting in new information from the real world. I need to not listen to Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity every day then sit down in the evening to watch Fox. That is a “virtual” reality, I need to get into the real world more. As a Precinct Delegate I need to be getting into my neighborhood more and find out what makes it tick. That is my elected position after all. Simply listening to people is the greatest tool we have. It is a simple way of doing a good thing for others. I am always amazed what valuable information I learn by simply doing that – especially listening to people as people and not just to those who are in my “Political” comfort zone. Doing that has its own rewards, one of which is I start to learn some new facts from which I can create new “out of the box” solutions.

Above all I must realize that I need to keep an open mind and try to base my actions more on the real world than the virtual world.

George Will in the linked article below touched upon this when he talked about the Hispanic vote and the role it played in the last election. Mr. Will also brought up the idea that “Immigration reform” will be the reef President Obama will build which we can wreck our ship upon if we let it.

-----Quote from Will’s Article-----
"Republicans can take some solace from the popular vote. But unless they respond to accelerating demographic changes — and Obama, by pressing immigration reform, can give Republicans a reef on which they can wreck themselves — the 58th presidential election may be like the 57th, only more so."
-----------------------------------
-----link to Mr. Will’s article-----
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/will110812.php3
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How do we do this other than target more robo calls in Spanish to the appropriate addresses?

We simply put our beliefs into action. We don’t talk about how some of our friends are Hispanic or African American. We talk about our beliefs in the strength of the individual. We talk about the greatness of America where anybody can get ahead and how that is slipping away through over regulation and ever expanding government. We need not talk so much about Harry Reid as we do about the local zoning board that won’t let their son and daughter set up a lemonade stand or that they can’t plant a garden in their front yard.

Politics is personal, all politics from National to local. The more personal the contact the bigger the impression will be upon that voter. To turn an old expression upside down – This is personal this is politics, it ain’t business.

Mitt Romney finally seemed to have it right in the end when it was too late, (or perhaps he had it all along and I couldn’t see it through the fog of my virtual reality) when he talked about making our decisions more for the love of Country not so much for the love of self. That was great stuff but if it was played from the beginning it could have been the reef that Obama and the Liberals could have wrecked their ship upon as they tried to make fun of American values, and Romney could have built upon that. Coming as it did at the end was as I said too late.

So after we lick our wounds and begin to realize that though we didn’t win we came closer than the historic model would have predicted. Though we lost the electoral vote handily the actual vote was pretty close. So what do we do next?

The first thing is to change our attitude. Try a smile for a change. Talk of the joy of freedom not the harmful actions of a tyrant. There are others that will do that and the people know that when they see it. Keep a great vision as our bedrock and let the Liberals make fun of that all they want to. Remember we and all people are creatures of habit, and habits die hard. This kind of thing however is labor intensive and is best done a little at a time. Also we are all human and in our day to day squabble to make a living and feed our families, we need to remember to think of the bigger things. When I do make that effort, I’m always amazed at how I feel better. The reward earned by the doing is a righteous reward.

For an eye opener look at the following link which says that voter turnout was down in most every state in this 2012 election vs. 2008. I checked, it was down in mine.

http://www.kypost.com/dpps/news/national/turnout-shaping-up-to-be-lower-than-2008_7991483

From my comfort zone as I prowled the polling precincts election day I was positive turnout was up and the Republicans were turning out in droves to vote. OOOPS.

Welcome to the real world.

Live Dangerously Be A Conservative.

Postscript.


Marco Rubio wrote this piece.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/marco-rubio-romney-election/2012/11/07/id/463197?s=al&promo_code=109C5-1

Here is a quote from it.

“In the next Congress, I am committed to working on upward mobility policies that will ensure people who work hard and play by the rules can rise above the circumstances of their birth and leave their children better off,” he said in statement Wednesday. “The conservative movement should have particular appeal to people in minority and immigrant communities who are trying to make it, and Republicans need to work harder than ever to communicate our beliefs to them.”

Senator Rubio summed up in a paragraph what I needed 2 pages of fluff to say not quite so well.

Perhaps most more succiently -- We need to get off our High Horse and concentrate on practicing what we preach.

Regards

Time to Blog Again

Time to catch you all up quick like, on what's been happening to me in my new digs.

I am completely inlove with my new surroundings.

My house continues to be a work in progress, but there is progress. Inside I now have with the help of Rob L. a great butcher block counter top and great cabinets under it. The idea is to have a seperate place to store and use all the equipment needed to preserve the harvest from my garden. ie. Prepare and can or freeze it.

Also I've started making bread with a bread machine and that takes up a bunch of space for the machine and the different flours and misc stuff. The job now is to treat and finish the counter top and cabinets but they at least are in place. Downstairs a new freezer and a room remade to hold my electrical and plumbing suppliess works out nicely.

Outside the garden of course continues to get improved. Latest was the addition of 7 sprinkler heads controlled with switches to make it easier. Though my pump can only push one sprinkler head at a time, I can easily switch from one to another by flipping a switch and not have to drag hose and sprinkler around as before.

Also the start of an addition to my barn/shed is framed up but not sheathed or roofed. This will serve as a place to store excess hay and a place to start the baby chics out untill they can be put out into the movable coops. The projects are all in the process of getting done. Also bought a hoop house in the summer and it is still laying there, I guess next year will be the time for that.

I failed in buying the 2 pigs and 50 chickens I had wanted, you guessed it - next year I will do that too. The plan is thought out and the pieces for the pen and coop are already bought, like I said a work in progress but there is continual progress and for that I'm gratefull.

Now to my real love - politics. I stepped down as Tea Party Chair and Andy took up the reigns and the meetings are continuing. I have continued to go to various Tea Party and Republican meetings and helping out when I can.

I'm trying to help out in the Community in general also, lastly I volunteered to help out during Heritage days which is a fundraiser for the Hart Historical society. First night I was the Fish fryer, the second night I along with another was the chief pig cutter upper and what a pig it was! A 300 pounder slowly cooked overnight on a BBQ grill. It was more pulling apart than cutting. The event went over well for the Society and everyone seemed happy, and as far as I know there wasn't one death due to poorly cooked food.

As a bonus, I got all the bones off the pig to take home. I've already made some ham 15 bean soup and my little dog was the proud recipient of a huge left over bone.

The big news I guess along political lines is that I am running for County Road Commissioner. There were two openings on the Board and only one person running. A County Commissioner talked to me about running and I agreed.

Later another candidate threw their hat into the ring as an independent. This is a coounty wide race with 3 people now running to fill two spots. A Republican (Me) a Dem. and an Independent. My plan of attack to win has been to start going to as many of the Township board meetings as I can to meet people and to hear about what they want the Road Commission to do.

As far as campaigning, I've made up business cards and just today put together my first Yard Signs. I could only afford 50 so making sure I put them along busy streets is will be necessary. With 16 townships I hope to put at least 3 in every one. I'll have to be careful as to who gets signs.

It's not if you live but where !!! lol

I have also started stopping by people's houses when I see them out in their yards. Hope this will be enough. I'm sure as the election draws nearer, I will get more paranoid and start working harder. Up till now I've been going to Road Commission meetings, talking with and meeting the other members of the board. I've been gathering info on how the whole thing works. I've been to several worksites and talked with some of the workers out in the garage to get their sense of what needs to be done There is a lot to learn and I'm digging in, during this calm before the storm which will be the election.

Here is an example of what I did yesterday. Went to the Muskegon County Republican HQ to pick up some free wire supports for my yard signs that I had forgotten to pick up Sat. Went up to Ludington after that to see the Mason County HQ and shop at Meijers, this was to try to get something constructive done before going to a Townhall put on by State Reps. Ray Franz and Ken Horn which I wanted to attend. Mr Horn is the head of the State House Energy committee and Ray works with him. The topic was the ballot proposal "25 25" in general and there was a lot of talk about the new windmill farm. There was alot of good inside info on how the government really works from these gentlemen and alot of info from the audience. All but one or two were against that Constitutional Amendment.  I was before I got there but picked up alot of useful info to use when argueing against it.

There is lots of other stuff I'm into and will talk about in later blogs as it comes up. One of the biggies however and perhaps the most important is that I've decided to run for the Chair of the Oceana County Republicans. I've talked with the current chair and alot of others about it and they all think it a good idea. I'm at all the events and have been for a couple of years. I seem to get along with most of the members. I do have leadership experiance with the Tea Parties here and in Musk. I've been learning alot as I go. As the Chair I would finally have the chance to put my ideas into practice. I would look forward to that.

For the Tea Party and the Republican Party, I helped out at both booths in the Oceana County Fair. I also have been working most every day for an hour or so on the Oceana Republican Website. Ross Fitcher the web designer from Dear Path set it up and has been helping me learn the ropes. The website is starting to look pretty good. I still have a lot of current political content to add but doing a little each day seems to work out well.
-----Oceana Republican Website------
http://www.oceanarepublicans.com
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Last but not least the Cozy Conservative Corner which we started even before I moved up is nearing the end of it's second year. Every Tues. morning 8pm at the LaFiesta Restaurant, downtown Hart.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be a Conservative

Coalition Building

Coalition Building. The Right of America will learn Tuesday after our Cozy Conservative Breakfast in downtown Hart Mi. whether they have learned to put their feet where their mouths are. Their feet, that is as in walking with them into a polling place and actually voting instead of just bitching about the way things are. I’m talking here about the recall election In Wisconsin which is now a classic battle to “Get out the vote”, and the Left has the built in advantage of the Unions as it always has had across the board. To facilitate that the vaunted Obama machine through them has set up brick and mortar places across the state to do just that. While the right is pouring money into the state for TV ads and robo calls, the left is trying to mobilize the voters to actually get out and vote. I hope the political operatives of the right are doing the same and are not just wasting it on glossy TV ads that some suits in board rooms think are “catchy”. Above all we need to unite the “Factions” of the Right. To make this election and the Big One coming in 2012 work for the Right we need not just the Tea Party, nor just the Right to Lifers nor the Home Schoolers, nor just the NRA, nor the small business people, nor jus the libertarians nor the anti tax people, nor just the people of faith. We need them all and anyone else who wants government to Leave Us Alone. And We Need Them To Vote. And We Need to Work at Finding Them. There are people out there who are conservative and don’t know it, worse than that --- We Don’t Know it or want to. I’m afraid as we ourselves stereotype people as environmental whacos or burnt out Hippies, we may be missing the boat. For example, what do we as typical Conservatives think when we hear people talking about organic farming or alternative agriculture or solar power??? Well guess again; at the local level some of these people are doing what they think is right and good and righteous by themselves for all Right reasons. They themselves and even the yuppies that they sell their wares to now are coming up against the government bureaucrats with all their regulations. I’m meeting with small scale farmers around me in my neighborhood that raise their own crops in their own way and market them wherever they can. Usually they sell their harvest at Farmer’s Markets in larger markets like Muskegon or just to their neighbors. Their wares include Veggies, poultry, pork, beef, dairy products and baked along with canned goods. All home grown or baked or canned. Guess what? Even though they thought they were doing great things for Mother Earth, and for themselves as well as their neighbors, they are finally starting to figure out that bureaucracy is an equal opportunity oppressor of people’s right to do as they wish; regardless of how Righteous their cause. Joel Salatin an author of several books on range feeding chickens and anything else for that matter has written a book entitled "Everything I Want to do is Illegal”. For example over the years he has tried a new method of raising chickens and has met the heavy hand of government regulation at every step of the way. This man and the people that follow some or all of his ways is first and foremost interested in living in a way that is friendly to what they raise, protects the earth, but along with and just as important, profitable to himself at least to the extent that they can live off of their own labors and their land. Below is a link to an interview Reason.com had with Joel if you want to get a better picture of the man and his lifestyle. -----link----- http://reason.com/archives/2012/05/05/the-joel-salatin-interview/singlepage -------------- Mr. Salatin is a conservative leader in the truest sense of the word. He leads by doing. As more people turn to this type of self sufficient living, they realize that they cannot afford to continually comply with the ever-increasing regulations of government. More importantly as they fight or try to evade these, they begin to see firsthand the harmful and tyrannical nature of these regulations and its effect upon their spirit of individual freedom. This is the nature of Conservatism whether they know it or not; also whether we know it or like it, they are in the same fight as we are. As they fight to survive we as conservatives need to back them up. We need to take up their fight, because in their own way they have taken up ours. We need to fight together when possible, and try to understand each other. We need to understand that there is a difference between the government stopping individuals from doing what they desire and the government subsidizing it. We as Conservatives need to realize what unites us and stay away from that which doesn’t. There are people in all organizations just like this; people in the film industry, in the unions, in the media and in every walk of life and neighborhood, even in Muskegon Heights or Newfield Township, that we would not normally think of as Conservative. We must join with and encourage them by our actions when we find them and not just by our talk. Above all else we need to start doing and tone down the talking. Wisconsin will tell us something Tuesday. Live Dangerously Be a Conservative