Pictures and the semi-annual rant against ranting

So truth be told I'm skimming over a lot of news and Facebook (its hillbilly cousin) political articles anymore.  BEcause.... when you see the same crap over and over again...  you know: the voices you hear from "the left" are only the most ridiculous, the most extreme- and, unfortunately, the minions that listen and repeat without stopping and thinking.  And what you hear on "the right", you get memes ( about 25% of which are actually humorous), the continuing reports on how ridiculous and evil the other side is, and the latest joke about Hillary's book (which is a self-telling joke if ever one existed, and in need of no further elucidation).  We bitch and complain about how Congress can't get together on things when we can't either, we bitch and complain about the platforms universities are giving whackjob profs and militant students in their thrall when the only one REALLY giving them a platform are those who keep posting what they said on FB;   in other words, we complain about the mess we make ourselves.


Thus, I am going to do my best henceforth to not be triggered by those who don't think on either side.  Eventually I'll prolly have to stop and tear some idiot a new one again, but I'm going to try to be selective and only go after Hollywood "experts on real life" and Ivory Tower pseudo-intellectuals when absolutely necessary, for example if they are starting to veer into a new, virgin level of stupidity or their lack of logic can be dismissed in a new and amusing way.  Everything else, I'll just shrug my shoulders and say...

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Having declared thus, let's move on to pictures!

What could this Gatling gun mean?

Why, it's Johnny Appleseed weekend.  BOOM!

Blow this up to see how much a slave would have run you.  That $1,200 in 1860 dollars would have you paying $33,804 today.  Wow!

This dude was the hit of the show.  He was a chocolatier, and he and his wife explained the history of chocolate making as they explained how to make chocolate- and even let us sample "chocolate tea".

Ran in to Honest Abe a lot...

Maybe last year for the alpacas- owners are getting out of the business to retire, and are selling their stock...

Lincoln speechifying.

And yes, we ran into the CBS News guy, but as we never watch Sunday Morning and didn't know him from Adam, was no big deal.  At least Saturday morning the crowd was WAAAY down from what I'm used to... in all the years I've been going, it was the first time I walked up to the Central Lions stand for my buffalo burgers without waiting- and first time I got a sarsparilla refill without a 1/2 hour plus wait in line.  Speaking of buffalo burgers, I got a text later in the afternoon from KC...

"First buffalo burger for Peanut."


Sunday I tried making it up to Scrappy (for not being allowed at JAF) with a walk.  It was warmer than it looked, humid, and the mosquitos made a late season appearance.  Still...

Big ol' shroom.  Scared the Shroom slayer off...

This poor little guy was lying curled up on the trail in the woods.  A little prodding got him moving unwillingly, and screeching at us like a madman.  Guessing he fell out of the nest and was stunned and scared, really didn't see any other injuries.  Hopefully momma will come looking now and/or he'll snap out of it enough to move to cover.

In the meantime, we did run across one deer, but the skeeters were annoying and Scrappy was in slo-mo, so we headed up Dead Tree Road, and saw this:

Darn it!  Why didn't you tell me the fox was RIGHT HERE!!??!