Onward

Wild Horses in Our New Mexico Orchard

The old feeder has come through a rough winter. I didn't feel well enough to run the Plains Feeder, partly because of cancer and partly due to the chemotherapy and radiation treatments. These times were chronicled on Facebook. If you are curious, just find P. T. Gustan's Facebook account, ask to be my 'friend' and read about the struggle. I don't want to let my circumstances impinge too much upon this old blog any more.

Even though I have moved to New Mexico, I remain a Plainsman at heart. I intend for the Plains Feeder to continue following the Midwest scene at a distance. I'll try to add something of interest to New Mexicans as well as to continue covering national and international news that I consider Feedworthy. As always, I'll try to include some personal anecdotes, minus the tedious expilcation of my own battle to stay alive.

Onward!

Old Plains Feeder Comments Restored

As you might recall, our old comment system was handled by Haloscan. That company was subsumed by a new one, JS-Kit that insisted that we change over to their Echo comment system. The changeover did not go smoothly, the old feeder screwed around trying until it seemed that everything was hopelessly wrecked. Angela, bless her heart, spent a great deal of time getting things to work again, but it seemed all the years of comments (over 7,000 of 'em) were lost to the big bit bucket in the sky.

Today, with a great deal of assistance from Igor at Echo, all the old Plains Feeder comments are back. We are now using the Echo system. I think the comment interface needs a bit of tweaking, but I'll wait for some feedback from our readers.

Thanks for 'bearing' with us.

Reverend Ike

Reverend Ike

Remember Reverend Ike? I sure do. Dad Bones sent me news of his death recently. I had been too busy to notice. Reading about his life brought back some old memories.

In the early and mid 1970s, I studied am radio and TV ministries with an eye toward improving my own persuasive skills. The ones I liked best were Jimmy Swaggart and Reverend Ike. I made audio tapes, now in storage, of the best shows.

My favorite sermon has Jimmy Swaggart perpetuating the likely apocryphal story of Voltaire calling out for Jesus from his deathbed. Swaggart pronounced it Vol-tare-ee, and pointed out that folks still read the Bible while Voltaire's works sit on the shelf in "some dusty Me-YOOZE-e-um". All brought to me by the "miracle of tele-VEE-sion."

Impressed by his style, I sent away for a special prayer cloth from Reverend Ike. It turned out to be a piece of red yarn and a big packet of literature asking for donations. I kept the yarn until my last move, though I never found it to be particularly magical.

Reverend Ike was what I like to call a Deuteronomist. He preached that God rewards the faithful in this earthly life. If you say your prayers just right, this view has it, then God will make you rich. Ike called it The Science of Living, or more modernly, Thinkonomics. Its like some sort of creative visualization theory with Godly justification thrown in for effect. Done right, the system should make its practitioners rich. From the NYT story about Ike's death:

“Close your eyes and see green,” Reverend Ike would tell his 5,000 parishioners from a red-carpeted stage at the former Loew’s film palace on 175th Street in Washington Heights, the headquarters of his United Church Science of Living Institute. “Money up to your armpits, a roomful of money and there you are, just tossing around in it like a swimming pool.”

This image brings back my childhood fascination with Donald Duck's Uncle Scrooge McDuck. For all my creative visualization of Scrooge, I never got rich, but did become a miserly tightwad. I haven't given up on parts of Reverend Ike's theories. His Washington Post obit piece quotes him: "The best thing you can do for the poor is not be one of them". This quote has been used by trendy motivationalists, so it can't be totally wrong, can it?

If I were to close my eyes right now I'd be at home in the New Mexico desert, breathing hypo-allergenic air and having a ginless gin and tonic with my old partner.
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I'm actually in Ames, Iowa. Packing her stuff for storage, filling a rented dumpster with her excess baggage and living in a normal neighborhood. It is good.

Feedlot in the rear view mirror

A few gratuitous photographs of the feedlot. It was a good run.

Early Morning


Front Porch View


Google Earth


From Pacific and Glenn, Elkhorn - long lens

Kitchen Corner

A Corner of the Feedlot Kitchen - click for big

As you may know, the old feeder is relocating. Health problems and the cost of propane are driving me out of the feedlot. I'm a terrible pack-rat and getting ready to move is an enormous task, one I don't much enjoy.

I usually like to take pictures of places I've lived; pictures with the kind of details that keep memories alive. The photo above is of one corner in the kitchen here. I'm posting it because I'm too busy to do the a crop report post. You will just have to place your futures bets without my input.

As soon as I get my car back from its front end alignment, I will be able to finish transferring my DVD collection from their bulky store packages to small, thin CDROM boxes. This saves a lot of space, but I've run out of the little cases.