You're so rich! My retirement plan has always been this farm of mine, and until a few weeks ago I said that sarcastically 😉 Of course, we'll never be 1 percenters because we don't have laying hens. Dumb cows.

Exactly! I always say, I'm not a Rockefeller-the currency that I have to offer in support of my causes generally comes in the form of my capacity/expertise. That does NOT stop me from gleefully withholding my tiny sheckles though when a corp. is openly hostile to what I care about.

I haven't stepped foot in one since. I'm not at all missing it.

This is beautiful, Karama. The imagery captures the place AND the feeling.

All I needed to know I learned at Waldorf School 😉 The "wisdom lives in the light" meditation is a good one.

I totally commented to my husband last week that if this all keeps up, I'll need to take up smoking so that I can have my Winnona Ryder Heathers moment!

Bottom line, we all depend on programming and support provided to us by people who are OUR neighbors, friends, family members - the "federal workers" are US, and I am beyond proud of the work our team accomplished on behalf of The People, and I stand with them, always.

3.) They believe 100% in the mission of their programs, and the Agency, and the Department, and this country. I have never encountered more people in one spot who firmly believe on our shared national values as I did at USDA.

it just means that they aren't authorized to take OUR collective tax dollars and spend them in THAT exact way without getting permission. They'll stay late to do so. They'll go the extra mile to make it happen. You won't see that, it's happening in one of the 300 emails they'll send that day.

2.) They work - hard. The regulatory structure that we as voters have supported being put into place make it challenging for federal staff to say yes sometimes, even when they want to. They need to seek authorization for anything outside of the guardrails. It doesn't mean they don't want to help.

^^ voice to text here is demonstrating some ironic literacy missteps 😂 and my emotional/intellectual exhaustion from this week of bad news seems to add to it! Ugh! One week in and I've already let the wrong "its" slip into my postings?!?! What's next??

I attempted something similar! Vowin to avoid refreshing The Hill, Politico, NPR and all the usual suspects, I started a much-anticipated audio book. Barons, by Austin Frerick...about the gilded age of our food system and it's inherent corruption. So good! And, not at all uplifting.

If you click on the three lines, you can access "#feeds" then choose the ones you want (unpin those you don't) and it should curate it in a way you'd prefer.