Ted’s essays

wonderful cookies

I shared this recipe on my website over six years ago. I still have not tasted a cookie that approached these really delicious, relative nutritious ones. I remember a road trip where I lived on these for the entire drive from sunrise to sunset. I am hankering to make a batch … well mostly to consume a batch, but the one normally has to precede the other. I notice I do not have any photographs of these jewels. I will return to this post and add the photo after I get a chance to see one. Here is the recipe as I published it in January 2014. Some time back when my metabolism allowed me to make and savor cookies […]

Stone Soup Kitchen

TEOTWAWKI, The End Of The World As We Know It is upon us. We are in the early stages, but the normal we had a year ago will not return in our lifetimes. We had a warning in Spring and have been granted a short reprieve, but it would be foolhardy to squander the next month. Every analysis I read and see indicates The Change will get worse, soon… much, much worse, and frightfully soon. I share much of that at this website and will continue to do so. Meanwhile, most of us agree that we have at least one good month to build our pantries. Few expect supplies to be as plentiful and easily accessed past October. Hardly any […]

Ravalli health officer unhappy in a republic

The Ravalli County Public Health Officer is fully resigned to her ignorance of the ineffectiveness of masks against Coronavirus and the well-documented negative health effects on wearers. Fortunately, she has also resigned from a local position of influence in that area of her ineptitude. from the Ravalli Republic Dr. Carol Calderwood gave Ravalli County Commissioners a letter of resignation over the weekend as the county’s public health officer of 13 years, stating she feels she has been placed in “another no-win situation by the locally elected officials’ decision to disobey the Governor’s directives without my input.” The resignation letter followed a July 15 directive from Gov. Steve Bullock requiring indoor mask wearing for every county with more than four […]

building supply VS thrift stores

We hosted some out-of-town guests over the last few days. It was lovely. They are lovely. A wonderful, super-sociable holiday came to us. Hugs – laughter – singing – playing – sharing – caring – the best things in life. Good thing. Much of that has been removed by the false-flag, 4th-generation-warfare, fear-fear-fear, COVID assault on our society. While my emergency radio responding group, trombone choir and other meat-space / face-to-face human contact has fallen victim to the above, most of my life has been unaffected. I meet almost no masked, fearful sheep in my daily life. The building supply, hardware stores, firearm shops, grocers, library and handful of other places I have been in the last few months are […]

movie review: 42

You have likely been to this site a lot of times without ever seeing a movie review. The Jackie Robinson, Branch Rickey story is a piece of history well deserved of our understanding. I am pretty sure this movie gave a reasonable picture of it.  It definitely was a good movie; and enjoyable viewing for us.   The contrast between the positive accomplishments of Jackie and Branch and those of the current screaming, violent crops of people whose only accomplishments in life so far is to  riot for those who have dark skin is quite stark. This, you low-lifes, is how progress is made.   Movie reviewing website Rotten Tomatoes audience gave it an 85%.  I clipped the below […]

coaching, empowering self-defense

I once was an active NRA-certified junior rifle coach. More relevant, I am a very good teacher. Yesterday my three charges voiced and agreed that “He is a very good coach” – which is just about the finest compliment one can lay on me. Thank you for that one. That came up because a couple from the west coast passed through our neighborhood, and I gave them the opportunity to burn some ammunition on our short range (10-30 meters). I laid out a table of .22 semi-auto pistols, a 9mm Glock, 38 Special revolvers, .22 rifles and a 20-gauge shotgun, then helped them through familiarization, safety, handling, loading and shooting whatever captured their interests. We had FUN My standard […]

Bunkhouse flowers beginning to bloom

I wandered around our yard snapping photos of the various flowers blessing our yard. I share here for your visual pleasure. I admit that artfully cropped close-ups do give the impression we live in a super garden. The reality is not quite like that.

be somebody

Driveway at end of tree row on the right Our little road has some newcomers somewhere up the far end who must have lived on a freeway in their past life. They are blowing by my driveway at 50-60 miles per hour. As many rural roads do, this one has driveways all along its length meaning that high speed drivers create a high risk of collision with people pulling out onto the road. One neighbor made their situation worse by putting up a privacy fence such that they are on the road before able to see if anyone is coming their way. This will not end without incident. Somebody ought to do something Turns out I am somebody High speed […]

Ted on trombone

Since moving to The Bitterroot, groups with room for my trombone playing are hard to come by. My fall-back option is my computer and studio speakers running Music Minus One recordings while I pretend to have a real band or small combo to play along with. I use my Canon camera to record two representative samples of my main Bitterroot trombone gigs. The miniature internal microphone certainly does precious little to capture any sound quality that might exist were we listening live. Most summers find me playing a bit part in our community band… that is when terrorists aren’t running false flag community shut-down programs that some people call COVID. I share here two sample recordings of The Bitterroot Community […]

visualize liberty

Imagine what this country would look like if we had begun electing Libertarians 14 years ago. I gave Idaho my best shot, which may not have been all that much in the end, but Idahoans really did have a choice with serious beneficial potential that year. I tripped over this show recently, realizing that was a good debate and presentation of ideas that would have made very real differences. In 2006 I did some traveling around the state as the Libertarian candidate for Idaho governor, a relatively tiny bit of fund-raising, produced some campaign literature, and dressed myself for mass-market appeal. – He cleans up nicely – 😉 When the League of Women Voters announced the upcoming state-wide broadcast of […]

Happy Independence Day

Renaming it “4th of July” is not merely laziness. Of course it is the 4th on your calendar, but it is a celebration representing some brave fighters’ Declaration of Independence from a powerful parasitic class of people who had demonstrated a monopoly on violence and oppression. The patriots won a round. The ruling elite had to reorganize. It took a hundred years and another major military war that the freedom fighters lost… not by much, mind you, but they did lose. A long methodical decline in liberty followed from then to now. I just ask you today to spend a little time thinking about independence from oppression, the risks those rebels took and the benefits they won for many subsequent […]

courage

It is not just the guy who earns a Silver Star risking his life to save the platoon. Sometimes courage is right there in front of us in our everyday lives. When the crowd is WRONG, going along might be easier, but standing apart is the right thing to do.