USA!

-Posted by Isaac

Happy birthday America!

Hope you’re having a wonderful 4th!

Like true red-blooded patriots, Eden and I tamed some wild country this week. (We did a little farming.)

There’s a weed!

It took four hours to pulverize our beautiful field and I felt guilty every second of it. A mass murderer type of guilt.

With one small decision we went from this—

To this—

It wasn’t an easy decision mind you, and before you berate me for killing a bunch of flowers, being a piss-poor bee farmer… not to mention being a piss-poor farmer farmer and trying to plant something in hot July, I’d just like to say I had my reasons.

One reason- the weeds, the marestail, the ragweed and thistle were getting out of control. So before the grain farmers around here really started talking, we basically nuked those weeds.

Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.

I’m sure by now, my piss-poor farming is something of legend.

But the more important reason- I’ve got a thousand dollars of sweet clover and alfalfa seed waiting in the barn. Planting now (with a little help from all this rain) will hopefully result in a decent fall bloom. Cross your fingers.

It was an enjoyable four hours— killing weeds, riding along with my Baby Girl, listening to podcasts. Thanks to a buddy’s recommendation, I’m suddenly into Dave Rubin and his Rubin Report. If you’ve never heard of him, as I hadn’t, check him out. A true libertarian who interviews people from all over the political spectrum.

Anyway, this morning as Mason and I loaded for deliveries, I was thinking about a particular interview.

It was with ex Navy Seal/podcaster/writer Jocko Willink.

Jocko is obviously a patriot, a military man who loves this county, but he’s got his own brand of patriotism. Far from parroting nationalism, it’s sort of a libertarian bent. Put your faith in people, not government. Governments go wrong. Just look at our own history.

Thankfully, free people, conscious, rational and sensible people can keep improving on governance and maybe even get it right.

On the way up to Columbus, I was trying to echo some of his thoughts and lay my own thoughts on Mason. Thoughts about US history, and what freedom means, about slavery, and immigration, and voting and vote suppression, wars, economy, taxes, the rich, the poor, the military, and a host of other fun topics. I wanted it to be a discussion, but as you would guess, I did most all the talking.

When we got to the stores, the subject changed. No more political-economic blather. It was all about spring honey.

I’m pretty proud of our spring honey this year (right hand). Mason helped me brag about it to anyone who happened to be within bragging distance.

We had ourselves a good time. Politics and honey on 4th of July eve. The BBC news told us over and over about the air strikes in Libya. I wonder if Mason took any of that in? I wonder if he thought about his life as compared to the lives of those poor bombed migrants. Maybe not… probably not.

At one point they had a segment about the big parade in DC tomorrow. The Trump military parade. A lady getting interviewed told of her disgust. Another man said that the holiday shouldn’t be about showing military might or polarizing the nation. Another lady said she hoped nobody attended. Mason, for whatever reason, heard this and asked, “Wait, what? Dad, what do they mean?”

“Oh, nothing, I said. Trump wants to run some tanks through the streets of Washington tomorrow. A bunch of libs are boohooing.”

“Why?”

Mason is still years away from understanding sarcasm.

But that didn’t stop me.

“I don’t know, son. They’re prissy, maybe? Maybe they hate freedom? I mean, what’s the big deal? What’s a little show of fanfare and force now and then? All through history, big, strong countries like ours have run tanks through their nation’s capital. What’s the big deal?”

He didn’t respond. Could he have detected my ruse?

“You know Mason, I guess there’s always going to be a few crybabies out there.”

Freakin’ liberals!