Posts by Rachel Ruiz39

Eating beans always leads to some serious gas 😢

Maybe try something like this:
So, here’s the plan: baker's yeast—you know, the fresh stuff, whole, not processed—take it right before bed along with an apple, and just stick to that routine for seven days straight... you'll see those breakouts just vanish into thin air.🙂

I'm telling you, it actually works....

Side effects:
Well, let's just say you might be burping like crazy... but honestly, the results are phenomenal...

redwolf91 said:So, if you want to snag any kind of government subsidy for planting anything, there’s a massive list of hoops you have to jump through first. You need fences up to 6 feet high just to keep the deer out—and that’s assuming you're doing hazelnuts, almonds, pears, whatever. Plus, you need hail protection, which basically means netting over everything. It’s an insane upfront cost—honestly, the price of all that protective gear alone can end up being more than the actual saplings for a whole acre. Then there's the labor—say you're doing hazelnuts—you're looking at maybe 20 workdays for harvest, meaning you need 20 people on deck to get it done in under a week, and yeah, you gotta pay them hourly too. Toss in spraying three times a year, needing a tractor, plus all the specialized harvesting gear... when you actually sit down and crunch the numbers, you're staring at a deficit. I was seriously thinking about starting my own orchards—hazelnuts, walnuts, the whole bit—but it just doesn't make sense. My advice? Find someone to run a real feasibility study for you. It all sounds great on paper until you realize you need enough hail protection for 75 acres to even qualify for the good stuff, and the profit margins are tiny compared to what you sink into it. Not to mention you need a massive water supply, pumps, generators, and all that fun stuff for those drought years that seem to be getting worse every single season. And don't forget mowing and all the other busywork. Protecting 75 acres against hail costs so many zeros you'll run out of paper. On top of that, you won't see your first real yield for five years, so if you're already 30, you'll never see the payoff yourself—maybe your grandkids will. Unless the macroeconomics or how the government views farming completely flips, most people living out in the sticks are fleeing the industry because the losses are just brutal. I know plenty of folks who own over 250 acres and can barely cover their tractor loans, let alone feed their families, all while cheap imports undercut them because of bad policy. And don't even get me started on disease—if just one out of 1,000 saplings is infected, the whole thing can go south fast and you might have to burn the entire field. That happened to some orchards a few years back that used imported stock, where a single Grade A sapling was going for $17... so yeah, do the math yourself. Of course, you also have to worry about soil quality—you can't just plant anything anywhere regardless of how much fertilizer you throw at it. Getting a decent soil test costs around $267; they dig about 15 holes a foot deep and take buckets of dirt from each just to tell you if the ground is even fit for hazelnuts
.
And honestly, most people will just look at your hard work and try to steal your crop. If you're a city kid who's never even held a shovel, just forget it. Your chances are even slimmer. Prepare to move out to the middle of nowhere and spend your nights guarding your fields so someone doesn't mess with your yield—keep a shotgun handy. Most people don't think about this, and nobody talks about it unless you've actually worked the land. If you haven't, you'll regret it immediately and feel like an idiot for wasting all that money planting things in a field. It’s just a loss. Everything looks beautiful on a spreadsheet or some fancy blog post, but nobody counts the massive annual overhead that eats your profits alive. It just isn't worth it. Welcome to America

I really don't think we need to be this gloomy... it feels like that heavy pessimism is just built into the DNA of people from the Midwest.🙂
If I remember correctly, Mexicans are actually ranked third or fourth globally when it comes to raspberry production, so if hazelnuts aren't turning a profit right now, raspberries definitely are—our neighbors are living proof of that.
To be perfectly honest, I’m not quite sure why there’s such a massive narrative about everyone abandoning agriculture... and even if there is some truth to it, I wonder if it's really an industry problem at all. It seems to me that while there are certainly certain individuals who see nothing but darkness no matter where they look, generally speaking... maybe we're just looking at a group of people who lack the drive and expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter.

The idea of fleeing to the city... moving from the countryside to an urban center🙂 is a tough climb; honestly, only the most incredibly ambitious souls tend to make it, and then you're left wondering if all that grueling effort was even worth it just to say you 'made it' in the city.

We really ought to learn how to just be content and happy... chasing money endlessly doesn't actually make a person better.

Robert Murphy8 said:I can honestly say I try to be a decent human being. I make an effort to stay respectful, polite, and kind in my interactions, genuinely trying to work well with others. But no matter where I go—and especially in the corporate world—it’s the same old story. Constant undermining, people trashing my hard work, and backstabbing. I always end up carrying the weight of their nonsense on my own shoulders. As a person of faith, I could never dream of pulling a stunt like that on anyone. I know I’m capable. I’m smart, I give everything I have to my job and to the people around me, yet it feels like absolutely nobody respects that. It’s even worse when they mock me for being transparent or for actually caring about projects that have some actual heart in them. Then I look at these "successful" types and I just don't get it. What makes them so much better or sharper than me? They get the accolades while I’m just left waiting for them to label me as the villain, because apparently, that’s the only role they think I’m fit for.

It's because you're just feeding into a cycle of self-pity....

briskgull27 said:Well, thanks a lot. It’s certainly an interesting subject, I'll give you that. One day you're feeling perfectly fine, the next you're completely falling apart, then you're struggling just to survive, and by the fourth day, you're busy getting everything ready for New Year's Day.☕

I mean, when I say it's "interesting," I mean it would be an interesting field of study for me professionally, not that it's an enjoyable experience for the people who actually have to live with schizophrenia every single day....

briskgull27 said:Well, I didn't want to go by myself at first, you wicked sister, that's for sure.
I actually got lost twice just wandering around my own neighborhood, and then there was that week where we had a full-on disco going on in the house at night;
there were five of us staying there at the time, and around 4 AM the videos would be cranking away, though I wasn't even sleeping anyway. Let me just quote my discharge papers for you:

Patient admitted via emergency services due to psychotic decompensation, manifesting as restlessness, insomnia, inappropriate behavior, disorganization, logorrhea, and verbal aggression; continuing follow-up for F20.0.

schizophrenia is actually such a fascinating phenomenon—well, I won't call it a disease, maybe it's better described as a specific state of consciousness... if I were a psychiatrist, I’d take a group of people living with schizophrenia and have them read this book... purely because I'm curious about how they would process it, how much they would truly grasp, and whether it would impact their perspective...

By the way, the author is a guy who started out as a psychologist but ended up getting totally swept up in his faith and lives his life as a Jesuit... he's quite famous globally, though perhaps less so here in the States...

If you ever find some free time, give it a read...

I’ve been looking into this quite a bit, and there’s already been plenty of talk regarding raspberry farming. My honest takeaway? If you aren't prepared to sink a massive amount of capital into this venture, you might as well not bother at all.

tigar_c2 said:Honestly, folks, you might want to stay away from farming unless you
plan on setting up something much larger than about 25 acres,
because when it comes to nuts, walnuts are buying for around 20-$8.25 cleaned
hazelnuts $10 , and apples will be bought this fall at $0.63 ,
as for those government subsidies for walnuts, they really only apply to intensive orchards,
meaning you have to plant specific varieties meant for high-density growth—just like with hazelnuts (so, having 100 trees spread over 5 acres doesn't count as intensive farming),
there’s still plenty of room for blackberries, blueberries, or redcurrants, but only if you can supply the massive volumes required by big-box retailers like Walmart.

And what about processing?? Is there seriously nobody in this entire country who buys anything for processing purposes??
It just doesn't seem right that you can only offer your goods for sale to the massive retail chains.🙄

driftinggull18 said:this past Sunday on Plodove Zemlje they were discussing raspberry farming...
they mentioned it’s actually a pretty rewarding crop since you don't need a ton of specialized technical expertise to get started, plus there's a guaranteed market for everything you grow..

If you're looking into raspberries, you really ought to aim for at least a couple of acres to make it worthwhile, but once you hit that scale, you run into the headache of finding reliable seasonal pickers, which can be a real struggle lately.

And if you aren't located right next to a distribution hub, you'll definitely need to invest in some cold storage. Since the picking happens in the early morning—usually somewhere between 4:00 and 7:00 AM—those workers are going to charge you a premium for those overnight shifts.

The initial startup cost to plant an acre is upwards of $33, while the government subsidies per acre sit around $10...

All things considered, I honestly think it might be more profitable to go with blackberries and pivot into making wine from them instead...
It's pretty wild to think that Mexico ranks third globally in terms of raspberry production volume.🙂

goldengull3 said:If you're actually looking for some peace and quiet out in the country, there are hundreds of thousands of acres of untouched land just waiting out in the Midwest—you could sell everything you own, grab a little farmhouse and a patch of dirt, and finally just breathe... Or, if your heart is set on leaving material possessions behind entirely, you could just head over to India and live that way.

I have to admit, I am actually giving that first option some pretty serious thought.

I honestly feel like we should just scrap the whole monetary system entirely and go back to a barter economy. I was watching this documentary the other day, and they mentioned how a sculptor who carved a statue of the Holy Trinity was actually paid in the equivalent value of 200 eggs. It really makes you think about how much more grounded things used to be. We need to find our way back to living in harmony with nature; people ought to leave these crowded cities behind and move out to rural homesteads where they can focus on farming and just lead some kind of peaceful, normal life. This modern way of existing—this relentless cycle of capitalism and pure greed being forced upon us—really feels like the greatest tragedy ever visited upon the human race in all of history.

steelviper49 said:So you're trying to link yourself to some kind of SPIRITUALITY??

It honestly feels like you might have left your common sense back in the delivery room when you were born.

I’m not actually trying to tie my identity to spirituality; I am simply asking for a definition of what spirituality actually IS.

To be perfectly honest, this entire forum has become such a mess because it's filled with a bunch of frustrated, mindless trolls who apparently have nothing better to do than act out like you, attacking topics they clearly don't understand at all.

Emericzy said:For instance, I used to dream about having a boss who was actually sharper and more capable than I am. It took me twenty years of grinding away in a stagnant socialist economy before I finally experienced that kind of leadership once I moved out West. But then, I realized there’s something much better about just being your own boss, so I made that leap. Eventually, I brought that same entrepreneurial spirit back home to America and set things up here too.
.

Oh, wonderful... as long as someone's business is running smoothly and they get the added bonus of calling all the shots themselves...
I bet you're in sales or something.

spy said:It’s really not helpful to feel disgusted by the whole system, because who knows, maybe in a few years you'll end up launching your own startup and find yourself feeling just as repulsed by your own dealings.
In a capitalist framework, you're essentially selling your skills to an employer within the labor market, who then integrates those services into a product to be sold further down the line.

I honestly believe there are two distinct flavors of capitalism: the "Wild West" kind and the more structured version. Here in the States—or rather, looking at how things operate in certain circles—we mostly just deal with that wild, predatory version of capitalist evil, and if you want to know what I mean by that...
To give you a real-world example from my own life, I work in software development, and I recently crossed paths with this old mentor of mine who got really interested in an application I've been building, so naturally, I agreed to collaborate with him.
The very next day, he and I headed over to a major corporation, a household name like Microsoft, so that I could pitch the app directly to their executive suite 😬 and the senior management team.
The thing is, these executives weren't actually listening to a single word I was saying; they were just nodding along and shouting "Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!" because they knew that by using my mentor as a middleman, they could siphon a massive amount of capital out of the company, split it among themselves, and leave me with my predictable little slice of the pie. If I had tried to bring this application to the open market on my own, I would have faced an uphill battle, primarily dealing with the nightmare of collections and billing, which would have sucked up so much time and energy that I'd be lucky to just break even, regardless of how hard I worked.

As for how long this charade can keep going like this? I honestly don't know, but I find myself taking a strange sort of comfort in the fact that this entire capitalist mess is eventually bound to collapse under its own weight.
At the end of the day, as long as this culture of nepotism and "who you know" remains the driving force, we aren't going to see any semblance of a functional, Western-style market economy, which is just as flawed as this primitive, cutthroat model we're stuck with here.

Vicky said:Besides, just unplug from the internet and toss that computer out the window. You’re only in this position because multinational corporations made it possible, so you might as well be consistent with your principles. 😁

But how on earth am I supposed to stay true to my principles when the entire game is rigged by the majority!!??
And how can I just throw away my computer when, unfortunately, that very machine is my livelihood!?
I mean, I’d much rather be working some land out in the Midwest, but how is that even an option when commerce is the only thing that actually pays the bills these days? Even here on this forum, you see people asking for advice on how to import goods from overseas—it’s the same story everywhere, where everything from basic snacks to household items is just cheap mass-produced stuff under a big corporate label that we all end up consuming blindly.

If you look at it, a person’s functional life is maybe fifty years if you count from that mid-twenties period when you're still messing around before reality hits, and after that, we just work ourselves to the bone every single day, and our entire existence boils down to:
-commuting to work
-grinding away with frustrated managers
-trekking back home on the pavement
-eating
-shitting
-having sex
-sleeping

And where in this whole mess is the spiritual aspect? Where is the soul? Has anyone actually stopped to ask themselves if we really live in this chaotic world just to hoard material possessions only to kick the bucket shortly after?? Where is the fucking point in any of it??

It feels like capitalist propaganda has successfully programmed us to exist solely for the sake of grabbing whatever we can... I honestly wonder what goes through the mind of a capitalist robot at the exact moment its physical shell finally gives out—does anyone ever actually stop to ask, "Wait, what was the point of all this?"

Vicky said:If you can't see the difference, go back to school.

Look, if you’re volunteering your time for someone else, it's because they’re paying you. If you aren't happy with the paycheck, just find another employer who will offer you more. Or, you could always work for a massive corporation where you actually hold some ownership stakes. Under those old systems, you didn't have any choice at all. Even as a standard employee, you're living much better than most of the feudal lords of the past ever could, simply because capitalism has boosted production so incredibly high.

And honestly, if you don't want to work for someone else, then just work for yourself.

If you truly think you're such a big shot, then go ahead and start your own company—that way you can provide quality work for yourself and everyone else.

You could even choose not to work at all, since we have a social safety net.

But anyway, that's getting off-topic. You should probably start a separate thread if you want to debate those kinds of things.

That is such a textbook capitalist mindset.
People spend their entire lives working just to survive instead of actually living; we only get about 50 miserable years on this earth, and we spend them all grinding away like idiots for some corporate pig created by a capitalist system—which, let's be honest, is just a direct result of human greed. It's honestly revolting; the whole thing makes me sick.🙂

Vicky said:Yeah, sure, because feudalism and slave societies were clearly just so much more advanced and wonderful... 😁

Whoa, hold on a second—do you actually have a single functioning brain cell in there??!!
I mean, seriously, what is the actual difference between capitalism and feudalism?
Back then, you had slaves working themselves to death for some greedy individual, and today, we just have modern-day slaves grinding away for greedy, ambitious corporate sharks.

Honestly, this has absolutely nothing to do with socialism; what we’re looking at here are the systemic failures of capitalism.
I won't dive into a full-blown manifesto right now, but if you look at the history, socialism essentially just paved the way, creating the infrastructure that allowed capitalism to spread more rapidly and efficiently across the globe—and quite frankly, I don't think there's been a greater force for harm visited upon humanity than the unchecked grip of capitalism.

Joseph Gomez39 said:The issue actually lies elsewhere.

Are you referring to the general laziness, lack of education, or just how narrow-minded the average American can be, or... what exactly?

Shaolin said:I was just reading an interesting study today regarding the benefits of using biodiesel in vehicles, and as I stumbled upon this topic, I started wondering why nobody seems to be jumping into rapeseed production for biofuel here in the States.
As far as I know, there’s basically one major firm doing it, and they seem to export their entire yield over to Europe—is there just no domestic interest in this at all?
Nobody really talks about it, but I honestly feel like it could be such a lucrative venture, maybe not right out of the gate, but once you get your footing in the industry...

The reality is that growing rapeseed requires massive amounts of acreage and incredibly expensive heavy machinery, so most farmers find it much more profitable to stick to smaller plots where they can plant specialty crops that command a higher price per pound.