Colonel's Blog, Earthdate 3 March 2023...
Hey Y'all!
Happy rainy, fast-jet Friday (bottom pic) from Free Missouri! We all survived the storms last night and the rain continues this morning. It should stop around noon. The top pic is Shelley and I in our rain gear. The hogs love the rain almost as much as the ducks. They all came out of their hut this morning, which means they could be dry and clean. Since they are wet and muddy, they have been playing in the mud...a favorite pastime for pigs, just look at Peppa Pig and her Muddy Puddles! The second and third pics are the pigs this morning. The feed troughs were dry yesterday evening, so you can see how much it rained. We built the hay bin yesterday, pics 4 & 5. Yet another use for the pallets! This gives us a place to put the hay for Happy and Betty as they are shut out of the loafing area overnight. Stella and Holly have access to the similar hay bin inside the loafing area. Now we can ensure everyone has all the hay they can eat without sleeping on it. You can see the round bale in the background of the 4th pic. We store the bales outside on top of pallets. The pallets keep them off of the ground so they don't rot from the bottom. The net wrap diverts the rain water off of the top/sides. When we move the bale over to the milking area, we set it on its end on top of more pallets so we can unwrap the net and peel layers of the bale to feed. In this position, the rain water soaks the bale from the top so we keep it covered with a tarp. The tarp and ratchet strap keep it dry and keep it from just falling apart. All things we learned from trial and error. We also worked on house projects, made yogurt and cheese, moved firewood, and made a big VistaPrint order in preparation for the upcoming Farmers Market season. We updated our mesh outdoor banner to include more of our products. We also ordered insulated grocery bags so we can offer them for sale through the summer so that folks who come to the market without a cooler can still purchase our frozen meat products. Today we will work to answer the first volley of questions from our accountant, do things with milk, and continue house projects.
I mentioned a few days ago that I would periodically discuss current news articles that may not make it to mainstream news services. Here's the next one. TikTok was recently identified as the social media mobile app industries' worst application for malware and risk to users. Malcore, by Internet 2.0, uses an automated system to analyze applications for the potential of malware and the risk to users of personal data collection. TikTok's score was nearly twice as bad as the industry average. It had nine trackers and lots of permissions. Its trackers included a Russian based app which is impossible to even access outside of Russia. Here are some of the data TikTok collects: Device mapping (it gathers all apps installed on your phone and retrieves all other running applications); Location (it records device location every hour); Calendar (it has ongoing access to your calendar); Contacts (If you refuse access to contacts, it will continue to ask for it until granted); and External storage (It retrieves a list of everything available in the external storage folder). It also gains access to your device data, a few examples: Wi-Fi network name; Past configured Wi-Fi networks; Your device unique serial number; Your SIM card's unique serial number; Your device name; Your device phone number; Your device voicemail number; GPS location information; Active subscription status; All accounts on the device; and Complete clipboard access (where your phone stores the passwords to all of the accounts on the device to which it also has access). TikTok says not to worry, they aren't sharing your data with the Chinese Communist Party. I collected this data from the 13 Feb 2023 Malcore blog titled "TikTok Scores 63.1 - Designed to Collect Data with highest Malcore score in Industry." I can tell you that in our household, the TikTok application is expressly banned and always has been, based on...well...other information. I highly recommend against its use. You're welcome!
Shelley posted a short video to YouTube this morning (but not technically a YouTube Short): Loading and using the Original Greg Judy Bale Unroller.
Local Farm Report for 2 March 2023:
Harvest:
35 Chicken eggs
14 Duck eggs
0 Goose eggs
5 1/4 Gallons of milk
Sales:
2 Gallons of milk
Cheers!
Rich & Shelley
Thanks for the tictok info. I’ve avoided it myself! You do a great job with your writing I enjoy. Keep up the good work!