Sorry I haven't posted i a while, Things have been beyond hectic around here. As anyone who reads this knows, I have to get out of my house due to a foreclosure. Well, after looking everywhere around here I found a place. It is an abandoned property up in the mountains and I will have a chance to stay there as a caretaker until the place sells. This is an AWESOME thing even though there is no electricity, heat, the water heater has been removed and I have to supply my own liability and renter's insurance- Thus problem 1. I was planning on moving my wood stove up there and using it as a primary heat source. Here begins the stupidity of modern insurance. Since the place is more than one (1)!!! block away from a fire hydrant it is essentially uninsurable if I decide to heat with wood. Scratch the free plan. So.... on to step 2. Instead of being able to buy a decent generator I now get to instead spend a bit over 1000$ (Closer to 1500 by the time the dust settles) an a Toyo fuel oil stove, then get to deal with the added expense of fuel oil deliveries. I'm still waiting on a modified quote for the insurance going THAT route, I may be able to get it now, but who the hell knows how expensive insurance will be. Anyway- Life is a balancing act, full of frustration and despair, but I refuse to fall off the tightrope. I'm clinging like a three toed sloth with tendenitis right now, but I'm still hanging on. My point in telling this story is this, though- How exactly did we get to become a society that is SO screwed up that someone who is doing their best has to overcome this obscene list of constant challenges? I mean, really- The bank refused to work with me so I had to find another place to live with winter coming on, I couldn't find a NORMAL place because rent was far to expensive for me to afford and according to the people with government rental assistance the waiting list is MONTHS long, even if I COULD have found a place they likely wouldn't have let my animals stay there anyway ( I know, some of you are asking why the animals are so important. To you I say- Read some of the older blog posts, I've tried to explain it) - so I find a place that, while not perfect, is someplace where we can be warm, dry and reasonably secure and then the insurance nazis won't let me move there because there likely isn't a FIRE HYDRANT within 60 miles of the location. I mean. come on, People! Has ANYONE else noticed the pattern here? I have been fighting banks, government and large corporations simply to try to exist. Not to live in the Waldorf, not to milk the system, merely to survive. I live in the freaking bush in Alaska and I'm going through this, I can't imagine what you poor saps down in the lower 48 have to deal with. Life has gotten crazy, complicated and impossible simply so the rich folks can get richer and the political machine can keep grinding on, spewing its filth and lies like toxic waste. I picture a perfect political cartoon in my head that I would LOVE to see if anyone on here knows how to draw. A steamroller labeled 'big corporations' driven jointly by both of the political candidates as it rolls slowly over whatever remains of this country, crushed and flattened people and families in its wake. See? If I could draw I would be a cutting edge satirist! Instead I suppose I'm stuck being a frustrated citizen who vents on an anonymous blog. To quote a Pink Floyd song this morning- Welcome to the Machine.