Dopamine overload

Yesterday, while cleaning the barn, I took a short break to catch my breath after shoveling a bunch of stuff into the wheelbarrow (cow manure is heavy!).

So there I was, momentarily paused, just inside the barn door, leaning on the shovel handle. I looked up and saw a bald eagle wheeling in slow circles over the valley, visible above the tops of the pine trees. I could see its bright white head and tail contrasting with its black body as it circled around. (I didn't have my camera at the time, but the spot it was circling is depicted below.)

And I thought, "What a privilege to live here."

Some people might not reach that precise conclusion while ankle deep in cow manure, but honestly that's exactly what I thought, followed by a swift prayer of thanksgiving for our little farm.

After a few moments' rest, I picked up the shovel and continued with my task.

Anyway, this brief interlude during a normal workday came back to me this morning when I read an article entitled "How To Feel Joy In A Dopamine-Saturated World."

"Your brain treats what it sees in Instagram reels the same way it treats cocaine," the article begins. "Both experiences flood a thumbnail-sized region of the brain with dopamine – a chemical that makes you want more, right now. The problem is that after a certain amount of dopamine hits, your brain adapts by turning down the pleasure volume. As a result, things that once made you feel good are no longer enough. If you’re finding it harder to feel simple joy and genuine connections, you’re experiencing what addiction psychiatrists now recognize as dopamine overload, a state where constant stimulation – especially from cellphones, social media, and ultra-processed foods – quietly erodes your ability to feel your happiest emotions and leaves relationships feeling painfully empty. ... [M]odern life delivers dopamine in doses and speeds the human brain is not equipped to handle."

The solution to this dopamine overload, apparently, is to "detox." The article continues: "Dopamine overload requires something simpler, though not easier: you have to stop the activity that creates it. ... Experts have found that the goal of a dopamine detox is not to eliminate dopamine – which would be impossible and unhealthy – but to reduce overstimulating habits so the brain can rebalance and you can enjoy slower, more meaningful rewards again."

Such as watching a bald eagle while cleaning up barn waste. Seriously, it was a genuine shot of dopamine at that moment.

The faster the world goes, the more closely I cling to the homesteading life. Maybe, at some level, this is why.

Mignon's new home

Our Angus heifer Mignon has a new home as of this morning: The freezer.

At two years old, she was of prime butchering age. Unlike when we butchered her mother, Filet (who was about ten years old and tough, so we turned her into pretty much nothing but hundreds of pounds of ground beef), Mignon should yield some tender and delicious high-grade cuts.

Butchering day is always tough, at least on me. The older I get, the less I like killing things, and I'm grateful Don is here to make sure things go smoothly. That said, we live on a farm for many reasons, and one of those reasons is to strive toward food self-sufficiency. Raising our own beef is part of that plan.

Unlike butchering days at our last home, however, here they're a lot less stressful as far as logistics go. That's because of one of the better purchases we made shortly after moving here: Horse panels. We got what we call a "screamin' good deal" on these beauties back in 2021, and they have proven endlessly useful.

We set some of them up to be a kind of "chute" on the south side of the barn, right off the corral. It's a sunny place the cows can hang out in winter, so they're used to it. But it's also proven useful as an escape-proof area to isolate an animal to be butchered (emphasis on escape-proof). We've had absolutely chaotic butchering days at our last place when animals escaped our admittedly ramshackle corralling attempts, so these horse panels have been a game-changer for us.

In both instances of butchering animals here at our new place – first Filet, now Mignon – it was a simple matter to scoot the animal into the chute, distract the rest of the herd by filling the feed boxes in the barn, and voilà. The local butcher can drive right up to the gate, dispatch the animal, and be off within minutes.

We're also impressed with the dispatcher. He's a crack shot. It's literally one bullet and wham, the animal is down. No pain, no fear. Mignon had her nose buried in a flake of oat hay at the time, so she never even saw it coming. This was the only remnants of Mignon's passing: A sprinkle of blood on the rocks.

During the two years we raised her, Mignon was a nice-enough animal. She had a decent temperament and let me scratch and brush her. She had a good life for as long as it lasted. If we're going to eat meat, this is the kind of conditions under which we like to obtain it. Thank you, Mignon.

No-spend January

An article was recently published in the Wall Street Journal (and reprinted on MSN) entitled "The Americans who are going a whole month without buying anything."

January, it seems, is a popular month to engage in a financial fast, presumably after the excesses of the holiday season. "Fueled by social media," notes the article, "some consumers are starting the new year with 'No Buy January.' It is a challenge to eliminate purchases of anything nonessential – like clothes, skin-care products and electronics – for the entire 31 days of January."

I applaud this trend, and I'll tell you why.

Waaaaaay back in 1993, when Don and I first moved rural, we moved without jobs. Naively we thought we could find work in our chosen fields in our new location, but we were wrong. It's the reason we were so determined to keep the tankard business running; it was an opportunity to work from home. (This was, of course, long before online remote work was an option.)

Long story short, we had a crash course in frugality decades ago and learned to pinch pennies until they shrieked. That frugality has never left us. We constantly tweak and adjust our spending and eliminate excess that might creep in. When times are fat, we spend more. When times are lean, we cut back. This has been the regular cycle throughout our married life.

But even in financially "fat" times, our spending is fairly frugal and tends to focus on things that will be useful on the homestead (tools, lumber, fencing, etc.). And for lean times – such as the aftermath of my job loss a year ago – it's a fairly simple thing to cut back our spending because we're already so used to it, and because we've already whittled away the excess.

In fact, we're SO used to it that I forget frugality is a learned skill rather than universal knowledge, and not everyone is instinctively familiar with it. So when things like  "No Buy January" trend on social media, it's an opportunity for people to delve into this endlessly fascinating realm of financial thriftiness.

Consider the efforts of a "No Buy January" participant named Gillian Shieh. "Looking at my finances, they look OK," she said. "But just emotionally, it feels stressful."

Here's what the article said about Ms. Shieh's approach: "Shieh, 32, plans to resist buying clothes, skin-care products, coffee and alcohol this month to cut her spending on non-essentials to $300, down from her typical monthly tally of between $1,000 and $1,500. The one area with wiggle room is eating, typically her biggest area of discretionary spending. Now she caps ordering meals and eating out to a maximum of three times a week, compared with as many as 10 in a pre-challenge week."

At first I was horrified at the amount of money wasted by eating out 10 times a week. During our financial "fat" times, we might eat out six times a year (and now it's more like once or twice a year). But really, that's more of an urban vs. rural thing. There are nowhere near ten restaurants in our closest town, whereas urbanites have a far broader selection of culinary opportunities. Ms. Shieh is learning a valuable skill about food costs and home cooking, something I heartily applaud.

Some influencers are pushing this frugality trend, which is nice to see. "Taylor Van Luven, a 24 year-old content creator from Ottawa, just finished her first 'low-buy year,'" notes the article. "After losing her job in January of last year, Van Luven set out to buy only the essentials – spending $30 a week or less – throughout all of 2025, a journey she shared on Instagram."

Woot! I love this kind of stuff! Good for Ms. Van Luyen. Keep it up!

Frugality is a powerful financial weapon. It's so powerful that even now, 33 years after embarking on our rural journey, we are still reaping the benefits. If a "No Buy January" is what it takes to get people to re-think their spending habits, I'm all in favor.

Record-low snowpack

While the long-suffering people in the eastern half of America reel from the impact of the massive storm that just passed through (and now, apparently, a nor'easter is bearing down on the Carolinas), those of us living in the west are uneasy. Here it is the end of January, and – except for the barest dusting a couple days ago – we've had NO snow.

Since October of 2004, I've keep a "weather diary" in which I record (briefly) the day's high and low temperatures, any notable weather (rain, wind, snow), and a brief synopsis of our activities. In looking back at this document, the last time we had any precipitation was January 2. The rest of the month, we've been bone-dry.

And people are getting edgy.

Yesterday I caught a news story entitled "Western states face 'snow drought' as snowpack hits record lows." The subtitle notes, "Despite the recent winter storm, Colorado, Utah and other Western states are severely lacking in mountain snow. Scientists are concerned about the water supply and wildfire risk."

And that's what is making everyone nervous.

Here's a USDA chart of the snowpack levels in the western U.S.:

"While it’s not unusual to have some basins lower than historical averages," notes the article, "it's rare to have nearly every region of the West facing snowfall deficits." After the atmospheric river that hit the northwest in late 2025 ran its course, "the spigot of moisture largely shut off in the Northwest."

Further, "The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center expects dry conditions for much of the West for the next two weeks, with temperatures remaining above average for the next month. [Philip Mote, a professor at Oregon State University's College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences], said some areas west of the Cascade crest – which runs up the spine of Washington and Oregon – could recover if a few big storms come later this winter or in spring. But, he said, 'for Eastern Washington and most of Idaho, the story's already kind of been written and it's just unlikely to change.'"

Translation: Those of us in the Inland Northwest must prepare for an explosive wildfire season.

Don and I are already doing this. We're making contingency plans for rapid evacuation and home safety. Thankfully, a few years ago we participated in a county brush-clearing program to remove "ladder" brush from an overgrown portion of our property. And since getting cows, of course, our property has remained trimmed down.

But that doesn't mean we're out of danger. We're looking into a gel fire suppression system to protect the house and barn. We have our 1500-gallon roof runoff system which can be used for emergency water. We intend to have our go-bags packed and ready. We'll have a list posted on the refrigerator of things to do and pack in advance of an evacuation so we don't panic and forget something critical. We have important documents (i.e. birth certificates, etc.) in a file, ready to grab. We'll make sure to have pet supplies and equipment (food, carriers, cages, leashes, etc.) ready to go.

Even this early in the season, we're taking some preliminary steps. We're burning off some accumulated shop waste. We're photographing, documenting, and inventorying everything for insurance purposes.

It's not a pleasant thing to think about the possibility of losing our homestead, but we'd rather be prepared for the worst even as we pray for the best.

Spreading the benefits

Don and I, as often happens, underestimated the amount of hay we needed to get the livestock through the winter. I don't know why, but we do that a lot. So, late last November, we started looking for more hay to purchase.

But hay tends to sell quickly and can be hard to find off-season. We inquired of our usual sources and learned everything had already sold. Finally, through various means, we connected with a fellow who had oat hay available in 100-lb. bales.

Oat hay. Hmmm. We'd never fed oat hay to our livestock before, but the seller assured us his own cows loved the stuff. So, since the price was decent and (more importantly) he had some available, we ordered four tons.

Now here's the thing: By every metric we were familiar with, 100-lb. bales of hay should be fairly large, but these bales of oat hay were pretty much standard size. But, groan, they were very heavy, to the point where Don and I simply couldn't lift them. At all. The best we could do was push and shove and tip them to move them around, and we had to use the tractor to stack them with any semblance of neatness.We got about half the bales in the barn, and the rest we stacked in the driveway on a series of pallets, which we later tarped.

What made the bales so heavy? In a word, oats. This wasn't oat straw, it was oat hay, harvested with the seed intact. Whenever we moved a bale, a festive layer of oats was left behind.

Okay fine, but would the cows like it?

Oh. My. Yes. The cows stinkin' adore it. They attack it greedily, and prefer it over anything else we've ever fed them. Interestingly, it's boosted Maggie's milk output, too. Due to the natural decline of milk production with an older calf (and the fact that she's pregnant), I had been getting about half a gallon a day, even though I give her some grain every morning in the milking stall. But with the extra boost of nutrition from this oat hay, her output has ramped up to a gallon a day with ease. (I plan to dry her off, i.e. stop milking, in early March. Her calf is due in late June.)

With an eye toward having some hay put aside for next year, we called the seller and asked if he had any more for sale. Sadly, no, he'd sold it all. So we told him to put us on his list for this summer's crop.

Meanwhile, the oat hay is "spreading the benefits" as other animals have discovered it.

The Oregon juncoes, sparrows, and black-capped chickadees descend on the oat hay debris, whether outside in the driveway or inside the barn.

But the biggest beneficiary of this largess are the turkeys.

Turkeys, as I've mentioned before, are nature's Roombas. They wander the landscape, finding everything even remotely edible, and clean it up. They tend to aggregate in enormous flocks during the winter, sometimes in groups as large as fifty or sixty or more birds. Groups of about one to two dozen are most common. Now, it seems, one or more of those groups have found their way into the corral.

On any day of the week, I can creep into the barn, peer through the slats of the feed box, and catch a dozen turkeys inside the barn. They scratch through the cow poop and gobble up any oat seeds they find.

Sometimes they'll scratch around in the mud of the corral, breaking up cow patties and finding the edible bits inside.

Most, however, can be found on the barn waste pile. Turkeys love barn waste any time, but especially now that it's rich in oat seeds. Bonanza!

Such prehistoric-looking creatures, aren't they?

Turkeys perform a highly valuable service for us, since their activities aid in decomposition for the barn waste on its journey to becoming compost.

Eventually, either sated with seeds or spooked by my presence, the turkeys will leave the barn and aggregate in the lower pasture.

Then, with powerful beats of their wings, they'll become airborne long enough to clear fences and land downhill from any perceived danger.

So yes, the oat hay is spreading the benefits. The passerine birds as well as the turkeys get some meals. The cows are getting extra nutrition. I'm getting plenty of milk for making cheese. Not a bad deal.

Predicting the weather

This cartoon was created by the talented writer and artist Wren Everett and appeared in the Jan/Feb/Mar 2026 issue of Backwoods Home Magazine (and is reprinted with permission). I thought it was incredibly apropos, considering the storm that hit the eastern two-thirds of America this past weekend.

(Click to enlarge)

There's a lot to be said for a prepared lifestyle. Stay warm and safe, everyone!

Winter weather

For the last few days, we're been hearing dire weather reports about the massive storm and bitter cold bearing down on two-thirds of the U.S.

Apparently this is the worst storm system in something like 40 years and is NOT something to ignore or take lightly. Officials have been urging people to batten down the hatches and prepare accordingly.

Needless to say, lots of store shelves are being stripped bare.

Meanwhile, the western U.S. is under a high-pressure system that is preventing any moisture from hitting the ground. We've been cloudy, below freezing, and bone-dry for weeks. There isn't a drop of rain or snow anywhere in the forecast, and the locals are getting worried about a severe fire season this summer.

I guess it's a weird winter for everyone.

Stay safe and warm, dear readers, and if you're in the path of this storm, report in as you can how you're faring.

The final shipment

Dear readers, thank you for your forbearance as Don and I coped with finishing up a massive production run of tankards after Older Daughter's shop accident on New Year's Eve.

Here's some of the things we've been doing over the last three weeks. The production run was split into two parts: A huge first part of about 270 pieces, and a smaller second part of about 75.

We had tankards everywhere in the house, on virtually every flat surface.

I'm not exaggerating when I say this was one of the biggest production runs we've done over the span of the last 33 years.

Here we're testing tankards, where we fill them with water to see if any leak. We had to do this in stages, since there were so many.

The house was in absolute flippin' chaos during this time. Tankards in various stages of completion, boxes for packing, bubble wrap, newspapers, guarantee cards ... what a mess.

In the photo below, for example, Older Daughter and I are working at the kitchen table getting tankards ready to pack, while Don is in the background gluing up the next batch on a card table. Chaos chaos chaos.

Here's the newspaper station. I'm spreading out full sheets of newspaper from the pile on the right, while discarding half-sheets on the floor to the left (we'll use them for fire starters). We need full-size sheets of newspapers for wrapping tankards for packing.

Here we're prepping boxes. BIG boxes.

Packing boxes. Three boxes are stacked to the left, two to the right, and the one we just finished filling is in the center. We roll each tankard in newspaper before packing.

Six huge boxes ready to ship. I'm fairly certain this is the largest number of boxes we've ever shipped at one time. Even the UPS guy said it could have made its own stand-alone pickup.

With the bulk of the production run out the door, we were able to concentrate on the smaller 75-piece portion. Here's we're coating the insides of the tankards.

And here are the final two boxes, packed and ready to tape shut and address.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the final shipment.

No, really, I mean it. This is the final shipment of tankards. After 33 years in business, 29 by Don and myself and the last four years by Older Daughter, we're closing down. Older Daughter has already notified her wholesale customers.

It's bittersweet, of course, but the painful reality is it's no longer cost-effective for making a living. Sure it was insane hours, erratic income, and  the occasional injury, but over the three decades Don and I ran it, we were able to support a family, pay a mortgage, raise our children, and always be home with them.

But things have changed. Prices for all the components (wood, glue, varnish, sanding belts, saw blades, spray guns, bubble wrap, boxes, shipping) have skyrocketed, but the tankard prices couldn't be raised enough to compensate and provide a livable wage. In other words, it was becoming less and less profitable. While Older Daughter's injury was the deciding factor, there's no doubt the increasing cost of doing business convinced her it was better to let it go.

However Older Daughter has some exciting new plans for her future. I'm not at liberty to discuss what they are at the moment, but she has some wonderful opportunities opening up.

While this final shipment is officially the end of an era, Don and I know better than to claim we'll never make another tankard. As the saying goes, never say never. Economic reality might necessitate a change of plans. We're thoroughly enjoying our new careers as full-time freelance writers, but it's good to know we have a backup source of income should we need it.

But for now ... this is the final shipment.

Sorry for the silence!

A few readers have expressed concern about the blog silence. My apologies! We're all doing fine except we're still slammed with getting this massive tankard order out the door. We hope to ship off the last pieces this upcoming Thursday, at which point we will heave an enormous sigh of relief.

To top things off, my writing schedule suddenly multiplied. I sent off a proposal (synopsis + three chapters) to my Harlequin editor Thursday morning, and did a podcast interview for Mother Earth News on Thursday afternoon, and now I'm working on a Countryside article which is due Tuesday. I also have at least two articles I need to submit to Backwoods Home Magazine as soon as possible, and two more articles due early next month for Backyard Poultry Magazine. This is, of course, on top of the usual morning milking and afternoon barn-cleaning schedule.

Older Daughter's finger is still painful, but it's healing well. There's a ligament or tendon in there that catches her with a snap of pain when she stretches out her hand too fast, but the finger itself isn't causing any direct pain and there was no infection thanks to the emergency room physician who did a good job cleaning it, and Older Daughter's diligent after-care of the wound.

Thank you for understanding about the dearth of blog posts. More later!

The elk are back

Every winter in our area, the elk move from the high country to lower elevations. This means we suddenly start seeing them all over the place.

Interestingly, we've had an extraordinarily mild winter so far (a state of affairs that, frankly, is starting to worry us; will this correlate to a summer of wildfires?), so the elk have plenty of browse.

Coincidentally, we've also started noticing damage to our fencing.

Elk are massive animals – you don't really appreciate just how huge they are until you're up close to one – so it's no surprise that our modest fences get damaged by them.

It's one of those give-and-takes of country living. Elk are beautiful animals. Damaged fences is one of the prices we pay for enjoying their presence.

An illiterate generation?

Two related news stories caught my attention this week. One was entitled "They Can't Read: [Hoover Institution Senior Fellow} Victor Davis Hanson Shares Horror Stories That Drove Him Out Of University." The other piece is called "Gen Z are arriving to college unable to even read a sentence – professors warn it could lead to a generation of anxious and lonely graduates."

As the titles imply, there are entire cohorts of young people emerging from public education functionally illiterate. The latter article begins: "As Gen Z ditch books at record levels, students are arriving to classrooms unable to complete assigned reading on par with previous expectations. It's leaving colleges no choice but to lower their expectations. One shocked professor has described young adults showing up to class, unable to read a single sentence."

The crisis of literacy goes back decades, arguably generations. "Why Johnny Can't Read" was first published in 1955 and drew national attention to the failures of the "look-say" method of teaching (as opposed to phonics) that signaled the beginning of the end for literacy.

We are so obsessed with books in our family that this hits home ... hard.

We've also had lively discussions in our household about the issue. Is reading even "necessary" in our modern society? Clearly illiteracy isn't an insuperable handicap for everyone. History is rife with brilliant people who succeeded despite their inability to read. Today's younger generations are clearly succeeding even though reading is no longer a priority.

I guess what I find distressing is our modern culture seems to actively cultivate functional illiteracy. Children are surrounded by screens instead of books. They're encouraged to watch videos about something rather than reading about it. Parents don't model reading; they model viewing. Artificial intelligence is poised to take the need to read away from us. Children no longer grow up with the expectation that reading is not only educational, but fun. University professors are reaping the rewards of this change in attitude and ability.

Recently a reader related a frustrating experience with an AI bot and asked rhetorically, "You'll do better finding your answers in a book somewhere. What will we do when books are gone?"

An excellent question. We're on a personal mission in our family not to let that happen. Let's hope future generations are able to overcome their illiteracy.