Farming the modern way.

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG YOU ARE INVITED , TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. Anyhow, here I will publish my own diary and what I see happening in the world, and when I do not have much to say, I will write posts from my life story. 

Anyhow, you can also find this article at, http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com,  

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk  

You can see more at this addresses, DIY brickwork  and,  http://diybrickwork.com,   

This article can also be found at this link, Farming today compared to the old way. 

Modern day farming is a lot easier than the past, look at this photo above a show off harvester machine. Now this photo is an just an exaggeration because it it too crowded with machines, and you need one or two machines in a field and other things. Anyhow this is how harvesting is done today, in the past it was a lot harder, as we are going to show you in this article. 

Welcome to our article, Farming today compared to the old way. 

Dear readers, this post will be a long post, so, I cannot upload the entire original article and most of the photos, if you want to see that click on the Hub Pages link,  Farming today compared to the old way. 

Anyhow, here we want to talk about farming today compared to the old ways, because I can mentally see the great difference that it has made in our standard of living. So, I believe that today we are better off than we were before; but let me see how I can describe this difference. Anyhow, I am writing about my life story, so, I mentally compare the ways of life of today to the ways of life in the past when I was young. 

Anyhow, we must acknowledge that this modern wheat farming in Australia, and in other parts of the world, it has slashed the present cost of living a lot, and this helps us to live a better life. We believe that this has happened because of the new farming machines available to the farmers, and the fertilizes available to them; so, farmers are able to produce wheat and other produce a lot cheaper than in the past, so, food has become cheaper, therefore, we are better off today in many ways.

In this article, we invite our readers to compare how different farming and farming life was at the time when I was young in the fifties, and also, how hard was life then because most of us had to work hard just to earn enough to feed ourselves and our families.

This difference that we are talking about applies to the farmers and the general public as well, because today it affects us in a beneficial way. So, there is a lot to be said about this great difference in cost and hardship, and this has happened during my life timelifetime. So, I believe that our standard of living has improved a lot, at least in the sense of being able to feed ourselves with wheat and other farm products, because the cost of farm products are more affordable today than in the past; so, let us compare the cost of living, and how much we have improved since then.

Today we often wonder how easy it is to grow and harvest wheat, at least it seems so when we look at a video that shows harvest time in the wheat farms, we see a few harvester machines in a field collect the wheat in no time at all, and because of this speed of these wonderful combine harvester machine food is a lot cheaper today than it used to be; of course these machines are only part of the machinery that helps the farmers produce the wheat, because there are many more machines required. So, let us talk about some other machinery that the farmers require.

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Some farmers' machinery. 

Now let us talk about the farmer’s machinery and the benefit that has come from them; of course, this is due to the industrial revolution that has started a long time ago. It seems to me that the farming sector has been one of the last communities that has benefited from the industrial revolution, anyhow, that doesn’t matter how it has worked out, because today we are better off, so, let us talk about these machines.

We can say that the most important machine in the farms is the tractor, as this machine can be used in all sorts of farming, in wheat farming the tractor is followed by the harvester machine and other devices to till the soil and to sow the seeds, and all these machines put together make farming a lot easier today, therefore, wheat can be produced a lot cheaper, this of course helps keep the price of bread and other wheat made products down, since wheat is the main food elements required in the western world to prepare food, therefore, this new way of farming helps a great deal just about everybody, since wheat is one of the main ingredients to make foods for us to eat, and we require lots of it.

Of course, there is more to say than just wheat farming, because there are many other things that the bloke on the land can produce, see this link here-under how Wikipedia explains farming.

Agriculture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dear readers, now that we have talked about these farmer’s machines, let us talk about wheat farming and the great benefit that we get from it; we must be happy about what is happening because it is a good thing for all of us; so, we want to point out that there is a great difference in the ways of living, and we are a lot better off today than we were when I was young, so, let us compare some of the benefits that we have achieved, since today the farmers can use these farm machines that the industrial revolution has made for us.

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Let us compare these benefits. 

Now, let us compare the great difference between today and the past for comparison sake. When I wrote this article for the first time, in Australia there were a few places that a 600g loaf of bread costs you just one dollar, we know that this bread is sold at a very special price from these supermarket, in order to get the customers to the shop, but we wonder and we do not know how it can be done so cheap but they do it anyhow, this very low price of bread is possible only because the farmer can produce the wheat cheap for a start.

Then, because the wheat is cheap the price of bread can be cheap, the supermarkets make it even cheaper to attract customers, because the supermarkets have a price war to attract customers on bread and also on milk, so, we can buy a loaf of bread for one dollar and we can buy a two litre bottled milk for two dollars, that works out at one dollar per litre, again how they can do it I do not know, but they do it anyhow; so, there is plenty of cheap wholesome food around for us to enjoy, thanks to the farmers and the supermarkets. (We hope that this will last for a long time, but I have my doubts). Anyhow, I must point out that in the past, the price of bread and milk was a lot dear, in fact there have been times, when people were struggling to feed themselves. 

But even though bread and milk is cheap beyond compare, there are people that still complain about the cost of living today, I know that what I am talking about here are only a few items and a lot more are needed to live well. But for comparison’s sake let us show you how easily we can afford to buy bread and milk to day, you see today, while I am writing this article for the first time, most people on the government old age pension in Australia receive about 700 dollars per fortnight, which would be about 50 dollars per day, they can easily afford to buy bread and milk and other food items.

Now that we have said how easy it is to buy bread and other staple food today, let us see how things were done in the past. You see, when I was young things were a lot harder than today, for sure we could not buy bread and milk as easy as we buy them today, because to produce these things took a lot more physical work than today, therefore, they were more expensive, they were so because the way of producing them was different, in order to show you what we mean, we are going to describe how wheat farming was done at the time when I was young, and how hard it was for some people just to have something to eat, even if it was just a piece of bread and butter, bread and milk, or bread and tomatoes or other basic things that one could find in the fields if you were in the farms. Anyhow, let us compare the past with the present way of farming.

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Farming the old way.  

Dear readers, to compare how farming was at the time when I was young, we will write about the way of farm life of those times; we know that things have changed for the better since then, because of the tractor and new farming machinery that have come out since then, all due to the industrial revolution or progress; which we have experienced in the last hundred years or so, but when I was young there were a lot less advanced farming machine that could make farming easy, of course, the tractors were already there, but they were very expensive to buy for most of the small farmers, so, we had to do most things the old ways. Now let me tell you how life was in the farms of southern Italy in the early fifties.

It is a well-known fact that in those times and even now, there are two times during the year, when in the farms everybody is working hard and very long hours; one of this was sowing time and the other is harvest time, let us start with sowing times. When I was young the working day at sowing time would start two hours before dawn, because we had to make the horses, mules and other animals ready for working in the fields, we had to feed them and water them as well, it had to be done in such a way that everything should be made ready to go into the fields at daybreak.

At that time of the year in the morning it was very cold and there are lots of frosty days, so, in the morning the outside temperature could be around zero or below, it is very hard then to harness the horses to the plough as everything one touches is so cold; but then when one gets going it is not so bad, because walking in the fields holding the plough in one hand and guiding the horses with the other hand is hard work and it makes one warm. This type of hard work at sowing time goes on for about a month if the weather is good and perhaps it could be longer than a month. When the sowing is done then everything slows down again, but we had still to look after the farms’ animals and do other farming chores; see this article My farm life continues, where we describe what we did after sowing, and what we did during the winter time.

Now let us talk about harvest time, since this is the busiest time in the farms, because harvest time is when the farmers collect the fruits of their hard labor, so, there is no time to be wasted at harvest time, therefore, this was and is the most hectic time of the year for all the farmers, and it is a very worrying time too for the farmers, you see if something goes wrong all their work goes down the drain for the whole year, so to speak. 

Now let us say a few things about today farming, especially about wheat farming, because wheat is one of the most important produces that we need from farming. With wheat we make bread and pasta and other bakery products, therefore, it is the most important farm produce that we use. So, let us compare what is changed in wheat farming since I was young:

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Wheat harvest in the fifties.  

The following description is the way of wheat harvest time in the fifties. When I was young we had already a horse drawn harvester that was helping us, this early harvester was able to cut the wheat plants and tie them in bundles, so, we were already halfway down the track of progress, as this machine saved us a lot of work, because we did not have to harvest by hand, which is a very labor intensive job, as we are going to describe later in this article. Anyhow, at this time of the year everybody in the farm works hard and for very long hours, it is very hot and everything is very dry. We get up very early in the morning, we get the horses ready for working by feeding them and watering them, then we harness the horses and set them to pull the harvester, and off we go in the fields for another day of hard work, if everything goes well, we might be able to go over a ten-acre field just in one day with this harvester. The harvester needs two people to get it working, one drives the horses and another regulate the harvester, the harvester goes around the field and leaves these bundles of wheat or other cereal, whatever has been sown in the field. Now these bundles of wheat will be collected in hips around the field from other people as soon as possible, the hips of these bundles of wheat are made is such a way that if it rains the rain would run off easily, these hips of wheat will be collected later when we finish with the harvester, perhaps in a week or two, then we will go back to the fields with a cart to take everything on a special plot near the farmhouse, where the threshing machine will be hired and set.

When we collect and cart everything to the farm house, we work very long days, we get up before 4 am, but we have a break of two or three hours at lunchtime because it is too hot to do anything, then we go back to work and between real work and looking after the animals we finish at dusk around 8 pm, after that we only have to feed the horses: this sort of work goes on for more than a month and sometimes up to two months, with no breaks at all seven days a week. Everybody in the farm works to their maximum and they are very tired, they are also very worried about the possible fire hazard, and also of any thunderstorms at this time of the year, since anyone of these happenings can destroy the whole crop, and a whole year of hard work can go up in smoke. So, we are all working hard, and at the same time we are praying God and waiting for the threshing machine to come and finish our harvest.

When some famer did not have a lot of wheat to thresh, they could use a place in common with other farmers, so that, the threshing machine would not have to be set several times. The threshing machine that were around and we would hire together with other farmers came with a large crew, because it was a very large machine, it had a crew of about twenty people, it was a very interesting time when we were threshing our own wheat, oats, barley, etc. Because we were anxious to see how much wheat and other product we had made.

Anyhow, here I want to say that when one goes through these life experiences in the farm, one knows that farming life is hard; but since this is the only way to grow food to feed ourselves, we the farmers keep working in our farms to feed ourselves and the rest of the community.

So, we the farmers feel that it would be right if the rest of the community appreciates our efforts, so, they should be thanking us for all the hard work that we have done, after all, we are providing all those things that are necessary to make food for the rest of the community; but it does not happen that way, because even when we are working our guts out, and while we are doing that we are becoming dull, the rest of the community does not care and they label us as dull people; their attitude hurts us very much and we believe that we don’t deserve that; just because we are farm people, but we have done our part of hard work for our own benefit and for the benefit of the entire community. So, we the farmers feel hurt to say the least. 

Anyhow, this town people attitude as I have said above, plus some very lean years when we hardly could survive, and because we had only a small farm and it would have been hard to expand was one of the reasons why I left farming and migrated to Australia. But anyhow let us continue to describe how harvesting was done the very old way, so, that we can compare it to today’s living.

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Harvesting the very old way. 

Now, because we want to compare the very old ways of farming with today farming, we need to say how harvesting wheat was done before my times; here we need to say that I have witnessed the last part of this old practice when I was young. You see, when I was young we were already using a horse drawn harvester; but there were people that had some small holdings and we had one of these ourselves, it was in a place, where it was hard to go with the harvester, so, we had to use the old ways for harvesting our wheat for that small wheat field, because that was the only way. 

So, let me describe how harvesting was done in those old bygone days; at harvesting time strange as it may seem today, we could hire some specialized people that were good at using the sickle, these people usually went from town to town to do this seasonal harvesting job; we need also to explain that in Southern Italy because the terrain has different altitude the wheat reaches maturity at different times, this was helping these seasonal workers to have a longer span of work, now to compare those hard times with today times, I have to tell you that these workers were sleeping anywhere they could on a sack filled up with straws under a shelter if they could find one, as they could not afford anything else. In the morning they would get up early and wait in the town square hoping that somebody would hire them for the day.

Now let us say that we had a small plot about one acre and we could not use the harvester, because it was not possible to go there, we would hire four people and form a gang that could harvest one acre in one day and collect it in hips, that later would be taken on a cart to the farm house to be threshed one way or another.

In the old times anything that had grown in the field was collected, it needed to be collected for the people to survive, because the fields did not produce as much as they do today, because they could not be cultivated with our modern machines. You see, today we have the tractor to cultivate the fields and it does a better job than the horse drawn plough, we have many types of fertilizer to help us grow more wheat but let us go back to talk about very old harvesting times.

Wheat harvesting and threshing the very old time.  

Now I must say briefly how the older generations before my times used to thresh their harvests, to collect their produce. Now, let us suppose that it was a few bundles of wheat to be threshed one could even extract the wheat by hitting them with a stick, but let us say that we had a cartful, or many cartsful for that matter, then we had to use a different method, which is the way that most farm used in the very old times for centuries, before the threshing machine was invented, so, let me tell you how it was done.

I happen to know this procedure, because in the farms when I was young, we were still using this method with smaller crops, most likely broad beans, lentils, chickpeas, linseed, and other farm produce that were not meant to go through the wheat threshing machine. When we were doing this procedure of threshing these minor crops, the elder would always be telling us that this was the way that they used to collect their wheat as well and usually it took them a few months to collect all the season produce. So, now let me describe this to you, so that we can compare the difference.

In order to do this old threshing, first of all we needed to prepare a piece of ground that is very solid and smooth, this can be achieved by stripping the old dry grass on a piece of land that had a large clay content, then wet it with a little bit of water to make it compact; once that was ready we would place our wheat or whatever was to be threshed and collected on this clean ground, then we would get our horses mule and donkeys whatever animals were available and drive them around and around until everything was threshed. 

Now, once the threshing was done we had to separate the produce from the straw and any other foreign matter, this was achieved by removing the straws from the top layer making sure that no produce was left with the straws, at the same time we would collect the bottom layer in a hip, once that was done we would have to clean that produce by using the wind, to take away the finer parts that were still mixed with the wheat or whatever it was, and there were many other things that we could use to get this wheat clean, by the end of the day we could have collected two or three hundred kilograms of produce, and when we did that we thought that we had done well for a day work.

In the very ancient times was even worse, see what they were using in the Medieval Times, here is a link to check out some ancient farm tools including the Flail and Winnowing Basket used to collect and clean wheat.

Medieval Farm Tools

I hope that this gives the modern reader a view of how thing were done in the old times, so, I do not want to say much more about how all this threshing and cleaning of the wheat was done, because even writing about it is boring today. But then that was the only way to collect our wheat to make bread and other things to eat. Now, my dear reader’s do you see how hard was then even to collect wheat for ourselves, so that we could make bread and other cereal product.

So to the young people who think that today life is hard, let me describe to you what I have witnessed when I was young, because then life really was harder than today, you see those days everybody had to find how to earn enough to feed themselves there were no handover from the government. So, the very poor people of those days were trying to collect anything they could to feed themselves, as I have witnessed these things myself, so, let me describe this to you:

You see, at harvest time this is what I have witnessed, I have seen old and poor people mainly old ladies go around the fields and pick up any ear of wheat that was left behind in the fields, one ear of wheat here and another ear wheat there until they had the strength to go around, they did this each day until harvest time was over and there was nothing else to collect; and I tell you what these poor people were happy if in the end they had collected enough ears of wheat that they could thresh and clean themselves, perhaps they could have collected enough to make 50 to 100 kilos of wheat during harvest time and they were happy because, they could make bread from this wheat and not go hungry for a few months. Now I hope that you can see what I mean when I say that the youths of today don’t know anything about hard times.

Anyhow, I hope that today this abundance of cheap food lasts for a long time, because things can change in the future. Today the climatic change is the worrying part, because we don’t know how much it is going to affect the farms and our lives.  

I believe that this article is too long, so, see you in our next article, Genzano di Lucania. the town that I have come from. See you then. 

To see more click on this link, Farming today compared to the old way 

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What happened in December 2021.

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG YOU ARE INVITED , TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. Anyhow, here I will publish my own diary and what I see happening in the world, and when I do not have much to say, I will write posts from my life story. 

Anyhow, you can also find this article at, http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com,  

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk  

You can see more at this addresses, DIY brickwork  and,  http://diybrickwork.com,   

This article can also be found at this link, What happened in December 2021.    

This is one of the many photos of what has happened in USA. It seems to me that these tornados events happen more often, and they are more violent, in this case more than 70 people have lost their lives, and a lot of building have been destroyed, in several locations.  

What happened in December 2021.

  World news in December 2021.  

Welcome to my diary, What happened in December 2021. 

Dear readers, I am writing this diary to remind me what I have seen happen during my life, anyhow, this is the month of December and nearly Christmas time, which sometimes we call the silly season, because everybody likes to make merry and do happy things. This year again, we may need to refrain from being carried away from it, because of what is happening, so, we need to be serious. 

You see, apart from thinking about Christmas, it seems to me that we need to continue talking about two other main things: one is Climatic changes, because of what has just happened in USA recently, and the other is this pandemic that is affecting the entire world. So, let us see what has happened in USA, because what has happened can be linked to the climatic change. So, hereunder I quote what I have found on the Internet.

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Tornadoes have caused widespread damage in central and southern US states, with dozens of people feared dead. Witnesses and survivors have been describing their terrifying experiences of the storm.

Related: At least 70 dead as tornadoes rip across central and southern US states

The damage included building collapses of a candle factory in Mayfield, Kentucky, where officials believe more than 70 people may have died, an Amazon warehouse in Illinois, and a nursing home in Arkansas. The other states that have been most affected are Missouri, Mississippi, and Tennessee.

 Kentucky: tragedy at candle factory

Kyanna Parsons-Perez felt the building was making them “rock from one side to the other” right before it collapsed on her and her co-workers at a candle factory in Mayfield, Kentucky, on Friday after it was hit by the tornado.

 Parsons-Perez, an employee at the candle factory in this city of less than 10,000, was stuck for three hours in the rubble, and documented part of it in a livestream on Facebook in which her co-workers can be heard crying in fear.

 Images of America Tornado

bing.com/images

 (End of my quote)

Above I have pasted a link about these tornados, I hope it works to see what has happened. Below is what Joe Biden said, when he visited Kentucky.

1.    Joe Biden promises tornado-ravaged Kentucky ‘we’re …

https://www.news.com.au/world/joe-biden-promises-tornadoravaged...

6 hours ago · US President Joe Biden has spoken in Kentucky addressing the damage wreaked by tornadoes in one of the hardest hit cities of the disaster. The President made his address from Dawson Springs, Kentucky.

 

Anyhow, there are reasons to believe that these tornados are happening more than usual, so, this may be due to the warmer temperature caused from climatic change. As you know they have had a couple of meeting last month about this climatic change, so I hope that they keep working on it, to give the best outcome, in the hope that this will minimize violent weather happening, like these tornados and other things.

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While I was editing this article the 31st of December, I found that another tragedy has occurred, which can also be attributed to climatic change.   

Colorado wildfires: tens of thousands evacuated as blazes destroy hundreds of homes

Tens of thousands of residents were forced to flee in northern Colorado after fast-moving wildfires destroyed an estimated 600 homes.

Over 30,000 residents across three communities outside Denver had to evacuate their homes after wind-fueled grass fires rapidly burned through multiple buildings including a hotel and Target shopping complex, along with 580 homes.

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Now let us talk about the COVID19. 

The covid19 continues, has different names, since it mutates, we had the Delta variant and the latest one is called Omicron. Anyhow, things are a bit better now, perhaps we finally have realized that we will survive somehow. But let us see what is happening now and make a list at the end of this month.  

 

1.    COVID Live Update: 271,930,235 Cases and 5,340,821 Deaths ...

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/?%20%3Ca%2

Reported Cases and Deaths by Country or Territory. The coronavirus COVID-19 is affecting 222 countries and territories. The day is reset after midnight GMT+0.The list of countries and their regional classification is based on the United Nations Geoscheme.Sources are provided under "Latest News." Learn more about Worldometer's COVID-19 data. 

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Above is a link that takes you to see a few things, if it works. Now let us update today list of what is happening.

 

On the world list today, the 29th of December 2021 there are over 283 million positive and 5.43 million dead, Now let us talk the 4 countries with most affected people.

USA. 54,136,000 affected people and 842,000 deaths.

India 34,808,000 affected and 480,000 deaths

 Brazil 22,254,000 affected and 618,000 deaths

UK. 12,300,000 affected and 148,000 deaths

These are the 4 countries most affected.

By comparison Australia today has 323,278 affected and 2202 deaths. So, we are doing well.    

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Talking about Christmas 2021. 

Anyhow, now let us talk about what we see happening, this Christmas 2021, or should we say what we hope happens this Christmas. You see, before this pandemic Christmas time was happy times, at least for some of us. Today we are not so sure anymore, so, we should ask ourselves what we should do, perhaps the best thing to do, is to go back to our religious beliefs, where we can find some peace of mind and hope. So, hereunder is what religious people tell us to believe, and I quote.     

This week, we’re focusing on Jesus—the Light of HOPE. Christmas has always been a season of hope. From the beginning, the prophecies about Jesus’ birth were gifted to the world as a hope people could cling to—the hope that a Saviour would be born into the world who would crush the head of Satan (Genesis 3:15), so that, through this Saviour, all the nations on earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:3).

Jesus remains the only Light of Hope—a beacon of certainty in an uncertain and dark world. Now’s especially the time to remember the hope we have been given through our Saviour. Below are three ways to experience the Light of Hope as you begin this Christmas season.

Expect the Light of Hope

No matter what has happened in our world lately, Jesus is our greatest hope of all. Jesus is God’s Christmas gift to you—this year and every year. There’s just one stipulation—you have to accept the gift.

You don’t have to wait for perfect circumstances or rainbows and butterflies to appear before you have hope. After all, that isn’t really hoping for anything, it’s just believing what you’re already seeing. Real Bible hope believes the promises God has made in His Word. That’s where you get your hope from, not from your circumstances. Hebrews 11:1 (NKJV) tells us that faith is a substance, and that substance is “things hoped for.”

Now pope Francis at the Christmas mass.

Pope Francis urges Christians to value the 'little things in life' as he leads Midnight Mass at the Vatican - while worshippers around the world gather for annual service

• An estimated 2,000 members of the public and 200 religious figures attended mass at St Peter's Basilica
• Pope Francis called on the faithful to value the 'little things in life' and show solidarity with the poor
• Worshippers were seen gathering for masses in cities across the US, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Kenya and Russia

By STEPHEN WYNN-DAVIES FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 11:52 AEDT, 25 December 2021 | UPDATED: 13:04 AEDT, 25 December 2021

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 Anyhow, this is the end of my quotes, and I wish that this Christmas is the end of the pandemic, and next year everything will go back to normal, so, we hope for better time next year, we need this break soon, may God help us to achieve that.    

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We are hoping for better times next year. .

I believe that the last two years have been hard for everybody, mainly because of the COVID19 pandemic. So, we hope that next year will be better, there are some signs of improvement, even if it is not a lot, at least we are not scared as much as before. Some doctors even start saying that this new strain called Omicron can be helpful, because people are likely to become immune. I must say that this is the first time that I have heard about it, so, there must be some hope that one day the pandemic can become less virulent and become like a bad influenza.

Anyhow, what we would like to see happen next year? I am pretty sure that most people would like to see the corona virus disappear, or at least become modified and weak, so, even if you catch it, it will not kill you, but you can become immunized. Then we would like to see everything go back to normal. Perhaps not exactly like they were before, but with an added improvement that we have learned during the pandemic. This may result that the central government, will help anybody that needs to be helped, this may sound more like communism than a liberal government, that is based on capitalism and individual competition only.

Anyhow, the world has still many problems to solve next year 2022, the major ones are the pandemic, global warming, illegal emigration, and many others. So, every day that passes we look at the news in the hope of seeing some permanent solutions, but unfortunately at the best we find only marginal improvement of some problems. Anyhow, let us hope that the year 2022 is a better year, and brings some solutions to the several problems that we face.

I believe that this article is long enough, and I have said the main things I have noted this month, so, see you next time in a month or two, with another article like this one. meanwhile I will post other posts about other things. 

See you soon. 

Simple man life observations.

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG YOU ARE INVITED , TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. Anyhow, here I will publish my own diary and what I see happening in the world, and when I do not have much to say, I will write posts from my life story. 

Anyhow, you can also find this article at, http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com,  

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk  

You can see more at this addresses, DIY brickwork  and,  http://diybrickwork.com,   

This article can also be found at this link, Our life observations.  

 When people observe things they learn how those things are and behave, life is full of observations. You do not need to be a learned person to observe things, anybody can do it, in fact we all learn from life by observing other people and things around us, once we learn those things they will stay we us for the rest of our lives. So, let us all observe and learn.  

 

Welcome to our article, Our life observations. 

Dear readers, what I am writing here is a simple man life observations, they are my life memories and observations. You see, we have to learn from our life, before we can say these things; for instance now: I am writing my own life observations in this article, we will call this part, simple man life observations. Anyhow, we will break my writings in several sub titles, like the following, observe and learn from life, let me talk about my childhood and my childhood pains; one can still learn from the hurting part of life, we need to be positive.  

Anyhow, as I have said, we have to observe and learn, and then we can use our observations to guide us during our life; our observations of life are like our shadow that follows us everywhere we go and it never fails, so, let us learn from life by observing whatever happens around us. I know that sometimes we want to forget what has happened to us, because it is painful to recall, but even those painful memories are worth remembering, because they can teach us how to avoid them next time.   

Looking at the ways that we are living today, we can say that it is better than it used to be; but at the same time, living today is not as simple as it used to be; because of the changing ways that progress has brought with it, therefore, living our life today is complex, even if it is a life of a simple man like me.

You see, in the old times it was easier, because life followed the same pattern of the generation before, so, it was easy to copy the previous generation. But today is different, because things are changing quickly, so, we must change if we want to keep up with the times. Having said that, now, we must observe what can be done about it; of course, the best way is to plan how we want to live our life.

But even if we plan well ahead, there are times during our life when we must do whatever is most appropriate, to survive and thrive, and be able to earn our living. Therefore, even if we have made up our mind, and we have decided that we want to study, or we want to learn a trade, or do something special during our life, it may not happen the way we have planned it, because life events can override those decisions, so, we may end up doing a different job, or being something else other than what we had planned to do in the beginning. But then because these things happen we learn from life what we need to do and we do them since that is the best way to solve the problem. You see, we need to observe and lean, it is necessary to do that even if it is done to survive those times that we happen to live in. 

I believe that my life story and my life observations are like my own shadow, they follow me everywhere I go, so, I have learned to use them, to live the rest of my life the best way I can. 

Observe and learn from life. 

We should observe life events and learn from them

We must accept life the way it comes, because that is the only thing that we can do; we must do it without upsetting ourselves too much; I am saying this because, during my life I have had a few of those life experiences that are not the best; but I could do nothing to change the outcome, so, I had to accept them and live the best way I could.

Today, I am looking back at my life that I have lived, and I am thinking that I have lived the most important part of my life. You see, I happen to be in my sixties while I am writing this page for the first time; so, I can look back at my life and wonder at the great changes of lifestyles that we have been living in this present era. While I am looking at these changes, I also wonder at the events that have changed our lifestyle, and how it has been happening and keeps happening and changing even now while I am writing this article. 

Therefore, right now, I am wondering why I am writing this article, because writing articles is new to me, it is another lifestyle change, which has been brought about from those changing life events, you see, when I was young I could never have guessed that one day I could be writing something and publish it in something called the Internet, and I would be writing in a language that is not my native tongue.

All this has happened to me, because there have been lots of changes since I was born, there were life events that have changed my lifestyle during my life, so, they have forced me to change and to adjust with them as required; and it was one of these changes during my life, when I felt the need to start writing, so, that I could fulfil one of my emotional personal needs. And in doing so, I have written a few things. 

But here I am talking about my own personal writings, and even if they are worth nothing to the rest of the world, they are my personal writings and my experience of life, therefore, I want to keep them forever while I am alive. Anyhow, here are my life events and changes, according to the observations of my life, as it evolved starting from when I was a child, so, let me talk about my childhood and the problems that I went through when I was young.

Talking about my childhood.  

Let me write about my childhood, I was born near the end of the year 1938, and that is before the Second World War started. I was the second child in my family, my brother is only fourteen months older than myself, and for my parents my birth was too soon after their first born. They wanted more children of course, but they wanted them to be born more far apart; so, I was welcome and unwelcome at once, this is the way that I have understood it.
I was born a good healthy boy, but in those days medicine was not as advanced as today, so, they didn’t immunize children as much as they do today. So, I did not receive Whooping Cough immunization as a child, so, I caught the Whooping Cough, and although I was lucky and survived it, since then I have kept coughing on and off for the rest of my life; the Whooping Cough most of the time leaves this condition to whoever caches it for the rest of their lives, at least this is how my mother has explained my coughing condition to me.
Another health scare and a scar happened when I was three or four years old: I was playing with my brother who was older than me by one year plus, and while we were playing I don’t know why he hit me with a heavy boot in my face; so, my nose started bleeding, and it bled for a very long time, that even my parents were worried, they tried everything they knew and somehow they helped me stop the bleeding, but since then my nose has been bleeding easily.

My nose bleeding has been a problem with me when I was a kid, and even when I was an adult it kept bleeding easily. But when I was a teenager was the worst, and my nose used to bleed day after day up to three times a day. Part of my nose bleeding problem could be attributed to the way of life that I was living in the farm, as in summer times I had to be in the hot sun a lot of times, and the heat expansion would make my nose bleed, and in winter times because I would catch cold in the cold weather my nose would be bleeding also; but part of this nose bleeding can be attributed to the boot in the face that I received from my older brother. 

Anyhow, the blood loss and a poor diet in the farm made me grow very skinny, so, skinny that one could say that I had all the signs of malnutrition, I was so skinny that one could count my bony ribs, and I was also so light that other boys made fun of me, when we were playing and they used to lift me up.
I need to say also, that all these hardships and poor health that I have suffered when I was young; they are also due to the greatest drawback of my life, which happened when I was about five years old. Because then Fate struck a heavy blow to my parents, as my father and three work horses perished from a lightning strike, while they were carrying on a cart one of the last loads of wheat of the season from a faraway field, I remember my mother crying several times about my father dead.

Death in the family and the greatest drawback of my life. 

When this great misfortune happened, we were left with no father and with great financial loss. With the death of my father everything changed for the worst for us children, therefore, all the good chances that we could have had in our life were taken away, and all the dreams that our parents had for us children came to an abrupt end.

So, after our father misfortune, our family that consisted then, of my mother and two boys and a girl including myself, we were left in a poor position to prepare for a decent future life.
My mother had to rely on her two younger brothers, who were only still teenagers at that time, and they had to help her to run our small family farm, so, we could earn a living, because in those days there was no help from the government whatsoever, we were on our own, those were hard times, I can tell you.
So, when I was about ten years old, because my family could not afford to hire a youth to help in the farm, I was chosen to help in the farm, instead of my brother who was one year older than me, and by right he should have been chosen to help.
So, I instead of continuing to go to school and get a better education, I had to go to help in our family farm, and this became the greatest drawback of my life.

The way of life in the farm was very boring when I was a child, as it had been for centuries before my time. But before my time people didn’t know how to live a better life, so, it didn’t matter much to them at that time, since most of the male farmers then lived in their farms all their lives, and everybody around them was at the same level of awareness, so, nobody was thinking that life was boring in the farm, as they accepted life as it was then, and they didn’t worry if the lot of them were dull people compared to the towns’ people, because they were less educated and lived a lonely and boring life.

Anyhow, they were happy just the same and some of them would thing that we were better off than the town people because there was always something to eat in the farm. Anyhow, the way of life that I was living, slowly became old fashioned, therefore, it was not right to live in such a way, because of the human progress everything was changing.

So, I have been unfortunate as a young man, because everything that had not changed for centuries started to change, and most of the people that were living in the towns who before depended from the farming sector to earn a living slowly became better off than us in the farms.
Because of the changing way of living and farming, it became hard for us to live in the farm and earn a living, so, in the end I had to leave our small family farm, to earn a living somewhere else. And it was then, that I realized that the work that I had done in the farm, and what I learned in the farm was a waste of time. Because I had to start to learn how to earn a living somewhere else.
Therefore, because of the changes of lifestyle, which brought more hardship than usual to the small farm owners, I was forced to leave my small family farm and the town where I was born, in order to find a better living standard away from home.
So, I migrated to Australia. In Australia I changed job and worked in the building industry, which was a lot better than farming, about this building industry I will be writing a few articles.

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Life means what you want it to mean, even when it hurts. 

Now, let us look at my life like a philosopher, and learn what we can from life. Here, we want to talk about the hurting part of live that we had to go through in our young life, because we ended up working in the farms when we were young, and this left us in a disadvantaged position. Anyhow, life means whatever we want it to mean, even when it hurts, because we can learn something from it, so, even if I am lamenting my bad luck, we should take it as a lesson.

I need to say that, we the younger would be farmers of those times kept working in our farms to feed the rest of the community, and even if we were working our guts out, and while we were doing that we were becoming dull, we did our part to support the rest of the community. But the town’s community doesn’t see it that way, and they think that we are stupid people that work our guts out, because we are dull and don’t know better.

So, this attitude of the community hurts farming hand very much, and most of all the young farm hands and those who would become young farmers one day, since this are the harsh thanks that we receive from the town’s community for doing what we had to do.

But what’s hurting us the young farmers most of all, it is when the towns people seem to laugh at us because we have become dull compared to themselves; this is the way that we are being treated from the rest of the town’s community and it hurts too much.

So, we the hurt ones, we feel that we want to shout into their faces that they should be ashamed of themselves because; They have first sacrificed us, as they have put us in a position where we could not improve ourselves, instead of treating us in the same way as they did for themselves, and then they laugh at us because we have become dull. What a shame! You first sacrifice your own children by sending them to work at a very early age, and then you laugh at their sacrifice, only because through their sacrifice they have become dull.

I suppose that what I have been saying above seems already out of time, as if it is hundreds of years old, but it is not, because it all happened during my life, so, how are today people going to compare my life story to today’s living is hard to tell, but it is helpful if they can compare it.

Now, I need to say that I have written the story of my life when I was young, so, will lament that, because that has affected my life in a bad way. But anyhow from what I have learned from life, let us compare the way of farming and how better off we are today. Then I will write the second part of my life story, beginning from when I migrated to Australia and what I did in Australia.

In this second part, I will be speaking from Australia, therefore, I will be telling you about the town that I came from, so, you my readers may understand better what was going on during my entire life. So, after I have written my next two articles, I will start telling you about the town that I come from, Genzano di Lucania. Anyhow let me close this article by saying that next article will be, Farming today compared to the old way. 

To see more click on this link, Our life observations. 

See you soon.

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