Many of the things mentioned, are from previous safety failures in farm management. He considers his farm clean to process meat. Uninspected, unobserved, the animal and meat handling could be anything! I have seen home butchering done in the barn aisle, carcass dropped onto an old bloody sheet or canvas to cut up for packages. No washing of the butcher person, he is wearing his overalls, old muddy barn boots as he wrestles the half and other portions onto some boards across sawhorses to cut up. Open air, lots of flies on the meat, because it is a warm spring or fall day. Flies come on over from the paddocks of contained animals amd manure in them. Yep, I REALLY want to get my meat from him! Actually, I no longer accepted dinner invites from those folks after helping with some job or just visiting!! You would never know about that "handling method" as you buy those little meat packages. Whining writer could do as others do, sell the portions of animal. Then he will have animal processed at the butcher location, customers pick up the finished product from the Gov't. inspected, licensed facility. It is not going to cost him any more at all. Gov't. Inspected can mean a lot of things, they are not all equal. However the place and methods get looked at now and again, better than nothing. Hiring regulations are to protect the worker. If a farmer or his family members use tools that are elderly, questionable with no safety guards or bad wiring, that is a family choice. Hired help should not be forced to work under those conditions. Power tools, by their design, are not something you let small kids or younger kids use. They come with manuals of safety, handling instructions that no one reads, to protect the user. Do the farm employers take time to do safety training of these employees, to use the various tools? Not often, if at all. Everyone already "knows" how to do farm stuff!! Kids seldom will argue with an elder person if told to do a job. Kids do not have the experience to spot dangers or understand the problems that might occur in doing a job the wrong way. They don't often think, period! Kids want to earn money, are not going to worry about the dangers they place themselves in, while doing that job. Plus kids forget what you said, ignore the directions they were given before, THINK for themselves. Original thought by kids might add to the dangers!! Their "kid brains" just work that way! Part of growing up is brain development, which can't happen before brain is ready to grow that way. Actual body development may hinder kids in trying to do things, they have different visual fields, motor skills. They often can't help how they think and react, just an age thing. Each grows up at their own speed, should not be grouped by age in all cases. Big size or older age, is NOT mature in body or thinking!! Adult farm workers may not read well, or have used this kind of tool or machine before. They SHOULD be shown how to use it, have the guards and safeties in place to protect them. I can't believe how often the safety features are over-ridden or removed to make it easier to get hurt. Yet it happens ALL THE TIME. I guess you have to protect people from themselves because they will hurt and kill themselves if not supervised. I will agree there are many conflicting and peculiarly written laws in farming. Still were always written for a good, original reason. Farming is about the most dangerous occupation in the US. I think deep-sea fishing is number one. So many places and ways to get hurt in any farming operation. Even if just reading the laws makes you think about your lack of meeting the rules, you might CHANGE a couple things to be better/safer, for yourself. As we live in the setting, we lose our discerning eye for danger. No longer see the repaired cords, long extensions run to get power in a location, double plugs on an outlet, jury-rigging to keep a tractor running, instead of REALLY fixing it right. Just keep rounding up the loose animals, not fixing fence. Climbing the ladder with missing or cracked treads. Not turning off the tractor to unhitch the wagon by ourself, on the hill, with brakes we never repaired. Taking constant chances, which so far have not broken the odds of survival. Yet stuff like this IS a source of danger, we have become used to it or ignore the dangers. The Gov't. gets involved because this thinking is so prevailing, bad stuff never is fixed, endagers the hired help. Not acceptable as safety in Industry, or on the "old farm" either. People die with ignoring safety. The original writing is totally a rant, no one gets to do everything his own way, anyplace. Many nations are much more strict than the US. The food chain is very vulnerable anyplace in the length. It does need checking, to keep things somewhat safer than you would ever see with self-governing along the way.

Poor Guy! Main Man once locked the keys in his "old truck" while we were at Office Depot buying a bunch of Office Supplies. It was about 102 degrees with Houston humidity. We walked all the way back to his house to get the extra set of car keys. Thank goodness there was a Baskin Robins in the strip mall and we rested in there for a second with our ice cream. LOL! Thank goodness my Explorer has a key pad you can code in. Gayle

I did a search on motorcycle, and I landed here reading your post. I want to say to you it's better to have 2 moms than none. They all have good, bad, and selfish side. It could be a lot of worse if two of them were going through life changing at the same time...... do not feel sorry for yourself, everything happens for a reason-to make you a stronger person. You are getting your college education, and why not keep going to get your Master's degree, that could land you a good pay job, a PHD could be even better, with a Dr. next to your name. Just 3 more years of school for a Master's degree, you can do it. Be strong, forget about all the bad moments of your stepmom, clear it out your head, let it go with the wind, that's her problem not yours. Try to forgive her if you can. Your Life, your future is your focus right now, not hers, you have the power to change your life, you have the opportunity to make your life better, everything is in your own hands. Moving forward, looking ahead, you're very bright to get your education to archive skills, You're very lucky in many ways. One day at a time, one class at a time, you will get there.......study hard, really hard, you're building your future by getting all the good grades, there is nothing can stop you to have a bright future!

Rinse aid can (partially) counter-act the problems that all dish washers have with hard water. If you have really soft water, as I do, you can mostly forgo rinse aid and you'll still have excellent results. If rinse aid isn't an option, then what you need is a water softener. A whole-house softener obviously works, but that's an expensive investment. Instead, you could buy a dishwasher that has a small internal softener. I know that this is a pretty common feature on many Miele models. I don't know if there are other manufacturers who do the same. Please note that you will now have to buy salt to recondition the softener every so often. So, you won't completely be able to get away from buying some extra consumables. But presumably, you aren't allergic to regular kitchen salt...