Sunday, May 27, 2012

Cold Antler Farm

Where healthy animals go to die.

While I appreciate all the private emails concerning my comments on Ms Woginrich's blog, they may be better served sent to her personally. Perhaps your voice or words will prevent another animals untimely death. A Shepherds purpose is to protect their flock, by day by night. There is something concerning about seemingly healthy animals dropping like flies.

Be brave and send your comments directly to her. Validating my comments will not help your concerns about her animal husbandry or farming practices.

Pride comith before the fall and unfortunately het methods are failing and her animals are falling.

Rest in peace lambs, kits, chicks, poults, pigs and various others who met their untimely death after confined or unprotected life at Cold Antler Farm.

"Old farmers wisdom, count. Every morning every night. No excuses. Have you limited their grazing to avoid more injury and death? What a waste. Why do you bury good meat?"

1. Old farmers wisdom, count. Every morning every night. No excuses.

Good advise should not be discounted due to the source, humble up and keep track of your sheep. If distractions prevent you from appropriately tending to your flock, limit them. Animals first. Camp cold antler second.

2. Have you limited their grazing to avoid more injury and death?

If you know brambles (berries, yum!) Caused the animal to become stuck, why expose the rest of the flock? Cut brambles back or limit exposure...and for gods sake, keep jasper away from a down sheep. Sick? When and why did this animal become sick? Why did the lamb die? Not normal. Causes need to be found.

3. Why do you bury good meat?

An animal down is not going to produce "vile" meat, especially for dogs. If you can butcher a chicken one can try their lot at a sheep. Who would butcher it? Where I live, probably a dozen thrifty people within 6 miles of my house. They'd be out in 5 minutes for free meat.

4. What a waste.

What a waste.

63 comments:

  1. She simply doesn't get it. The entire blog reminds me of a little girl playing house. One can't offer advice, though she poses questions. One can't offer a dissenting opinion, though her entire life is posted on the world wide web. Only adoring, ego-building comments allowed. The more I read of her blog, the more convinced I am that sadly, she is running the farm completely irresponsibly, but it's her farm to do as she wishes. It's a travesty that animals are not being looked after as they should be and seem to be getting sick and dying more frequently.

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    2. She never will "get it." Her life is lies. It's like her moronic motto "Live like fiction!" And always, at the expense of others.

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  2. Agreed. I've never seen or heard of so much random unexplained death on any farm in my experiences as a farmer and friends of those with livestock. Unfortunately fancy words and and a farming ignorant following conceal what is truly happining on that property. Irresponsible animal ownership. It completely frightens me she writes books and gives advice on topics she routinely fails at, like keeping animals healthy and alive.

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    1. I wrote on her blog a couple of days and then I withdrew from commenting on anything because of all of the reasons stated by both you and Elaine P. I was told that basically there is a "generation gap" and that why I sounded so 'old fashioned' in my concerns. I lived on a family farm/ranch for over 20 years. We only left our animals once for a family vacation and my dad had to find a friend (fellow farm-dude) to stay for a week to be on the farm to take care of everyone. Remember, as long as you can write "pretty" about your dying farm animals then it's poetic and not irresponsible! Wondering about these followers and if they are blind or totally without the ability to think and disseminate information?

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  3. I don't really have the bandwidth here to be as honest as I would like. You all can go to my blog when I post there.

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  4. Thank you so much for this post! It's so true. I know Jenna personally (and still do), from before she became a "farmer". She treated her dogs abhorringly- they would urinate on themselves in the crate every morning while they waited for her to get ready for work, when she would then take them out to go to the bathroom. It's terrible. There have been other instances of her pets dying from her own mistakes that she hasn't written about on her blog. It would make you cringe. She takes on too much, and tries to be a jack of all trades and is of course a master of none. Luckily she's good at presenting and talking about herself, which has grown her a very large following from the mood of her writing, and what she chooses to present. But don't be mistaken, she's not what she seems. What farmer can't even grow a decent garden after years of trying. I just wish the rest of her "fans" would see the light.

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    1. Also- it is extremely sickening to me that people donate to her. She has a college education. With no school loans. She's probably better off than 90% of her readers, yet still accepts money. She makes twice what I do a year. It's absolutely disgusting. I feel like she's taking advantage of those poor people with her glorified farm and her flowery writing.

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    2. Dear Anonymous- I have been writing to every company that supports her and will continue to do so until she is shut down- please do the same- I have sent e-mails to Mother Earth News, PETA and Farm Plate- Farm plate has begun an investigation because I was not the only one. If you have time to post on blogs you have time to write to her sponsers.

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    3. I just contacted Farm Plate. Thanks for the info.

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    4. OK guys. Here's an organization with some regulatory teeth. The NY SPCA in her county. Here is the contact info for them. Maybe if we ALL write, they will do an investigation. http://spcauny.org/Contact_Us.html
      Save CL animals!

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  5. Wow, anonymous- that sounds horrendous- her poor dogs, but I am not surprised whatsoever. As to her taking money from people, she has no pride, absolutely none. Hopefully people will wake up and smell the rotting corpses.

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  6. I have just found this column today & found the comments quite telling. I have long suspected that Jenna was irresponsible from the number of animals dying on her farm, not the least of which because she spends so much time away from her farm and there is no supervision of the animals. Just recently, because of her absence from the property, she has now lost many more of her chickens. It doesn't seem to bother her because she has just hatched a bunch of new ones. She caught a raccoon but couldn't kill it -- just relocated it. She might as well hang out a sign that says luncheon buffet. She won't cut back on fun stuff like going to an all-day medevial event, & as a result, her farm is suffering. I believe she is too immature to run a farm -- paying thousands of dollars for a horse she didn't need; now she wants to become a falconer, one of the most expensive hobbies there is. I doubt that the person who is acting as her guide really knows much about Jenna. If he did, he wouldn't have agreed to help her get a hawk. She removed comments from her blog because people were telling her the truth -- she is fiscally irresponsible. She's probably going to go into foreclosure -- and it will be her own fault.

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  7. I am so relieved to see the comments here and see that I'm not the only one who feels this way -- I just found these comments, but when comments were allowed on her blog I regularly tried -- gently -- to get her to see that this is "car-on-the-ice" farming. It's skidding around doing one activity until its boring -- not mastered by any means -- then writing a BOOK about it (as if one year of doing anything makes you an expert) and moving on to something else. It's NOT the ethical or responsible way to go. Now it's all about falconry, gaming, medieval game playing, archery, horse-carting. And the animals do suffer, I am convinced, from shoddily built fences and shelters, poor general care, preventable diseases, as does the entire property. And she just chalks all the suffering and damage up to "learning" and "farm life." We live on a farm and, believe me, my neighbors would have called the authorities a long time ago if I ran my place like this. I pray every night (I honestly do) she does not manage to trap a raptor, because I truly fear for its well-being, just like the appallingly high number of other deaths she's had there. We've seen her blog be all about sheep, training her expensive sheepdog, Jasper the horse, Finn the pack-goat, pricey English riding lessons -- the whimsy goes on and on. Well, except for the inevitable poor-mouth posts where she hints that she's about to lose the farm, at which point people actually send her money to keep the whole thing going. They are crippling her, by not letting her grow up and face reality, the same way she, through inattention, cripples, maims and kills too many of the animals that end up under her watch.

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    2. And almost a decade later nothing has changed. She's still making the same stupid mistakes, and being supported by dumb enablers.

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  8. Wow, I think I see the villagers with pitchforks approaching, run Jenna, RUN!!!!!!

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    1. Yet another sycophantic supporter of JFW. It's no wonder why she hasn't grown in almost a decade of owning her faux farm.

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  9. Are we supposed to turn a blind eye toward JW when she herself states how neglectful she is with all of her animals? Questions raised in this blog are necessary for all the animals in her care. And again I'm referring to what she has written (perhaps, before it was deleted) in her blog. A prime example is the lamb that was unable to stand and slowly died while she drove around the countryside looking for a hawk to trap.

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  10. If her readers are villagers with pitchforks, what does that maker Ms Woginrich? Cold Antler Frankenstein?

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    1. It makes her an animal abusing, online begging, sociopathic POS.

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  11. sounds like a lot of farm envy going on to me.these are animals NOT humans, remember god gave us domain over them.

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    1. No one in their right mind would "envy" an able-bodied, college-educated woman who has chosen abusing animals, and begging online for a living rather than working to support herself.

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  12. I am replying to your comment Anonymous March 17, 2014 at 6:26 pm... I am pretty sure God didn't intend for humans to be cruel and we don't have domain over them. I am not a vegan or a vegetarian, and yet I realize without them there would be no us. Ignorance is not bliss and neither is hiding behind some cruel words just because you invoked your god into a sentence.

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    1. I didn't intend my words to be cruel at all,it seems that everyone has their own idea about what is acceptable animal treatment. There seems to be a modern day shift from animals being of service to people to humans molycoddling them.I think the Waltons & Ingalls would laugh at PetSmart.

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  13. A lot of envy, anger, ugly...most of those who have posted here are, I suspect, bullies.

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    1. It's not being a "bully" to shine a light on someone who has been scamming innocent victims for years, and also abusing animals without remorse.

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  14. I followed Jenna's blog for awhile; there's no question that she's a talented writer. But when she announced she was getting a second pony that she clearly couldn't afford, the jig was up. I could see the con she was running. Months later, I briefly checked the blog (I guess hoping to see that she'd come to her senses), and was appalled to see that she'd quit her job. I wasn't at all surprised though to see that she had turned off comments. As usual, she was again crying poor and couldn't sleep because she's so worried about money; next thing you know, she's showing pictures of an enclosure that she - or someone - has built for that poor hawk that used probably $300 or more of lumber and supplies. She's not, by any stretch of the imagination, a "farmer". She's in love with the romance of what she imagines farming to be, but real farming is very, very different and doesn't involve the endless collecting of animals that don't pay their own way. And her food-growing skills are laughable. Seriously, the humane society needs to get involved. There's nothing there to envy.

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    1. She's still monitoring critical comments, and rarely approves them on her blog. I also agree with what you wrote, but believe that she's a rotten writer whose purple prose, major grammatical errors, and stilted syntax are terrible.

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  15. It took 5 years of blogging for any significant mention of raised beds or a garden to just feed the 'human' animal that inhabits the "farm"...and I use the term loosely. This "farm" was built bass-ackwards with animals first and the means to sustain and make money from them coming later. I agree with the comment here that this ladie is in love with the idea of a farm. She may have some friends nearby that support her and I'm sure those donations she rakes-in are helpful but homesteading and farming are about self-sufficiency as well as several other things you never read about in her blog. I was a reader for about 3 years until I got a farm of my own and realized this blog was really for people who want to have a farm sometime in the future but don't have one now - just like Ms. W.

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    1. You said it perfectly. It's a great blog for people who like nice writing, not necessarily for people who want to learn good farm practices or even much about homesteading. I'm sure there are people living in crowded city apartments who absolutely love seeing her pictures and reading her thoughts, which is fine. Sometimes I think many of her old readers simply started doing things for themselves and outgrew her blog due to their own experience.

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  16. Why don't you people offer kind advice instead of spewing your bile all over this young lady. Since you know everything. Ugly, ugly people you are. Are you jealous that she has people trying to help her do her best and live the life she has always dreamed of and you have no one and your dreams are a mere memory? Ugly. Hateful. Spiteful. You weren't the best toddlers when you first started out. Be very ashamed of yourselves.

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    1. Darling, advise was offered in a very gentle manner by many wise people too many times to count. It, and they, were shot down and ridiculed by JW and her militant followers. Please don't tell point your fingers at others about their nastiness and bile. You should realize you are doing the exact same thing you accused others of.

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    2. Numerous "kind advice" has been given to JFW for years, and ignored by her because she's a self-purported farming expert. Her dumb "dream" was paid for by PayPal poodles, a government home loan program, and also scammed from innocent victims. She's still an emotional "toddler" who whines about being held accountable as an adult for her actions, like abusing animals, and also begging online for a living.

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  17. This blog has 4 followers...lol You are officially a joke.

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    1. Why, because only GOOD blogs have leagues and leagues of followers? If you're not hugely popular you're "a joke?" Haven't really encountered that kind of judgemental attitude since high school, wow! Some of the best blogs and writers out there have only a few followers. Popularity and talent are not the same thing.

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  18. One more thing about this stupid blog that pisses me off is that you are mad if she is away from the farm but bitch about her quitting her daytime job. Which is it? Can't have it both ways. Ugh! Sick of stupid people.

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    1. You must be sick of yourself. Anger is worn on your sleeve.

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    2. Stupid people like you "piss me off," because you're too ignorant to see that JFW is scamming people out of money.

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  19. I believe the problem with Ms. W's lifestyle is the mix of the Superwoman/Poor Widdle Me attitude. I say this as an avid reader of her books, yet I am repelled by many of her lifestyle choices. I admire Ms. W's willingness to take chances, but many of her decisions verge on irresponsibility. The lack of planning is appalling. The bottom line I believe, is that you cannot claim to be self-sufficient and strong while begging for money and help. Sooner or later, people get tired of riding to your rescue......

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  20. Cold Antler is not a typical farm, that’s what draws the hate on this blog. There may be legitimate concerns about JW’s inexperience, fine. But she is selling a form of DIY entertainment, for which she rightly wants to be paid. Those of you ‘olde tyme’ farmers are not making photos and videos or sharing your life online. That takes time, that is the DIY entertainment she legitimately sells. You and JW are doing different kinds of work under different economic rules.

    Some suggestions to JW, if she reads this, consider hiring someone to help you, and always have a responsible person watching the farm 24/7. It could be some kind of internship. Or let someone park their RV on the property to live and work on the farm. Lots of non-farmers would like the experience. This is only a six acre farm, not King Ranch.

    Also hire an accountant and business manager. No one is a master of all trades. Creative people like JW may not be the best bean counters, fine. She can hire a bean counter.

    The haters on this blog remind me that goose-stepping brigades are ever-trolling, looking to bring people down, rather than offer a helping hand up.

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    1. Obviously you never got a chance to read all the comments on JW's blog posts from "olde tyme" farmers. They all offered her helpful advice over the years, much more than what you just came up with, and they were all shot down.

      Please don't compare the commenters on this blog to haters. Real haters showed their true selves on JW's blog with their nasty remarks to helpful suggestions and/or real questions. Even JW herself took part in the hatefulness that grew over there. It was my first experience with truly nasty people on the internet, and it was appalling. JW not only didn't discourage the nastiness and hatred, it seemed it was encouraged by her in a very passive-aggressive manner. Sad.

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    2. If you scroll back through some of Meredith's Cold Antler blog posts (the ones with the most comments) I think you'll find most of the people who commented either tried to offer advice and were rebuffed (and animals died because of it) or sent JW money, and did not get their product. No goose-stepping haters here, or trolls. Just nice people who got hurt.

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  21. Poor Gibson, walking around with possibly something embedded in his paw for a week. :-(

    Notice that she never actually said if something was embedded or not.

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  22. @ Angela Boyko

    Jenna wrote Gibson "cut his paw open on something sharp". Jenna never any claim that Gibson had "something embedded in his paw for a week".

    "The Doctor said it wasn't infected but it wasn't healing either. The toe pad was in half, swelling, and he could not place weight on it. She thought something was embedded deep into the half-inch cut." The Doctor speculated something was embedded, NOT Jenna.

    Angela Boyko wrote: "Notice that she never actually said if something was embedded or not." So you can assume NOTHING was EMBEDDED, or its none of your business. BTW, is your medical history and treatment records posted online? I’d love to read THAT! I’d like to read whether there is a medical reason for your obesity, or just gluttony, stuffing your pie hole.

    Busted Hater: Angela Boyko. Go get a life, Angela Boyko.

    http://coldantlerfarm.blogspot.com/2014/06/rare-and-pure-and-perfect.html#links

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    1. Those are interesting things to say about someone who was expressing concern about a dog and that's all. Not hard to figure out who the true "hater" is here, or who is in need of a life. Jenna's vet visit stopped being her private business as soon as she published a public blog post about it. Are you typical of Jenna's "defenders" and fans, do you think? If so, that doesn't say much for the company she keeps. But my guess is she'd be embarrassed as hell to have someone like you "defending" her by making fun of someone's weight. Get some professional help.

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    2. Boyko is not expressing concern about Gibson, she is stirring the pot of anger against JW, which is all that happens on this blog. No, I'm not typical of anyone, and I don't keep JW's company. JW has things to learn, fine. But I would even defend you against a blog of haters, which is my professional help. Holding a mirror to Boyko is not 'making fun of someone's weight'; it is a call for self-reflection, which is in short supply on this blog of know-it-alls.

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    3. Defender, honey, I'm sorry, but I think you need some professional help yourself. You really are making fun of Boyko, whether you want to admit it or not. Trying to sugar-coat your words by saying you are making a call for self-reflection doesn't cut it. What you said was cruel and nasty. Wait a minute - isn't that something you are accusing everyone else of being? Sorry Defender, you need to look in that mirror of self-reflection yourself, as we all do, and realize you aren't looking too sweet right now.

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  23. So I'm starting to get worried about Italics--when was the last time Jenna posted a photo of him or even mentioned him? This would be the prime time of year to be taking him out for hunts, but it's total radio silence on the hawk front. I hope he's all right, whether he's still in her possession or whether he's flown away.

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    1. more pot-stirring hate against JW.

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    2. I'm sorry, "defender," I fail to see any so-called "hate" in my post. The only hateful person around here lately has been you, making personal attacks. I'm expressing concern for a creature that was once the subject of a great many blog posts, but now seems to have vanished. I would be happy if Jenna made a blog post detailing her recent outings with Italics, complete with some recent photos. Because then I would know he's still hale and healthy. That's what I'm most concerned about--the domestic livestock can, to a certain extent, make do. But as a wild creature, Italics is entirely dependent on humans for care. I hope he's receiving excellent care.

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    3. I hope she let it go; if she had no success using it to hunt, then it's basically being kept permanently for her own entertainment purposes, which seems sad for a wild creature. But that's just my opinion.

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  24. Wow. You (meaning what appears to be the majority opinion here) want her to post photos of her animals so you can decide, based on a single moment, the entire context of her lifestyle and the health of her animals. Not hard to wonder why she hasn't been posting those pictures...No matter your intentions, here you are just gossiping from your glass houses. You are coming up with reasons to point & say , "See! She's doing it wrong!" You don't like the way people defend her, don't post your criticisms on a public blog. Or wait...maybe you should start attacking THEM and calling them names...

    JW encourages people (even you) to live our best lives, no matter how imperfect we may be. In judging her every effort, you all reinforce the need for more people like her. You say she is "playing farm", but she is actually living on a farm, raising her own food and supporting herself. Every single day. Maybe it's not your idea of a farm...and what? That makes it fake?

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    1. I don't think anyone needs to "come up" with reasons her animal husbandry practices are irresponsible, she gives the public an ample supply of those all on her own just by blogging. And I can't even imagine the details of the animal stories that never make it to the blog because she knows she'll look bad. I'm sure they exist though, she's said as much. As far as calling her place a farm, well I guess people can call their abodes anything they want. I tell people I live in Disneyland, and I think I have every right to say that. Some silly people disagree with me, but they're just malicious gossips.

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  25. Seriously, "Or wait...maybe you should start attacking THEM and calling them names..." is basically what happened on her blog with people who tried to say anything differently than what she and her minions had to say. Some of the horribly nasty stuff that was said was appalling. I wouldn't point fingers if I were you, or her. Just take a look back at some of the comments in her archives over the last couple of years. I know there was more than one person that her following harassed on the person's own blogs to the point were they took the blogs down. It was nasty. I remember the comments directed at Meredith were cruel and immature. She wasn't the only one who had to endure the wrath of Jenna fans. Fortunately, she didn't give in to the bullying and stuck to her guns. I find her to be a more credible source of inspiration than Miss J any day.

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  26. This was posted about this blog and miss woginrich ---- spot on

    http://adventuresinthegoodland.blogspot.com/2014/01/and-that-is-all-that-i-got-to-say-about.html

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    1. Interesting that "Ol' Shep" had this to say about people with issues like JW. “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the congregation; and if they refuse to listen even to them, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector (an outsider, subject to the discipline of the law). Matt. 18:15 - 17. Most people here are already on Solution #3, addressing the congregation. So the cute little story about "Ol' Shep" may draw a tear to your eye, but "Ol' Shep" would disagree with its appropriateness here. Oh, and Ol' Shep also said, "If a man does not work, neither shall he eat." II Thes. 3:10.

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  27. So sick of her bashing education and college.

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  28. I can not believe how nasty some of the commentators on this blog are! Jenna doesn't claim to be perfect, although it seems most of the people on this blog think that they themselves are. Jenna is pursuing a dream and learning along the way. If you don't like the way she is doing it, then do it differently for yourself! Anonymous comments should be banned, if you can't stand behind what you have to say, then you shouldn't be saying it!

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    1. I would have hoped that by Jenna "learning along the way" she would have learned how to take better care of her animals by now. Obviously, she isn't learning too well and needs to keep making the same horrible mistakes over and over again. Sorry, that way of learning doesn't cut it when you keep killing living creatures over and over again. If she really does think it's okay, then it shows what a self-centered world she lives in. Truly, her farm is a place "where healthy animals go to die." Please stop, take the blinders off, and take an honest look at what has happened, is happening and will happen again on her farm. It will make you ill.

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  29. Has anyone offered humble, I've been there, don't make the mistakes I've made advice? I would think that all of your energy would be better spent than lynching a young woman. Maybe she's making mistakes. Maybe she's learning from her mistakes. Maybe it's none of our business.

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    1. Many locals here have offered her sage advice, but she just ignores it. And some of us have been farming for decades, too.

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