California Reaming
34 CommentsWhat the Battle Costs In These Parts..
Yesterday was not a good day. In addition to wondering how in the world I will come up with a $45,000 premium for California “Fair” Plan fire insurance, I was made aware of new water system regulations that require private property owners to dedicate enormous labor hours to record-keeping and maintenance logs. We already pay far more than a thousand dollars a month to test the cleanest water you will find in California. This is the water that our entire extended family drinks. (It’s not like we’re a municipal water bureaucrat who doses your tap water with chlorine and buys bottled water himself.) This water is so good, we actually long for it when we go down the hill. We’re at the headwaters up here with deep mountain wells, but the same state that doesn’t care about the homeless defecating on San Francisco sidewalks seems to believe mountain well water requires a compliance officer.
Then, too, I’m just dumb enough to believe I can help save the First Amendment. I happen to believe it’s the only thing keeping us from falling into an entirely dystopian morass of bureaucrats sucking us dry to prop up their pensions. This commitment means I have to pay lawyers. The lawyers remind me, understandably, they have families to feed. Help me feed them! The opposition — the school bureaucrats who think kids deserve gay porn but no American history — are betting we will tire of this battle. Will we? And remember: in one small way, we are already winning. Our law suit has forced several districts to admit they cannot engage in First Amendment retaliation. Did you know that Claremont has APPROVED Riley’s Farm as a field trip vendor? In practice, of course, they blacklist us, but they have been forced to admit they will have to lie about it. Cancel culture is getting a “don’t even think about it” vibe. If a gender-confused, climate-obsessed neurotic gets her cancel culture idea dismissed at the next board meeting, you may be able to thank Riley’s Farm for that.
The Most Important Ways You Can Help Us..
Pray for us. Celebrate with us. Book a field trip. Save money by paying up front and taking advantage of our terms discount. It’s no secret that we are able to survive, year round, by collecting ahead of time. (By the way, if you are a regular and you have been doing just this for years now, please accept a big virtual hug from me.) We are 42% ahead of last year on all of our reservation programs, so we’re optimistic. We just need to get through this dreadfully slow summer.
That “Walls Closing in” Feeling
My father, who went into massive debt to start his business and spent nights unable to sleep, once said, “I know this about me. The Good Lord made me able to withstand enormous pressure.” I have a little bit of that, but it’s running low. When you field emails from bureaucrats, creditors, lawyers, and social justice warriors in one day, it can make you wonder if it’s time to hang up your spurs. (Don’t worry. I won’t.) I do this because I believe California needs business owners to get louder than the crazies, and start offering up culture that is traditional, wholesome, and sustainable. When I ridiculed Sturbridge Village for staging a ridiculous, anachronistic pride affirmation, a few living historians ridiculed me, but most of the comments were favorable. We’re in the majority, and we can win, both politically and economically, but California, in our case, is making it very difficult to stay in business. We are still climbing out of the mess created by the Commie virus and California shutting down schools. (It’s amazing how easy it is to shut down the world when you are guaranteed a civil service paycheck, isn’t it?) By the way, I was right about the insanity of our Covid response. What the authorities did to us was either grossly evil or grossly incompetent. There is no other alternative. Cheers to the thousands of Riley’s Farm guests who did not comply with that nonsense, and very HIGH PRAISE to the sensible civil servants who refused to enforce it. I know many public school teachers who refused the jab and were anxious to get their students back into physical, not virtual, classrooms. It takes a lot of bravery to be an honest civil servant.
With respect to the broader issues here, I know that many of you have it just as bad–or worse. If you are in that category, let’s pray for each other. I also know some of you that have been sacrificially giving to us, and buying products from us. This is not intended for those who are already doing more than they can.
For the rest of you, a few things to consider..
- Please consider purchasing one of our dinner events ahead of time. By mid September, we are swimming in business, but we have massive insurance and tax bills to pay this summer. With the possible exception of Thursday nights, most of these programs sell out, so you will be doing yourself a favor.
- We are not a non-profit, but if you value what we do, you can make a donation to us. (We are NOT a non-profit, so it can’t be deducted from your taxes.)
- For those of you who love the apple harvest, but don’t like fighting the crowds, I have a new product for you — the “Harvest VIP Ticket.” If you have ever tried to find a parking place here on an October Saturday, this may be of interest. For $200, you get a reserved parking spot (in Colonial or the Packing Shed parking lot) and a “no lines” privilege in our food centers. (You have a seat and we will put in your food order for you and bring it to your table. This is not the price of the meal, but the service.) You also get $25 worth of u-pick apples, at the farm’s published prevailing price, and 15% off all food purchases.
- Most of our guests pay to visit the farm through field trips or dinner shows, but we’re considering a general admission charge for people without a reservation. We’ve been saying this for years, but we’re nervous about pulling the trigger. How much would be reasonable?
Although I don’t really like talking about our problems, I am not ashamed to ask for help. It’s one area of my life where it’s easy to decipher God’s will in the matter. If you keep visiting us, and helping, we’re meant to be here.
Categorised in: Blacklist, Blacklisted, Farm Journal
This post was written by Jim Riley
34 Comments
i am in the same boat as you, on the same team, working together, facing the same issues, receiving extraordinary blessings and love from our lord, who rewards us with gifts we could never earn and pays debts we can never pay. He is the KING of Kings and LORD of Lords, not the Lord of slaves.
Don’t forget… Revelation 3:11
New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised.
“I am coming soon; hold fast to what you have, so that no one may seize your crown.”
“I am coming soon..”
The history of Christianity has interesting interpretations of that verse. In the 18th century, these verses were interpreted to mean that no man knows the day or hour of their own death, and the subsequent encounter with Christ. Some believe that Revelation was written in 53-65 AD, and that the reference here is to His return at the destruction of Jerusalem. In the last 150 years, the premillennial interpretation has gained followers. In any event, yes, the cares of this world are difficult not to over-emphasize. It’s a struggle for all of us.
My daughter-in-law and granddaughter and I have for a number of years made an annual fall “pilgrimage” to your very special monument to the founding of our great country. It needs to continue and I will be responding soon.
Thank you!
I love Riley’s Farm, and I appreciate your posts. I am so with you in our fight to save America. We are a nation FOUNDED UNDER GOD!! How we must be grieving Him…but we know the end of the story; and the end of the story is that good DOES CONQUER evil.
I miss visiting you guys; having a meal in the tavern, visiting the animals, and mulling about the grounds. You have a special place in my heart. I wish I could attend all your events in person, but I now live in Northern CA.
I make it a point to visit when I’m down south, but is there any way you could record some of your events; since I can’t be there in person? I would be happy to pay for a ticket just to watch an event online!
Yours in Spirit and Truth.
Thank you!
as always Mr Riley sir my family and I are with you. We will be purchasing a family dinner reservation soon. 🙂 waiting on paychecks!
keep it up!
-Tina 🙂
Thank you, Tina!
God bless you Mr. Riley. My family was a loyal customer for over 10 years but after the 2020 madness my husband had to quit his job and we moved out of the state. If you ever want to move, come to the free state of TN, We need a living History place as fabulous as yours here. We miss your farm so much.
Quite a few of our friends have made that move. Thank you..
Hello Jim!
Sorry for all that ! And agreed with you ( esp about the Covid),,,
We are ( me, no son and mom) you regular visitors, during berries and apples seasons , and sometimes between the seasons ! Love the farm ! Thank you !!!
Svetlana
Thank you, Svetlana!
Praying for Riley’s farms. Have been visiting Oak Glen since I was a child. I am now 66. The woke agenda stinks. My family are all native Californians since 1914. Breaks our hearts the way things have gone. Standing with you all. Sincerely. Our family in Morongo Valley, California.
Thank you, LaVonne.
God doesn’t break his promises. Your land is blessed and a blessing. It serves as a reminder of what’s possible. Your farm is the shining the city on the hill for all of us Freedom loving patriots.
Adding you and your farm to our prayers from New Hampshire.
Ps: We left California exactly one year ago to come “back home” and searched high and low and still haven’t found any place that compares to Rileys. You are representing New England better than New England itself.
Be Blessed,
Mike Bettencourt & Family
Wow, Mike, thank you. That is high praise indeed, but as a California kid who fell in love with New England’s history, I have to agree. The city on a hill that Winthrop helped build is only there in fleeting glimpses..
We will always support and go to, Riley’s Farm!
I found such peace in your farm. I home school my kiddos and took them up there atleast once a month when we lived in Cali. I I cannot thank you enough for the respite from city life in California. I pray for the Lord to continually bless your farm and your family. It’s beautiful and so far I haven’t found anything that compares. I will visit again soon.
The link you provide as “proof” about some serious covid disinformation is very much disinformation and misinformation. John Campbell and many others with agenda deliberately misinterpret data and conclusions and often just LIE about this stuff while portraying themselves as honest experts.
https://healthfeedback.org/authors/john-campbell/
https://reason.com/2024/01/18/desantis-repeats-lie-that-booster-shots-make-you-more-likely-to-get-covid/
Larry, misinformation exists on both sides of the Covid policy debate, but I’ve watched enough of Dr. Campbell to understand that the bulk of his material consists of him reading published studies and government data. He was perfectly fine back when he was a fan of mRNA injections, but when he saw troubling data, he gets branded a liar. If you think hundreds of thousands of small businesses going under in America, massive adverse reaction, and sustained excess death is a great victory for Covid policy, I would hate to see your version of what constitutes failure.
..and for an entertaining montage of official expertise remembered..
https://twitter.com/davidjthunder/status/1743903895011651992
Yeah, see THIS is exactly the type of strawman BS that your blog is filled with, on this and on other topics: “If you think hundreds of thousands of small businesses going under in America, massive adverse reaction, and sustained excess death is a great victory for Covid policy, I would hate to see your version of what constitutes failure.” 3 MAJOR strawmen in one sentence. It’s almost impressive.
So, since you claim those are strawmen, I take it you AGREE with me that bankrupting small businesses, coercing the public into a “vaccination” that had no long term testing, and excess deaths are NOT signs of an effective Covid public health policy? The link you found objectionable simply referred to a study indicating that adverse reactions increased based on the batch-size of the inoculation production process. You aren’t making sense, but, then again, that makes sense.
Your own comments are far more riddled with straw-men and extremely loaded and leading words and phrases than the objectionable link. Risk vs reward is very often the method to make a rational medical decision. Despite propaganda to the contrary, the rewards of vaccinate have FAR exceeded the risks and *relatively* small amount of harm allegedly caused by vaccinations. I’m not here to try to definitively prove that or to change your mind. I’m commenting only to insert some less-biased and more rational information into your echo chamber politically tribe blog for others to see. As you probably know … when people see the same lies repeated and agreed upon without any opposition, they start to believe them, or believe them more. Check out the whole insane Q and trump cult phenomenon. It’s downright scary, disgusting, and dangerous what large groups of people can be convinced to believe.
You are obviously too fevered to discuss this rationally, but for the sake of people who do NOT happen to believe that the 80 million+ Americans who voted for Donald Trump represent a “cult,” I will respond.
My original contention here was that Covid public health policy _generally_ has failed miserably, and that includes the mRNA/lipid experiment (a subject on which Donald Trump and I do not agree), the lockdowns, the social distancing, the masking, and the school closures. I pointed to one indication of that in the linked video, which was a fascinating study indicating adverse reactions increased with larger batch production. (Sure, test the brand new mRNA tech with a small, high quality batch and then give the masses the mass produced stuff.) The lockdowns DID push hundreds of thousands of businesses into bankruptcy or closure. The school closures denied social rite of passage and learning opportunities to millions of school children, as demonstrated by declines across the board in testing. The Pfizer trial was unblinded very early, so we won’t know the longer term safety issues at stake, but we do know the injections did not remain in the deltoid. They migrated causing myocarditis in young boys who were never at risk from the virus itself. (Brilliant thinking, public health.) We also know that four cardiac events took place in the mRNA group and one in the placebo group. (Comforting, right?) We know that public health officials who chased people off beaches and out of parks were doing _precisely_ the wrong thing. Even Francis Collins admits the lab-leak theory is more than plausible, which should make thinking people question the very foundations of this entire episode. The very people we trusted with a cure were poisoning the well, with gain of function funding, in the first place.
Larry, very few people anywhere are defending what happened, but then again, they are safely perched in cushy institutional positions and they never have to apologize. Must be nice..
Francis Collins: “we did not admit our ignorance, and we lost a lot of credibility”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1eAvh1sWiw&t
16:20
Are you seriously going to PRETEND that this accusation from you against the school board is not two BIG OL’ straw-men? “the school bureaucrats who think kids deserve gay porn but no American history ” That is an absurd and intellectually dishonest twisting of the tiniest little grains of truth into a damning propaganda statement, most likely designed to emotionally sway people to your side against the school board by painting them as evil and completely unreasonable. A kid who doesn’t visit Riley’s Farm is not therefore getting “no American History.”
Ya got me, Larry. Sure, they might get a little American history, but a few of them had to sing for their educational supper at a board member’s gay burlesque along the way. Gross.
Or putting it precisely..
Riley’s Farm Living History: No
Inappropriate gay content at board member’s house: Yes
Another complete straw man. the board member was FIRED. the district did not sanction that party or that behavior. Stop pretending that’s district standard. AND that it’s in exchange for the expensive visits to your farm business. I’m not going get into whatever bias or inaccuracies there may be in the history lessons at the farm, but that would likely be another thing worth examination if our community’s kids go there on our tax dollars.
“too fevered to discuss this rationally”
The district apparently made no effort to prevent school children from performing at a board member’s gross gay burlesque Christmas party — an error in judgment so profound it earned media coverage all over the country. He resigned after his decisions, and the district’s, became known.
I forgot to mention: he was BOARD PRESIDENT at the time. He had the authority to act on behalf of the district. It speaks well of the other board members that they encouraged him to resign, but you have to wonder, would that have happened if the incident didn’t come to light? High compliments, as well, to the Claremont parents who protested. They remind me of the Claremont teacher who tried to book a field trip here, but was prevented by district policy.
” an error in judgment so profound it earned media coverage all over the country.” Large media coverage is not necessarily an indication of profundity. You should know that. You sound like trump, equating media coverage with importance, or popularity, or morality. An significant error in judgement was made. Some kids saw some stuff they’ve likely seen in many other places, but never should have seen something related to sexuality at a school-related function. It was dealt with. For you to try to paint the district as being “all about that” and also to claim that by not visiting your farm they are getting “no American history” is either intellectual dishonest and manipulative, or dumb. Either way, it’s trump-like and wrong.
“An (sic) significant error in judgment was made..”
Yes, by the school board president, who represents the values of the district right up until those values become too embarrassing for public review. The fact remains that during this chapter in Claremont’s public school history, district leaders said “yes” to totally inappropriate content for minors and “no” to American living history field trips at Riley’s Farm. We trust, long term, wiser heads will someday prevail.