STAYING WARM

I have had a busy Morning. I had a plethora of small chore to do plus I had to go to the feed store. It is already 2:15PM and I need to go to town to pick up some stuff for a party tomorrow.

Gregory, Noah's Son, is visiting from California. Several of his Uncles, Aunts and cousins will be gathering here at Grandma and Grandpa's house for a party. This is great for us because we don't get to see everyone over Christmas. I notice that Gregory didn't bring any of that warm air from California.

It has been a little warmer today, even a couple degrees above zero F. It supposed to get colder again tonight and I have to haul up more wood for the stove. It has been quite a cold snap. We will rejoice when it is over.

I will be here Monday to wish everybody Happy New Year and perhaps I will have something more to say.

I hope everyone has a great New Year's Eve celebration.

Love and Peace, Gregg

AND IT IS COLD

A cold but beautifully Sunny Morning. It was -20.7 F at 8:AM, now two hours later, it is 11 below.

There is no wind so I felt quite comfortable when I was out doing the chores. I ran into a little problem with the chicken water. I water them inside the coop using a rubber container. I think they are rated at five gallons but they hold close to seven when brimful. I have been breaking the ice or adding hot water or both every Morning. This Morning I couldn't break the ice with a hammer. I had to haul out the bucket and slam it on the ground to break the ice. There was very little water left unfrozen. I haven't taken a head count of my chickens lately, but I don't have enough to make the water chores easier. In times past, the water would only get a skin of ice when it got down to zero. I never had trouble breaking it at any temperature. We usually carried 35 to forty chickens. They put out a lot of heat and that was enough to keep the water from freezing except in this kind of weather and then it was easy to break the ice. We need to get more chickens,

We were very grateful to discover the water pipes under the kitchen sink were not frozen. Yesterday morning one was and it took two hours of hair dryer action to thaw it out. We have lived here since 1975 and only had frozen pipes in recent years. The kitchen is over a crawl space. About thirty years ago we had some freezing pipes and Jamie stuffed some insulation down around them and that solved the problem. Then a couple years ago the problem returned. Last Winter we had a cold spell in December and we had a few nights where a pipe froze. It is always only one, for a couple years it was the hot and recently it is the cold. The years when we had no trouble were not particularly warmer. We decided that some mice or larger rodent was having a good time with the insulation.

Last year our daughter Laura gave us the tip to use a fan to blow air under the sink on these bitter nights. It worked and we had no more trouble last year. On Monday night I noticed it was already 12 below at Midnight so I set up a fan. I must not have had it positioned right and I had it at low speed. I didn't think we would need more than a gentle flow of air to keep the pipe from freezing. It is very warm in the kitchen. It was frozen on Tuesday Morning. Jamie set it up last night. We were very happy to find it worked. We are going to get someone to crawl under the house and fix it once and for all. Jamie has been threatening to, when I was younger I crawled under there a couple times to fix a plumbing problem, but now..... uh uh.

I suppose I am going to have to look at the new tax law. We haven't had to pay state or federal income tax for ten years. Our pension is taxable income but we don't make enough. If it was a higher it would trigger the inclusion of our Social Security. From what I have read I can't tell if we are going to need to pay. We live like royalty. We have no financial needs and we have a sumptuous and elegant life style. It is amazing how little money one needs when they don't owe anything. We have had times when we made four or five times more money and were poorer.

We have considered moving occasionally and we come up against the obstacle of paying for housing. We couldn't move w/o being able to come out even. All young people struggle when they first attempt to get established. I think my generation had a much easier time than the current one. I went to college, bought a house, had children on the G.I. Bill and a minimum wage part time job. That would be impossible today.

We need to start being nicer to our young people; all our people. I know this old world isn't going to last much longer. I look forward to the day when we can just love each other and care for each other and enjoy the marvelous benefits of living on this wonderful planet. It is time for our separation to end.

Love and Peace, Gregg

MERRY CHRISTMAS ONE AND ALL

It was 9.6 below zero F when we got up and it is still 5.8 below zero. I don't think it will be warming up much today. The Sunshine is marvelous.

When it gets below zero our geo-thermal heat pump works overtime to keep the house warm so I put a fire in one of our wood stoves, we have two, one in the dining room and one in the living room. Either one of them are capable of heating the house although the dining room one is more centrally located.

I started a fire in the living room stove last night. I love wood heat. We heated the house with only wood for over twenty years. Now we only have them fired up when it is bitterly cold or for their atmosphere, a nice contribution to the Christmas Season. That is not entirely true, in the Spring and Fall we often put a fire in the stove in the Morning when it is chilly as we won't need the furnace the rest of the time.

Thank You, to all the folks who send us Christmas Cards. We don't send them out. In the forty odd years Jamie and I have been married we have only sent them out a few times. Sometimes I have taken the initiative and Jamie other times. I think we use the excuse that we see everybody in person around the Holidays. That is less and less true. I love getting cards. Maybe next year?

We are going over to the Amish to get milk. I don't notice the Amish celebrate these holidays. I keep thinking I am going to research their traditions, perhaps I should just ask them. We have to get some eggs. We realize we need eggs for pecan pie and Yorkshire Pudding. Our elderly hens don't lay much this time of year. We got two eggs this Morning.

We need to get going so we can return here and get the dishes washed and create our Christmas feast.

A MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

Love and Peace, Gregg

AND THE SUN RETURNS

Well, I woke up after the longest night of the year about 7:20, it was still dark. I dressed in the dark because Jamie was still in bed and I didn't want to disturb her by turning on the light. I put my stockings on, then one shoe, it felt funny. Did my foot swell up in the night? Did I have the shoe on the right foot? It looked like it was on the right foot. I put on the other shoe that felt funny too. What did I do yesterday? Did I walk a lot? Did my feet swell up? It felt strange walking down stairs. I got down to the living room, turned on the light, examined my feet. I did have my shoes on the wrong feet! I didn't think these shoes were loose enough to go on the wrong feet. I know this happens to grade school kids. Is this a second childhood? Galloping senility?

The rest of the Morning has been okay, except that I was questioning and watchful. Instead of automatically turning on the correct faucet, I stared at them trying to remember which was the hot and which the cold. It lasted only a couple seconds, but unnerving. Things like this happened when I was thirty, forty and fifty, but one notices it more when your over eighty. Oh well, aging can be fun. I am going to write a blog on growing older, but not today.

We are going to a Christmas Party tonight many of our old friends will be there. The party starts at 6:PM and I have a dentist appointment at three this afternoon. I hope I am not still all numbed up.

For the first time in many years we don't have a party scheduled for Christmas Day. We have been invited by family members but it would require travel. It is going to be cold on Christmas and traveling more than fifty miles seems too much. Another sign of age I suppose. We have a beautiful beef roast and Jamie will make Yorkshire Pudding. We will have a good time. Who knows, we may have visitors.

I didn't let my chickens out because I didn't think many would accept the invitation and I wanted to conserve the heat in the coop for the cold that is coming. However, it is 23 F I didn't expect it to get that warm. The below zero temperatures were originally forecast for tonight. I think they pushed the bitter cold about 24 hours into the future and Saturday Night it will get cold. This blog is really a ramble, isn't it.

My original intention was to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Festivus or whatever we choose to celebrate. Every culture seems to have some celebration to mark the shortest day and the return of the Sun. Today is two seconds longer than yesterday. It won't be long before we start dreaming of Spring and planting our gardens.

Let us have glorious celebrations to welcome the return of the Sun.

Love and Peace, Gregg

RAISING THE LEVEL OF DISCOURSE

It is overcast and cool but I am having a great day. I had a good sleep and I have been having a nice Morning. I am getting a very late start on my blog and for no particular reason.

I have something on my mind I would like to discuss. I enjoy the political satire and the attacks on the folks I don't agree with, but I am troubled by the extent of the negativity. Can't we be nice to each other?

Because we have taken separation to the nth degree, there are many people in error and their errors are sometimes atrocious, but it is error. Folks don't see their own errors, at least not why they are in them, we tend to justify our opinions and decisions on some trumped up [not a pun] moral grounds; as distorted as it may appear to us, at the time, those in error cling to the belief.

We have become so divisive that we demonize those in the other camp as not redeemable. People who are attacked for their opinions are rarely edified. Folks tend to take a firmer grasp onto their ideas when attacked. If they are in error we drive them further into their error.

Can we attack the ideas and not the people holding them? Can we criticize their beliefs without demonizing them? If we really believe we are the ones who are right and they are in error, can we approach the situation as educators and not condemners?

I own up to the fact that I get a chuckle out of some pretty negative stuff aimed at the other camp, especially some of the cartoons. I have also been appalled at times.

In our division between those wanting connection and those wanting separation, which is the choice between love and fear, we will find people whose separation from most of humankind puts them in a very erroneous state. From our point of view they may be very wrong. They are not devils.

As we realize that love is the only energy we want to embrace, we must also learn to forgive those who are temporarily embracing fear. I say temporarily, because we will all sometime turn to the light. Some of those, deepest into the dark, may take a few more lifetimes.

We have all been in error. We know that an attack on our person rarely helps us see the light. We know that love and forgiveness will provide a better approach.

Hopefully we can raise the level of our political discourse. One more interesting observation; the people I meet in our local community, our family and friends do not express a fraction of the negativity I experience in both the alternative and main stream sources. I wonder if that is just my experience?

I have dishes to wash, which are now languishing in cold water. Hmmm can dishes languish?

Love and Peace, Gregg

THE WITHERING

It is a beautiful day! The temperature just bumped above freezing at 33.2. I noticed via a Facebook memory I shared that is was -27.4 F on this day last year. Wow, that is cold for this time of year! I don't remember it. My weather calender, that has the recorded temperatures 60 miles or so South of us, has the record being -24 on this date in 1983. Must have been a cold year because tomorrows record is -29 for that that year.

We forget that it can get really cold in December. One year in the 70s I planted an orchard of trees that included pears and apricots that were supposed to be hearty on the zone 3-4 boundary. It was a mild Fall and the trees did not get a chance to harden off before the temperature plummeted. It got down to 40 below zero F. one night and in the Spring I discovered I lost all my trees including some sturdy zone 3 ones. According to my weather calendar, all the record lows this time of the year are in the mid -20 range.

We don't like anticipating weather that cold but when it happens we live through it just fine.

You notice how everything seems turned upside down. Trump could be the worst president we have ever had, however, it seems like we attack him for the wrong reasons, or at least not for all the right reasons. We [liberals] longed for a better relationship with Russia for a generation and then when Trump seems to be willing to cooperate with Russia we attack him. Trump is guilty of so many destructive impulses, that isn't one of them. I doubt if any collusion in the election had anything to do with him winning any way. The information that is leaked seems to have more to do with collusion with oligarchs not the government. Shady business dealings and money laundering, not election swinging.

There are so many horrible things happening, like lifetime appointments to the judiciary with ultra-conservatives. Congress blocked most of Obama's appointments and now the benches are being filled with characters that could affect us for generations.

Our governments support of Saudi Arabia has always been criminal, but Trump's support is over the top. He just lets his Generals do whatever they want. We are destroying innocent Yemenis, for what reason, because the Saudis and Iran have a pissing contest to see who will control the Middle East. Of course the the empire, which is corporate and world wide and housed in the USA, is behind it. The United States supplies the planes, the reconnaissance and in-flight fueling for the American supplied planes so they can continuously attack.

We have unleashed drone warfare and are now using them in third world countries that we have no formal quarrel with. We have created terrorism and anti-terrorism and are using it in a desperate attempt to get control of the world. This has been going on since the first Bush administration and it has been cranked up under Trump. I am not exempting the democratic administrations from responsibility. Actually, I am not sure presidents have much power over foreign policy. It seems like we have a government within a government. Presidents can slow down the momentum though, and they can be honest with the people if they dare. We have not had a president who has dared to be honest.

All the agencies that exist to protect the consumers, the environment, education, health etc. are being destroyed. All regulation and power is being handed over to corporate control. We hear very little about this. Why?

How come the main stream media which has been the darling of the conservatives is suddenly pretending it is liberal? Do you remember the MSM ever fully backing a democrat? We have had fox news which is rabidly republican and we have the rest of the MSM which is traditional republican.

If we look at substance and forget the window dressing, i.e. identity politics, we see that the lines have become quite blurred between the two parties. The Cabal [or deep state] runs the media and they will back any who will do their bidding.

I don't know why I am bring this up. I guess it is because I am tired of seeing people I love and respect getting caught up in causes and issues that are created by the media to create conflict and division. Doesn't it cause you to cringe when Trump says, “Fake news.” We have been saying it all along. We know it is true. There are grounds for removing Trump from office but most of the stuff that is thrown at him in the media is nonsense.

The Empire, The Deep State, The Cabal, whatever you want to call it, is losing its grasp. They are desperate and in their final throws to maintain power, they are causing death, homelessness, and destruction all over the world. It is not just in Yemen. The news doesn't cover Yemen much but we hear a little, we don't know much about the horror our drones are causing in Africa and in the rest of the world. Our mini-wars in South America have been going on for over a hundred years, lately they have been disguised as drug wars, they are for control of the continent.

I don't spend my time looking at this crap, because I know it is over. The consciousness of humankind will no longer support it. Those who are dedicated to power and money will gradually be replaced. Of course there will be some upheaval, but not as much as we might think. All the time the dark has been grabbing for power, people have been waking up. We have been seeing we can have a different world. Somehow it has occurred to us that everything is energy. The people of the dark use fear. We use love. Fear is no match.

If the folks of the world could refrain from accepting the invitations to be afraid, that are dangled in front of them by The Cabal, the dark ones would wither away. The Dark, The Cabal, The Deep State, no matter how they are labeled can only exist with energy of fear.

So just love each other folks and watch this ugly horror movie wind down. Let us not react to it. It is not real. We will discover only love is real.

Love and Peace, Gregg

IT'S WINTER

The Sun has returned. It looks beautiful, looking out from my window in the North room. It is nice but cool 21.9 F. The chickens won't come out. I have had chickens that would brave almost any kind of weather, but this group is not very adventurous. If I threw some kitchen waste outside their door they may hop out, but without a good reason they choose not to explore the outside world. They enjoy their cozy coop.

The sheep are enjoying their large hay bales and it brings peace to me. Now when they baa at me, which they do whenever they see me, I can be sure it is just a greeting and not a distress call. It is sometimes more than a greeting however, I throw out the kitchen garbage for the chickens, the sheep have come to expect it. Why sheep would like egg shells, coffee grounds and scraps of this and that I don't know. They are so greedy the chickens don't get anything. Over the years I have noted much variation in the behavior of sheep i.e. kitchen garbage. In years past I have had sheep nose around to see if their was a bit of lettuce or carrot but they turned up their noses at the rest. These particular sheep like it all and think it is a spectacular smorgasbord. They know in the afternoon when I am going to bring it out and they are waiting.

The local tax people are weighing whether we are a farm or not and are threatening to raise our taxes. I think we will prevail. We have just twenty acres but we have always raised some kind of livestock. Their issue seems to be whether we are making money or not. If you are renting out your pasture for a farmer to use you are automatically included. If you just have a few animals, you may be a hobby farm and not eligible. It is neither a farm, in the commercial sense, or a hobby, it is our way of life. I am not sure they have a classification for that. It won't change anything if they do raise our taxes, but there is a principle involved.

The snow came in dribs and drabs and finally covered everything. It must be four or five inches deep. So Winter is here, indisputably. It kind of snuck up on us with that roller coaster of above average and then below average temperatures.

I can't believe Christmas is only ten days away. Time flies when your an old codger. I am going to devote a blog to the curiosity of aging. Not today. I just want to wish everybody a Happy Friday!

I hope we can all keep our minds away from the world's craziness and find pleasant companionship with each other. It is so nice to have loving kindness for yourself and envelope all others in it.

Love and Peace, Gregg