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My thoughts released; a mind set free |
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These pages contain my thoughts, from meandering ideas and persuasions to deep cerebrations and serious mentations. Why, for what purpose? To release my mind and set creativity free. Somewhere inside the constraints of my mind dwells a writer, a poet, an artist who paints with words. In here I release those constraints and set the artist free. Perhaps, lost somewhere in the depths of thought, is a story or a poem, waiting to be written. 
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| I wonder if it would do any good to protest? I could easily make up a sign and march back and forth here at home, we live by a highway, or go either direction into town and march up and down Main Street. Perhaps I should drive over to Grand Forks, North Dakota, and protest in front of the National Weather Service Office. Somehow, maybe it's some kind of intuition or something similar, I don't think it will do much good. I'm sure a lot of people would stop and give support, mayhaps a few would join me, but regardless of the number of protestors we accumulate, I don't think it will stop the snow. It's been a battle since late fall, one that I'm not sure I'm winning. I know I'm not losing - yet. I am, however, running out of room to shovel the frigid white crystals, and it's becoming difficult to heave the heavy stuff up onto the piles that are nearly as tall as me. But, it falls, it piles up, and I arm myself with the snow shovel, I scoop, push, throw and pile. Up till the last few days, I thought I was winning, or at least holding my own. But the last few days have seen warmer temperatures, a bit above thawing, with lots of sunshine. Sure, it's nice, but it also is in battle with the snow, melting it off of the roof as well as down the sides of my piles. In retaliation, the snow refuses to surrender to shovel and sun. Instead, it converts itself over to ice and freezes down upon the sidewalks. So now, instead of just the shovel, I find myself also needing an ice-chipper and salt. Again, I thought I was staying a little ahead, but then the forecast changed. More snow tomorrow. More snow throughout the remainder of the week. Where can I throw it? Where can I push it? And, once I do get it shoveled, pushed, and piled, it's going to create even more ice. I'd love to write more, to go on about how soon it will attack in a whole new direction, called mud, but I need to make a sign and try and stop this madness. Should I go with NO SNOW! or my first idea SNOW MORE! |
| Back in November, we ordered a quarter of beef from a locker in a town close by. Our neighbor and friend said they had good, fresh, and local meat, and that he ordered some there a couple of times a year; a quarter beef and a half a hog. Being such a nice guy, he even brought us a few pounds of ground beef to try. It was lean and so much better than the stuff we had been getting in the grocery stores. Our order went in during hunting season, so they wouldn't process the beef until after they had finished processing local game; it was ready the first week of January. What made it nice is they average the weight for a quarter of a beef, but include cuts from the entire half and custom cut anything to one's preference. Today, we went through the freezer since it's getting low, and sure enough, we have almost devoured that quarter already! We have about a dozen pounds of ground beef, a dozen steaks, three roasts, and three packages of stew meat. So, today we ran over to this local town, stopped at the locker, and picked up some meat. Since we have beef, we purchased some of their handmade Polish sausages, German sausages, breakfast sausage, braunschweiger, beef bologna, some pork chops, and smoked pork hocks. In total, we purchased about twenty pounds of fresh, locally grown, and locally processed meat, all for $105.00 We also asked about ordering more beef, curious as to how long it would take to get it. "Two to three weeks." was the answer. We didn't order any yet, we need to get the freezer empty so we have room for it. This time, we will do an entire half, but even with the freezer empty, we won't have room for that much meat. Luckily, most of it will fit, and what doesn't, our neighbor said we could store in his freezer. So, a few more weeks and we should be ready to order, and if the price remains the same, we're looking at about $4.25 a pound, after processing unless we get jerky and sausage, which has a bit higher processing fee per pound. It's all good, except now I don't like the flavor, texture, and added water that comes with commercially processed meat in the supermarkets... |
| Normally, Monday through Friday are my quiet days. Sure, I get things done around the place, but I also spend a bit of my time here; as much as I can get away with. Yea, I do spend some weekend time here as well, but it's usually inter-dependent on whatever else is going on. Even when there isn't much, I can't really just log in and chill out. The reason is, if anyone's home, they tend to interrupt and interfere whenever I get involved in something. During the week, my wife and two children are at work and school. That means I have time to spend without anyone putting in demands and requests for my attention. Once in a while, the neighbor comes over to chat and have coffee, which is always nice and never too often. But, once children are home, everything changes. Well, depending on what I attempt to do. If I try and read, write, or get involved with anything that requires my attention, it's like some kind of signal broadcasts outward and they tune into it. As soon as they tune in, they home in and invade my space, demanding some kind of attention be diverted towards them. The only exceptions are if I start to do some kind of work, then it has the opposite effect and they go further into hiding. It kind of makes me think of the song, Radar Love, only different motives. I'm serious! I can sit for an unlimited amount of time and do things that just burn up time and they are off in their rooms, content and happy. But if I pick up a book, start writing something, or log into WdC, they will arrive in my close periphery and want something. What makes things worse, my wife also has a tendency to start talking to herself, making a lot of noise, or asking me questions if I'm engulfed in some task. Being very introverted, I really need my alone time. I also have a difficult time tuning my brainwaves to just one channel. So, if I'm reading, writing, or trying to do something, I tend to focus heavily on the task. But, if there are interruptions, I feel like I'm getting pulled in numerous directions at the same time and soon can't get anything done. Last week was going well, I had planned things out that I wanted to get done, and everything was flowing like warm honey off a piece of toast. I was chugging away on a project in the garage after spending the morning in here and was just getting into it when I heard voices. Then the door burst open and two children entered, who should have been at school for another three hours. Yes, they shut down early because it was snowing! And they called school off Friday because it was blowing the snow from Thursday. Monday was Presidents Day, no school. Also, a major winter storm moved in and dumped over a foot of snow on us from Sunday to early Tuesday, with high winds, so no school on Tuesday. I was up early and ready to send them off on Wednesday, but because of the wind and drifting, they had a late start and didn't get out of here until 9:30. I got them out the door and on the bus, then went to see if my neighbor needed a ride to get his vehicle out of the shop. We talked for a bit, then headed into town. I dropped him off at the shop, went and grabbed a few groceries, then it was time to pick up my wife from work. Anyway, they are all off to work, to school, and I'm enjoying a quiet day; finally |
| I was just reading some news headlines and one particular, and I mean it in the sense that it's almost ludicrous, caught my eye. I opened the article and read it, and after, it was even crazier than the headlines. We have ex-military personnel living in the streets, families that cannot feed their children, and elderly people in nursing homes who do not get the care they deserve. What is being done to ease the problems in this country? Crack pipes! "The Biden administration will provide grant funding to pay for the distribution of safe smoking kits as part of efforts to reduce harm from substance abuse over the next three years." This is just a piece of the article, but it's enough to see that the priorities in this country have continuously slid into the crapper. So the idea is, to give out free crack pipes so addicts don't have to share and transmit disease between users. Sure it sounds good, but, if these addicts are so far down they are sharing paraphernalia, they are likely eating out of dumpsters and living in less than adequate shelters if any at all. So, after sleeping in an alley, eating breakfast out of someone's trash, and not having the means to wash, they can go pick up a free crack pipe and at least have a safe smoke? I don't know the real answers; if I did, I would be in politics. But, I do know enough to realize this is going to help about as much as giving out free contact lenses to blind people. |
| We've had a brutally cold winter so far, lots of snow, and frankly, I'm getting tired of it. My mind is racing ahead to thoughts of longer days, more sunshine, and warmer temperatures. But, it's still early February and we still have the rest of this month and all of March where we can still get cold temperatures and lots of snow. In despair, I look at the forecast hoping to see relief in the coming days and weeks. I know the days are already getting longer, and the people at the National Weather Service claim that it's supposed to warm up by tomorrow, with nice weather throughout the next week. Unfortunately, this has been the forecast since late fall when the snow and cold arrived. A false hope dangled like a carrot to lead me through the frigid temperatures and the days of snow. But, by the time we even get close to the dangling forecast, they change it; more cold, more snow, and the carrot is now next week. What's this got to do with furry mammals? Well, we just had our Groundhog Day, and that little critter also provides us with a forecast. I've read the chances of the groundhog being right range from thirty to forty percent probability of being correct. I, however, would guess it to be fifty percent; seriously, it's like tossing a coin, fifty-fifty. So, this far into the despair of a harsh winter, whom shall I trust, the groundhog, or the National Weather Service? That little furry mammal predicts once a year and has a fifty percent chance of being right. The weather people provide daily predictions and seem to be wrong a lot more than they are correct. Sure they get it right once in a while, but that's just a matter of averages; pull the slot handle enough times, and you are bound to win once in a while. I think I'll go with the groundhog, six more weeks of winter. At least it gives me some hope that I'll shovel my last scoop of snow for this winter and be out enjoying a warm sun in a month and a half. Besides, after dangling the weather carrot a week out in front since last fall, I'm finding it very hard to trust the people at the National Weather Service; they'll have to give some pretty accurate predictions for at least the next six weeks to move equal to the groundhog. |
| Wow! I can't believe six days have passed without an entry. Where does the time slip off too? I suppose somewhere in this vast universe is an entire world called, "The Land of Good Intentions". I really don't have much to write about here, since the last six days have been spent doing a lot of nothing. Well, not nothing, but nothing worth writing about. I did get in to see the Chiropractor last week; actually six days ago. That's also the day I woke up with my sinuses all plugged up. I felt pretty good, I just had a stuffed-up nose that would not clear. But, by Thursday, it was building up a lot of pressure in my sinuses, creating quite a lot of discomfort. No fever or anything, I felt fine except for being all stuffed up and having a lot of sinus pressure. By Friday, it had increased two-fold, both the stuffiness and the pressure; now it wasn't discomfort, it was a full sinus headache. I, of course, sought relief from over-the-counter remedies. They helped some, the pain was down to just being uncomfortable and I was able to get some clearing of my sinuses, but not much. I even added in the old stand-by, Vicks Vapor Rub. I was so stuffed up, I couldn't actually smell the stuff, but I could feel it burning in my sinuses. By Monday, I was starting to feel a little better. But, now that the pressure was subsiding, I had a burning sensation throughout my sinuses. I never had a fever or any other indications of being sick, except for being tired. I napped some, and with even the least exertion, I felt exhausted. Tuesday was quite a bit better, I wasn't as tired, had more energy, and could breathe again. Today has been even better, I'm still a little stuffed up, but the burning is gone, the sinuses are draining, and I'm too tired at all. I have more energy; I even ventured out and did some shoveling. It was crazy windy yesterday and snow had drifted in on the sidewalks, not a lot, but enough to need clearing. It's crazy, but one year ago, to the date, I had a terrible sinus infection. My wife had been exposed and came down with Covid, so I was her caregiver until she started feeling better. She didn't get really sick, more like a case of the seasonal flu, and within a week she was starting to feel better. This was good because just as she started to feel better, I started to get a serious sinus infection. I had a pretty high fever and my sinuses discharged nasty-looking gunk along with clots of blood. Yes, I did contact the clinic, but as long as it wasn't serious enough to need hospitalization, they recommended that I stay home, since I likely had contacted Covid as well. Unlike most others, however, I had the worst symptoms in my nose with little cough and chest problems. I ran a pretty high fever and remained sick for almost two weeks before the fever broke and things began to clear up. But, my sinuses never did recover completely. I spent the entire last year with a bit of a runny nose and some mild sinus congestion. Now, one year later and it flairs up again. Hopefully, this time, since I did not get as sick, it will clear up completely and I can finally be over my runny nose. |
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