Ramblings

"He that is down needs fear no fall, he that is low, no pride.  (John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress"

Well I am in week 2 of the 4 week confinement to the neck brace and am feeling better every day. The numbness is completely gone and though my neck still hurts a bit from the pounding it took when the Doc wedged the cadaver bone between the vertebre, I am glad I took the plunge with the surgery. Most importantly I have discarded my cain, have no noticeable limp, and am almost off all pian medication.

"An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town-meeting or a vestry.    (thomas Jefferson, Letters)"

We took a huge hit financially with the surgery and we have decided to seek employment again so this down time has been sent applying for jobs, polishing the resume' and filing for VA disability. I am also working on a few grants for the fire department so this time isnt all lost but I have discovered part of the reason for this countries discontent......the mainstream media is in a concerted campaign to wreck havoc with this country and its citizens. All day long on the TV and internet news sites is a constant stream of dooma and gloom and every event no matter how small is hyped to the point that we seem to be reeling from one disaster to another. No one gets along, the government iss broke (and broken), crime is up..........Oh and I have also discovered that Judge Judy is a small minded bitter old woman who should be disbarred...the woman is pinched and mean spirited!! The lesson here is dont watch too much TV and treat each news item with skepticism and balance.

"Little by little the agents have taken over the world. They dont do anything, they dont make anything - they just stand there and take their cut (Jean Giradoux, The Madwoman of Chaillot)"

On top of everything else the tax assessor came by a few days ago to take pictures of our new pole barn shop....you know getting ready to penalise those who improve their property. She was very nice and she let us copy some old pictures of our place which revealed some interesting things. The pictures arent very good but considering how little regard I have for just about any government official it was at least a consolation prize.

The old house used to have window awnings which were popular around here back in the 60s, the none stone part of the house was white, and the cheap garage door we replaced earlier this year was different than the one in this picture.

and the old barn hasnt changed much but if you notice in the back there is another building that we think was a chicken coop. We have found part of the foundation for that and the circle foundaton for a silo that used to be to the left of the barn. These pictures were taken around 1983 and we continue to seek out historical photos of the place as at one time the community had barn dances here.

"A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees, (William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell)"

The previous owners liked open spaces and cut down a lot of trees and bushes around the old homestead and from what I have been told they cleaned up a lot of junk and for that we are grateful...but for some reason they had left the two large trees out front that we had to have taken down a few months ago. Since that time we have had two very strong storms with winds exceeding 60 mph and we have noticed trees down all over the place in our area and several that have damaged houses....glad we decided to take them down.

Poor Holly has had to pick up the burden with me being unable to do anything for 30 days but she likes driving the garden tractor and is just as capable as me in just about anything we do.

And now that we have had some drought relief...grass is growing like crazy

To the right of this picture is the castor beans...about 8 foot tall righ now.

I made a valient attempt for about 5 minutes to help out....but since I cant turn my head it was a no-go.

Chris puts his garden tractor on cruise control and does half the 3 acres we mow...looks like a tough life.

I cant imagine ever leaving this place or living close to neighbors again. We have found home.

"Men are made stronger on realization that the helping hand they need is at the end of their own right arm.  (Sidney J. Phillips, Speech, July 1953)"

So we have had some financial hits, inflation is rising dramatically, there is chaos in the markets, and everytime I turn around people want a hand out instead of a hand up. I am not sure what happened to self reliance but we seem to have lost that aspect of our national psyche. We have continued our abundant harvest this year despite the drought and medical problems and we can, sell or give away more than enough produce to keep us going for the rest of the yearOn top of that, it tastes better and it is a sense of accomplishment when we can harvest our own food.

Now is the time for harvest of various squash, pumpkins, and mellons and we have been lucky in all regards.

This is one afternoons harvest.

We have hundreds of ears of corn and have canned and frozen corn on the con, nibblets, pickled corn (here) and we have plenty left over for silage. The cows are really enjoying their corn treats.

So all is not lost with surgery. The neck brace is bugging the heck out of me but every day I wake up feeling better and I will soon be back to the many projects that have been put on hold. And as you can tell, I have been reading a lot. I am in a classics phase with reading with a side of English detective stories (Dalgliesh, Morse etc) and I generally have two or three books going at the same time. I truly think I could susvive solitary confinement if I had my books.