Solitaire and Bird Watching

I’ve caught myself playing Solitaire on my iPad a lot lately. It tends to blot out other mind buzzing thoughts - like thinking about the government’s response to COVID-19, the on and off lockdowns, the social dilemmas that crop up. There is so much information/disinformation out there in the media (mainstream, social, & alternative) for people to sort out......what is true or untrue, scientifically sound, conspiracy driven, politically driven? It’s been a long haul and most of us have more or less determined our own path to follow down the information highway. If a friend, relative or neighbor thinks your path is crooked so be it. You think theirs is twisted! A friend of mine stated the mindset of folks very well, I couldn’t do it better so I quote, “What’s on my mind is that people are getting mean.  Typing things that would get them slapped in person. Division amongst the people is real and felt even in small communities where there used to be a sense of closeness. Like a big family. Not anymore. Opinions are getting stronger.  Unnecessary shaming is getting to an embarrassing level of stupidity. Both sides are adamant and there is no room for discussion. Sad to see...”

The social and economic pain resulting from this pandemic has been enormous. Has it caused a permanent change in our society, in the way we perceive others, in our level of tolerance, in our level of empathy? Has it made us permanently paranoid? Will we bounce back? 

Considering the lamentable way we treat our environment, this will probably not be that last pandemic we face. I hope this test run has resulted in some learning for the next time around. As it is now both the disease and the response are causing a great deal of harm. There has to be a better way.

I feel the underlying tension all around me and am so grateful that I live in a rural setting. I can go for days without encountering a single person. I can care for my lambs, walk my dogs, sit out in the sun on warm days, plan my garden, tend to my bedding plants, play Solitaire, watch Netflix, enjoy the birds at the feeder, the geese grazing on the lawn, and the frogs croaking their tune on the lake. What an amazing privilege shared by so few! It isn’t always easy, but I will never regret the day we turned our backs on city life. For me, city amenities hold no allure compared to the beauty and serenity of the natural world. 

Spring, it’s bound to be followed by Summer.

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Oatmeal Omelette

Oatmeal Omelette

My husband was browsing his way through the internet the other day and got super interested in a recipe. Yes, you heard that right, a recipe. “Listen to this,” he said, “maybe we should try this for breakfast!” The recipe was in video format, not in English but with sufficient subtitles.

“Well, why not,” I said, “it would be nice to eat something besides bacon and eggs for a change.” The quantities were in metric which throws me, but I think I got the measurements more or less right. The video cook used ordinary spoons, not measuring spoons, so I figured out that winging it a bit would work out okay. 

My omelette (pancake?) didn’t poof up quite like it should, maybe because I couldn’t resist adding about 4x the amount of cheese. Here’s the basic recipe.

1 cup oatmeal in 1cup warm milk, leave sit for awhile and mush it around so it blends some

Add 1 teaspoon each of salt, pepper, and cumin

Add 2 eggs

Add 1 Tablespoon grated sharp cheese

Mix all well

Put 1 Tablespoon (or so) of olive oil in a medium sized fry pan and spread it to cover bottom.

Add your omelette mix, cover, and cook on a low heat till it poofs up, preferably fairly high.

Remove cover and turn over, cook until browned evenly, can lift edges to check.

Done!

Quite good actually, a nice alternative to regular oatmeal. We added nothing on top but maybe you could - butter? maple syrup? jam? fresh fruit? Maybe you could throw in a few pumpkin or sunflower seeds, or alter the spices.

To make it easy here’s the link to the YouTube site: https://youtu.be/Jjge2pYKuUM.  Definitely worth a try. Might be worth checking out some of the other recipes there as well. 

Hollywood Script

Is life in the US following a Hollywood script? Has anyone else noticed that the media clips of the recent storming of the White House would fit in perfectly with 90% of the movies on Netflix? It’s a little weird - the costuming of the “marauders”, the crouching, fleeing Congressmen & women, the National Guard asleep on the Capitol’s steps, the walls topped with razor wire. Yikes! I never really expected to be watching movies on the news. But here we are - “The Pandemic”, “American Coup”, and coming soon to your screens - “The Fall” (of Democracy)...? 

Does the film and television industry have a hand in forming our values, or does it reflect them - or both?  Much of what we see in movies, and on some TV reality shows, depicts the ugly side of humanity. The majority of movies we see are fast paced, exciting, violent, sexy, and full of special effects. The really-bad-guy is often pitted against the not-so-bad guy. We identify with that not-so-bad guy. Life has unfairly dealt him a lousy hand of cards. It’s okay when the not-so-bad guy leaves chaos and destruction behind him because his mission is good and he is trying to bring the really-bad-guy down. And the good-guys these days? They seem to have disappeared from the screen almost entirely.

And then there’s TV and the Internet. We are living through a pandemic. Restrictions placed on everyday life have caused a great deal of hardship, especially for less affluent people. Adding to these difficulties our mainstream TV news media fills our screens with pandemic stats and short clips of horrendous events - wars, extreme poverty, floods and earth quakes, military coups, murders, child abuse, theft, drug busts. Social media is riddled with half truths, lies and, more and more, outright hate. How much of this can we absorb without becoming detached, desensitized, depressed, paranoid? Is it possible to be bombarded with all of this without suffering some effect? 

We know that a thumbs up or down on Netflix will eventually yield viewing suggestions more to your liking. We know, or should know, that liking/sharing/commenting/ on social media drives algorithms to feed us more of the same type of content. So changing the way we engage with social media can change the flavour of the experience it delivers our way. We should realize that all news media is biased and plays to its base, but there are alternatives not afraid to challenge the status quo. You can write you own script. You do not have to be a media sponge.

Turn, Turn, Turn

                     Karen

Jan. 14, 1940 - Nov. 21, 2020

I buried my sister today

     From fifteen hundred miles away

     Yet I thought I was okay...

But I’m slipping out of phase,

    Floating from place to place

    Lost in time and space...

Turn, Turn, Turn

To everything, turn, turn, turn

There is a season turn, turn, turn

And a time to every purpose

Under heaven

A time to be born, a time to die

A time to plant, a time to reap

A time to kill, a time to heal

A time to laugh, a time to weep

A time to build up, a time to break down

A time to dance, a time to mourn

A time to cast away stones

A time to gather stones together

 A time of love, a time of hate

A time of war, a time of peace

A time you may embrace

A time to refrain from embracing

A time to gain, a time to lose

A time to rend, a time to sew

A time for love, a time for hate

A time for peace, I swear it's not too late.

Pete Seeger, from a Biblical verse

To Mask or Not to Mask

Everyone has an opinion on this subject. Everyone has found an “expert” to back up their opinion. It’s a hot topic in conversations and online. Strong feelings are expressed; people are exasperated at those who steadfastly refuse to agree with their stance on the subject. The heated debate goes on... and on... and on...

The mainstream news anchors, Federal and Provincial top doctors, and numerous scientists are recommending the wearing of face masks in all public places where physical distancing is not possible. Those sitting on this side of the argument agree - because you may, unknowingly, be an asymptomatic carrier, a mask worn properly may be an effective tool to protect others from you. 

On the flip side of this issue stands the strong individualist. The government, they say, is using the pandemic to control the people, to restrict our freedoms! It’s a hoax. COVID-19 is no worse than the annual flu and no more deadly. Masks don’t work. The whole thing is overblown. Those in power are afraid to admit their pandemic strategy has needlessly caused economic hell and a state of fear for the public. They’ve made a colossal error and are at a loss for a real solution. 

COVID-19 is serious and often deadly for the elderly and those with compromised immune systems and/or pre-existing medical conditions. Infected healthy people generally recover and many have only mild symptoms. So why shut the economy down!! Why don’t we protect the vulnerable and let the rest of us get back to normal? Great idea. Tell me, how are we going to accomplish that? Vulnerable people do not live, nor thrive, in isolation. Someone who thought they were virus free carried COVID-19, directly or indirectly, to every vulnerable person who contracted it.

Sadly, there’s one thing this pandemic has brought to the forefront - grandmothers, grandfathers, elderly parents, the sick or immune compromised, the poor, the homeless, and the druggies seem to be pretty much expendable in the eyes of our hedonistic society. The mismanaged nursing homes across the country certainly attest to that.

Regardless of where we stand on the issue, I think Canadians should go along with the government’s guidelines and wear a mask, mandated or not, without griping or causing a fuss. Why? Only one of my reasons addresses the effectiveness of masks - it’s easy, not all that uncomfortable, and IT MAY HELP!

Other reasons... just as important.

Wear a mask: out of respect for those who are in any way vulnerable; in order to alleviate some of the fear in the eyes of those who do not think this is a hoax; to lower the level of anxiety in those who take COVID-19 seriously because anxiety can lower our immune response; for the essential workers in the stores where we shop whose employer is trying to keep his business open and is complying with the rules laid down by the parent company; for nurses and doctors, cooks, custodial staff in our hospitals and care homes - people who are directly in contact with infected individuals at their workplace and stressed on a daily basis; so smaller businesses can open their doors once again; to honour all those directly affected by the loss of someone they love.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

So many gods, so many creeds, So many paths that wind and wind, While just the art of being kind is all the sad world needs. - Ella Wheeler Wilcox, poet (5 Nov 1850-1919)

The Winter Blanket

Yesterday I pulled our winter blanket out of the upstairs closet, brought it down and retired the summer blanket, a light weight down quilt. This semi-annual blanket exchange is a constant in my life. It signals either the acceptance of colder weather or the welcoming of warmer. Our unseasonably cold October has forced me to admit the inevitable - time to perform this simple seasonal ritual, one of many repetitive actions that mark a path through my life.

Our winter blanket is an uncovered quilt, several inches thick, filled with wool batting. It came our way from a friend who no longer needed it, more years ago than my memory serves. It’s heavy, super warm, cozy and yellowed with age. I wrestled it into a duvet cover. Done. Winter’s arrival accepted. Too cold, too early. 

The light and spotty layer of snow now on the ground will soon be replaced with nature’s winter blanket. We will adapt, do wintry things, add layers of clothing, get out the snow shovels and roof rakes, scrape layers of ice from our windshields... 

After what may seem to be a terribly long time the warm weather will quietly push away the cold, spring will return, the summer blanket will be returned to the bed, and I’ll be planting the garden once more.

You Can Feel It in the Air

Autumn has arrived. The sunlight has a different glow, the air is crisper, the Aspen leaves have turned to gold, and our driveway has become a yellow brick road. But, in the 45 years I have lived on this farm I have never experienced a longer summer! Normally I would expect a killing frost around the 20th of August. Not this year. Today I still have a healthy tomato plant popping out ripe red cherry tomatoes sitting on the garden’s edge. It’s cool overnight, +4 or 5, but not freezing. 

Nevertheless, we have completed our harvest.  The potatoes and carrots are stored in the root cellar, tomatoes are ripening under a blanket upstairs, onions are braided and stored in the shop, canning (except for the tomatoes) is all done, the garden has been manured and tilled and is ready for next year, lambs have been sold, honey has been harvested. Ahhh, what a good feeling! 

Welcome Autumn, my favourite season, you may be short but you are so beautiful!