Breakthroughs

Today, we had a couple of breakthroughs.  David started working.  We weren't expecting them to put him to work right after his physical.   He's not making nearly as much as he did at the State, but this is still a very welcome development.  The ethical climate seems far superior.

James also learned today that he has a new job.

The weather broke into the hundreds yesterday.  Today, the high temperature was 107 degrees (41.7 C).  Four degrees below the record for today.  We managed to pick almost all the Blenheim apricots before the weather really heated up.  This variety is ruined by high heat, and we haven't had usable fruit from this tree most years.   We also got cucumbers  and more tomatoes last week.   There are a few luxuries from the garden which are hard to replicate with purchased produce.  

Much of my day was spend making sure the dogs would be O.K. in the hot weather.  David had to go to his Mom and Dad's after work to repair their air conditioning.  He will need another part to make a thorough repair, but at least it started working.

There were some political milestones, too.  Some ironies among them.

At the Edges

We have just gone through, I think, the edge of winter and spring here.  A few days ago, we had a light frost.  Shortly thereafter, the high temperature was 79 degrees, falling to 37 degrees at night.  I think we have moved off the edge of winter and spring, and we plan to plant tomatoes out tomorrow.  The weather is wonderful.  Going through the mild anxiety of deciding when it is safe to plant is a minor thing to gardeners like us, but it can be a big thing to farmers.  Some California tomato farmers apparently lost their bet with the weather this year when the frost hit.  There are rumors that tomato prices will be high this year.

"Living on the edge" may connote excitement to some people.  And sometimes the anxiety produced by potential threats or danger (manufactured danger, in the case of "extreme sports", etc.) may prompt one to take positive or daring actions one would not otherwise take.  But today, I was again reminded of the people who live at the edges of society in a way that does not connote striving for achievement, other than the achievement of surviving another day.

We went to Fresno, and saw several people advertising for handouts at the side of the road.  Most of the signs said that the people holding them were veterans.  I think this is, in many cases, not true.  But in some cases, it is true.  We passed by all of these people.  I had heard one person like this bragging on a local radio talk show about all the money he made in this manner.  It's hard sometimes to tell where genuine needs are.

But on the way home, we stopped in Selma to go to the supermarket.  As we passed an empty building which was once a drug store, David noticed a woman standing in the cart return area, under a wide overhang.  Somehow, he knew that this was a person with a real need.

He handed me a wad of small bills to give to her (no wanting to scare her by the approach of a man).  She came away from the wall to meet me as I approached her.  It was clear from some hygiene problems  that this was a person who was avoiding situations where she would be around other people.

I asked if she needed some cash.  She said yes.  She thumbed through the bills, and then quietly asked if I needed a dollar back.  She thought that we had given her all the money we had.  Though we have had some worries about money lately, her offer to give back part of the little we had given her put things in a different perspective.

David wanted to take her home, because he thought she needed someone to take care of her and get into a better situation.  But that sort of thing is a legal impossibility in this day and age.  We tried years ago to find a similar way to help young man who was in a worse condition that this woman.  Our governmental and legal institutions limit acts of good will by private citizens.

David went back to talk with her, and she said that she would be moving back to a motel when her check came.  We pray that it won't be too long.

Back to Nature

Victor Davis Hanson has thought, taught and written a lot about big issues like war and peace and the rise and fall of civilizations. He believes that when a culture loses its connection to the land - when not many people know what it is like to grow food, etc., that culture starts to lose touch with reality. He sometimes writes about the unreality of the academic world in comparison to the world of farming, for example. He works in both.

Similarly, Stephen R. Covey writes about working in "natural systems" - working a farm or caring for infants, for example, where people must pay attention to the cycles of nature and/or the needs of babies who cannot speak in order to be successful. He contrasts this with working in "artificial systems" such as academia or politics. People who understand "natural systems" have an edge in understanding how the universe works. Bluffing works better in artificial than in natural systems. Attractive, but erroneous, ideas are quickly exposed in natural systems but may retain respect in an artificial system for a long time. This can allow problems to build up longer than they would in a natural system. Reality can be displaced by wishful thinking without too much difficulty in an artificial system.

Most people in our culture spend a lot of time in "artifical systems" - especially those who spend a lot of time watching TV or playing video games, for example. People substitute short, on-line contacts for time with people, or post messages "to the world". There are some real advantages to "being connected" in the digital world. But balance is in order. Lack of focus on the non-digital world may reduce our ability to understand what is "real".

I like this post concerning Amish proverbs. If there's any group of people in America who still live in a mostly-natural system, it's the Amish. Proverbs mean something to them. Most of the rest of us don't spend a lot of time thinking about proverbs nowadays. We're too busy. Maybe we need a few Amish proverbs to bring us back to earth once in a while. Think about some of those proverbs and how they might apply to your life.

Jumping for joy is good exercise.

Beware the man who knows the answer before he understands the question.

A task takes as long as it takes.

At Stake Conference yesterday, one of the speakers recited her mother's favorite saying (or proverb, if you will):

Knowing is not doing.

This seems to me to be a proverb well-suited to the modern world. We know a lot of important things. But we are distracted by even more things. We distract ourselves from doing what we know is important. I have a suspicion that the Amish don't have as much need for this proverb as some of the rest of us do. Some people in the modern world have learned how to lessen the distractions in their lives. I'm still working on this.

In personal news, we learned Saturday that David's early retirement papers have been processed. A little less worry for us. We've been too distracted by the drama of David's whole irrational work situation. Time to get back to some activities which are a little more grounded in reality. Keira suggested pouring a small commemorative slab of concrete somewhere in the yard to mark the occasion.

For people who are newly unemployed or who are still really worried about future income, one of my favorite thinkers, Richard Fernandez, has some practical, low-cost tips for staying connected and approaching job-seeking on the web. Because it's hard for people who have had "real" jobs to get a new job without entering the digital world nowadays. Unless maybe they're Amish.

I went to Jathisa's wedding yesterday afternoon. She looked as pretty as I've ever seen her. Families were happy. Friends were happy. That's the way we like weddings.

We heard that little Julia is out of the hospital following possible H1N1 flu, which was a big relief. Still praying for friends and family struggling with illness.

My connection with "natural systems": Our late plums and early pomegranates. Also some remarkable bug photos.

Grandpa Smith from the Belgian Front, World War 1

Elizabeth found a letter from Grandpa to his father in Mom's basement. When we think that we have it rough, it may be time to read through it again. This is one of Elizabeth's favorite parts of the letter:

I am happy to say that peace seems to have come. I was slightly wounded in the right arm in the offensive we took part in on the Belgian front. I felt happy to be alive and safe and I look forward to coming home.

My sympathy goes out to those who will never go home and for those who expect to see friends and relatives who will never come back. I have come to the conclusion that life is a precious gift and is worth living, no matter what the difficulty, but we are so helpless to save it or preserve it that it is not worth while to consider our health and happiness and comfort about that of others. It is worth while sometimes to die, if death will serve to help others. When we think too much of our comfort we expose ourselves to more danger by disintegration than we do when we make a brave fight and face every danger and exposure.

I hope I come home from this war more of a man then I went into it. If I don't I'll feel that I have not played my part.

-Calvin S. Smith, in a letter to his father written from the Belgian Front, late 1918

This letter does not come close to reflecting all the hardships he faced. I know that he was once shot in the back and bit into the bullet in his "bully beef", the corned beef strapped to his back in a little frying pan. He carried shrapnel in his body until he died.

Things are heating up now

We got a surprise VIP conference phone call a couple of days ago from Sacramento. It went much better than the more bureaucratic call we got on Monday. Not confident the bigwigs are really able to civilize their organization, though. Challenging illegal activities within a State agency can be a wild ride full of inanities. And it's a whole lot of work. But on to the rest of life.

The weather has turned hotter. Forecasts are for around 106 to 107 degrees for a few days. It only goes below room temperature for a few hours in the early morning. So that's the time you want to be up for baking, laundry, dishwashing, etc.

I've put up two recipes from my high school cooking teacher. Tomato Flowers (for all the tomatoes we have coming on right now). No cooking required. We also have fruit on the trees. So even though it requires heating up the oven, I've posted a recipe for Fruit Cobbler. Have to check the weather report before baking, then finish before about 6:30 a.m. with the windows open and the exhaust fans going. Then morning rounds to check on the garden and feed the critters before it gets too hot.

We've had lots of dog hair in the house with the hot weather. There was dog hair on the floor and a pile of paperwork on the table when we had an emergency overnight guest last night (locked out of her apartment). Embarrassing. Oh, well. I guess it's sort of embarrassing to be locked out of your apartment, too.

Interesting short history of imperialism in China linked here.

June already

Well, we're mostly over our respiratory infections. I just have a slight cough now. We've been doing a lot of paperwork. David helped his Dad on the day he had knee surgery. He's doing better with his recovery from open-heart surgery.

Our weather started cooling down last week, and we had a freak storm with high winds and lightning which scared the dogs, especially big old Sparky. He had to hang out in the laundry room for a while. We weren't hit by the full force of the storm. Some locations were warned to expect hail the size of a quarter. We heard about a security system fried by a power outage and surge. Our region seems to be prone to these fast-moving, intense storms from the East in the summer.

We had a relaxed, casual Branch party last week, and I took lemon cookies from cake mix. Very quick and easy. Popular. Remind me to
post the recipe. It was an adult party. I was interested in who chose to go swimming. A mother and daughter who are kind of sporadic in their church attendance, and an older woman who walks with a walker. Nice to see her in the water.

Last night was the Pinewood Derby for the Cub Scouts. A lot of adults in the community put a lot of work into this little event. The kids were excited. A brother and sister team just a little older than the Cubbies judged who crossed the finish line first. A friend suggested that next year, I need to prepare a car of my own for this race. it would probably be fun.

On my kitchen and garden blog, I've posted a report on apricots and our first tomato from the garden, and also a recipe for yummy, down-home Okie Squash and Tomatoes.

On the Culture and Political front, I've put up posts on American Values (Prager University), Andrew Breitbart and Hollywood, Newsweek, Playboy, the General Motors bankruptcy and the 20th anniversary today of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Take a look around if you like.

Not the Blossom Trail, but close

Yesterday, David and I had an appointment in Fresno. On the way up, we saw orchards of peaches and nectarines in full bloom, hundreds of acres in various shades of pink. The almonds had largely dropped their petals, and plums were in various stages of bloom to green. There was a light wind, and white cumulus clouds were overhead, a relatively rare sight here. You could see the snow in the Sierras. A beautiful drive. It's nearly peak season to follow the blossom trail.

Most of our own peaches and nectarines are blooming now, too. Peaches and nectarines have not been my most successful fruits. I've posted some new information on peach and nectarine varieties and culture here.

In Fresno, we saw smoke from a big fire, and as we approached home, another ugly, dark gray plume of smoke. As we got close, it looked like it was coming from about where our house is. We started to think about how to get Lucky out of the house. Then a police car in front of us went past our street to regulate traffic on the next block. Fire engines started speeding in. Our house was not on fire. The fire seemed to be coming from a yard where there are frequent recreational bonfires, plus very loud music. We haven't gone over to investigate whether a structure was involved. We hope that it wasn't a housefire. We are thankful that it wasn't OUR house on fire.

Later in the evening, the wind came up, clouds turned black and we had a thunderstorm accompanied by rain. Sparky was insistent on coming in from the garage to be with Maggie, Troy and Lucky. Our biggest dogs are the biggest wimps when it comes to thunderstorms. Dottie laid in a cupboard in the garage on some black trash bags to which she has become attracted. I ordered them years ago from a charity. She tore the box apart to use the bags as nesting material. David moved them to a cupboard, so Dottie moved in on top of them. But the dogs were happy after the storm passed, and we needed the rain.

The biggest news is that David's dad finally went home yesterday, to a wild greeting from his little Boston Terrier, Prissy. She no longer needs to hop the fence to search for him (not that she will necessarily give this activity up). Recovery from his surgery has been a long haul for Dad, and for his wife. It was a good day.