Monthly Archives: November 2005

Giving Thanks

I wanted to take a moment to ‘not bitch’ or complain about my life.
It seems every where on the planet people are being hammered. It’s getting mighty cold in Pakistan where 1000s are homeless after the earthquake. The whole gulf coast is flattened by Katrina and Wilma and 1000s of families there have lost everything as well. Between the floods and now snow and record cold on the east coast with the cost of heating oil rising, how are many to live? I have read about $500 a month heating bills alone. There are many people doing without… heat, light, food, meds….many with out a home at all.

I try to help in my small ways… send food here, donate clothes, send money..but it is not even a drop in the bucket of wealth… meanwhile the talking heads report that ‘black friday’ shopping was good and up and that more people where using their credit cards…geez, and the stock market almost hit 11.

So with all that, my little world is just wonderful. Yes the gas prices effect us too, and the cost of food and everything else that finally makes its way to the north coast is way overpriced. We won’t be doing any Christmas shopping or buying of anything that isn’t necessary..no frills this year.

But in a few hours I will be back at home, in the hills, with wood heat (wood cut from our land), our solar panels, even in a cloudy day, making enough juice to keep the lights and dvd player on. I have a solid structure around me, I won’t be cold or live in the dark, we can eat a lot of rice, pasta, and beans. We can conserve the amount of propane we use (refrigerator, camp cook stove, water heater), and the amount of driving we do. We are doing well compared to many on the planet and for that I am very thankful.

The more independent we (as a planet) become of the ‘oil’ industry the better. It is a hard thing to do for sure and we (us) are not there yet either, but we are working toward that goal. And we are working toward a goal of more self reliance, it is hard work, but the feeling of security it brings far out weighs the work.

Now, if only I can turn off the ‘I want’ ‘I need’, ohhh ‘I really want that’.
And focus on the big picture of our little lives, then maybe when the shit really flies we will be in a position to help others who have not prepared as well.
And we still have a long way to go. More on that later.

I love my life. I am a fortunate being. I am thankful and grateful.

Many blessing to who ever you are that come here and read my ramblings.

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CockburnProject Update

Even with the limited amount of time I have here, I did manage to update the Cockburn Project last week. Bruce is on a solo tour promoting his latest cd, Speechless which is an instrumental.

I missed the one show I could have maybe gotten too, last weekend in San Fransisco. It’s just so damn far down there and Russel had no time and ….. well any way I am truly bummed as the reports from both the Humans list and BC-Live have been wonderful.
I hope he comes this way again in the summer, like maybe he will do the Kate Wolf Festival this year??

What else is new? Not much. Same old same old. I am starting to take things from the town/office house to the land on each trip.. small steps. My computer is acting a bit ‘different’ lately and so I hope to take the CPU into the guys who built it for a tune-up before I haul it all out to the house. So that won’t happen for a month of so any way.

Russel finally installed a real gate (we had had a very heavy chain gate) on the bottom of the driveway. This will be so much easier coming and going now, not having to deal with heavy, wet, muddy, rusty chain… yipee!!

Still having pressure pump/switch/bladder tank problems. Now R thinks that we need to replace the bladder tank as it isn’t working as it should. We’ll see.

We are getting a bit of rain, not nearly as much as we should this time of year, and it is also warmer than usual. I sure hope the rains come here.

And at least, for those in California who may read this… Arnold was defeated!!!

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