The City Mouse in the Country

 There is an old saying that goes something like " You can never really own the land, you are only borrowing it from future generations." The exact quote escapes me at the time of this writing.  However the sentiment holds true.   We are considering the possibility of buying our next door neighbors one acre lot. At one time Harvey, who long time readers of this blog know was helpful when we first moved into our home, lived there. However the property and the trailer he lived in where showing signs of falling apart; when he moved unexpectedly the property fell into further disrepair.  For the past year or so, it has simply been empty. Susan and I are considering buying it.   Partly because we can put another trailer on the land to rent if we wish, as the plumbing and electrical wiring is all ready in place and we don't believe the current property is worth saving.  That of course, means tearing the old one down. Rents in our area are actually below the national average an

In 1906, Alfred Henry Lewis stated, “ There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy. ” His observation has been echoed by people ever since and changed a bit over time, but has remained a stark warning. Only anarchy the way most people think of it rarely occurs.  We have found that people are more likely to band together when their communities face some sort of disaster, be it from war, plague or natural disaster.   We are all too familiar with pictures and videos of communities digging through the rubble of bombed buildings searching for survivors...but how many of us remember the moments during the Covid epidemic of people singing from their balconies?   When you have a community; people will always help people.  Despite these bleak times the things that make us human - our compassion - will see us through. Recently my life changed due to issues with a car .  While, in the scheme of things it was a minor crisis it did make me think if things could have been done differently,

These last few days have convinced me that I need to get off my proverbial ass and find a work from home position, or failing that; one that only needs me in the office two or three days out of the week. My 2012 Kia Soul (stock photo) The reason is that recently I "threw a rod" in my car.   This is basically the worst type of engine failure possible.  My starter also died at roughly the same time, which means that they can't even turn over the car to try to determine the extent of the damage or what exactly failed.  A new starter won't be in for a week.   Now this type of engine disaster can be fixed but it's going to take anywhere between two to three weeks at minimum even if I can get the parts in a timely manner. Living out in the "boondocks" requires that my wife and I have two cars.  We work in two different parts of the county and two different schedules, so it is just a requirement. There is no public transportation, no car sharing services,

Without getting into much detail, I was sitting in a doctor's office  recently waiting on my appointment browsing through "Bon Appetit" magazine.  There was a recipe that caught my eye, which at the time of this writing; I have not tried.   I'll be sure to include the recipe for Tomato Roasted Onions with Paprika on the recipe links page of this blog.  What caught my attention was not only were they using onion as the main dish, but the ease and simplicity of it as well.  It also feeds into something that I've been thinking about recently (pun intended).  That is the very real threat of food scarcity in the near future due to climate change. We are only a super storm or a drought away from disaster and a few years ago some food and other items disappeared off the shelves due to COVID.  Costs for other foods skyrocketed and came down slowly over time.   This food scarcity issue was mostly a temporary one, but it did serve as a wake up call for most people.  Sadly

Recently I learned that nearly two out of every three Americans have been affected in some way by climate change.  That 62% of Americans think climate change is currently having some sort of effect on their local community and economy. I mention this because climate change is one of the several reasons we moved from Tampa, Florida to Northwestern Pennsylvania a few years ago.   My wife, Susan, likes to tell the story of when it was 90 degrees (32 C) on New Year's day, which is an exaggeration but the point remains.  It was hot and humid on a day that really should not have been. It got so bad that even the natives were saying "It's to hot." Migration is defined as " The movement of a person or people from one country, locality, place of residence, etc., to settle in another ."  Thus Sue and myself became, without even realizing it "Climate migrant's." Now I want to make it perfectly clear that I'm not comparing Susan and myself to any

 I was on a bit of a side quest a few days ago and ended up eating dinner by myself at a cute 1950's style diner, complete with the music and red plastic chairs of the period.  I entered and had already resigned myself to a chicken or meat dinner; so imagine my surprise when I was able to order a vegetarian meal.   That's something that I've been trying to do for some time because I know that when I order a vegan/vegetarian dinner at a restaurant; I 'm doing my part to make these items a little bit more accessible to others, as well as helping my overall health and reducing my carbon footprint just a tiny bit more. The waitress and I started chatting about this and she stated she wanted to try more plant based items.  I mentioned one of my favorite companies Quorn .  Either due to luck or more likely the all powerful algorithm; what showed up in my news feed at the diner was that Ron DeSantis, current governor of Florida, was in the process of trying to ban lab grown m