Skip to main content

Being Thankful

        Hey everyone!  Did you know that this page now has a companion Facebook page?   It will have articles, memes and such that interest me that relate to this page but don't really apply.  Be sure to check it out

 

  Let's be honest, 2020 has been one very odd and stressful year.

    Covid hung over Thanksgiving this year like some weird creepy Uncle that the kids shouldn't be left alone with.   In our family, we ended up having two Thanksgiving dinners.  One with my brother and family on the 21st, the other with Sue's family on the 26th.   

    This has been our first Thanksgiving together with our families in over 15 years.  When we lived in Florida we would come home for Christmas normally, but as children grow and things change, even that holiday seemed to fall by the wayside.   

   We often invited friends that didn't have family in the area or some of the elderly folk over for Thanksgiving dinner when we lived in Florida.  That became a tradition.

    Now however, we were back in Western Pennsylvania and could celebrate with family...sort of.   Which is why we two dinners on two different days.   We were trying to limit the exposure for all parties as much as possible for all parties involved.

    So, I thought I would share with you what I'm grateful for.

  • Family Love.  - Yes, it's is an old saying, but with the loss of my mother earlier this year and some things that have happened it showed me a few things.   When we moved we had friends show up to help load and unload trucks.   We have been very thankful to be surrounded by both biological and extended family.  
  • My Job - No joke, I had my doubts about moving back to PA.  I have a great job and have quickly advanced through the ranks at it.  The company recognizes and advances good work and workers.   In some ways moving home means starting over...but the company has bent over backwards to accommodate me in the last two difficult years.   I appreciate that.  No wonder people spend an average of 20 years with the company.  I have no doubt that I will retire from it.
  • The Homestead - Once again, I had my doubt about the rural lifestyle.  I was born and raised about 75 minutes south of here, in the suburbs of Pittsburgh.   I like city and suburban life, with its easy access to work, public transportation, and a 1001 food choices.   Here, I have learned to appreciate the quiet, the fact that I can look up into the sky and see the stars and constellations of my youth.  I have learned more about wood in a short time period than I would have learned in a lifetime, and have already had new experiences that I would have simply not had if we lived anywhere else. 
  •  

     I don't know what the future here will bring, However I do know that I'm looking forward to it.  With open eyes and an open heart.  I will have some bad days here.  I've no doubt that I will cuss and sweat and question if this is the life I wanted, much less choose.   It is however the life that I have and I'll accept that. 

    Honestly I don't know what 2021 will bring, in the back of my head I fear the worst.  My back ground is in the Sciences and I'm worried about the future, which is one reason why I agreed to move back up north.   It's only going to get worse before things like global warming even start to get better..   

    I do believe things can and will get better, which is one of the reasons I'm here, to help bring about that small change.  We all have to make small changers now, so the bigger changes will not be that drastic...and they will have to be made.  


Comments

What all the cool kids are reading.

Honoring the past - Thinking more about "invasive" plant species.

 Recently I've been giving some thought to invasive species.  I had received both positive and negative feedback on the blog post concerning kudzu and recently I came across a very well hidden, and very small, wild cherry tree while doing some yard work.  Since it's against the house it would have to be removed since the root systems could damage my foundation.   A buddy of mine at work was asking if I was going to transfer it, his logic being that it was a fruiting tree that would not only attract a variety of pollinator's but that the deer would eat the bark and cherries, keeping them away from the garden (which Sue and I swore we were not going to do this year).  It occurred to me that I was going to have to do a slightly better job of identification, since black cherries are native to America , where as other types of cherries are not.  Being able to make a precise identification would be helpful.   I used to be able to identify all these tre...

A sense of time in place - traveling in Central PA

One of the first items that Sue and I bought as a couple all those years ago was a grandfather clock.  We used to snuggle under the blanket and listen to the chimes on the hour, the sound filling our house with a warmth and resonance.   That clock is nothing special, being simple in its design and technology.  It's accurate because of the beauty of physics and math...and is a lost art form in its own right. I thought a lot about time and place as we traveled this week.  I thought a lot about place.   Sue and I finally took a brief vacation recently.  Due to circumstances beyond our control, every plan we had made to get away earlier in the year came to naught.  My father became ill and ended up in the hospital which we decided to stay home "just in case."  He ended up in the hospital at least three times this past year, and I decided to spend what time I could with him. Family, after all, is what brought us back to Pennsylvania. We had p...

Maybe we need to rethink invasive species???

Hi. As the writer of the post and feel that I need to clarify something. I do not advocate the planting of invasive species. The point that I'm trying to make, and clearly didn't, is that perhaps we should be thinking about an invasive species in a different light. Apples, figs and other crops are clearly non native to America and Europe but are widely cultivated because they have use to humans as a food source, animal feed, etc. Kudzu is an edible plant and although it is clearly harmful can it be used someway by humans? It's a food source, it's been used as a cloth and is showing some use as a building material. All I'm trying to do is to create discussion on how we can use invasive plants in new ways.   It's mid April here in Western Pennsylvania and so far it's been warm and wet.  The buzz of lawnmowers fill the air as I gallivant through my back yard collecting dandelions to make some tea and bread with them.  I had always known that they w...