The City Mouse in the Country

This has been a year of progress.  We are entering our third year of country living and I'm actually feeling a little more hopeful than I did this time last year.  We entered the year with vague goals, things that we wanted to accomplish but with little to know idea on how to accomplish them. We managed to get a lot done. Susan could not stand the bathroom and kitchen from day one in our home, and we somehow managed to replace the windows, redo the majority of our kitchen and part of our bathroom.   That was just some of those goals we had in mind at the start of 2022.   Technically the bath is far from done, and the kitchen does need a little more work before I'm ready to call it "finished."  We got things done, that's the important thing. Yes, they took longer than I would have liked. We discussed how to keep your house warm on a budget.   I wanted to plant a small garden and we did have a few containers full of strawberries, some herbs, tomato's and such.

So what comes next?   Most of our house improvement projects are done, but the last blog post I wrote got me thinking about something because winter is closing in on us, although this time two years ago we already had a several inches of snow on the ground.  Today, as I write this we are expecting a balmy 46 F (8 C) although it's rainy and windy so it feels a bit colder.   Sadly winter is on it's way, so my first order of business on a lazy Saturday is creating a bit of a shelter for all the outdoor cats which have adopted us. We have two indoor cats and two indoor/outdoor cats which are our own.  Our neighbor is a good guy but he owns four horses and a goat.  Because of this he keeps a few barn cats around, which serve to keep the rodent population in check and away from his animals feed Our back porch is generally where they hang out  because they are protected on one side by a wall, which serves as a windbreak and they also know that Sue and I are totally powerless agai

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 planned on visiting friends in Tenne

    Generally speaking about Six PM every night it's my job to feed our cats.  Officially we have three.  Unofficially we have seven or eight.       Even though we don't have a barn...we have barn cats.   Our neighbor has horses and he encourages the barn cats because they do a great job of preventing mice and other rodents from getting into the feed.       When we moved into this home some two odd years ago, we were frankly asked if we wanted the previous owners two cats trapped.   "No," my Susan said, "they were there before us."        Since then we had one of the original two outdoor cats pass, while the other one is a semi permanent fixture on our back porch.  She sneaks in sometimes and once I woke up from a nap only to find her at my feet purring away contently.  Our youngest cat, Bobble (so named because his head was bigger than his body when he was a kitten), was meant to be leashed trained because of future plans of traveling the country in an RV,

      Last week I got a great comment via Reddit concerning this blog and why I do it.  "Leaving a legacy to future ancestors through climate awareness - a smashing idea."       I was just happy that someone was reading what I wrote, and I appreciated it.  To make things even better, he's a professional writer and I highly recommend his blog .  I'm grateful for any feedback and this simple comment made me feel like I was on the right path.        So when I sat down this week, electronic pen in my virtual hand, I had a lot of thoughts bouncing around in my head.   My small container garden is growing, my dogwood trees (with edible fruit) haven't died and I got to spend some time with my 90 year old father; who seemed to fall in love with the goldfinches at my bird feeders.  Susan noticed the number of bees and hummingbirds that have been attracted to our yard, and laughingly told me not to mow till August.    Photo by Birds Unlimited     I've noticed something

    Human beings are by nature political animals, because nature, which does nothing in vain, has equipped them with speech, which enables them to communicate moral concepts such as justice which are formative of the household and city-state.  Aristotle        I came across something yesterday in INC magazine that annoyed me.   Now I admit that I generally don't read that publication but years of owning my own small company and working in banking and fiance have taught me to always be open to knowledge and inspiration ,so I expected to glean some new information from an article entitled 7 Reasons to Avoid Going Rural to Work from Home.       My job is done remotely.   I am a good 115 miles from my companies office in Cleveland and live out in the country.   The population of my town is under 1000 people for example and it's not uncommon to see Amish buggies.  I may not be "rural" but I'm damn close.     The article, which I'll let you read, is a hack piece

    For as long as I've kept a blog or a journal of some sort, I've always taken a few minutes to look back over the last year to see what I was thinking and feeling at any one time.   What worked and didn't work for me as a blogger...and as a human being.     This was our first full Calendar year in Western Pennsylvania.  I can honestly say that 2021 was a year of firsts, of disappointments, and at times felt like we were on a roller coaster without the safety bar in place.   It was also one of joy and laughter.     In some ways it was full of setbacks - for example we never did get our garden planted in the spring, which was something that I was hoping to do.   We realized however that we had planned was simply to much for what we needed and by the time we made adjustments, the growing season was over.      However we did do "little things" like replace our drainage ditch with stones and such to make it seem more like a natural creek bed.   We also added a