The City Mouse in the Country

    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

            The first great Winter Storm of 2022 is slowly making its way across America.   It's supposed to hit us here Sunday afternoon and bring anywhere between 8 to 12 inches of snow.  The worst part of this storm is the anticipation of it.       It's slowly moving across the United States and the local weather service has given us advanced warning going back several days.   As such, we have weatherproofed some of the windows - at least those that we know our young kitten is not likely to destroy.   We have tested the generator, and cleaned our wood burning stove.       We have the staples of milk, bread and toilet paper in stock.  I have a huge can of ice melting salt at my disposal, a brand new snow blower ready in the garage.  I have my boots, heavy jacket and scarf laid out;  I am ready for this storm.     I have never liked winter.  Moving south was always part of my plans and I moved south shortly after college to escape the cold.  So I find it ironic that I've m

    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

  So we stood there, my wife and I, looking at a train display in the window of a small bank, my eyes as wide as saucers as I watched the toy train chug around the track.   One of the cars had a moveable searchlight on it, and that brought back warm memories.                 My wife said something to me but I had already traveled back in time to when I was 8 years old and my brother and I were playing with a train set that took up the entirety of my grandmother’s dining room.    One of the rail cars on her train set had a search light on it too, another car had a missile that you could shoot up and into the tree; which was exactly what my brother and I were doing; trying to knock ornaments down.    Sort of looks like me.  Even has a beer.                 Even today I swear that every Christmas packages were as high as the roof as chorales sang of old kings and new and it always snowed on Christmas day.   Memories of my father dressed up as Santa year in and year out as generation a

      I have every reason to put off this piece for another week or two, however later on this month – August 28 th in fact – it will be one year since Sue and I moved back to Pennsylvania.    Although I did not start my blog officially until over a month later as I tried to make sense of my “change in lifestyle .”   Plus, there were a lot of boxes to unpack and things to organize.      People that I know are asking me “Do I hate it here/there?” a lot.    I’m sort of surprised by how often it’s asked of me.    Am I that much of a “City Mouse?” A little advert for our realtor      Truthfully I don’t hate it here.    I don’t like things about living in the country.    For example, I don’t care that I live forty five minutes away from a decent Chinese Restaurant, shout out to the Fortune Star by the way.    There is simply a lack of variety out here.  Nor do I like that the nearest hospital is twenty minutes away.    I’m not happy about not being able to find a decent radio station –

     Earlier in the week, I finally managed to get most of the house pressure washed.   This has been something that I’ve wanted to do for some time and kept getting put off due to weather, other commitments and God knows what else. Getting the green off!      Notice I said “ most” of the house.   I was only able to reach about seven or eight feet into the air.   So nearly all the second floor of the home is still in need of a good cleaning, I didn’t have the right tools to go any higher.          To do that, I would need a steady ladder and a longer hose.   Two things I don’t currently have but will be resolved shortly (probably by the time I publish this).   It’s just two more things to add to my growing collection of things.    The accumulation of things is something I'm trying to avoid but that's another post for another time.      I’ve owned homes before, both here In Pennsylvania and in Florida.    Over time I have managed to build a nice collection of hammers, wrenche

       When you own a home or any piece of property, you realize how much you don’t really know.    You become a plumber, an electrician, a landscaper and a painter.   You become, or are forced to become, a lot of little things as part of being a homeowner.   It’s in the fine print of that contract you signed.        I thought about that and 1001 little things during the last few days.  Recently my riding lawnmower needed a blade replaced, which I replaced with mulching blades, only for me to hit a hidden root with it again – on a tree that was scheduled to come down this weekend.   Now the mower assembly will not engage at all; shutting down the whole machine.   We have to have it repaired for the second time within a week.       I thought about how the summer thunderstorms moving through our area all this week were turning our “dry creek bed” project into a very wet, very muddy issue.   I’m also realizing that this is why I should have put a landscape barrier down (to help preve

      Once in ancient America - about 100 years ago - there was this thing called a "Party Line".  In remote or rural areas it made sense to have several homes connected to one telephone line.  Thus if you had to make a call, it was possible that others could listen in, sometimes even join in on your conversation.  Party lines were a way to connect to your neighbors and avoid isolation.  Party lines were eventually replaced as the miles and miles of utility wire were laid over time in rural areas.     It sounds strange to today that we would allow ourselves a lack of privacy, but in 100 years the idea of a cell phone will probably sound very odd to the youth of that generation.  However it was a way to avoid isolation back then.  Much like our work chat and zoom calls are ways that we avoid isolation now until we finally officially go back to work.      It's not odd for my team to share pictures of our pets and talk about things other than work, even though the chat is de