I am overwhelmed with too much to say.

I think I’ll just not say anything. And yet.

The death sentence by my imaginary vampire judge last week has been bothering me. Instead of hanging, firing squad, or a beheading, and other similar death sentences given out to me over the months, it was a delayed death. Instead of immediate execution, and becoming part of the physical universe, he being a vampire sentenced me to twenty years of healthy life no matter what happened around me.

I am now eighty-six years old, which would mean I would live to be one-hundred-six and in perfect health. Rather than an instant death in a few minutes, I would have an extraordinarily long and healthy life, so I was ecstatic. Yes, he said, that’s your punishment, and no matter how horrible the things that happen around you, they will not harm you physically in any way.

But wait! Is there more?

If those twenty years are as bad as this last one has been for humanity, it may become emotionally painful to live that long. If everything I love about the world is destroyed, there won’t be much left for me to love, and nothing to enjoy, or strive to attain. But, on the other hand, if I do find things to love in what is left of the shambles around me, that creates other things and people that I know will be taken away. It is horrible when everything one comes to value gets destroyed.

The climate forecasters say this spring’s hundred and ten-degree weather is the new normal for a few years, and then it will worsen. That can be adapted to inside my air-conditioned house for a while, but the beautiful Ponderosa forest surrounding it will not survive the scorching and parched weather. It will die and burn, or burn and die, and that is where I will live.

This last year’s political chaos isn’t just here in the US, but in many other counties, and that disorder coupled with climate problems will bring greater chaos. Across the world, many problems that can not be coped with now will explode in twenty years’ projection.

If I live for twenty years, nearly everything, perhaps everything I love or come to love, will get destroyed while I, helpless to prevent it from happening, will be compelled to watch and suffer.

My imaginary vampire judge gave a death sentence worse than immediate execution.

Waking up to construction noise and then a big fire.

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BIG equipment, Construction, Noise, The new park across the street

Over a year ago I spoke to the Park Department, here in Bend, Oregon, about converting a cow pasture across the street from my house into a park. They were already considering purchasing it, but I was the only one of the public who showed up for the decision. I spoke for three minutes, and they thought for another five minutes and then spent seven hundred thousand dollars. I tell my friends that my time is now worth over two hundred thousand dollars a minute. They look skeptical! Anyway, things are now progressing, as will be seen in these pictures.

This shovel does more than I do with my hand shovel.

This roller flattens more than I can flatten with my shoes.

This jackhammer is the biggest I’ve ever seen and the noisiest.

This was the view out my bedroom window one morning.

All of these join together at the crack of dawn and cooperate in making noise.

These guys are having big boy fun digging a ditch in my front yard.

Here’s the view from the east end of my city block at 12:39 noon.

Here the same view four hours later at 4:43 this afternoon.

There was a major forest fire at Mt. Jefferson, which is seventy miles northwest of here. The fire hazard here in Bend is critical because things have been hot and dry for weeks and to make it worse there is a high wind. If a fire starts locally we are in big trouble! I spent several hours trying to make my house more fire-resistant by clearing everything burnable away to the fences!

Fortunately, the park across the street is now totally fresh dirt, except for the Ponderosa trees. An acquaintance of mine moved to Bend, after his home in Paradise, California, burned last summer. He likes it here because it’s just like Paradise.

The park will be finished in a couple of months and will be named Goodrich Pasture Park. There are local parties already planned for there. It will be nice!

Ominous clouds over Bend, Oregon

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Clouds over Bend Oregon, Our evening walks

On our evening walks, we often see ominous clouds that are beautiful.

This day was beautiful as we head over to Hollinshead Park.

There are always strange things going on in the sky.

Usually there are a dozen dogs here at sunset, but today only Charlie is here.

Toward the East, the sky is far stranger.

The sky changes rapidly sometimes.

Sometimes it looks mild over the Ponderosa trees.

At this moment the sky is looking friendly.

Sometimes it’s more ruffled up.

Sometimes it’s a blend of smooth tonalities.

One of the wonderful things about living in Bend, Oregon, is seeing thousands of miles of Pacific Ocean moisture blowing over the Cascade Mountains at sunset.

The moods of Mirror Pond in downtown Bend, Oregon

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Bend, Mirror pond, Oregon, photos

Mirror Pond is located on the Deschutes River and flows one block from downtown.

I have had coffee with my old dudes several times a week only a few steps from where these photos were made.

This is an overview of the place where the photos of the dock are taken. The photo site is at the fence just to the left of the foreground Ponderosa tree.

Here is the dock overlooking Mirror Pond with winter snow.

Here is the same site with an overcast sky and only a trace of snow.

It is a bit sunnier today.

Today Mirror Pond is sunny with a bit of reflection.

There are lots more sunny days than cloudy ones, but I’m out of time to make them.

Being retired leaves very little time and energy to accomplish all the things I’m trying to do!

Sweeping UU sidewalks

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Carrying water, Chopping wood, Contentment, Diary, Epigrams, habits, Kindness, policy, psychology, Shoveling snow, survival

I just realized I’ve been doing some things beyond Chopping wood, carrying water, and shoveling snow. I’ve been sweeping sidewalks.

The photo above is of the UU front entrance, taken last week, as I departed for home. Notice the sidewalk isn’t covered with pine needles even though there are Ponderosa pine trees directly overhead. Almost every Sunday I sweep the needles, or in the winter clear the snow from this area, and occasionally along the paths to the car parking areas too.

There isn’t any payment for this needed task, and other people do tasks that are certainly more essential to the operations of our fellowship, but I do this. No one asked me to do it, and occasionally people will help. When the snow is a foot or two or three deep, people come to the rescue. It is a real challenge making paths out to the cars and there are several guys that pitch in and do the real effortful labor. The roads are contracted to be plowed, but not the paths; we do the paths.

Occasionally something special happens, and this morning was one of them. A boy  about three years old, whom I barely recognize because he is just one of the three hundred people who walk by, said, “Hi, Charles, thank you for sweeping the sidewalk.” He might have been prompted by his mom before they came close to say my name, but it was the kid who said it and probably added the thank you for sweeping, and that made me feel good.

Some of the adults do say thank you, and I appreciate that, but I am not doing the cleanup for the thanks; I’m doing because it makes everyone coming into this building have a more pleasant experience. And, in a small way, their seeing someone who is simply a member making it look and feel better is meaningful. It is better than if it were cleaned by someone paid to clean it. Out of sight, out of mind, like a rainy and windy act of nature washing the mess away and making it look clean in its own natural way.

When nature has its way, this area looks messy and I clean it up to civilized standards.

Lightning strikes at me! !

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Lightning strikes twice

Six hours ago I was out just before sunset, in the cool of the evening, working in my backyard garden, pulling weeds and cleaning them up into piles with an aluminum-handled rake. The air was still and it was a very pleasant evening to be outdoors. There were no lightning strikes within miles, although there were a few short rumbles above me, but nothing that seemed menacing.

The flat clouds above had begun to sprinkle largish drops of rain, so I leaned the rake over against the tall wooden fence and had moved under the eaves beside the house to avoid the increasing rain. I was about to hurry over to my back door about ten steps from where I was standing, when a bolt of lightning struck directly in front of where my eyes happened to be looking. The bolt was 40° to the right of the path I had just launched along and the same distance from the door.

There was very brief sizzle sound as the flash occurred and then a very loud single bang. At this same moment, my left shin had a sharp pain as I reflexively went into a crouch, and apparently my shin hit a large porcelain jar next to the path. All of this happened in less than a second.

The bolt visually appeared about eight inches in diameter and seemed to be nearly vertical and following the trunk of the Ponderosa pine tree just a few feet behind the fence. On later observation, I found no sign of a burn mark on the tree. I checked the aluminum rake and it appeared normal too. The whole thing happened so fast that other than the reflexive jerk my body didn’t get excited, and I just walked the path and went inside.

About twenty minutes later at five o’clock the electric power failed and didn’t come back on until 11:05. So lightning made my mundane life more exciting.

So, after my quotidian needs were met, (the now ‘au courant’ word), I was late getting started on this blog post.

I may have a problem!

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An ordinary day., An unusual event!

It has been a pleasant day for me, although it was a bit warmer than usual. I went to my usual Saturday morning breakfast with some friends which was intellectually fun. Then came home and worked in the garden for over an hour pulling big weeds which made a couple of large piles. I got several bug bites that itch. Read for a while in the afternoon, and Debbie read to me for quite a while. I dozed off for an afternoon nap. While I slept she made a fine midday meal of vegetables from our garden. It was wonderful. We walked to the dog park and sat for a while enjoying watching the dogs and people romp around. We talked and played word games. Not formal games just fussing around with subjects we both like and playing with the concepts we both enjoy. Unfortunately, there happened to be some pine pitch that had dripped onto the bench from the Ponderosa tree that was shading us. When we got home I fussed around with various stuff until the pitch was out, and hung the pants and jacket on the clothesline.

It was nothing special, just a pleasant day. I read quite a lot of the new Fortune magazine that came in the mail and took apart a pair of glasses whose frames had been messed up. I have made some frames out of baling wire for some sunglasses that are my favorite to wear because they are easily adjustable to various circumstances. Then I took my blood pressure an hour ago, with my OMRON which I have been doing frequently for over a month to create a baseline of observations. I have been having systolic blood pressure in the teens in the afternoon hours, and  higher in the evenings but quite good by most standards.

This reading was different.

Tomorrow is the UU meeting which has been excellent lately, and Debbie and I are meeting Leigh Anne for lunch. So, it will be a pleasant day too.

I remove some tree stumps

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4th of July fireworks, Branch saw, Chain saw, Preventing a house fire, Tree stump removal

I removed some tree stumps last fall using nothing other than hand tools like shovels, a pickaxe, a sledgehammer, a crowbar, and a tree branch saw. I did that by digging around the stump, whacking it with the sledgehammer, lifting with the pickaxe, and prying with the crowbar until the location of the roots became discernible and then I crouched down in a weird position to get below it with the tree branch saw and cut away at the roots. It was difficult, slow, and as it turned out dangerous because by straining my muscles in unusual ways, it ended up with me getting an inguinal hernia. A couple of months later I participated in an entertaining operation. All of which I survived in a relatively good mood after being sewn back together.

Unfortunately, after all of that effort, I had only gotten about half of the dead stumps removed. Those stumps were there when I bought this house eight years ago and the trees and bushes had been cut off at about two inches above the ground level. They weren’t visible and didn’t bother me much because they were covered with grass and flowers. But, after Paradise, California, burned last year, it was apparent to me, if not to my neighbors, that it was imperative that my house be made more fire-resistant. My neighborhood looks very much like Paradise before the fire wiped that beautiful small city out. On the 4th of July here again this year there was an abundance of fireworks close by. Check my blog on July 4th for some spectacular evidence of that assertion.

Before that spectacular event, I spent a lot of energy clearing everything potentially burnable as far away from my house as possible. It turned out to be a much larger operation than expected. Three years ago there were three full-grown Ponderosa trees near my house, and four more not on my property but close enough to fall on my house, one of which did during a windstorm, when one of mine blew over too but fell between my neighbor’s houses. The last of my Ponderosas had roots going beneath where I sit at this moment writing this post, and when the wind blew the whole house creaked, and a portion of the foundation developed two cracks, about six feet apart, next to the tree, which had lifted an inch. That tree had to go, and so I had it removed. Sad.

The point of all of this blather is that there were still some remnants of tree stumps that were not a fire hazard next to my house but were ugly. That was my motivation for trying to remove them last fall. A weak reason but that was my motivation. After I got the hernia operation, it didn’t seem reasonable to go back to doing that underground sawing. Then a friend of mine, Steve, said he had an old electric 14-inch chain saw which he would give me. I didn’t think that was fair, so I paid him what I thought wasn’t enough, but he claimed it was too much.

The ground was finally dry enough and I was physically able enough to attack those stumps, and I finished after an hour’s work, doing all the things above, except the sawing of roots with a hand saw, because that hand saw I replaced with the electric chain saw. Okay, sawing under dirt isn’t all that great for the cutting teeth on the chain saw, but it worked and I got two more stumps out. That’s my big event for today.

After working on the grand Universal questions which I posted yesterday, isn’t it reasonable to do something “useful”?

This Sunday began at the UU

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A walk in the labyrinth, Easter UU services

The Easter sermon at the UU was about the resurrection of life. The kids’ lecture before departing to their classrooms was about how mighty things like Ponderosa trees begin as tiny seeds. Rev Scott challenged the kids with questions of how this could happen, and they came up with more interesting answers than I would have done. Dirt, water, the sunshine of course, but also science, pine cones, and love.

After the kids wended their way through the arch of arms we adults formed while they while being sung out the door to their classrooms, the sermon became more adult and more serious, but every bit as much fun. It concluded with a gift of a package of Oregon bachelor button flower seeds being given to each person of the packed audience. There were two services so we may have had almost four hundred people – I didn’t count, but there were a lot of people.

In the hour between the two services I walked the labyrinth with my friend Nate and we had a profound conversation. At least I thought so, and the rocks were in fine fettle because of the spring rains and intermittent sunshine, and they were very helpful for me in answering my questions to them. Nate and I went back to the church building where I do several little tasks like help with the collection.

I usually participate in the Collection at the UU and prime the process with a folded dollar in the decorative basket.

Here in Bend, Oregon, it was a beautiful spring day, and a wonderful Easter.

“Do it right!!!” Coping with improving performance skills.

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Execute my projects with excellence, Prepare for drought and fire., QUADRIVIUM, Trivium

I’ve been writing this daily blog for ten years and the subjects have varied widely but always with the intent of discovering something new about how to improve the human condition. My writing skills have improved a little but are a long way from good, even from good enough.

I must try to clarify my writing and that requires studying what I should have learned in high school, but didn’t. Last evening I purchased a book at Dudley’s, here in Bend,  named Rules for Writers by Diana Hacker and on simply reading a few pages discovered that I need help. But I’m already buried in books such as Trivium and Quadrivium I desperately need to read if I am going to become a competent human being.

But all of that learning must be in the background to what needs to be completed now. What current accomplishment requires is execution and executing with excellence. Fortunately, the snow is deep enough that I can’t get on with my other major project, that of making my house as fireproof as possible. There was an amazing amount of flammable stuff on my property, like Ponderosa trees, that I have removed down to the ground level. I’m not paranoid! My neighborhood looks like Paradise, California,  before the fire totally destroyed it. Our city is now undergoing a major drought and this coming 4th of July will have pyromaniacs wandering the city with rockets and Roman candles. That’s the tradition here … to watch the professional fireworks from the top of Pilot Butte and then watch the butte catch fire even though there are fire trucks already in position at the top. Crazy!

My task presently is to execute my projects with excellence and to be prepared for the inevitable city-wide fire.