Snow and late post

This post is late due to a long day and then feeling a bit under the weather.

While it woke up feeling better this morning, I also woke up to fresh snow. By the time I remembered to take a photo it had started to melt a bit. Not that it got very warm.



Saturday it was in the low 80s. Mid 50s on Sunday. Then snow Monday morning.

My lovely wife started a lot of seeds inside this year. Good thing as it seem like it's taking forever for decent garden weather to get here.

-Sixbears

Now back to the real world

While I'm interested in what happens at National and International levels, my influence is limited. My gaze is far but my arms are short.

Now it's back to my home projects. It was a brisk morning at 19 degrees. Once temperatures rose above freezing I tackled some outside projects. One was the repair of a stone wall that keeps the soil in our little garden. By rights I should probably have torn it all down, dug below the frost line and built up from there. With a shoulder still on the mend, it wasn't going to happen. Repairing the top section was tough enough.

I'm trying to balance my time and energy. In recent years I've been putting a lot of time into boat projects at the expense of house projects. That's why I started the day with the garden wall. Only once that was done was time to play with the sailboat.

The mast and sail have to be set up on land so measurements can be taken of the rig before a new sail can be ordered. To have room to do that the boat had to be moved back about 8 feet. Should be easy, right? Just hook it up to the van and drive it back.

Normally it takes just a few minutes to hook up the trailer. Anyone who's ever taken a boat out of storage knows the first boating adventure of the season never goes smoothly. In my case it was the boat jack. It was rusted in place. I've had good ones and cheap ones and they all seem to only last a year or two. Even those with grease fittings that allowing for regular lubrication fail. Probably I should just buy cheap ones and keep a spare.

Without the boat jack, it took a tire jack, blocking, a large pry bar and the assistance of my lovely wife to get it hooked up. By then my shoulder was too sore to set up the mast and rigging. In my younger days I would have pressed on. Maybe I would have gotten away with it and maybe I would have really damaged my shoulder. Older and wiser, (and slower to heal) I decided to put that project off until tomorrow.

-Sixbears

Rumblings in the distance

It's said you don't have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. You also don't need a crystal ball to see there's some potentially nasty stuff coming down the pike.

When the President and Vice President both meet with the Federal Reserve, something might be in the air. Even the questionable statistics from the government has been trending downward. While 2% economic growth was predicted, the number has been revised downward to almost nothing. Banks in Europe are in trouble.

It doesn't take much digging to find a multitude of troubling economic indicators.

The economy is not supposed to implode during an election year. Whoever is in charge at the time does everything possible to keep at least the appearance of a robust economy. If your party wins you have a few years to weather the storm before facing another election. If your party loses economic problems can be blamed on the other party.

Even more disturbing to me are the rumors of war. Historically, economic turmoil leads to military conflict. There are plenty to choose from right now. Things are heating up from the Middle East to Africa to parts of Asia. One bad move an any of those trouble areas could turn hot -WWIII hot.

As I see it, at the very least we are looking at some financial bubbles bursting. Look at the the connections between banks and a weakening fossil fuels sector. They could take each other down. That could be extremely disruptive.

Of course, I'm not a big fan of the banks or the fossil fuels industries. They won't be missed -in the long run. In the short run, however, expect to see some turmoil. Radical change always produces winners and loses. Let's do what we can to avoid being on the losing side.

Might be a good time to check out your preps. My lovely wife has been on my case to improve our food growing capability so that's one thing I'm doing to prepare. There are other things I'd like to improve but money and time are issues. Of course, I've been living at my bug out location for years.

With a high chance that things are about to get real, how's your situation?


-Sixbears