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Serendipity – A Train To Denver

Posted on June 21, 2021 by Kelsey

Today is Father’s Day. I was lucky to be loved today, and to be able to spend the day with some of my children. I was gifted a set of tools to work leather, which is very exciting to me because there are some basic projects I want to do, and I got an introductory tool set that looks like a lot more than enough to do what I want, and give me a feel for the craft.

Today I also happened to look on eBay and found the extremely rare train engines I needed to finish my consist for the model railroad I want to build. There is one train in the world I can model if I only have enough room to model one train in the world, and that is the one I bought the cars to, but then found that the full set of engines was nearly impossible to come by. It is going to be a model of the train I rode with my mom when I was nine years old from Salt Lake to Denver; the California Zephyr!

As fate would have it, the California Zephyr was absolutely legendary in America, with stainless steel panels and several dome cars for viewing outside the train. It was pulled from san Francisco with three engines to handle the steep grades along the way. The route from Denver to Chicago was pretty well flat, and only required two engines to pull it. But the Salt Lake to Denver leg was mountain grade, and required four engines! Keep in mind that the California to Utah leg is also mountainous!

The ride mom and I took came at a special time in my life, not just because I was a nine year old boy, and not just because it was the first time I had ever rode on a train, but also because mom was carrying my little brother at the time, and was not long married to my step-dad. We had travelled a lot when I was little, by bus, in cars, and I with my grandparents. I had even flown alone from northern California to southern, when I was only four years old! As fate would have it, a road trip together when I was in my early twenties would be the last we took together. This train ride was a symbolic journey to the end of a childhood that was just mom and me. It was the end of an era that I am still selfish about now, when I knew her as a relatively young girl herself. Echoes of the hippie that was my mom always called out, but this was a point in her life when she was changing, and growing up too.

It is stirring to have found this rare set on a day like today, when the magnitude of parenthood is already on my mind, and when I can take a moment to not only treasure my children and my role as father, and look back at my mom’s role as a single mom doing everything on her own. It was a pivotal point in my life, as we left behind the old “us” in Salt Lake, and became a family in Denver. Everything changed forever as we snaked our way through the Rockies, rode through the Moffat Tunnel, and descended down into Denver that night.

The seller of the engines promised he would be mailing them out, insured, tomorrow. I really look forward to receiving them! I look forward to completing the consist that will eventually become the model that will serve as a viewing pleasure, and a metaphor for the biggest transition of my young life. I cannot believe I not only found the PB-1 units, but in a whole set of PA-1’s and PB-1’s, making up the complete engine compliment for the most mountainous journey in the United States!

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Tomorrow Is Juneteenth

Posted on June 18, 2021 by Kelsey

Tomorrow is the first annual celebration of the newly created Federal holiday of Juneteenth. What is Juneteenth, you may ask? Well, let me tell you about it.

Juneteenth is the day that a Democratic President put a burr under the saddle of every racist in America who does not want blacks to be included in the national experience as full human beings, by allowing recognition for when whites improved themselves by no longer allowing themselves to lower others into slavery. Yes, Juneteenth marks when Major General Gordan Granger read General Order No. 3, enforcing the emancipation of all slaves in Texas, some of the last to be freed. The date was June 19th, 1865. The date was marked a year later, and has continued to be celebrated as Jubilee Day or Emancipation Day since.

For some unknowable reason, there are people who are against this as a holiday. Well, I think we can in fact know why they would be. But excuses such as “It conflicts with the national Independence Day,” or “we don’t need another summer holiday,” are ridiculous covers for the real reason. I don’t buy that crap for a moment. Why would anyone not want to celebrate such an event? Worse, why would anyone not want others to celebrate such a joyous occasion?

Our government is established on the foundations of The Bill of Rights, and on the Constitution. The Declaration of Independence establishes the idea that all men are created equal. I would venture that all women are too, but that is… No, that is totally related. But to stick to the point, it is an ideal that really needs to be fully extended, and in order for all to have justice under the government, and a fair shot in life, inclusion must be practiced. Failing that, if the government can belittle one, it can belittle anyone. Inclusion should be practiced for compassion alone, though, and not just to protect one’s own ass from falling victim to the treatment they have accepted for others.

I remember all the fuss over the celebration of Kwanza in the holiday season. The uproar against Juneteenth is no different. And any such disapproval will not be accepted within my realm. So, yes, I write this, and express my favor for the holiday, and for those who celebrate it. I express my desire to defend them and to include them. I also write it as a practice run for those times I may need to say it to anyone. Juneteenth is a national holiday that celebrates the maturity of the American ideal, and while it is not complete, it has taken a credible step that cost hundreds of thousands of lives for Freedom. To not celebrate it desecrates those who died to demand freedom for all.

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Feeling After The Shot

Posted on June 17, 2021 by Kelsey

I woke up this morning and felt pretty low. Not ridiculously low, but not great, either. At first I thought it could be because of dehydration, with headache, and soreness: the weather has been hot lately. But after a moment I realized it was probably the vaccine that was causing me to feel this way. Mrs. felt the same, so I concluded that it was definitely the jab that put me low. It is nearly noon the next day, and honestly, I think if I were to nap, I would probably feel fully recovered after. It is not horrible, but it is tiresome.

So, I had that nap. When I woke up, I felt like a villain in an old Batman show. “Pop! BAM! Wham!” It was me old bones a popping. I rolled over from my face, and the noise! Well, that was a bit much. I am still sore in the joints, but apart from that, I do feel a lot better.

Knowing that the first shot is not nearly as bad as the second is a real comfort. No, wait! I am doomed! That second one is going to require some time planned for laying about and doing not a damn thing! Gah!

I don’t know if there is any relation between how one reacts to the shot, and how one would have succumbed to Covid-19, but if it is by chance any indicator… Well, I am glad this is the shot, and not the actual virus. I don’t want to know at all what that is like. I am so sorry for those who have got it bad, and for those who have died or lost someone to it. In fact, my experiences here are insignificant compared to what others have been through. This is just my journal of the events I go through, and I cannot even begin to compare to others, and this is not at all meant to.

Well, summer is about here, though you would never guess that she has not already jumped on top and had her wicked way with us, and left us sweating and panting. I am not a heat fan. I am not an extreme cold fan, either, really. I think it is all rooted in my California birth and early upbringing. Temperate climate, that’s what’s for me! Instead, I live here where it is a desert in the summers and a frozen tundra in winters. How’s that?

It is not bad today. It is only about 90 right now. I am non functioning out in that temperature. But when 98 rolls around, that’s it! I’m dead. The only place that should ever be at or above 98 is either in the oven, or in the dining room of the house in winter when the fire is rolling and the snow is blowing. At 90, I can sneak out for little bits at a time and get some outdoor chores done. I don’t understand desert rats at all. How do people live in so much heat?

But what I wouldn’t give for some rain! I watered the potato crop last night. I needed it to get started, and hopefully that was enough to trigger them. When the farmer next door ran his irrigation line by, the wind was blowing and the water only hit a third of the potato crop. I had to make up the difference. With the drought going, it is kind of scary that it may continue on for a long time to come. Last year was dry. Winter was dry. There have been rains at the normal frequency this year, but they have been less than a third of the normal amount to fall.

Okay, there is my list of complaints. I am going to get up and move these stiff joints around and see if I can loosed them up.

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It’s Done

Posted on June 17, 2021 by Kelsey

Well, it’s done. Moderna 1 is in my arm and I am now counting down till number two. I sat there and watched Missus get her jab, and then complain that she felt it a little. Then it was my turn, and I got it, and never felt it but in the very slightest. I mean, it was not even a light pinch. I expected one, but never got it. I did not even get the anticipation or nervousness I used to get as a kid.

Now I speculate that since I never really felt this at all, when it comes time for number two, I am going to be one of those lucky ones who gets sick, has a high fever, and feels poorly for a full two days. Of course! What else could it do? Be as easy as this first shot? No way! Life is too full of a false sense of security. I am not going to fall for it!

Either way, I look forward to getting the second shot. I really look forward to seeing if I am magnetic, or if Bill Gates starts tracking me with his microchip in the shot rather than just using my cell phone or tablet, which I carry around and which I have paid for myself.

The world is strange. Well, not really. But the people are pretty damn messed up!

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Vaccination Day

Posted on June 16, 2021 by Kelsey

Today is the day we take our first injections of the Moderna vaccination against Covid-19. It is a long anticipated day, and one I am glad we get, considering that once there was a time when a pandemic could run rampant till it ran a course and killed whomever it did, using up all potential hosts. While it is so that Covid-19 will be with us for years and years to come, maybe forever, We are lucky to be able to get a shot back at a normal life once more.

But, about that. We have had a fairly normal life despite the pandemic, just because we live a rural life, and don’t have a lot of neighbors who visit, or friends who stop by. We are fairly isolated and accustomed to it. This has been one point in life when that has really paid off.

Some states are announcing up to 70 and 80 percent of their population are vaccinated. I am not sure where our state stands, but considering the number of tin hat conspiracy theorists that live in Idaho, I suspect we are a bit lower than that. Still, we have the ability to live in isolation and do a fair bit to protect ourselves, and have avoided getting in line for the vaccine too soon in order to keep the queue down for those who have to work in public and who have greater need due to health reasons. Maybe it only makes us feel better to do so, and I am sure that we will find out later today when we are in for the vaccine and can talk to the healthcare workers about it.

We are among the few now who continue to wear masks when in public. Is that because Southeast Idaho and Northern Utah are so efficient with their vaccine roll out? I have severe doubts. I think it comes down to the proclivity of the local population to demand their freedoms at any cost, in a kind of “Give me Liberty or give me death,” fashion. There is a line when that needs to be reworded as “Give me stupidity or give me death.” But to each their own. We are no scientists, but we will take sound science over piss poor politics when it comes to health and safety.

The last year and change has been astounding. It has been a collision of science, politics, and ignorance, that has cost 600,000 people in the US alone their lives. If it has been an act of terrorism, it would have elicited a completely different response, but as it was not, then just like the virus itself, it has been an enemy from within. It has been more destructive than it has needed to be because of it. Getting back to normal is probably just sweeping this all under the rug and getting back to pretending that the crazy uncle is not related to us when we see him on the street.

As for what the future holds, we have learned that we never know. I don’t know of anyone who saw 2020 and 2021 coming quite as it did. There was a toilette paper shortage? Really? And this with a pandemic which kills a relatively small number of those infected. Some viruses remain in nature still that can kill as high as 60% of those humans who could get infected with them. That is ‘kill’! That is not even mentioning the illness and the bankruptcy or lack of treatment altogether of those who don’t die from it. What happens to them? Do they die of starvation or dehydration because there is nobody well enough to look after them? We were overwhelmed in our healthcare capacities with a sort of 1% to 2% mortality rate!

What can anyone do within reason to prepare for the future? How do we plan for something worse than what this has brought us?

Now, I look outside and the skies are hazy with smoke from nearby fires. The humidity has been down to single digit percentages, and the breeze has been steadily blowing, gently, but enough to spread flames across a tinderbox landscape. The temperatures have been in the high 90’s. It is only June, and the hottest months don’t hold much promise for anything good. There is a drought in the Western United States, and populations from places like California have been displacing here already. What happens if sparks fly loose here?

The world is changing. Humans seem to be running their course, having devoured their host. What previous generations gave little to no thought too, we now worry about. We owe our kids a better world, and we cannot even agree on how to make it that. I can only hope that their generation is smart enough to look at the science, and agree to follow it, rather than the money. But that would put this as the height of human civilization, or the low point, depending on how you look at it.

As for me, I am going to go and take care of a few animals in my care, and try to better our little plot of ground in some way so that it is better prepared to take care of us. I am going to go find a way to better cooperate with my neighbors, and be there to help them so that whenever the pushing comes to it, they will know I am someone they can trust. And I am going to go, this afternoon, and get my vaccine. No tin hats. Masks as required till the second shot is complete, and the antibodies have a chance to build up. Be a proponent of science and step forward, cautiously, and with sound judgement based on good understanding, not on misinformation and paranoia.

Happy first vaccination day.

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Just Some Thoughts

Posted on June 4, 2021 by Kelsey

Summer is off to a hot, dry start here in southeast Idaho. It is worrying, because I have been expecting this based on the scientific community’s anticipation of global warming or climate change. They have said they anticipate ‘X,’ and me being optimistic as I am, I have expected ‘Z.’ Hopefully this hot start is just a heat wave. As for the dry bit, that has also been anticipated, and it looks to be historic and out of place. I am upgrading our waterers so we are making better use of the water we do use, and we are also already practiced in not watering a grassy lawn, and holding that silly expectation. I don’t really know why Americans are so persistent on keeping expansive green lawns at great cost to the water supply, but give little thought to changing to something more native and natural. Sure, keep a small spot for a picnic or whatnot, but lawns in this country are generally huge, and then we walk so close to the delicate balance of maintaining the water supply, which we need to drink far more than we need to make our house look pretty. The piper is coming home to roost. It’s time to pay the chickens.

Between this and now ransomware and the effects of Covid on supply chains, we are already starting to lose our balance on supply security. It is a good time to live on a homestead! Now we just need to produce food!

I tested the lantern last night that I had bought at the antique store for a mere $20. It is an 1973 Coleman that was in pretty much mint condition, and it worked perfectly with a new set of mantles. It is bright enough to work outside at night with for a pretty good portion of the garden, so I think we will be good to work after dark when it is cool out. I’d like to set up a watering trough that is kept back for us to fill up with water and sit in when it is too hot, or whenever someone is on the verge of a heat stroke. I can cover it with a tarp or make some boards for it, as it does not have to be too big. I think with ideas like this, we can mitigate the heat, and our lack of air conditioning.

I am updating things on the farm such as gates this year, and will probably be rearranging some of the pens for other uses, as we don’t need them to be quite as big as they are on the front quarter of the house lot. I want the damned gates put in on the canal access and the paddocks properly divided and gate, too. Rotational grazing is not something that just gets done once in a while. It needs to be done consistently, and on a long term basis.

Well, just a few thoughts before I get started on my chores for the morning, but it is past time for me to pick up my arse, and get at it!

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You Have One Notification

Posted on May 27, 2021 by Kelsey

I opened Microsoft Edge, because Chrome won’t work on this new computer. Sound like some sort of conspiracy to you? Well, get your tin hat off, I think there is a setting that is blocking it, and it is to undo my relationship with Chrome, but I don’t think it goes beyond corporate greed. Anyway, I just wanted to look something up, and in the upper right hand corner, there was a bell icon, and a notification. I clicked on it, and it told me that Ford Motor Company was up some percentage point.

“Who gives a shi…?!”

I get notifications on my phone, on my tablet, on my computer, in my e-mail… I am now getting notifications from Facebook about things, though I have been off it for the better part of two and a half years, and have had the notifications turned off. I get news notifications, weather notifications, stock notifications, account notifications, and I even get junk mail in my physical mailbox in front of my house. It seems like everything is clamoring for my attention! And as it does, it is constantly distracting me from the people and things I actually care about. It is tiresome!

I have been trying to shut down the notifications on everything but it seems like as I do, something new pops up in its place. Gee wiz! If I want to hear from you, I probably know your middle name, and why you have it. My eyes can see for about 20 miles, and if i need to know about you, you are in that range. If I want to know about someone farther, I will be talking to them, or in place of a notification, I will get a real message.

It is not satisfying to get notifications all the time as though I were important, especially from these machines. You know what would be satisfying? A hand written letter explaining the value to me of a credit card, and the terms, and even an opportunity for me to counter offer them, and negotiate a better rate. Instead, a machine kicks a letter into my mailbox so I can apply for the good graces of the company that sent me it, only to be denied and told I am not good enough. How nice would it be if instead of reading the news that my Congressman is a complete idiot and says he is representing his constituents, I would get a note in the mail asking me to write back and tell him or her the values I want represented in Washington, even though I voted for the other person? This kind of thing does not happen. Instead, it is all about impersonal notifications. Each asks me to notice them, but does any really notice me? I still get mail for dead relatives. I think that is where my answer lies.

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Old Photographs

Posted on May 25, 2021 by Kelsey

Reviewing old photos lately has been like seeing the shifting of the sands in the desert where we lived in Nevada for a while. The changes are subtle but when coming back to the same place, there is such differences that they are deniable. What’s also been amazing is seeing the changes in our own lives. We lived in Nevada, but also in England, and in Idaho in the last 18 years or so. The landscapes have changed as much as the faces. Some of the people we used to be with have died, too. Most difficult is seeing my poor mother bury her father in a grave next to the one she would occupy only two years later.

It has not just been people lost, but also animals that were more than just pets, but also friends. Patches was the first horse I have had to have shot because of cancer in his most sensitive of places. He was part cob of some sort, possibly Gypsy Vanner, and he was so big and strong, and to have such a magnificent animal put down was surreal, and obviously so sad.

It was not too long after that his daughter suffered the same fate. She was an average size horse, and even in the photo above, she can be seen to be quite a lot smaller than Patches was. She was a difficult horse, but her father was amazing. She took after her mother, also a difficult horse, unless I was chasing cows on the BLM with her, then she found me to be a difficult rider. She probably always found me a difficult rider.

No matter the disposition or magnitude of the animal, without exception, losing mom a few years back has been the hardest thing to happen since coming back to America. There is nothing that can make of for her loss and nothing that could replace her. She was that lady I could send off to Home Depot to get a part, and no matter what it was meant to be, she would come back with it without problem. She had her troubles. Lots of people have troubles of some sort. While some might be inclined to say that her death put her at ease, I refute that. Her death put her to an end, and what she really needed was competent help. I seldom cry over it anymore though. It’s not that I don’t hurt for her loss or miss her. It’s simply not the only pain I have had, and I cannot cry over everything I have felt sore for. I am sure I will think of her one last time as I myself die one day. People do that.

There is so much in these old photos, from the magnificent to the humorous, but nothing compares in my heart to my wife and kids. Those treasures are mine, and I will not share them here.

Sometimes I feel like people judge me. People take one look and make their own assessment and then decide to be a part of my life, or more often, leave me alone. I would bet a lot of people feel just the same. They are lonely and want people they can share company with, and be friends with, and never feel betrayed by. It is harder than ever since the cross-pollination of Social Media and Politics leading up to, and including the national death of our decency. Hell, it pushed me off Social Media once and for all. I have not been back for more than to gather birthday wishes and have a peek to see what a few people have been up to in more than two years. I am not inclined to return, and while I have had an Instagram account too, I am now feeling like jumping that ship too. There are lots of things to look at, sure, and also on YouTube, but I am concerned about the amount of time I have left, and what I am doing with it. If there is one thing I am sure of, it is that arguing about things no one person could ever change on Social Media is NOT living. In fact, it is more like dying inside.

Not living will consume most of the time of the Universe. There is more than plenty of that. The dust that is my being will be consumed in the fire of the sun in an amount of time I cannot even properly conceive of. Humanity will have evolved out of existence by then. What will be here? Nobody can possibly know. That is a couple of billion years from now, and only 65 millions years ago, there were massive dinosaurs all over the place. They were around for something like three times the amount of time since they have gone. They changed a lot over that time, and I imagine we will too.

When we die, everything we are, and everything we have been born into loses all meaning to us. The living hold on to titles and dreams and nobilities. The dead are the same. When I met this guy, I realized though that the living are really all the same in many ways, too. The dead have no memory, and the living build everything they are upon the collective one.

Imagine if the next generation were born without any memory of what a King is, or a nation, or a border? Imagine if there were no recollection of tribes and skin colors? I am not saying that everything should be swept under the rug and forgotten. It is a dream only that it could even be. But where would we be if we could?

It’s thanks to file naming conventions and the number of pictures I have taken with my camera that I have now got a folder on my computer with photos of eight years spent in England interspersed with photos of the desert in Nevada, and the snowy landscapes of winters in Idaho.

I have seen a lot. It is enough to make me not want to cry…

Because, always, things just change. It never asks for my permission. Sometimes I am the agent of that change. But a lot of it just goes on, with or without me.

So it has been good to review the photos of these last two decades or so. I have not shared the best here. The ones I count as the best are the ones I would not share online. They are the ones of the best people I know.

P.S.: I am feeling philosophical right now. Part of that is the trip through some memories. Some of it is knowing that one day I will lose everything I have. Part of it is just being acutely aware that the most of what I do have is shared with only a very few people, because I have been learning the hard way lately that there are not many I should be sharing much with. I have a mild feeling of betrayal coming from a couple of different angles, and I feel more like recoiling myself than putting more of me out to get shit on.

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My Retirement From Full Time Homeschool Teaching

Posted on May 19, 2021 by Kelsey

This week I will be submitting my report for our youngest daughter for her homeschool academy, and it will be the last one I do as a fulltime home educator. This week will complete fifteen years of me teaching our kids at home. It is fifteen years gone that we went in to talk to a teacher who had supposedly been concerned with our oldest, and she ambushed us with her reasons for not believing in his abilities. It was clear she had a personal dislike, and we made the decision right then to pull him from the state school in England. I taught him for four years there, and have spent every year since either caring fulltime for my grandparents, or homeschooling one or more of our children.

Apart from my wife, I don’t think there is a person who fully understands this as a sort of retirement for me. And now, at 50, I need to figure out the move forward. I expect to handle some of the kid’s elective course next year, and beyond. There will always be things to each them at home, and on the homestead. And where we have made the choice to school them at home, I kind of owe it to them to be there for them till they are able to build up a social circle of their own. I am sat where I can see my eight year old now, and she does really well with the friendship we have together. She is always asking me questions, and I am always doing my best to answer them, and help her to grow up to be a compassionate and thoughtful person.

They say kids need to go to school to learn to socialize. That is the worst place for it. Nobody they go to school with is going to teach them how to behave in polite society.

I have been able to raise four amazing kids. I am still doing so. I just get to step back as teacher, and constant caregiver. Youngest will join her sister in the academy’s virtual bridge program next year, and she will sign into Zoom meeting and learn with other students and a teacher.

My greatest temptation is to really move our little homestead forward. Missus and I would both like to make a living on it, and it would fall to me to get a great deal of the work done to do that. I am happy to keep cooking and doing things that help the others out. But I would like to finish up the place and fix up the things we have already built that could have been done better. Then there are the things we could make, and sell. So much has to get done first. So much.

I expect to finish Language Arts tomorrow, complete the lesson reports, and turn them in. That done; fifteen years.

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Forecast For Tomorrow

Posted on May 14, 2021 by Kelsey

The anticipated high for tomorrow is 74 degrees, with the low bottoming out at 48, skies partly cloudy. That’s the weather. Also forecast for tomorrow is about a cord of firewood. We will be heading down to pick up some wood from the Logan City Landfill’s Green Waste section, where the wood can be picked up for free. I take the girls with me, and they help where they can with loading the wood up. They are a bit small still, but the older one is able to do a fair bit of work. The younger one always serves as entertainment value, anyhow.

We will likely load the trailer then drive home and call that enough hard work for the day. I have two weeks till I can go out to get more wood again, so there is time to unload it and split it. Most of the time the wood needs a little adjustment on size, so they are heavy to load. But we have a ramp on the trailer and a dolly truck to roll them up with. That usually make loading large rounds easier.

As I have said since we got it, the pickup truck sire does make the whole job a lot easier! It has no troubles hauling the wood home, and if I were determined enough, I could probably load it up with wood too. But there is only so much I can handle, and it is good for carrying the tools down the the jobsite, anyhow.

As for the news and politics today, my mom always said, if you can’t say anything nice, then shut the fuck up. And that is why I have talked about something else.

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