Welcome to The Moose Pond! The Welcomings posts give the Moose, old and new, a place to visit and share words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit.
Welcomings will be posted at the start of each week (usually Saturday night with a Sunday date). To find the posts, just bookmark this link and Voila! (which is Moose for “I found everyone!!”).
The format is simple: each day, the first moose to arrive on-line will post a comment welcoming the new day and complaining (or bragging!) about their weather. Or mentioning an interesting or thought provoking news item. Or simply checking in.
So … what’s going on in your part of Moosylvania?
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NOTE: The comments page will now split off after 20 or so left margin comments with the most recent comments on the current page. To see the older comments, scroll to the bottom of the page and use the link.
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– Page One of Comments is HERE!
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Walked .83 miles, it was 77 degrees, ugh. Cold front supposed to come Monday, if it’s in the 60s I may need long sleeves. I asked while watching All In last night: how can there be even more worse? And then this morning, China’s Foreign Minister pats us on the head & says he’s sure we can sort things out. And Facebook says Trump is exempt from their “no lying” rules….. Yeah. I’m gonna need City of Blinding Lights to get through this day.
Good Freya’s Day morning, Moosekind, and a fair morning it is, too. The sun is beginning to gild the woods across the way. They’re gradually turning yellow. Our high today will be 73 F. and the low will be in the 40s tonight! Too much, too soon.
Driven by a deep desire to make blueberry bran muffins this morning, I’ve done that and they’re baking merrily in the oven right now. Because blueberries are sweet and the applesauce that substitutes for the oil is naturally sweet, I felt safe in reducing the 2/3 brown sugar the recipe calls for to 1/3. The cooler weather has me busily plotting all sorts of things: apple bran muffins, “Morning After” cranberry muffins, applesauce cake with raisins and pecans, not to mention jam roll with custard. Why does cooler weather make me think of food?
Well, food is a nicer topic than what lies beyond. Feel as if I’m sinking into quicksand with all this bad news. How can this country ever recover when half of Congress is oblivious to reality and also cut loose from morality by untrammeled greed? Will just continue to do what I can.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!
Cooler weather makes you think of baking. Of having the oven on, good smells and warmth filling the house, and the absolute security that warmth and plenty of food bring during the winter. Winter is a’comin’ in and your system is telling you what’s needed to survive it comfortably.
It’s 58 in Fay., AR. I wish I had some baking to do this morning. I’m wearing a cotton sweater and light scarf but my hands are cold. The temps will be even chillier next week and I certainly will have baking to do then. heh. It’s sunny, which is nice, and supposed to get up to 80 today. We got 11.5 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d is 33.9 so still on track.
The yard guy who also owes me firewood, some work I’ve already paid for (like last year), and cash told me he could get some wood bricks from a different store up in Springdale and is supposed to bring them to me today. Which I’ll believe when I see. I told him if he’d get me 24 6-pack packages I’d call it even on the wood. That much better deal for him than me (he owes me a cord) but I want the “debt” wiped so he’ll quit offering me wood that’s either green or so old it’s rotting and shouldn’t be burned indoors. I’m seriously hoping Tractor Supply has their shipment of wood bricks in now. I’ve got to do a Tractor Supply run this weekend for critter supplies (mostly cat but some bird seed). Even if it’s 5 trips to Tractor Supply over the weekend to get it all home, I want my wood. I’m seeing some temps next week where 58 is the high.
The part of what’s going on right now that the Founders never envisioned was a whole party – in all 3 branches of government & also at the state level – working on installing a dictatorship. They were quite familiar with a tyrannical form of government including one where the tyrant in question wasn’t quite sane. George III was installed in The Tower before our war of independence was over. But this is the almost maybe culmination of 60 years of planning and work. The Birchers started this in 1958. They started buying am radio stations and school boards. They were creamed in their first attempt at president (Goldwater) but won their second (Nixon). They continued buying media and consolidating to the extent the law allowed. They continued buying school boards and local elections. And moved into state and then fed. Their first serious Congressional win was 1994. And consolidated media into that “vast RW conspiracy’s” propaganda machine. And they have won because we have never, at any time, addressed the cabal driving this. Just the politicians they bought. And we still aren’t addressing the cabal driving this.
I think more coffee and put off my walk until the temps have at least reached 70. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
I like your take on the cabal, bfitz. It’s true. The howling Cerberus that passes for the media vilified Hillary for mentioning a “vast, right-wing conspiracy,” but it’s absolutely true.
Wonder why we Dems are so oblivious to the truth.
Of course the media vilified Hillary for saying it. They are the propaganda machine owned by that cabal, that “vast, right-wing conspiracy”. Molly Ivins spent decades warning about consolidation of the media and was mostly ignored (except by people like me) but didn’t take it all the way back to the purpose of that consolidation. And she thought if we could get public financing of elections then we’d be able to break it up. The reason Dems are either oblivious or ignore it is simple. They’d never get elected if they ran on it. It’s so very easy for the propaganda machine to portray itself as “free press” and any attempts to break up that machine as traitorously attempting to silence the Free Press. To do this first we have to be in power. Then we have to change the FCC rules – and bill that change as stopping cable companies from price fixing or something like that. Everybody has a story about sky-high cable bills for channels they don’t want but not the channels they do. So reining in the cable companies’ power is an acceptable way to do it – IF we get it done in the first 6 months before they have a propaganda counter for us.
OK – he actually showed up – with wood bricks. Not the Tractor Supply brand but I don’t care. I’ve got fuel for my wood stove when I need it. These come in smaller bricks but a package of 12 rather than 6. They fit fine in my wood stove. And the entire 24 packages fit in my guest bedroom closet with room to spare – I could have put at least 30 packages and maybe even 40. Oh, I feel so much better now. I’ve got at least a month’s worth of fuel stashed. And the Tractor Supply lot should fit indoors as well once I actually get it. :::heaves sigh of relief:::
Good!
Good morning, 52 and raining in Bellingham. Long night of tRump angst, but I have a glimmer of hope he may eventually be gone and that our country may recover. May this please be so!
I did make some progress in my sewing room and have the unfinished Dr. Who pillow cases ready to finish. Fortunately it’s simple sewing because that’s all I can manage today.
Best wishes to all.
Good morning, meeses! Saturday …
It is 48 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 54. Rain is expected throughout the day, ending by evening. Good day to stay home and crank up the fireplace! I need to get a furnace filter before I start up the furnace for the first time – I don’t want to recycle last years dust!
Trump is going to go out scorched earth, isn’t he? He is going to start by destroying California – cutting off funds, cancelling their right to control emissions and now opening up their protected areas to drilling. I hope that the state can slow walk a lawsuit through the courts to limit the damage until Democrats can take back the White House. And I hope that California Republicans – enablers of Trumpian retaliation – lose more seats in 2020. Bastids.
So the government “scientist” who said that “red meat is good for you, have a steak!” turns out to be a former meat industry lobbyist – quelle surprise! By the time Trump leaves office, the government will have lost all credibility – which is, of course, a right-wing goal. They almost did it during the Bush years and President Obama brought it back from the brink. But the seeds had been sown in 2001-2008 and it didn’t take long this time around for the weeds to choke out everything that the Obama Administration had salvaged. Bastids.
My take on impeachment is that it appears that the House committees are doing this right – we have the smoking gun in the hand of the perpetrator and it is unlikely that Trump will escape impeachment. However, he will not be removed – Senate Republicans are circling the wagons and are willing to lose the Senate to protect their leader. Marco Rubio on Friday said that Trump didn’t mean it when he told China to investigate the Bidens, he was tweaking the press. Ron Freaking Johnson said it was just “Trump being Trump” for pretty much everything he has done related to Ukraine. Mitt Romney came out forcefully against the attack on our elections and Ben Sasse said something vaguely disapproving about communism that probably made more sense if you are living in rural Nebraska. But neither of them would vote to remove so we are about 20 Senators short of that goal even assuming that Manchin, Carper and Sinema would join the rest of the Democrats in voting for removal. But the impeachment has to happen, it is the last tool in our toolbox and to leave it with the shrinkwrap still on would be a dereliction of duty. For the House, it will be the strongest rebuke that we have to a rogue president – we can’t let what will happen in the Senate stop us from issuing it.
House Democrats are still trying to promote the bills they passed earlier in the year in the hopes that people will remember that they care about health care and gun violence and election reform. Today’s Weekly Address (will post later in the morning) is about prescription drug prices, a bipartisan issue that will not get a vote in Mitch McConnell’s Senate. It is like the work of Nancy Pelosi’s House in 2007 – not much to show for it but it laid the foundation for the 111th Congress and the good government laws that came out of that. Keep pressing!
See all y’all later!
Saturday Meese
Brrrr…38 degrees here in Saugerties NY. I have the heat turned on.
This is one of the things I admire about Sen. Harris
Puerto Rico
Hmmm… ’opinion’ from the Junta
Good Saturn’s Day morning, Moosekind! It’s going to be a nice day for the T-ball game (unless Mr. Kindergartener has one of his infamous meltdowns and refuses to play), with a high of only 68 F.
This is the first noticeably chilly day in months. When I took Monty out to the courtyard at 6 a.m. it was 45 F. and I was wearing nothing but shoes, my dressing-gown, and my sleep clothes, which are brief. BIG mistake. I’ll be more careful from now on.
Yesterday I was all set to go to HQ to do packets but the organizer called, said they were caught up on walk packets, and did I want to come in to do shredding. I sure as hell didn’t, but said (tactfully) in that case there was a Writers’ Group meeting I wanted to attend. So I did that instead.
Glad I went because I heard some extraordinary stories. Two of us had chosen to write about haunted houses, although I only finished reading 1/4 of my story aloud. We each get 5 minutes to read and there are a lot of us. When I finished they all said they were on the edge of their chairs and would I please continue the story next week.
Today is the fall festival here so we’ll wander around that for a while. I’ll have a look at the news occasionally but it’s so hard not to be depressed. I continue to marvel at Nancy Pelosi, who is 78, doesn’t seem to need naps, and has the figure of a 25-year-old. Long may California resist the depredations of The Evil Emperor.
Wishing a good Saturday to all at the Pond!
Kamala 2020 posted from Onomastic
Had a bad night’s sleep, was uncomfortable & itchy (wondering if that’s a side effect of the measles vaccine? Google says a rash is, but this is everywhere, so it could just be dry skin for some reason) . Sigh. Anyway, I’m watching the MSNBC morning show & eating breakfast. Contemplating going to my coop’s meeting later — it is way, way south but they’re buying us lunch. So, maybe. (otoh, driving south involves getting past ACL Fest, so maybe not)
Hi Meeses – Good Saturday and all that. I’m running errands but will be back later to read & fierce. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 48 and partly sunny in Bellingham. The leaves on my old maple trees change over night. Yesterday they looked dusty and dry but this morning they are soft shades of gold, green and orange. Waking up to seeing my old trees is a morning meditation.
Today I’m going to find some low growing heather to plant in the salal bed we’ve been working on all summer. Fortunately I can find heather in small pots so the digging in is easier. Ron is starting to grumble about being the shovel guy!
Best wishes to all.
Heather info and inspiration…….https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/heroic-heaths-and-heathers-go-all-out-all-year-with-brilliant-flowers-and-foliage/