Quote of the Day

For too long we seem to have surrendered personal excellence and community value in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product now is over 800 billion dollars a year, but that gross national product, if we judge the United States of America by that, that gross national product counts air pollution, and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic squall. It counts Napalm, and it counts nuclear warheads, and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our city. It counts Whitman's rifles and Speck's Knifes and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet, the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play; it does not include the beauty of our poetry of the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate for the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country it measures everything in short except that which makes life worth while. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.

--Robert F. Kennedy - 1968

Quote of the Day

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

-- Thomas Jefferson 1802

Grand Kids and my Truck

What is is about Grandpa's truck that attracts the grand kids?

Quote of the Day

Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness, and of their soul’s resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger.

-– William James

Cabin from the Air

This is a view of the cabin and pasture from a drone:

More Birds

Northern Cardinal

Blue Jay

Yellow Bellied Sapsucker

European Starling

White Crowned Sparrow

Tufted Titmouse

Bird Count

This weekend I participated in a bird count for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation. Over a period of two days I counted the birds of each species that gathered at my bird feeders.

This female Cardinal with its bright orange and white wing 

feather is a partial albino.

Christmas Program

I'm getting old. We were late for Jenna's school Christmas program this morning because it took us so long to scrape ice off our windshield. We got soft over the summer and were unused to taking the time to prepare to drive in cold weather. I don't know how many years will pass before I just give up on driving on cold winter mornings. Driving at night is difficult for us now; our night vision has disappeared over the years.  Anyway, we arrived before the entertainment began.

Jenna in the blue shirt sings with her group.

Marley, Gracen, and Hunter enjoyed the show.

Where Did the Time Go?

Today is Marley's 16th birthday. She celebrated by driving herself to school in her own car.

It seems like yesterday that she was 5 yrs old.

There she goes.

Thanksgiving Photo

Cabin Progress

Flower Girl

Gracen was the flower girl at her cousins wedding on Saturday. 

Appliance Nostalgia

We recently replaced our toaster.  It was twenty years old; it still worked fine but the cord would get very hot indicating that the internal strands of wire had broken from years of use. I suppose I could have just replaced the power cord but Dorothy thought it was time for a new, modern stainless steel model. It's pretty fancy with settings for bagels, warm up, and you can even defrost frozen bread before it is toasted. I hope it lasts another twenty years but I don't have much confidence in contemporary appliance quality. And here's why:
     In 1976 we bought an upright freezer from Montgomery Ward (remember them?).  That freezer gave us 34 years of trouble free service and then one day in 2010 it quit. We bought another one. We plugged it in, the light came on, and it began to hum. It never got cold inside. We called the department store and they picked it up and left us with an identical freezer. It works fine but leaks water. There is a copper line under the freezer that gets encrusted with frost that,  during the defrost mode, condenses into a pool of water on the floor. There is a plastic reservoir that is supposed to catch the condensate but it doesn't. Poor design. Instead of insisting on a new freezer we just lay paper towels down to absorb the moisture. If we replaced the freezer we may get another lemon so we'll just make do.
    We bought a new refrigerator, all stainless steel, french doors and bottom freezer. It has more cubic feet that the old one yet holds less food. There is a water and ice dispenser in the door but I cannot get a full glass of ice without a cube or two flying off in random directions and onto the floor. It seems modern appliances are very nice to look at but are lacking in functionality.
     My daughter recently bought a new dish washer. It didn't actually clean the dishes. I checked it out and even called the customer service line. The service rep had me hold my phone to a location on the washer and an electronic signal was uploaded  and used to diagnose the problem. It didn't work. So a technician was dispatched to her house and he replaced a part.  It still remains to be seen whether that will be a permanent fix. 
     We're living in an age where we are driven by rampant consumerism to buy expensive, flashy products that are nothing but junk in disguise. But isn't that true of our politics, religion, and most of our modern culture?

Marley has her braces removed

She will be 16 next month!