It's 4:30 AM on a Saturday

And even my East Coast friends aren't up yet. It is raining - it has been raining for two days already - but it is a soft and steady rain. Everything is greening up; my tulips are up but not blooming yet, the lilacs are almost ready to burst forth, the apple and cherry tree have soft fuzzy green buds on them. And today is the first day of spring turkey season. The birds must know it; our flock has been scarce this week. I'll have to literally hunt them down. But it's ok; I know where they go.

Gotta run to get some gopher kill and some large plastic sheets soon. It's about time for the garden to go in; the anxious plants in the window are waiting and waiting, stretching and growing. There's a chance that we still could get some freezing weather, so I need the plastic sheets just in case. Even if I don't use them now, I might want to extend the harvest. I need a bag of sulphur too, to acidify the soil for the blueberry plants. And Guerney's s having their fruit sale; need to get some of their trees and bushes. I need a partner for my current apple tree, two apricots, and I'll get some gooseberries and strawberries too. I haven't had a gooseberry in over 30 years. I miss them, that little explosion of oh-so-sweet in my mouth.

Last night we went to the Hub and I saw Larry, the president of the American Legion. He was sitting with Mr. Wobig, whom I had yet to meet. We hit it off immediately. He asked me why I moved here, and I tried to be politic. He grinned and was insistent. So I told him that the people were the thing that had most gotten to me. "What about them?" he pressed. "Their honesty," I replied. He grinned and sat back. Then we talked about the difference between here and most other places. He grew up here and was soooo anxious to get out into the world. Once he started working for the railroad and had traveled the lower 48, he came back here with a determination to never let this area become what the rest of the country has become. "I'm glad you are here," he said, after awhile. "Most new people want to move here and change things." "Not me," I said. "I moved here to be a part of what is here, I like it the way it is, I will fight tooth and nail to keep it this way. This town isn't dying - it is the soul of what is alive, what needs to be alive, in this country - the last bastion of freedom."

I wish I could express it to people who are unfamiliar with it, or who never see it, or who never want to see it... that our lives literally depend on our ability to survive on what we can do with our hands, our hearts, and our minds. That hard work and planning is so important, so necessary, to survival - and that handouts are never free but always cost more than most people will be willing to pay. The folks here 'get' that. Like I told my son last week - I found a hole and I am pulling it in after me. I don't want people coming here to ruin it, to make it like the rest of the country, greedy grasping mindless want want want. I need it to stay the same, to not have the infiltration of the Welfare mindset, the "you owe me" mindset.

And speaking of work - it's time I got up and did! Life is too short to waste a minute of it.