Counting blessings

The wheels (or snails) of justice move far too slowly for me. Is there anyone now (aside from the apparent 33% of the population who would continue to support Bush/Cheney even if they were caught in flagrante delicto with goats on the White House steps) who is unaware that Bush?Cheney and the neocons lied to bring about an illegal, unconstitutional, immoral, and unnecessary "war?" Anyone who doesn't believe they are now lying about their previous lies? A large majority now realizes that the "war" is going nowhere, was wrong, and so on. The Republican party seems to be oblivious to the fact that they are quite likely to implode and perhaps even disappear for many year to come if they don't take some action to cleanse themselves of this cancer that is threatening them. I guess nothing much happens over the Thanksgiving holiday. Perhaps things will pick up next week although we may have to wait until next year before the serious action begins.

Anyway, waiting around for something big to happen, I began to concentrate on my blessings. Living here in this little town does have fantastic advantages. For example, we have friends who raise Scottish Highlands cattle. They are raised naturally with no chemicals whatosever. Indeed, they are fed mostly on the first cutting of alfalfa (augmented with shredded apples and other such treats). Our biggest problem is trying to get the local butchers to cut 2 inch New York steaks. They seem to think anything over an inch is too much. We have other friends who raise a couple of pigs every year or two, one for themselves and one for us. Again, no chemicals, artificial feeds, or whatever. Similarly, we can get junk free lambs. We have a large garden every summer. Organic. We preserve much of our own food. We also have a farmer's market in the summer where we can find additional purely organic vegetables and fruits. We get morel mushrooms from a local picker, as well as huckleberries. We have our own apples, cherries, plums, pears, raspberries and currants. Although we do not hunt, we have friends who provide us with venison as we allow them to hunt on our land. Every summer we buy a supply of wild Alaskan salmon and halibut from a fisherman who flash freezes it and brings it here to be sold. Granted we do not get the variety we were offered in Santa Monica.

We have no earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, volcanic eruptions, or tidal waves. There are no poisonous snakes and although perhaps a poisonous spider in rare instances, not a problem. The winters are generally mild and temperatures in winter rarely go below zero. Some years we have very little snow but on rare years there can be quite a lot. In the summer it can get uncomfortably hot but usually not for more than a week or two. There is little humidity and you can always sleep comfortably at night.

This is not to say there are no problems or drawbacks here. It is two hours to the nearest airport which is a drag if you travel much. As you can't buy much of anything in town you have to drive between 30 and 90 miles to find some of the things you need. The biggest problem for us is the fact that Idaho is probably the most solidly Republican state in the union, so we are surrounded for the most part by very conservative Republicans. There is, however, a small and now very active Democratic party which helps. The local public schools are not very good but as our son is now attending the University of Washington that is a problem for us of the past (and it was a problem). Local politics are more of a nuisance than anything else. Our little community recently erected a 100 foot flagpole and hoisted a flag so oversized as to be embarrassing. I know the flag is symbolic but this one seems to be symbolic of the fact that we are more patriotic than anyone else in the state, and to me, at least, seems to symbolize that we are a community of overactive nincompoops. Oh well, one can't have everything.