I have no idea whether or not this current short-lived windy deep freeze is the result of “weather wars.” Here’s one perspective, if so:
Polar Vortex 2019: Globalists Use Weather Warfare Against America. Why now?
We’re lucky here in Green Acres Permaculture Village: safe, and warm. What about homeless people who refuse or otherwise can’t or don’t find shelter? I heard that five homeless people died in Chicago last night.
What we did decide to do: bring in the seedling trays from the greenhouse for two nights and days.
That way nobody has to get up in the middle of the night to keep the fire going out there. Plus, we save wood.
Today’s big question for me: will puppy Shadow and I get out for our regular walk? While living in Jackson Hole I got quite used to severe cold; on the other hand, that was dry cold, this is humid midwestern cold.
I don’t want to damage our lungs; I also don’t want to go crazy with lack of outdoor exercise. I’ve been walking three or four miles per day, not just for physical health, but mainly to preserve mental health! — ever since I was a teenager; i.e., for 50 years. Old habits die hard. And I don’t want this one to die. Or even to get interrupted.
(Oh of course, I’ll do my usual daily yoga/chikung/taichi routines. But it’s not enough. It doesn’t get the heart rate up, and it doesn’t get me out into the natural world.)
As they say, routine builds character. So watch out which routines you end up “falling into.” Me? I have an addictive personality. So I had to make quite sure, decades ago, that the habits I fell into were not bad for my health; that instead, they were good for my health. Thus the dichotomy: good vs bad addictions. Those choices began back when I finally stopped cigarettes, probably the most important shift in my entire life, in that it set that life upon a new foundation.
https://www.exopermaculture.com/2017/03/03/k-reader-stopped-smoking-worth/
Lots of people have since quit cigarettes in the U.S. However rates for other drugs, both legal and illegal, have dramatically increased.
During this frozen hiatus when most of us midwesterners are, hopefully, bundled up at home, are we looking at how our own pernicious addictions have frozen us into certain repeated behaviors, all of them far from our own soul’s call? Are we noticing ourselves, what we crave? Do we feel good about our lives? How can we come closer to what we know, in our heart of hearts, we must do and feel and think and say from now on in order to be able to recognize, at the end of this life — whenever it may come — that we did blossom into the beautiful person we were meant to be.
BTW: we had a pod meeting last night, going over all sorts of stuff, including Rebecca’s suggestion of following a video she saw about how chickens and compost can be combined, to keep the chickens warm, feed them, and work the compost — all at the same time. This is one way we can, as she says, “take it to the next level,” by doing a permacultural “stack-functions” refinement of our work here. We also discussed biochar, with that same stack functions attitude in mind, and Nathan and Josh reported on how the new seed plantings are doing. Those who are wanting to do their own garden beds, better decide on which seeds, and plant them SOON!
At one point, I pointed out that we are doing our own version of the Scandinavian “hygge” evenings, getting together when it’s cold outside. Being with each other, grateful for both physical and emotional warmth.
Then, all of a sudden, we unanimously decided, after spontaneously singing it again to pianist Andreas’s quickly arranged accompaniment, that “How could anyone ever tell you” is to be our ongoing theme song.
Oops! One more: couldn’t resist capturing this screen on facebook a few days ago. Still makes me chuckle.
P.S. HousemateDan just found out the public library WILL remain open today, so he will have to go in to work there. We both think it’s probably because that’s where the homeless in Bloomington tend to gather in the cold.
