Occupation of Independence

In preparation for a colonoscopy, they put you on a special diet to empty out your intestines.   It involves a lot of Gatorade, clear broth, and laxatives. I thought I would be hungry without solid food, but the broth was surprisingly satisfying.  I had never bought broth before, at the grocery store.  Why wasn't I buying broth all the time?  On top of everything else, broth doesn't need refrigeration when unopened.  A camper should like that. Putting leftovers into broth for more nutrition and taste is so easy.  That is how our frugal (and less obese) ancestors ate.  They used leftovers from the main meal in mid-day.  Remember that they didn't have good refrigeration in those days.  There is always something that needs to be used up, soon. My new evening meal. Just think: all my life I had been cleaning out skillets and pans during the mid-day meal by washing the residue down the sink, instead of saving it for evening soup.  A...

 Perhaps we got as much as 0.05" of rain the other day.  If that weren't miraculous enough, it stayed cloudy most of the day. The next day there was some dampness to the ground.  This is fantastic for a hiker or mountain biker.  The ground had turned from something uncomfortable and dead into something completely different, something with real hope.  But don't think I am telling tall tales: there weren't any mud puddles to slosh through. If life and hope aren't worth noticing and writing about, what is?  But how would you actually write about it?  Lavishing adjectives on it probably wouldn't work.  The long-suffering reader knows my stump speech by heart, by now.  But each new manifestation of it seems fresh to me because something that was dead and predictable is washed over by the surprising and the alive, like a wave of white sea foam onto a beach.  Before the smartphone, RVers still had daguerreotypes to capture the moment....

It is rare to get a punch in the gut when reading a history book.  But how would you react to this quote about the war between ancient Athens and Sparta, from Lewis Dartnell's "Origins, How the Earth's History Shaped Human History"?  It was written  7 years before Trump-anyahu's War Against Iran : "Ultimately it was Athens' dependence on grain imported along the sea lanes from the Black Sea that proved her fatal weakness. Falling upon the Athenian navy right in the narrow strait of the Hellespont, the Spartans utterly destroyed it.  The Peloponnesian War is a good illustration of the central importance of the geography of the seas and the vulnerability of vital maritime routes at narrow straits. Commanding such naval chokepoints, and thus a rival’s access to overseas resources, is often as important as controlling territory on land, and can determine the outcome of wars and the fate of civilisations." It is rare to see such a tangible and pithy examp...

 It is time to come up for air.  I can only think and write about the problems of the world so much before I need to shift my attention to something more soothing.  Such as the prettiest field I have ever seen.  It was just outside of town (in west central Idaho).  Wouldn't it be nice to drive by agricultural fields and know every time what the crop is?!  Presumably this is barley or wheat:  It seemed like you could drown in there!  Lush fields of grain are sometimes featured in movies: think of the fantasy scene in "Gladiator" or the 'Kiss' scene in "Room With a View".  I wish I knew of more such scenes. The reader might think I am exaggerating the beauty of agricultural fields, and wonder why I don't show more mountains, arches, and cliffs from famous national parks in the western states.  Believe me, a person can get tired of lifeless rocks, trees without leaves, and cholla needles.  A person can get tired of endless drought and ...