Cold Days To Come

 We didn't get any snow the other night but it has turned considerably colder since then.  As you can see, Chigger's favorite rope toy was a little stiff this morning!  She played with it anyway though.  That dog is a never-ending source of amusement.  If people could be so content with such simple pleasures we would all be much better off.  There was such a heavy frost last night that when I awoke this morning it almost looked like it had snowed.  I thought it would be a good morning for a little walkabout and Chigger is always agreeable to such.  She knows the word 'walk', so you have to be careful saying it in front of her.  She starts jumping and dancing around in anticipation.  she has free run of the place but won't go down the drive or some other places by herself so she really gets excited if she thinks you are going to take her down to the creek.

In the colder months it takes a little while before the sun begins to peep inside the house as it first must make it up over the ridge behind me.  Once it's over though, the sun floods into the house.

The creek is up a good bit right now due to the recent rains and it normally runs a little more during the winter.  I was trying to get some good shots and I just happen to find another piece of broken ceramic in the water.  It has a beautiful rich, green glaze on it.  I think it's curious that I find so many pieces of broken pots in this creek.

So, I think I'm getting back into the blogging swing.  I have to make another small confession.  I had gotten a bit discouraged while working out of town and had not felt as much a connection to the whole homesteading/ sustainability thing.  I think I did okay considering that I was living in a hotel, but it's very difficult to maintain a certain lifestyle in that environment and work schedule.  But mainly, people are by far the most discouraging aspect of the whole thing.  Now, my guys at work tease me unmercifully about eating tofu and all that but we have a lot of fun and I don't mean them when I say people are discouraging.  A few of them even told me over the course of my time there how lucky I was to be able to live like I do and not be a slave to a corporation.  But it's just the general attitude of the public and the white collar people that we interact with in the course of our work.  I was not prepared for that, especially in a university setting.  I don't go around telling people how I live because I know by now it is considered very weird but I will say a little something if someone asks me.  And people will ask because they know I only work at times and they see this or that.  I had a few ask me about how I ate and they just laauuughed, like I had told the funniest joke.  I'm sitting there thinking, "what did I say that was funny?"  They scoff and snicker a little if I said I would be glad to finish my work and go home.  Their eyes bugged out and they sputtered incomprehensibly when I said I didn't shop at Wal-Mart.  Or they would just stare at you and kinda slink off, like I had something contagious.  Over the past few years that I have been really trying to live with more of a conscience, I have been called various, unflattering names.  I've been accused quite often of thinking that I am better than everyone else. (This makes no sense to me)  And like I say, I generally don't talk about stuff unless someone asks.  Guess I should stop doing even that.  Anyway, I guess it kinda got to me and I began to think, "Is what I do really of any importance?  Does it make any difference at all?  Is there really any point to any of this sustainability stuff?"  Well, coming home, of course, reassured me that it does make a difference, even if just to me.  And I realize that people who make fun or criticize others for trying to do right are only doing it to cover their own guilt or shortcomings they feel and are not willing to face up to.  Well, really this is a whole 'nother post, as I often say but I had to write a little about that.  It just confounds me that people will be so ugly to others when it really doesn't make a hill of beans to them what I do.  Do any of you ever encounter these issues, or is it just something about me?