Leaves are now beginning to yellow, I set the first fire in the big fireplace to warm the great room last night. It was cold - not yet freezing - but cold enough that the flickering glow and the warmth from the fireplace was very welcome. Soon the chill will drive most evening activity inside. The indoor activities to keep the place up will begin.... I've been asked to repaint and install a wainscot in one of the upstairs bedrooms... I must build the storage cubbyholes for the master closet and there is the annual upkeep on all the wood, and some additional trim and tile that I'd like to see if I could get done... When you build a home of your very own, from scratch, it never ends... The exterior oiling is still progressing, the front porch is almost finished and another gallon of linseed oil is gone. I will soon be taking a break to head out into the woods down by the Gila National Forest to search for an antlered beasty.... I'm still on schedule to finish reoiling the outside wood before Thanksgiving.... still a little time to be thinking of the winter ahead and how to make things more comfortable for the future....

Since I began to plan my home, even before we had selected the location, I had been plotting and planning some way to wrestle myself away from the power and gas companies. Alternative sources for heat and light are very expensive up front to purchase and are not easy to finance reasonably. We invested in extra insulation, efficient windows, and other energy efficient components in our home which have, I'm sure, kept our energy consumption down, but the modern internet connected teen attitude is less than conscientious about energy usage. I keep seeing the costs rise and lament not insisting on a solar installation when I was building. I did however carefully consider the orientation of the roof-line to accommodate a photovoltaic system when I could afford it.....Little did I know the amazing amount of usage three teens can rack up! Despite the astronomical expenses on power and heat we have endured, I still am having difficulty balancing the cost of the systems which would reduce the utility bills to zero vs the monthly bills. I am beginning to think the expense and difficulty to finance alternative energy on any scale is directly related to investment by the banking industry in conventional energy companies. It is not in the interest of the financial industry or the conventional energy companies to undermine their massive investments in infrastructure for the monopolistic power and gas industries by the promotion of energy sources which cut into the revenue source that repays the billions of dollars in notes held to finance the construction, expansion, and upkeep of those investments. I keep being reminded that the purpose of the financial industry is to scrape as much profit for the lenders from exchanging money as is possible. "Money for nothing" like the song, is mostly how it seems, although they call it a service..... I think it is a service to the bankers wallets and little else.

 At a very young age I began drawing out ideas, building things, fixing or making things, designing and trying out changes to see if I could improve them. I continue to learn, design, and build. I hope to have cultivated the same DIY attitude in my children, so to reinforce that sentiment, I have been looking at ways to, over time, and with a little investment at a time, begin to build some reasonable resources that will eventually break the strangle hold the energy companies have on us. As yet I've not found any reasonable or elegant methods to accomplish anything with the "do it a little at a time method" in mind. (there are some interesting developments in solar cell arrays with attached inverters ) I have looked at the falling prices for solar voltaic systems but the up front cost even with government incentives is substantial. There are several very interesting systems for heat - but again the up front cost when borrowing with interest is considered makes the investment look unappetizing. I see the cost of energy escalating in the near future and without something to curb the negative economic effect this will have on household budgets I fear there will be many more people in trouble. I have to some extent offset the cost of gas by burning wood.
I installed several fireplaces in our home, which if needed could heat the place fairly well in the winter, but there aren't enough trees for every household to heat their homes with, and wood smoke contributes to smog in densely populated areas and can lead to health issues. The only answer is some form of energy capture, storage, and redistribution. Geothermal, wind, tidal, or solar are the least objectionable natural energy sources other than burning something. Here at our home the choice is limited to geothermal,wind, or solar. The cost to harness any of them in a substantial way is still, today, too high.......

 If our elected officials would stand behind the rhetoric about the "renewable energy future" and "breaking our dependence on oil" and provide the needed political push to truly make the move financially reasonable........either subsidize alternatives as is done for conventional energy, or remove the subsidies and have the "real" market value for energy drive up costs to make alternatives more appear more affordable.....either way we will be seeing a substantial change I think sooner than later......

In between the verbs and punctuation

There are things which by their nature are meditative and calming and others which rip your conscious world at its heart and make you ache and writhe.......

The calm of sitting by the hearth with a blaze flickering, a snifter of brandy, and a good book, dog sleeping by my feet and all the household, snug and safe, asleep in bed.... I cannot think of a better feeling or a more relaxing one.... times of quiet solace and contentment. I have had other experiences where there has been a almost effervescent feeling of wholeness, where nirvana is no longer an abstract concept. I can recall several experiences where the perception of completeness was overwhelming, but nothing compares with the satisfaction and assurance of the long  winters evenings spent by the fire, the relaxation and sense of fulfilled wholeness and calm before I put my tired frame to bed has no equals......

Then there are those moments where the exact opposite is happening, where time dilates and the tenths of a second seem to last hours. Breaking a leg, auto collisions, falling while on a technical ascent of a sheer rock face. All experiences where the here and now seems way too long as the inevitable unavoidably crashes into your reality as you watch unable to change the obvious outcome......

All of these memorable moments teach if we are willing to learn. They teach us what we want or need, or what we wish to avoid and they are difficult to forget. I do not think that physical trauma, life threatening situations, or the bliss of that meditative moment when the world seems whole, are necessarily the moments we should pay the closest attention to. The other moments, the less memorable ones, where there is boredom or frustration, or any of the myriad of other moments connecting life together that we mostly ignore. These are the moments I find to be the most intriguing. They are not remembered by most of us though they are the larger part of our lives. They should be so much more than simply forgotten. Yet somehow we seem to be wired to ignore those moments between the events that punctuate our lives.
I have for a long time been attempting to consciously pay more attention to those connecting moments and savor them - things like walking to the fridge for a snack - checking the windows at night when it is storming outside, carrying in the groceries, doing the dishes or laundry, raking and shoveling, driving in the car to or from, trimming toenails..... All moments that seem less than memorable, but all are parts of our lives. When our lives moments are put altogether these moments are what make up our world.
I found that paying more attention to the small things, and by consciously reveling in life's more mundane moments, caused me to consider more carefully what I do, what is important, what to accomplish, and what may be unnecessary or wasted energy. It is still difficult to determine what is always the best course of action, life tends to have a lot of odd things going on all the time, but with practice and observation some things do become far more clear. I have come to know a more true appreciation for each breath and heartbeat. Considering mundane moments more closely  has naturally lead me to try and make a difference in our world. Making a difference has become a natural effect of observation rather than a cause taken up to defend something. There is no defense and there is no offense only learning.  After awhile action becomes instinct and the observation of moments that pass with out much consideration become few and each moment becomes a new lesson growing with experience the knowledge of a life.

Old friends and new adventures

I took some time the last few days to see if I could locate a friend from a long time ago. I was driving past a place where I remembered he had worked and decided to see if he was still there. The person I talked with on the phone had never heard his name. I wondered where he was and how he had fared. I used the old fashioned method and searched the phone book with no luck, then an internet search and some luck when I stumbled across someone with a similar last name and got a reply that he was my friends son. My friend and I as young men had adventures with our group of avid backpackers some more hair raising than enjoyable. It was good to say hello. I hope we can stay in touch. It brought back many memories of the things we went through, the trouble we got ourselves into, the adventures our "band of friends" had before we drifted to other parts of our lives.

This time of year seems to bring on something that makes me drift into nostalgia. Perhaps it is the remembrance of the annual ritual, returning to school, or the season change and how the darkness and colder morning keep me inside with a hot cup in the kitchen instead of out on the patio. Something, perhaps a memory from long ago, gets sparked this time of year and I reflect on the times and experiences I've been through. I wonder if this is far more then something I alone experience?

Traditionally this is the time of year after the gathering of the fruits of the summer, while the final preparations are made to insure a more comfortable winter, that by the hearth in the longer evening darkness the years adventures were told and the stories from ages past were retold. This is where acts of bravery,conquests, miracles, and disaster became legend, where myths were born. It may be that this feeling of nostalgia is something more in us than a personal remembrance. I wonder if after eons of following the annual ebbs and flows of our world we have in us an instinctual gravitation to remembrance and reflection at this time of year?