The Truth That Everyone Knows

by | Sep 12, 2010 | 0 comments

One of the enduring questions of our time is “what caused our current financial crisis/meltdown/catastrophe/snafu/disaster”.  No one seems to know for sure, but everyone has a lot to say on the subject. It probably won’t surprise you, but I know the answer, and I’m going to tell you, but not right away.  First, you’re gonna have to suffer through a little erudite discourse before I get to the bottom line. Let me start by asking rhetorically if there really is a problem?  You may think it odd that I spend any energy on this question, but given the fact that we live in a society wherein some still think that Neil Armstrong didn’t really walk on the moon, that...

Happiness Is A Warm Puppy

by | Sep 12, 2010 | 0 comments

I was signing some Christmas cards last Christmas season and thought of the Merry Christmas and Happy New Year that we throw around so lightly, and started to wonder, as I often do, what do we really mean when we say Happy New Year.  Certainly we don’t mean it as an adjective modifying the noun, because it’s non-sensical to think that something inanimate, such as a new year, can be happy.  Everyone knows that only people or puppies can be happy. And I am happy.  Flat out.  No doubt about it.  If you would have asked me, I may have had a hard time defining happiness or even why I am happy, but there you are,  I am happy.  Having gone this far, however, I...

A Dog’s Life

by | Sep 9, 2010 | 0 comments

Buddy came to Lyday Farms as the property of an itinerant worker as we were just beginning to build the place.  The worker didn’t last long, but Buddy may outlast us all.  As you can see from the portrait above, Buddy is not exactly a work of art, and if he was of a breed, he would not be an outstanding representative.  Actually, all one can say about Buddy’s appearance is that he looks like a mongrel, which he is, and that he has about the ugliest ears ever seen on any dog of any breeding. Evidently his putative owner thought he was more of a Boxer than anything else and felt that clipped ears were de rigueur and got after them with his mama’s pinking...

It’s a Road Trip

by | Aug 26, 2010 | 0 comments

The Great American Road Trip.  Some do it out of necessity.  Some do it for fun.  We did it because, well, I think…..to tell the truth, I don’t really know why we did it. We had to get to Santa Fe to visit our dear friends, enjoy the cooler air and to eat and drink for free.  Plus I’d had an itch for some time to visit Larry McMurtry’s eclectic group of used book stores in Archer City, Texas, and it was kind of (not really) on the way, so the car/road trip thing seemed to fit.  That was before I got out the AAA and plotted out the route and mileage.   I ignored the reality of a long trip through uninteresting topography and went with the fantasy of a...

Darwin’s Galapagos

by | Aug 7, 2010 | 0 comments

S. and I announced our intention to take a trip with each of our eight grandchildren without considering the considerable consequences.  Chief among these consequences is the curious choice of places on this planet that would be suitable for a multi-generational ten day outing and selected to visit.  It’s now lost in the mists of my declining memory whether our darling granddaughter Annabel suggested the Galapagos Islands or if I suggested that she might want to suggest the Galapagos.  In any case, in April of 2010 we found ourselves breathing the lofty airs of Quito, Ecuador and frolicking in the not so warm waters of the Humboldt Current surrounding the...