the upside of the downslope

As you know, my main gripe is the swerve to the right that U.S. politics is about to take. Second to that is winter and its petrification of my body. I dread this time of year, especially with football season winding down. So it is with great pleasure that we mark the start of the back half of meteorological winter at 12:01 a.m. this morning. Spring is a mere 44 days away.

Mind you, we are having a mild winter up here thus far, with just one spit of snow and a handful of freezing nights. Even as I type this, the sun has peeked out, gloriously lighting the property. We had a rainier than average December following one of wettest autumns ever in my 16 years of record keeping. It was weird talking to friends and family in Kansas as they got clobbered recently.

Any precipitation is welcome here. Our island has no central water supply, and wells are drying up sooner in the summer as our population grows. People are selling their homes in nearby cities and building mcmansions here with little regard for dwindling resources. Jude and I have ample H2O for our micro-hydro system for now, but typically our creek dwindles in the summer, so we rely strictly on solar for energy.

I revel in our off-grid system even as I grieve the rest of the world not doing Jack Shit about climate change. If the east coast hurricanes in the U.S. last fall and the current wildfires in L.A. don’t wake people up, what will?