Welcome to The Moose Pond! The Welcomings posts give the Moose, old and new, a place to visit and share words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit.
Welcomings will be posted at the start of each week (usually Saturday night with a Sunday date). To find the posts, just bookmark this link and Voila! (which is Moose for “I found everyone!!”).
The format is simple: each day, the first moose to arrive on-line will post a comment welcoming the new day and complaining (or bragging!) about their weather. Or mentioning an interesting or thought provoking news item. Or simply checking in.
So … what’s going on in your part of Moosylvania?
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NOTE: The comments page will split off after 20 or so left margin comments with the most recent comments on the current page. To see the older comments, scroll to the bottom of the page (right before “Leave A Reply”) and use the Pages Tool to view previous pages, shown here with 3 pages of comments available and Page 2 circled.
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Good morning. Still waiting to hear from the a/c people how much the new one will be…..wondering if maybe my credit is crappy & they don’t want to finance me. I did a lot of work yesterday, set up 7 new library users. This morning I’m happily watching astronomy shows until it’s late enough to make calls. Got a new book yesterday, it’s for my Bookchat next Wednesday, so I need to balance reading it with my other 2, so I can finish the review.
Good Wednesday morning, Moosekind, on another beautiful day with low humidity. It’s 68 F. now, climbing up to 89 F. later.
I’ve concluded that WordPress does not like my long, chatty posts so will keep this brief. Terrible night’s sleep so will be dragging all day. Had a pleasant time at the UU dinner last night. Poor Monty is still in pain from his sensitive teeth and we are STILL trying to get him an appointment with the vet.
A person is coming on 30 Aug. to set up my new laptop. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I’ve ordered a replacement keyboard and mouse for the Mac. I can type on the Mac KB but that’s all. Owing to the insane way the Last Geek set up this thing, I can’t retrieve or open documents without a mouse. !@#$%&*!
Hope everyone at the Pond will have a good day,
It’s 69 heading for 88 and sunny at the moment. I don’t know how long the moment will last. These cloudy days means we’re generating like it’s a good October rather than a very bad August. We generated 12.3 KWHs yesterday. The m-t-d is 316.9 and we’ve 8 days left in the month. I hope we get better production. I got my SWEPCO statement yesterday. Running the A/C the last 8 weeks or so has used up almost everything in the sock. I’ve got 68 KWHs left. We shall see what we shall see.
I got better sleep and my hands are mostly OK, which is good. My low back is still troubling me, which isn’t. Jill’s scared and pissed – doesn’t know what her husband is going to pull next and SNAP has decided she only needs $88 a month for food to go with her $841 SSI income. Because they’re still legally married, they’ve reduced hers to make up for his. Even though they know he’s not living with her. (They keep asking if she knows where he is. She keeps answering if she did she’d be able to serve the divorce papers.) Amelia’s still in pain & dealing with fatigue. The fatigue she’ll always have but it wouldn’t be as bad if the pain didn’t keep her awake and she had her meds. Nothing new under the sun. Healing Energy for everyone.
Off to twitter. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good day, 74 and sunny in my garden today. Yesterday I started pruning salmonberry plants growing into the hedge and crowding the walkway by the lower patio. I’ve wanted to do this all summer so it’s nice to finally get started. My knees are complaining but my spirits better so I’ll do a bit more today. Best wishes to all.
Thursday Meese. Am still really tired from staying up all night on Tuesday into Wednesday – watching our hometown guy – Pat Ryan’s victory here in NY which the pollsters didn’t predict but we knew would happen :)
Puerto Rico
Pat Ryan has it right – tRump is a criminal, keep abortion legal, you can care about inflation and crime but don’t believe the lies being told about either. The pundits say this may change the mid-term election from a Republican Wave Year to a Republicans Pick Up Ten Seats year. They are bound to pick up quite a few – they surgically created at least 10 new seats in safe red districts thanks to racial gerrymanders that their SCOTUS refused to look at because it was within 300 days of an election. ::insert eye roll here:: But I think that the pro-democracy, pro-reproductive rights vote is being undercounted. Abortion rights may finally be what convinces married white women that the Republican Party is wrong on too many issues. Fingers crossed!!
Good morning, meeses! Thursday …
It is 75 degrees in
MadisonTucson** with an expected daytime high of 88. Rain chance of 100% (!) at 10am – we shall see, yesterday’s “storm” was 4 drops and some high winds. South of the city got more but definitely not widespread. The newly cut grass in the doggie area could use some rain.Student loan relief! Better than expected with the Pell kicker and permanent relief with the 5% cap and 20 year sunset. I am sure a lot of people are breathing a sigh of relief including my daughter and many of her friends. GenZ got a kick in the teeth from the uneven recovery from Bush’s recession, tRump’s pandemic and the shut down of the economy – they deserve a break. NOW let’s fix greedy private colleges overpaying their executive staff and hoarding annuities, raising costs industry-wide. A college degree should not cost $60,000 especially since so many jobs now require post-graduate degrees making the number closer to $100,000 to even enter the job market. To all the Republicans planning on running against loan relief I say Bring It On – and lose GenZ forever. To all the people saying it’s not fair, I say maybe it wasn’t fair that the Baby Boomers paid $200 a semester for college and did not have to go to school over a tiny tube in our parents basement and did not have to graduate into an economy with no good paying jobs. Each generation has benefits and challenges – this generation of student loan borrowers deserves a chance to thrive. Thanks, Biden.
Yesterday’s eyes-forward project took all morning and I did not have any energy left to catch up on accounting. So today, I will tackle that head on.
See all y’all later!
** Sheesh! Too early and my muscle memory of 9 years takes over!
In the office. At least all the noise won’t start for another hour or so. I’m going to e-mail the a/c company today, I need to know how much that thing is going to be if I’m going to start asking distant relatives for money. Anyway, that’s my day: work and find out about the a/c.
Good Thursday morning, Meese. It’s 69 F., sunny here in Ashburn, and will stay that way, even reaching 91 F. In a hurry this morning to get ready to leave here at 9:00. I wish teleportation were a thing, but not yet.
I will accompany Dearly to the eye doctor, who will do something impossible to him so he can’t see to drive home. I hate early morning rushing, I also have to vacuum, mop, and go to Trader Joe’s before the little family arrive at 5 p.m. Ethan is coming for an overnight stay.
I ordered a new keyboard and mouse for the Mac, as it eventually penetrated even my slow-moving brain that I would not be able to export Pages documents into .docx without a mouse. I can’t even open them without a mouse. Anyway, I hope I can get back to work by tomorrow.
Wishing all at the Pond a good day. Wonder whether RonK will make wild blackberry jam with those berries. I’d pay for something like that.
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It’s 65 heading for 90 and sunny at the moment. It was 60 when I got up and inside the house got down to 70. I’ll close up in an hour or so to keep in the coolth. We generated 12.49 KWHs yesterday. sigh. The m-t-d is 329. Double sigh. These afternoon clouds – as if we were make-believe monsoonal – have totally shot production in what is normally 3rd or 4th highest production months. Add having had to use the A/C for 8 weeks and. . . well, depending on what my electric bills end up being in months ahead, I may have to reduce/remove folks from my patreon. Please Goddess not have to close it altogether.
I got about 7 hours of sleep – I think – and my hands are OK. My back is better so that helps. Amelia actually did an errand yesterday (so will probably be several days recovering but it’s still good that she managed). Jill’s still fighting NM’s misogynist rules on SNAP. (Hers is reduced because he’s getting it too.) My friend turned out to have a sinus infection and not COVID. Or at least the test was negative. The doctor wasn’t sure she hadn’t had it but was no longer testing positive by the time she got the test. Same ol’ same ol’ mostly. Healing Energy for everybody.
Off to twitter. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 67 and sunny in my garden today. I’m icing my knees, getting ready to clip some ivy. I can do a lot while sitting on the back steps and/or my gardening bench so that’s my plan. We pruned a large shrub yesterday so the truck is full of branches, but there’s still room for ivy.
Diana, RonK says we can buy tasty blackberry jam so he picks berries for wine making only. We do freeze some berries for winter baking, but his blackberry wine is delicious too. It’s dry, tart, has a deep berry taste, and the color is lovely. Fruit and berry wines are often sweet but his is not. It’s really nice with ice on a hot day, and makes a wonderful sangria. I don’t know how much longer he’ll want to do this but for now I’m glad he’s still willing and able. Best wishes to all.
it sounds delicious, Princesspat! The brand of blackberry jam I usually buy, Bonne Maman, has actual blackberries in it (which I love), is too expensive to buy now.
Congratulations to RonK on his wine-making! I just read an article about foraging and was thrilled with it. I’m always thrilled when people beat the system by foraging wild greens, pawpaws, persimmons, and blackberries. I have to Google serviceberries in between doing other things.
Wine from wild blackberries must be fabulous!
Crazy morning. I was asleep & dreaming when my alarm went off, that almost never happens. I was also sure it was Saturday, so I was confused for the first few minutes. Anyway, here I am in the office. Hope today slows down a bit.
Friday Meese. 64 here in Kingston going up to 86 and they are promising rain again today (atm the sun is shining brightly) I’ll believe it when and if it happens
Puerto Rico – anti-LUMA demonstrations yesterday, will continue today.
Good morning, meeses! Friday …
It is 73 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 88. Rain possible at 11am. Yesterday we were rain-adjacent but there was nothing wet except the sweat on our brows.
Joe Biden is going right at the MAGAts – I saw bits of his speech but I need to find a copy to read. If I can free up some time, I will post it here with the White House video. Smart idea to call out to Democrats, Independents and Mainstream Republicans to save democracy. Give Republicans from the Liz Cheney wing of the Republican party permission to vote to preserve the republic. The unholy alliance of the god people and Wall Street gave us tRump and Dobbs and nearly toppled our government on January 6th – it is NOT too much to ask for their help to repair the damage that has been done. If nothing else, stay home and don’t vote – give us a chance to fix this mess.
Brilliant trolling of Republican congresscritters who took PPP money and got their loans “forgiven” and are now complaining about the modest student loan debt cancellation. I read something that said that 50% of Hispanic students will have their debt cancelled. Those getting help are those who most need it – I suspect that with the new rules on the 5% limit and the adjustment to discretionary income calculation (exempts income for those who make less than $15 an hour full time), there will be a lot of people who will never have to make payments and who just need to wait out the sunset to have the loan cancelled. In some ways, this will work like a Pell Grant except that the debt is still owed – it will be interesting to see how institutions extending credit treat the paused student loans. p.s. Win Congress and expand the Pell Grants.
Back to work! See all y’all later!
It’s 67 heading for 91 and sunny at the moment. I’ll have to close up the house in another hour. Yesterday we generated a hair over 14 KWHs which isn’t good for August but certainly better than 8 days. The m-t-d is 343.47 so we’ll pass the 2.5K system’s 350 today. Unless it seriously clouds up. It’s possible to reach the 450 goal in the 6 days we have left – but it would take a lot more sunshine than we’ve gotten this month or are likely to get this last week in August.
I was going to go to the store this morning (out of carrots and fruit) but my right rear tire is low. So my son, even with having had all his lower teeth removed yesterday & fitted with a lower denture (which is the only reason he didn’t work yesterday and isn’t scheduled to today), will bring his portable pump by sometime today and air it up.
Possible good news on getting Amelia medical care before October. Hold the Good Thought. Jill’s been informed her son’s being posted to the last place on earth (barring the Ukraine front lines) he wants to go – Fort Lenard Wood in MO, right by all his very toxic dysfunctional family. His choices led there, his problem. (That’s my attitude, not Jill’s, but since he’s still not talking to her it’s moot.)
Off to twitter. Healing Energy to everybody. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good Friday morning, Moosekind! It’s 76 F. and sunny, on its way up to 91 F. humid degrees.
Thank Maat, the Egyptian Goddess of wisdom, Athena, and the entire Celtic pantheon that I once more have a working mouse and a keyboard that lets me type as fast as I like! Wow!
I have little Ethan over here. His parents, who are even more time-harassed than I, finally dropped him off in front of the building before they shot off to see a movie named “Maverick.” I was there to meet him and carry his bag. He was a dream child last night, did not protest at going to bed at 9:30 (we all did), and was out like a light right after I rubbed lavender oil on his newly cleaned feet. (I encourage my juvenile overnight guests to wash their faces, hands, and feet like good Muslims before retiring.)
We’ve had breakfast and will shortly get dressed and ready for the day. It would be nice to play golf outside the main clubhouse this morning, but we’ll see. This afternoon we’ll do indoor things like reading and playing games. When he read a book to me last night I caught him guessing at certain words rather than sounding them out. Grrr! School in Arlington begins on Monday.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!
Good morning, 62 and cloudy outside my window today. We filled the truck with branches and ivy yesterday so RonK is on his way to the dump and on his way back home will stop at another blackberry patch. Sitting while clipping was easier on my knees, but I still got very tired. But it’s nice to see the rockery again, and ivy is no longer growing across the back steps and climbing up the trees. It’s a hard plant to contain but it’s the best plant for retaining the steep slope it’s growing in. It would be easier if we just used an electric trimmer, but that makes it look chopped. It’s more work to thin and trim in a natural way but I prefer it to look like I was never there. Best wishes to all.
Good morning, meeses! Saturday …
It is 75 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 91. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast – right now there is lightning just north of Mica Mountain but headed east, away from here. I can see the flashes which look like they are emanating from within the Santa Catalina and Rincon Mountain ranges.
I am laughing at technology whiz Blake Edwards, MAGA Senate candidate in Arizona, trying to “erase” evidence on his web site related to his extreme stand on abortion. Hey, genius, ever hear of screenshots or Google cache? It doesn’t matter – since his nomination the airwaves have been filled with ads with women, one a mother of three saying that terminating her ectopic pregnancy saved her life. Mark Kelly’s team was ready with those ads on day one, along with the ads about Edwards wanting to privatize Social Security – a real “winner” in a state that people retire to. tRump meddling in candidate selection to soothe his own fragile ego is likely going to allow us to hold the Senate. We want the House but we need the Senate – we can’t let Mitch McChinless block any SCOTUS openings again. Clarence Thomas may retire after his wife is indicted and imprisoned!
Today I will catch up on accounting projects. The dog has been out, my coffee pot is full and my head is clear.
See all y’all later!
As promised, I put together a post of Joe Biden’s remarks at the DNC rally in Maryland on Thursday. Here it is:
President Biden: You need to vote to save democracy again
As I finally got a chance to read his remarks, I was laughing! Yesterday he pretended to not know the name of MAGA queen Marjorie "Defund The FBI" Taylor Greene – but in his remarks he called her (and Ted Cruz) out by name: "Do you want to put your Social Security into the hands of Ted Cruz and Marjorie Taylor Greene?" HA!! Well done, sir.
Good Saturday morning Meese. Yesterday we got poring rain – for 10 minutes. Sigh.
None predicted for today. 5 of my rose bushes have dried up and look dead. am going to cut them back to the ground today, and hope they come back from the root stock.
Puerto Rico
Your area seems like an unlikely place for a drought! I am not a gardener but I think that rose bushes are pretty hardy and will come back. Maybe princesspat will know.
Our reservoir –
Cutting back the roses should allow them to stay alive in the drought. If you don’t have too many, maybe sneak a gallon of water per bush out to the roots 2x a week until the drought breaks or the ground freezes. Slowly soak the roots if you can. Holding the Good Thoughts/Sending Healing Energy to your garden. (& your household)
Thanks! Sigh. I don’t want to break the drought law, and even if I did – doubt I could lug heavy watering cans around to them
Good morning. Doing laundry & watching the news. Ali Velshi is having an interesting, deep discussion about the student loan forgiveness thing. Thinking about going to the gym this afternoon, if I don’t decide it’s too scary. I’ll lift weights if I do go, cardio would be madness.