A year ago today, my best good buddy Choca died in my arms. Many of you were part of my community here at the time and remember it. It kicked off a year of loss: our dog, our unborn baby, my job. This is why I was convinced Sassy wouldn't make it to 2022. Choca was my hiking partner for many years, and because she never said anything, I came to enjoy silence rather than the adrenaline and distractions of my life off the mountains. I think my career in TV news eventually ended because of that - as the silence allowed me self-relfection, which brought self-awareness, and with it, awareness of the world around me. Choca's death was a violent one in the sense that natural death, I've heard, isn't always how movies depict it. This was the first time I'd ever been there for a last breath and for months after it, I woke up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and had other unexplained health problems. This may seem an odd reaction, but as a child I accompanied my doctor parents to hospitals and witnessed sickness and dying at a very young age. Avoiding death, while trying to understand it, became a driving motivation for me. Perhaps it is, in part, why I went to seminary and eventually became a reporter. I sought distraction from my own mortality while also seeking to control it through knowledge. A losing combination. In the book he wrote about his wife's death, CS Lewis said, "No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid." That was my experience. And I had no choice but to sit through it. Then to confront it again and again throughout the rest of the year. But as I sat quietly, I realized something. I had believed that if I could unlock the secrets of death and finally come to peace with it- the ultimate question of existence that has eluded philosophers for centuries - I would finally come to know God. Instead, after last year, I now believe that I had gotten it backwards. Instead, it is coming to know God that brings one peace about death (and all other things for that matter). And thus begins a new journey, not of the head but of the heart. I'll end with another quote from a favorite Lewis book, the last lines of Til We Have Faces, “I ended my first book with the words 'no answer.' I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice? Only words, words; to be led out to battle against other words. Long did I hate you, long did I fear you.” Blessings to all of you on your journey. Thank you for being a part of mine.
I see women all the time with fancy nails and have recently asked a couple what they pay. It’s usually $75 to $100 every other week! A man once told me I have hands like his - a former hockey player. I don’t think he meant it as a compliment but I worked hard for these hands! Years of horseback riding and now farming, often lugging my own camera gear when working as a reporter in TV news, my dirty nails and knobby knuckles tell the tale of a journey I wouldn’t trade for a lifetime of free acrylics.
This video shows Sassy in winter 2026 and winter 2023. That was the winter I surrendered to nature and we decided to flee back to Florida. We got blizzard after blizzard and Sassy was up to her belly in snow. But she loved it! Did you know that blanketing horses to keep them warm is actually a “hot” topic? (No pun intended.) Those who choose not to blanket often point to the horse’s natural ability to self regulate, and they say blankets interfere with that process (such as hair growth). I put a blanket on Sassy in Western Washington when I lived in Seattle because it was just so wet there all the time, and the blanket helped her stay a little more dry in the cold. On the east side of Washington, I did not blanket her, even though the temperature was much colder, because she was rarely wet, as the precipitation came down as snow and not rain. So I kind of chuckled when I blanketed her here in Florida a couple nights ago.
Operation “Arctic Florida” went well until the second day when the chickens started eating their own coop insulation. Since we are trying to keep our animal feed as natural as possible, polystyrene is not on the menu. So we had to rip down in the insulation. Thankfully, it’s getting back into the 70s right now, though it will be cold later in the week again. Chickens are just gonna have to freeze this time. You picked your poison, birds.
The desperation to make numbers has reached an all time low! It is all a big money laundering operation for the prison industrial complex. They couldn't get enough black people in. Now everyone's fair game.
Held by ICE for 12 Days Over Visa Renewal, Canadian Actress Tells Her Story | Amanpour and Company - YouTube
