Neighborhood Walk 360

10.15.13

      A few days ago, another walk, another view of the activities in our quiet, rural neighborhood.  There is a semi-tractor trailer loading about 50 bales of hay that was hopefully baled before the recent snow.  The neighbor’s wind generator blades are still but facing east where the wind would be coming from if I could feel it.  Another farmer is loading one steer…to get it out of the way or headed for butchering?  The sky is cloud-covered, unusual and annoying after two days in a row because this is NOT Seattle!  In the distance to the south, I see the black straight-up trail from a burn barrel.  Is the countywide ban lifted or did the barrel owner call in that there would be a burning?  One of many white trucks races by with a dog in the back.  I believe it’s my dog’s sibling; however, the ears and tail have been bobbed in the Rottweiler fashion.  If the dog ever fell out of the truck in its enthusiasm, would the siblings fight or greet each other with long-lost affection?   

      I am daily amazed at the goings-on where it’s too easy to say that “nothing ever happens.”  And to think it's the same all over the world, even in a street one block long in Lima, Peru. 

What's Happening in the Country

September 24, 2013

      Within a half mile of my home there can be a variety of activities in rural Wyoming.  A hayfield awaits bailing, perhaps drying more; a corn field is being chopped as silage, not mature enough to become picked whole kernel corn; the last digging of a ditch from well to arm irrigator occurs with laying pipe to follow; a set of keys is found again by me along a gravel road.  No one picked it up in the week since I first found it. I think I’ll take it to the high school to see if anyone in the office recognizes the picture attached, taken in 2010.   

        From the outside, driving down the highway, not much seems to be happening, but really, a little of this and a little of that makes up the world of farming and daily walks.

Parallel Arguments

August 21, 2013
     I was taught in a college argumentation class that one underlying assumption we use is "parallel case," a specific type of comparison argument. Example -  Our school should have a swimming pool because another similar size school has one.  So, I began connecting an argument about a pro-life stance that is against both abortion and contraception to other stands that I have. In the blog I had read, the writer said she had looked at statistics around the world, and she saw that the countries with the lowest abortion rates also had the highest contraception use.  Being against both was counter productive.  To reduce abortions, promote the use of contraceptives, not just sexual abstinence.
     Since I followed her logic and bought her argument, I began applying that to other stands that I have, to test its strength.  People will have sex; in America, people will have guns because of our culture and the 2nd Amendment.
      Now, what is the parallel to abortion?  Outlawing guns altogether or gun restriction?  If I'm against  wholesale anti-abortion laws, would I also be against allowing the free ownership of guns?  No, I am not.  It's impossible in our country and goes against the grain of collectors and hunters.  (Self defense is an argument I haven't come to terms with yet).
      Thus, what is parallel to promoting the use of contraceptives to reduce abortions to the gun issue?  Is it just the promoting the education of gun safety?  What could we hand out to gun users that would prevent accidental or purposeful deaths that parallels handing out contraceptives to prevent pregnancies? We don't sterilize the mentally incompetent on a wide scale.  Would we ban all of the mentally unstable from having guns?  We're testing that path, it seems.
      We don't promote sex with anyone and everyone.  Is that parallel to one person owning many of all types of guns?  
      Obviously, I have more questions than answers, but trying to use the parallel case assumption is a challenge.  Maybe the two shouldn't be compared.

Waiting in Anticipation

August 5, 2013   Waiting with Anticipation

        The local county fair is over, and the anticipation and preparation for the Wyoming State Fair begins.  The week before and the week of the local fair, I tried to imagine the harried preparations being completed at the homes, farms, ranches throughout the county.  Sewing, baking, painting, frosting, working with pigs, sheep, dogs, cattle – all to do and show the best one can do.   

          I was never in 4-H but I went to at least three county fairs in the area every summer growing up and the Minnesota State Fair three or four times.  My four female cousins were very active, and I got caught up in the rivalry among the 4-H Clubs and the dress revue competition.  How exciting to sit in the old high school auditorium, watching the strangers from other towns, plus my cousins, wear their creations.  After the construction of the clothing was judged, I’d hear about various seam finishes, and which was best, which was just for show – in order to win the blue ribbon.  The fried onions on the hamburgers from the 4-H booth were the absolute best.  I believed so because I was told so, and my taste buds were primed to agree.

       Anticipation is the overall theme.  We spend months in school (both as a student and a teacher), waiting for the weekend or Christmas break or spring break.  I await the visit with friends, the trips here, the trips there.  I anticipated my son’s wedding for a year, and I enjoyed every precious moment of thinking about and planning for that special event when relatives would travel to see where we live and visit in our home territory.   I wile away the minutes, hours, days until the birthday luncheon, the college football games, even church on Sunday finally occurs.

      I read that nostalgia is not bad; it is good for emotions.  So, is looking to the future also good for us?  It’s really not “living in the present.”  Our brains can handle past, present, and future, but do our emotions handle those time moments as well?  Balance is probably the key… or the other, more quoted word “moderation.”   Don’t spend too much time in the past or future.  Worrying is definitely out, but anticipation?  I’m addicted to it!!

July 26, 2013.  A Day in the Country
        Irrigation agriculture has probably changed just as all of life has.  That became clear the other morning when I was walking the dog. I stopped to visit with a farmer who was waiting for the irrigation water to “come down.”  Typical July day.
        Even though there are more pickup trucks than there used to be (we even had two for a few years for our almost three acres),  neither of us was in a truck.  I was leisurely walking the dog (a city girl living outside of town) and my neighbor was on a four wheeler.  Instead of shutting off my truck motor, I shut off the iPod music. 
         Our discussion was typical: how long the water would last, who was wasting water, the history of the irrigation district.
         Lesson learned - As things change, they really stay the same.