Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

The Milestone Year going on ten months. That’s how long it’s been since I proclaimed 2020 to be that year back at the end of 2019 in a belated supplemental edition of the Diaries. And that’s what it’s mostly been since then. A collection of supplemental entries thrown together through the season whenever I had time—often at the last minute because time apart from work (my real job) and an ambitious series of projects was scarce.

As a result that perfect edition or series of editions like the 3 part one in 2016 never happened. I started putting it together back in May and got as far as early summer before I fell behind. I’ve got plenty of material since I source much of my text from daily correspondence with my friend Ray in Wisconsin. It’s an easy way to economize writing provided I keep up with it. Which again I didn’t and now it’s almost mute given the volume of material to sort through and edit—plus the several supplemental entries that are actually give a pretty decent account of things and maybe should stand on their own.

I’m writing this on a Friday afternoon the week before the upcoming presidential election after what has been a very trying year that did anything but meet expectations put forth in the Supplemental dated December 31, 2019. I almost said 1919 and maybe it’s understandable given the old saying that all will be the same in 100 years.

2020 turned out to be a lot like the time a century ago with the outbreak of the sort of great pandemic that happens on average once in a hundred years. A zoonotic jump of a new Coronavirus species from bats to humans in a wet market in the Chinese city of Wuhan late in 2019 going into the New Year that was slowly working its way out to America’s shores while the nation was fixated on the impeachment circus that was the latest of many attempts by disgruntled progressives to destroy the administration of Donald J. Trump.

And then he was acquitted.

It still looked like a rocky road ahead simply because the the Left is just apoplectic because half of America doesn’t want to go in the direction they want to take the country and they were certain to find some other issue or dig up more muck to sling around in an election year. But I was looking forward to a fun year between the silliness of politics and my own projects aimed at pursuing happiness and excellence on my home front. As I continued the Florida Room restoration and reminisced about the 1990s and made politically incorrect Sea Quest burgers! Maybe fun like 2016 with road trips and reptile shows and showing off my works to guests as the season passed.

But the Coronavirus changed all that. It was one of those wild cards that throws a monkey wrench into everything. In addition to fear and loathing and chronic shortages of toilet paper and other things , the reptile shows were canceled and there would be no road trips—no repetition of the Curse of the Dry Belt and Adventure at Summer’s End—though the Dry Belt did tear its ugly head again this summer with an unrelenting heat wave to boot. And the Vortex was back too—in the early spring after what had been a mediocre uneventful winter. And it set in again early—making this a very unseasonably chilly October. According to Ray—it’s the coldest on record for Wisconsin. Go figure.

2020 was destined to be anything we expected and it was certainly no halcyon summer like 2016. Yet it still turned out to be a milestone year and not totally bad on all fronts. As for the home front it was more or less the continuation of 2019: The Year of Renovation and that project is actually nearing completion—ironically as the nation and the world nears a turning point that could either be a turning point to better days ahead or a tipping point to an authoritarian government that seeks to steal or destroy everything we who pursue happiness and excellence hold dear.

Like that old Alfred E. Neumann quote—what me worry on the head of a pin. My attitude has been for the most part pollyannish as I’ve been focused on my big project : The Florida Room. Yet I’ve had quite a few sleepless nights where I would stay up reading the newsfeed about the Coronavirus and the growing list of incredible things it is capable of and ways it can kill or mess you up really bad. And the political theater they jinned up in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd.

This set cities on fire and had Donald Trump plummeting in the polls. And the issue of race and social inequality have been conveniently bundled with the Green New Deal—to mean that opposition to green policies or anything else that progressives and their radical Marxist fellow travelers want is racist. As racist as uttering the “N” word or flying a Confederate Flag on your front porch. It’s become their get a free pass card—aka the Race Card—that exempts them from having to engage in honest intellectual debate. I have a feeling that many people will get tired of it as is usually the case with any extreme polemic discourse. But it sure put a damper on my 4th of July celebration this year when I read that the Sierra Club (big surprise) has embraced this too. I summarized that in an article that weekend.

I’ve got to quit letting this stuff—the fear and loathing of things to come—ruin my morale and sap my creative energy. I’ve lost too much sleep and time better spent doing stuff that I might be farther ahead on now had I not gotten into a funk for a day here or there.

But I digress.

What the hell does this all have to do with the weather; which is the central theme of the Norseman’s Diaries? It started out as a documentary of a serious winter related crisis on my home front years ago and other crises and broadened to include the minutia of change of seasons , life and various projects I do to maintain and enhance the quality of life on my homestead here in southwestern Pennsylvania. It’s more or less a stand against the weather and other forces of Nature that would otherwise ruin or destroy what I hold dear. And the Coronavirus pandemic is definitely a force of Nature that could kill me or more likely make me very sick as it has some of my fellow techs and some of the nurses I work with. So far so good. I’ve managed to avoid becoming infected—either because of the protective equipment and precautions I use—or because of good luck or strong immunity. It’s hard to say. Probably a combination because no equipment or methodology however good it may be is foolproof.

And then there’s politics.

That too can be considered a force of Nature because human life is part of the natural world and some forms of human behavior can be harmful to your life , Liberty and property (pursuit of happiness) as any virus, storm, earthquakes or falling asteroids. I am more afraid in the long run of the disaster that bad policy decisions will wrought than I am of any pandemic disease or whatever else Mother Nature might throw at us. And it also makes those things worse than they otherwise would have to be.

Going back to the beginning of the crisis—those were some pretty dark days as nobody knew how bad it would be. It began for me coming up on the ides of March—actually Friday the 13th—which was the day I first noticed the rapidly disappearing toilet paper when I was at Walmart buying and setting up my new iPhone. And things really got crazy for a while.

And then there was the weather.

After an unseasonably mild winter that was not quite like 2012 but easy enough on my heating budget—there came the Coronavirus Winter that made April at times more like January and the early part of May was at times not much better. This would have been a good time to pick up with that portion of the diary.

Saturday evening going on 8 PM.

This picture was taken a few hours prior when I loaded up Old Smokey after a busy day that began with the arrival of a starter culture of black worms to restart the culture that crashed back early on in the crisis when I shut down the circulation pump to let the sediments settle when I topped off the cooler that is the sump for the culture tray—and forgot about it for a couple days! It became a disgusting putrid mess of foul water and dead worms and there were supply chain issues and then hot summer weather that made me delay ordering until the cooler months of fall. And then when I decided to order this past week it was on a wind and a prayer because most suppliers were out of stock because of hot summer weather that decimated production. Was not expecting them until next week but I heard the rumble of the UPS truck as I was finishing up the morning routine in the Florida Room.

And to make a long story short I have the worm farm set up again at the end of the slab I poured for the monster tank that was supposed to arrive this week but didn’t for want of manpower. One of the guys got sick. Hope it wasn’t the you know what!

Been a very busy vacation week despite the lousy weather which made me finally get serious about firing up the outside furnace to conserve dwindling oil supply. Down to a quarter tank now. I ordered the first load of firewood for delivery week after next and still have the leftover stuff from spring to fall back on.

But it was a lousy wet cold and dreary week and today—next to the last day of vacation was the only decent one I got so I had to choose between putting together the mother of all diaries and getting stuff done outside and in the greenhouse and I chose the latter. Story of my life when it comes to this sort of thing. 2020 is definitely no 2016 and as well as those editions turned out : the finale fell way short of what I intended. And this one falls even shorter. After a day tidying up the greenhouse and then clearing and stacking the remaining firewood to make room for new—I realized it was just untenable. As I said—story of my life: so often I’m too busy living it to write about it.

I did get a lot accomplished this week. Most noteworthy is the drip wall build in the Florida room where I fashioned a pad of Epiweb to create a green wall of Syngonium vines on the rock on a roll wall panel on the back end of the Turtle Table.

Hoping to get the Syngonium rayii to grow up and cover the gray matting that is marketed for creating vivarium backgrounds and as a replacement for tree fern slabs for mounting orchids and other epiphytes.

A redesign of the platform that supports the two tall tanks on top of the big vivarium reincorporating the shop light that was replaced a short while ago with an aquarium LED that proved inadequate for good plant growth. That one in turn got repurposed for what it was intended!

Does a decent job lighting the 40B with a center brace that I resealed this summer. I also made a cover for it out of the same 1/4 inch plexiglass as used for the walls of the Turtle Table.

And more air plants and a Cryptanthus lacerdae that arrived this week.

Laid out in front of the small metal frame vivarium. The Earthstar is already planted.

The door track and L channel for the tall tank to front opening cage conversions arrived this week. Eventually I’ll get brave enough to tackle that project. I am the king of Jerry rigging!

Coming up on the deadline. I was definitely right in my assessment of my ability to pull the whole thing off. Maybe the 2020 Survival With Style edition was never meant to be. Might have to settle for a year in review and hope and pray I can write a Revenge of the Rust Belt 2.0 come next issue! I’d like to keep the lights on and I’ve got better things to do with my life than a return to “shared sacrifice” or fighting a civil war!

The political junk mail that is piling up will make great fire starter regardless who wins!

Later:

In my haste I forgot that I had originally intended multiple mailings of the portions already written and what I would attempt to put together to fill the gap up until now.

Thought it prudent to send another one marked last so you are not expecting anything else and can go ahead with it.

Oh God! What a day what a year. I see Trump signs everywhere, only a few for Biden / Harris. Hope he wins in a landslide but I’ll settle for a slim margin or even another Electoral College technicality to keep the Green New Dealers off our backs so maybe I can squeeze another four years of happiness out of life and the things I’ve accomplished so far.

Yet I won’t take anything for granted because just going by the yard signs and the rosy predictions of Wayne Allen Root on Bill Cunningham’s show : it looked like Romney had a decent chance of at least a slim margin in 2012.

Oh well. At least we got a 4 year break from progressive rule. Hoping for four more and maybe a more conservative Supreme Court that can hold the line on the possibility of a court that will rubber stamp the progressive / democratic socialist / eco fascist agenda.

And maybe we’ll get a real GND with space colonies and solar power satellites. I’m going to be writing about that regardless who wins.

Survival With Style!