New Shoes in the Rain

If you're like me, and bought groceries or gas recently, or ate in a fast food restaurant, you have to wonder when the spiraling prices for each will eventually calm down, right? I think most of us know why things are the way they are.  And there does not seem to be any chance the inflation of prices in all of those categories will reach a more comfortable pattern, particularly since our country has entered into a war with Iran. In my part of the country gas is now about a full dollar higher than it was before the conflict began.  The price of goods continues to escalate, because it costs more to ship them from place to place.  Even the US Postal Service is going to start adding a fuel surcharge to its package delivery fees.   The administration claims that we're negotiating, but the regime in Tehran says that no discussions are taking place.  There are claims we're nearly finished there, having carried out our objective, but the US is moving more and more groun...

Hello, friends!  I have been delinquent in posting here in recent weeks, but it's been a busy time for me in my work lately. I just completed the first phase of yard work for the spring.  Much more to do, but the first time one mows their yard each year is almost like an archeological dig.   I last mowed our yard in early November, I think.  Our house sits on a modestly busy residential street but it's a popular cut-through between two major road, so there is steady traffic flowing past our house at times each day as well as on weekends. We seem to have a lot of people who come through and feel the need to dispose of their trash as they pass by.  This morning I found nestled in the heavy grass an empty soft drink bottle, candy wrappers, cigarette butts, a pull-tab from a box of something that I could not identify, a deflated balloon and a few more "treasures" that required disposal. Let's talk about the yard itself.  It's a small yard, so small that when we...