(photo P Volker)
Hey, good morning. Excuse me, I have to warm up my coffee, got cold while I got sucked into FaceBook. OK, that’s better.
Kevan is out of England and showed up a few weeks ago commenting on the blog here. He seems a world traveler and overall interesting fellow. He wrote a paragraph about Carl Sagan. At the moment I can’t remember the thread of our conversation but this story is a gem so with his permission I am putting it up today.
“And, as best we can tell, humans are the only conscious beings capable of seeing beauty? Of course the only other beings we’ve ever encountered are on this planet so perhaps our knowledge is a tad limited. Now how does a dog see a waterfall or the Milky Way stretching across the sky? Obviously we can never know. I was reflecting on the strangeness of life a few days ago when I was reading about Carl Sagan, the astronomer and broadcaster,is seems that his grandfather was a human ferry in eastern Europe on the River Bug, I think part of the Austro Hungarian Empire then. He would for a fee piggyback people across the Bug at a shallow spot! Could he, the grandfather, ever have foreseen the plaques designed by his grandson have now exited the solar system on the sides of Pioneer 10 and 11 and Voyager 1 and 2. I had to look up the Bug, it’s the border between Poland, Belarus and the Ukraine and it turns out I’d crossed it 3 times my self but by train(2x Trespol, Poland to/from Brest, Belarus) and bus(x1(I flew in) Lvov, Ukraine to Prezmyel, Poland)no piggyback’s for me!” Kevan from England.
That reminds me so much of one of my favorite stories, Mr Lucky Straw, a Japanese folk tale. We read it to our kids endless times. Anyway here it is for you:
lucky loves, Felipé.
Hola Felipe!
The ripples of your Blog continue ever outward, now even tickling the tranquil waters of the river Bug! That mind meandering is so pleasant to think about this Brilliant Iowa morning as our state picks up the derecho-scattered pieces of our landscape!
SF,
PFJ
John ~ My Rebecca has never heard of “derecho” so I just looked it up in the big old paper dictionary. I learned something. Did you have damage at your place, buildings, crops? 2020, what a year? Felipé.
Hola, Pilgrim Felipe!
Minimal damage here on the farm or at the neighboring kids homes, other than losing some trees and a lot of limbs. Within a few miles to the north, the situation is much different. Our corn crop is still harvestable, though it will be a much slower process as the stalks are tangled and leaning over. The unmitigated crop disaster is again, to the north and pretty much paralleling interstate 80 across the middle of the state. In that 10 million acre swath, much of the corn is broken completely off and is a total loss. The soybeans that are able to stand up again might make some crop, but again, harvest will be a very difficult process. Thousands of dispirited farmers across our great state here these days. Crop insurance pays on the difference between what level we insure for, and what is actually harvested, so that process is a long way off before any money comes in. Grain bins and outbuildings took a terrible beating also, and the demand for rebuilding crews will far outstrip the number available. I’m in the process of finding which community can make the most use of my equipment (skid loader/ grapple/chain saws/dump trailer) and get hooked up with them.
SF,
PFJ
John ~ gosh, what a disaster. Tell me me just how do you hook up with someone in the affected area to lend tools and equipment like that. It might be a parish to parish thing? Or do you have personal friends that you know are in need? Just wondering. Felipé.
Oh John, what a disaster. Just what we need. Felipé.