Dazed and Confused

I included these two pictures of the most recent hydro site I'm working on. The site is called "Deer Rips" which is comprised of two generating stations, one on each side of the river. The powerhouse shown in the picture is Androscoggin #3. The pictures have no connection to the title. I just threw them in because I like posting current photos.

Back to my theme . . . our family just viewed the movie "Zeitgeist". The best description I can think of is a docu-drama" about world history and the future. Suitably vague I realize but you really have to watch it. You could summarize the message as there is a small group of very powerful people who are driving toward the goal of one world government. The means of doing so is elaborate deception and manipulation of the people. Not a new idea, I know.

Now, before you start giving me the fish eye and wondering if Oliver Stone broke into my house, let me say I am as skeptical as anyone. Most people love conspiracy theories, at least to watch on TV or read about. I'm not one of them, probably because of my natural cynicism and "just the facts" way of looking at events. But I found the evidence rather compelling and downright sobering. If anyone has ever watched the 1976 movie "Network", you are familiar with the idea of mass public manipulation. Think about this - how DO you know what the truth is? The media? The concept of an "objective" news source is mid-20th century invention. Prior to that newspapers were rather open about political affiliation. It's not difficult at all for me to imagine all the media as having an agenda, especially when you consider the concentration of media ownership in the hands of a few powerful people.

So I'm feeling more confused than ever about the state and future of the world. On a spiritual retreat I attended, we referred to it as "liminal space" - threshold. In my little corner of it, I'm grappling with a challenging teenager, where and in what do I want to live, what kind of people do I want to live near, how to navigate the financial system, etc, etc, etc. I told my wife yesterday that every direction seems uphill right now. And there is an urgency to virtually everything. We really feel the need to find a place and begin building our future now.

We've come to the place where it appears we have to strike out on our own rather than join a community. Find and buy land, build a house and establish food production. All with the goal of little or no debt and most of it within a short time frame. We have found people we would like to live near and work with. That helps some but this is still a scary, daunting prospect.

No post would be complete without a horse report. We had a week of temperatures in the teens every night. The water trough froze over with a 2" thick ice cover. Time for the trough heater but then the horses wouldn't drink. They were getting shocked! Turns out the heater was putting 80V on the water. New heater time. The horses are developing nice shaggy winter coats. We're now feeding them hay two times a day. They've gotten much more aggressive at eating time. I had to show the male the riding crop the other day to settle him down.

We went out today to feed them with a snow/rain mix pelting us. Although the temperature is in the high 30's versus last week's 19, it was still pretty miserable. Thankfully unlike the horses, we didn't have to stand around in it all day. Fortunately I just finished fixing the horse shed yesterday so they have a decent shelter.

All these experiences are helping toughen us for the future . . .