December 12, 2020 thought for the day: When you want to test the depths of a stream, don't use both feet. Chinese  Proverb

This is a dreary Saturday. It is warmer than it normally is in December but it’s kind of hard to think that when glancing out the window.

The photo challenge for December 11 was “green”. I took the camera out looking for something interesting in green. I looked and shot through over head branches of evergreen trees and tilted the camera down to get a  good shot of patches of green grass. Finally I landed on the green left in my own fairy garden still left under one of the evergreen trees in the back yard. 

We had the girls for a sleep over last night. I don’t know if because they are getting bigger they are getting louder or if that is just a mirage. In sprints of time they seem to like to wrestle with one another giggling all the while (that is until one hurts the other). So as their limbs hit the floor, a piece of furniture or each other the sound carries with more of a crescendo than when their bodies were a little smaller. When not wrestling or showing each other their creativity in some other manner they have their cell phones or ipads vibrating with sound.

I had planned to go to Sams club today for some ink but then I realized they would probably be back to having people stand in line as they allowed only a certain number of people in. I refuse to wait in line like that. I don’t need anything that badly. If I would decide to go, it wouldn’t be on a Saturday, more like during “senior” hour, as early in the day as possible....maybe next week. 

I am a bit perturbed. My cell phone automatically updated yesterday. After the update my photos do not automatically go to my Onedrive (cloud) as it did before. I don’t want to take the time to try to put it back to where it is supposed to be but rather than stay “perturbed” I may have to try to fix it. 

I do believe the sun is trying to show itself. As I glance out the window beside my computer screen I see a bit of blue sky with fluffy white clouds, 

The word for today is pride.  All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride, Sophocles. Humility is nothing but truth, and pride is nothing but lying, Vincent de Paul. When pride and presumption walk before, shame and loss follow very closely, Louis XI of France.  Pride goes before destruction, Aesop. Humility and knowledge in poor clothes excel pride and ignorance in costly attire, William Penn.  The devil...the prowde spirite (proud spirit)...cannot endure to be mocked, Thomas Moore.  Airs of importance are the credentials of impotence, Johann Kaspar Lavater.  Pride requires very costly food-its keeper's happiness, Charles Caleb Colton.  Charity feeds the poor, so does pride; charity builds an hospital, so does pride. In this they differ: charity gives her glory to God; pride takes her glory from man, Francis Quarles.  Spiritual pride is the most dangerous and the most arrogant  of all sorts of pride, Samuel Richardson. The pride of the body is a barrier against the gifts that purify the soul, George Eliot. Pride and weakness are Siamese twins, James Russell Lowell. We are rarely proud when we are alone, Voltaire. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold, Thomas Jefferson. When flowers are full of heaven-descended dews, they always hang their heads; but men hold theirs the higher the more they receive, getting proud as they get full, Henry Ward Beecher. 

The photo theme for today is “red”. A few days ago my neighbor surprised me with a beautiful gift of two tiny poinsettias, one white and one red. What a perfect choice for my photo for today. The red flowering beauty and holiday icon is in a small red container. After I made the shot I noted a tiny reflection of part of the container in the surface it was poised upon. I liked that added touch. 

This is an interesting use of space and cost savings I would hope. I have seen photos of  the fields of the wind turbines that causes me to wonder if that is the way of the future, solar energy apparatus also amazes me. Couldn’t our source of electricity be free? In my naivete may be showing.....nothing is free. The article today is telling us about a solar farm being planned for Franklin County. It would be located in Pleasant and Prairie townships and within the purview of the Big Darby Accord Advisory Panel. Two thousand acres south of Broad Street’s on east side of  Darby Creek Road would be the location of the solar farm and would provide power to fifty thousand homes.  The process is currently in the approval stage. According to the article the “site currently is made up of single crop and sod farmland.” If I am reading the article correctly, the people who own the land can receive between “$250 and $3,000 per acre annually”. Again according to the article “after construction, the project will employ up to three people to oversee the operations and maintenance of the facility”. There will be plantings under the panels “to prevent soil erosion, improve soil health and reduce phosphorous runoff in storm water that flows into Big Darby”. At the end of the “facility’s 30-year lifespan, the solar panels are removed......the land is returned to its original condition”. One person who lives across from the proposed project and was interviewed stated that she is concerned about interruptions from the construction that will be going on to set up the solar farm. These folks will be paid for any inconveniences but still wants to hear more about the project. It will be interesting to see how projects like this will take place and how/if will such projects will improve our energy resources and if and how it will affect nature and our familiar way of life. 

I think I am going to make beef stew in the pressure cooker for dinner. 

Joy