Thu 2 Nov 2006
News Flash:
We saw 3 bears yesterday. In my 44 years of living I had never seen a bear in the wild. It was a mama and 2 babies walking through a gully. We were able to park and watch them for quite a while. Hope the pics turn out.
It will probably come as no surprise that I love THIS post by DHM. Just call it mutual admiration.
I am not able to spend more than a few minutes a day online. Yippee.
I don’t get a phone signal most of the time either. Double Yippee.
Please go buy Mark Steyn’s book America Alone: The End of America.
Tim and Nathaniel arrive today for a weekend of family fun minus 3 members. That’s the way it is these days.
We miss you Timothy, Nicholas and James.
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“My mom reads this blog and she has an irrational fear of bears. I don’t mean it is irrational to fear bears but that she is unlikely to meet any.”
Mothers are always right!
One of the headlines on the Fox News.com this morning is a video of a cub falling out of a tree in TN. I literally laughed out loud and thought of you and then I came to your blog. Very funny.
Have fun and enjoy!!
Comment by Janet (November 2, 2006 @ 10:08 am )
There are no bears on Hemlock Mountain, no bears, no bears, no bears at all! I wish I was there to, it is my lifelong dream to kill a bear with a knive or perhaps a spear. Timmay
Comment by Cindy (November 2, 2006 @ 11:50 am )
Far be it from me to say “I told you so….”
When we were in the Poconos years ago we saw a mama black bear and three cubs. They were out by the dumpsters behind the retreat where we were staying. We looked at them for a few minutes (from a safe distance), then everyone was herded into the cabin. And it is true that I see something about bears in the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge/Cherokee area on the news almost each night!
Sorry if I disturbed the quaint old gal. I think she raised a daughter with enough sense to know when to run!
I am SO glad you are enjoying yourselves!
Comment by Linda (November 2, 2006 @ 3:10 pm )
And maybe your bears are like the “Blueberries for Sal” bears, just munching and swallowing, storing up food for the winter. The mama bear will surely be old enough to be shy of people.
Comment by Linda (November 2, 2006 @ 3:22 pm )
Cindy,
What book would you recommend for someone who is dead-set against agrarianism. I don’t mean isn’t suited to farming, but just thinks that the whole thing is wrong
Comment by Margaret in VA (November 3, 2006 @ 7:48 am )
Every so often someone in my community sees a bear on their property. One of my deepest desires is to see a bear walking through one of our fields. Dare I even say it is one of my prayers?
Comment by Laurie (November 3, 2006 @ 8:01 am )
Timmay,
You are the boy who prayed for for a pocket knife and a small animal to kill. I am afraid you would go to jail if you killed a bear around here.
Margaret,
Off the top of my head I am thinking maybe some of Wendell Berry books. Not from a Christian perspective (He is a Christian but not too conservative probably) but from a ideology stance. He draws beautiful word pictures to illustrate the heart of agrarianism. On the other hand he is something of a Luddite.
Maybe Rick would have better advice for an apologetic type book.
Comment by Cindy (November 3, 2006 @ 9:16 am )
Hi Cindy! So glad you’re having such a wonderful vacation. I’m sure you all deserve it. My brother lives a couple hours north of us at the northern edge of the White Mts. He made “friends” with a baby black bear one spring and it hung around for a couple of years before finally being relocated. Scared the wits out of me knowing they had a bear visiting their property on a daily basis for handouts, and he should have know better, being a wildlife rehabilitator. P.S. A great book for Margaret in VA’s friend might be Herrick Kimball’s Writings of a Deliberate Agrarian. The man has the most delightful way with words.
Comment by Emily (November 3, 2006 @ 1:37 pm )
Margaret,
If your friend is truly dead set against agrarianism, as a lot of people are, I think the journey toward understanding agrarianism may take more than a single step. In my case, I had to at least think it was possible that modernity is a dead end before I was willing to take the alternatives seriously. There are writers that can persuade you of that—Francis Schaeffer, Neil Postman, Wendell Berry, G.K. Chesterton, many others. A specific recommendation would depend on knowing exactly why your friend embraces modernity.
For anti-agrarians who are open-minded enough about it to want to understand agrarianism better, a good choice is Eric Brende’s Better Off. Brende doesn’t really have an ideological agenda, or at least he doesn’t push one in his book. He merely had qualms about the high-tech life, and wanted to see how far he could go in eliminating technology from his life. He and his wife moved to a sort-of Amish community and lived with them for eighteen months, and the book recounts the experience. The book has some shortcomings, but two things about it are very good: (1) Brende and his wife give an honest account of what it is like for a modern urban couple to jettison modern living, easy for a curious urbanite to relate to; and (2) Brende learns a lot from his adopted community about why plain people choose to live a pre-modern life, and explains it accurately and thoughtfully. The book is engaging; you can start out thinking that the Brendes are crazy and still come to appreciate what they’ve done and why they’re doing it.
Comment by Rick Saenz (November 3, 2006 @ 1:38 pm )
Hi! Just wanted to let you know that I featured you as one of my Fabulous Friday Friends today. Have a great vacation, stay away from the bears.
Comment by Mama Squirrel (November 3, 2006 @ 6:09 pm )
Thanks everyone for the suggestions.
Comment by Margaret in VA (November 6, 2006 @ 12:59 pm )
Cindy, I sure enjoyed your Plain Talk cd with Rick. Good stuff, good stuff. You had my mental wheels a-rollin’.
Comment by Kim (November 6, 2006 @ 7:34 pm )
Thank-you, thank-you, Kim. I was hoping it was something useful. I had a lot of fun talking to Rick but I was terribly insecure about the whole thing. I haven’t had a chance to order my set yet. I can’t wait to hear the other girls.
Comment by Cindy (November 7, 2006 @ 9:02 am )
You didn’t come across as insecure at all to me. Hope that gives you comfort. I’m glad Rick let you talk so much. I guess it was because you had so much good stuff to say, eh?
Comment by Kim (November 9, 2006 @ 8:57 am )