Wassail, traveler, and welcome to The Gable Grey -- a place of retreat, of renewal, and of resistance: a tree-shaded refuge in Dark Times. Now pass the threshold, and rest from journeys! For a cold wind is blowing; and here, if you wish, you may hear tidings of the world without...

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Cereal Revolutions

And no, the post title is not a reference to phenomena like Frosted Cherrios, which was/is a miserable failure, an unholy alliance between Frosted Flakes and Cheerios, which satisfies nobody.  But I digress.

I have noticed, in my manic ramblings across the Interlink for news, that two new countries seem to be sprouting demonstrations of their own:  Mauritania, and Vietnam.  (Yes, that Vietnam.)  About Mauritania -- it is in north-west Africa, for those of you who don't immediately know, which is 99.5 % of you, and almost included me, but for an early high school game that had me and my inner circle poring over contemporary world maps -- all I can say is, 'Who gives a shit?' (WGAS), as their only possible export looks to be vast quantities of sand, which we don't especially need.  But Vietnam?  Hory sheet!  I didn't think that kind of thing was allowed.  But anything can happen these days, seemingly.  There's even demonstrations in several Chinese cities.  You can add them to those in Egypt (ongoing), Tunisia (ongoing), Libya (OMGaddafi!), Algeria, Morocco, Jordan, the West Bank (okay, that's normal for them), Yemen (getting bad and badder), Bahrain, the Sultanate of Oman, Iran, and -- wait for it, wait for it -- that bastion of Freed'm and Democracy in the Middle East, Iraq.  And these are NOT revolutions founded in some sudden, overweening (I don't know if that's the appropriate term here, but it suddenly occurred to me that I have not used the word 'overweening' in a long, long, while, and decided, DO IT.) desire for democracy.  These people are unemployed, broke, and STARVING.  Grain harvests around the world have suffered cataclysmically* poor harvests in the past year.  Thus, "Cereal Revolutions."  Wish I had come up with that on my own...

In other news, Silver(!) has been knocking at the $35/oz. door, and I have it on good authority (meaning, I read some quotes from important-sounding folks who I otherwise don't know shit about) that, due to impossible positions in the paper silver market (SLV), compounded with the usual breathless exhortations for buying Silver(!) from those good folk who are already "long" Silver(!), Silver (!) is about to make a move past its already 31-year high attained this week, to break the famous (and long dead) Hunt Bros.' achievement of $50/oz. of the early 1980's.  I've still been accumulating, though in longer intervals, and have it on good authority (the Wife)(!) that I must needs, uh, rein things in even more.  So I will.  Probably.  But there is still time to get in on what could be an opportunity to build true generational wealth.  Otherwise, start stocking up on nickels.

Today I got home from work in time to see my daughter running up to the house from our chicken coop, carrying three fresh eggs.  What a beautiful sight!  She loves to check for eggs every day.  Now we are averaging 2-3 per day from our girls Helen, Thelma Lou, and Aunt Bea.  Thelma Lou is a real sweet bird who likes to be held.  Helen is a bit skittish.  Aunt Bea is, well, Frances Bavier reincarnated as a chicken. 

Found a book, courtesy of a blog I follow only intermittently, called Gardening When It Counts:  Growing Food in Hard Times, by Steve Solomon.  I'm probably going to buy it.  It pretty much trashes the raised-bed approach I've been working on for a year and a half now, but I'm wanting a cheaper, more efficient way to garden, anyway.  That is, if we remain marooned here, and don't make it to Montana.

How about a pretty picture?


Nobody draws Old Guys in Tights (OGTs) like the incomparable Alex Ross!  (Yo, Fate!  Hands off Starman's ass!)

Wassail, friends. -- C.

*I spelled it right, Jeremy.  I think.

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Whiles carried o'er the iron road,
We hurry by some fair abode;
The garden bright amidst the hay,
The yellow wain upon the way,
The dining men, the wind that sweeps
Light locks from off the sun-sweet heaps --
The gable grey, the hoary roof,
Here now -- and now so far aloof.
How sorely then we long to stay
And midst its sweetness wear the day,
And 'neath its changing shadows sit,
And feel ourselves a part of it.
Such rest, such stay, I strove to win
With these same leaves that lie herein.

-- William Morris, from
"The Roots of the Mountains"