Day 56 p.m.-SIP-Biological Warfare?

Posted on 12/05/2020 by Grumpa Joe

I have had enough wine to loosen my mind and to write about less politically correct subjects. Doesn’t COVID-19 smack of biological warfare? Think about it. I would guess that every major country has a program to develop biological weapons. I know the USA has one, and Russia has one, and now we learn that China has one.

The Pandemic has taught us how easy it will be for anyone of these countries to unleash mayhem upon another without firing a single bullet or sending a single rocket. My God! All an unethical non-moral regime would have to do is load up an a bunch of airplanes with people who have some of the biological matter on them, and when they land in the target country, they let it loose to do its work. One rogue country can unleash a worldwide pandemic within a matter of hours. It will be cheap, effective and quick. The countries distributing the disease bring the attacked to their knees and destroy their economies thus their people.

A really smart attacker will insure that they had the antidote or vaccine, and have their population 100% inoculated before the attack. Its the only way one can win. If the agressor is as susceptible to the virus as the enemy it would only serve to backfire upon them.

I believe that germ warfare such as the COVID-19 Pandemic is more effective than chemical warfare. To date chemical warfare was used in World War One, Korea, and in some of the Mid-Eastern countries like Iraq and Syria. The problem as I see it, is that chemicals only affect those that come in direct contact with it, while in germ warfare the germ is invisible, silent, and transmissible so it keeps on moving and killing.

The last questions I have are these, “Did China release the COVID-19 as an experiment as a test to determine how vulnerable the USA, and the rest of the world is? Or, did they release it as an attempt to bring down the world in order to dominate? Or, did it happen by accident and they are taking advantage of the data generated? Or, is the virus just a natural phenomenon?

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Day 55-SIP-New Milestone

Posted on 12/05/2020 by Grumpa Joe

Yes, I accomplished a new goal. I took ride on my trusty two wheel convertible and lasted for seven miles without awakening my sciatic nerve. I must admit that even though the nerve did not fully awaken it did begin to send signals of uneasiness. For those who don’t know why I’m concerned about my sciatic nerve it is because it runs from the back through the ass and down to my knees. Ever try pedaling a bike when so much of the engine is hurting? Let me advise you, don’t.

We are three days away from the point when we who live in zone five can plant flowers without worrying about a frost. Except that this year I am not going to trust that date at all. The weather in general has been too cold. I can testify to that after experiencing the bike ride. I often tell the story about how my wife Barb and I waited patiently to get started in the garden and planted annuals on May 15. That year we had a killing frost on May 30. If you are a gambler like I am give it a try, and be prepared to cover your plants when the temp is predicted to drop into the thirties.

This year, I am redesigning my yard by transplanting perennials and redistributing them to where annuals used to be. The reason is that I have way too many beds dedicated to annuals, (because I love the colors and huge spreading masses of flowers) and I cannot maintain it anymore. Well, let’s just change that to I don’t want to maintain it anymore. I’m getting too old and lazy. With COVID-19 closing businesses I can’t even count on getting fresh plants from the nursery’s even though I need to get some to fill spaces. The alternative to this is to let the garden go natural, except I abhor out of place native perennials, and I would spend my summer-in-place pulling weeds by the bushel.

Lobelia With Rabbit Barrier

Today, my Lions club announced on Facebook that it is officially cancelling their annual fund raising WURST FEST. This would have been our fortieth anniversary, but in the interest of the community health and safety we are giving it up. The event has been our largest fund raiser of the year and fuels our service projects through the year. Until COVID-19 is dead we will replace this crowd attracting event with a more simple fund raiser.

Also on the Lions front, the club held it’s first meeting since February using ZOOM. It went well and we are pleased. The attendance was about half (27) of what it would have been (48) if it were live. We usually use our Community Center for the meetings but it is closed, and the President’s and Governor’s guidelines are to keep meetings to less than ten, to use social distancing and to wear masks. The last thing we want is to infect each other then go out into the community to infect others and the next thing we know the Lions are responsible for shutting down the entire town. That works against our creed which is to serve.

The country is definitely feeling the effects of the shut down. Our unemployment rate is nearly that of the great depression in the thirties. I was born at the very end of that one, and maybe I’ll be buried at the end of this one. What a history. Yet the time between has been among the greatest experienced by the planet. I wouldn’t want to live in any other timespan. I have seen so much development during my lifetime I don’t think a greater period of positive development will come along for many years to come.

I have always thought it would be cool to be so advanced that countries get to the point where they held virtual wars instead of real hard-fought wars. Think about that, it would be computer against computer, programmer against programmer, and gamers against gamers. No one would die of the injuries inflicted on line, and the winner ends up owning the loser.

Over 1 million Reddit users waged a virtual war to create this bizarre work of art with 16 million pixels

I think I’ve had too much coffee.

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Day 52-SIP-Life Goes On

Posted on 09/05/2020 by Grumpa Joe

Every Spring I am blessed with a visit from a pair of mallard ducks. This morning, I spotted a rather violent splash of water in my water garden so lovingly referred to as my pond. The sun was shining so I knew it couldn’t be lightening or any storm related violence. I slowly crept up to the window with my camera ready. Low and behold, the splash was from the lady mallard landing in the water. Her faithful partner landed shortly thereafter. I have studied mallards to determine f they mate for life like swans, but they do not. In fact they are very promiscuous in their habits. Nevertheless, they like to sun themselves in my sacred little lake. Later this morning they will disappear until tomorrow at the same time.

Mallards Having Fun

I have dreams of the mallards raising their family in my back yard, but that has not been realized yet. I am hopeful that someday they will do it. The idea of seeing a dozen fuzzy little baby birds swimming around with mom is just too much to not want. I have watched parades of mallard families out for a training swim with their mother in the pond near the town of Frankfort. All I can say is that mom is relentless. She shows no mercy on her young. She swims around the entire pond and they have to keep up or they are lost. She never stops to rest, she just keeps on paddling, and the little ones keep up the struggle to show her they can make it.

At this time, the wetlands behind my house are loaded with Canada geese all nurturing their newly hatched families. There is already too much vegetation blocking my view so I won’t see any of the youngsters until mom and dad begin the flying lessons. Then I see them taking off in formation and circling overhead before landing again. They remind me of the jets doing similar exercises from an air base. When I wintered in Arizona I was ten miles away from Luke Air Base where they trained pilots. The way they fly and the train is so like the geese it is amazing. When I see pairs of geese coming in for a landing I also visualize F 15 fighter jets coming home.

Spring is also a great time to bird watch because so many birds are migrating and stop in the yard to feed and rest. My yard is loaded with warblers that are not yearlong residents They will disappear until some time in fall when they reverse migrate. The slate grey junco and the black juncos are now gone, or very rare. They migrate to the north into Canada to have their families. Meanwhile the flock of Canada geese that call Illinois their home is growing by leaps and bounds. Most likely because there are so many acres of fields planted in corn and soy beans that their food supply is plentiful, even in winter. One can see a thousand geese gleaming a newly harvested field. The next week, the same flock will be in another field doing the same. All I can say is that the farmers lose a lot of grain during their harvest.

A few years ago, we had a bout of mosquito borne bird flu called West Nle Virus which took out huge populations of popular wild birds. There was a day when I thought for sure I would never see another chickadee. Yet, many years later the chickadee and all the other birds damaged by the West Nile Virus have come back strong. We will also come back strong after COVID-19, but now we must suffer until we develop immunity. At this point, the only way I know of to get immunity is to get the disease and live through it.

Filed under: family, Garden,pond,, Hobby, Science, Warm and Fuzzy | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

Day 51-SIP-Potpourri

Posted on 08/05/2020 by Grumpa Joe

My plan for today was to spend an hour in the garden, wear myself out and then migrate to the desk to write. Nature changed my plan. The temperature this morning is in the low forties, and it is way too cold for me to suffer in the dirt. So, I moved on to writing. As usual I don’t have a theme to talk about so I watched some videos on how to make household disinfectant. It seems to be a popular product these days as all the stores are sold out.

The formula for making it is simple. There are three ingredients isopropyl alcohol, (99%), water, and essential oil. The end result is a solution of 70% alcohol that smells nice.

I watched another video sent by a friend which is an interview with a 30 year veteran emergency room doctor who explains the mechanism of the COVID-19 disease process. Its too complicated to write about so I’ve linked it for you to watch. His bottom line is that he believes we are doing the wrong thing by telling people to wait until they have shortness of breath or trouble breathing to go to the hospital. Evidently, by that time the pneumonia is advanced and harder to treat.

While I read my emails I opened a few interesting tid-bits of fun which I will also share with you.

How to Get To Heaven
A true Story from an Irish Sunday School Teacher. 

I was testing children in my Dublin Sunday school class to see if they understood the concept of getting to heaven. I asked them, ‘ If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the church, would that get me into heaven?’ NO!’ the children answered. If I cleaned the church every day, mowed the garden, and kept everything tidy, would that get me into heaven?’ Again, the answer was ‘NO!’ If I gave sweets to all the children, and loved my husband, would that get me into heaven?’ Again, they all answered ‘NO!’ I was just bursting with pride for them. I continued, ‘Then how can I get into heaven?’ A little boy shouted out: ‘YUV GOTTA BE FOOKN’ DEAD.’ It’s a curious race, the Irish.   Brings a tear to the eye, doesn’t it?

Old Guys Rule!

My last item is a story of something that happened to me this week. I read a daily email from a friend Tim Fox. He spends considerable time doing what I do that is waste time in front of the computer reading things about government fails. He sent me his usual package which is a string of videos from five different sites, a commentary, followed by a set of memes which are usually hilarious. He calls this newsletter Conservative News.

Two days ago, I opened one of the videos about a scientist who deals with viruses. I had a few minutes to watch it and then had to leave it for later. Yesterday, I opened it again to watch the remainder, and it was gone, You Tube removed this video from its website a number of times, citing its Community Guidelines. The video featured an interview with a lady PhD scientist who worked on viruses at the NIAID. Her boss was Dr. Tony Fauci. Does that name ring a bell? To make this story shorter, the woman landed in jail, and was gagged from telling her story for five years. I want to learn more. It smacks of a great conspiracy within the bureaucratic bowels of our government.

I wrote to Tim Fox and asked for her name so I could follow up. He sent me her name and a link to Amazon which is selling her book. She is Dr. Judy Mikrovits PhD and her book is Plague of Corruption.

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Day 50-SIP-What Are the Chances?

Posted on 06/05/2020 by Grumpa Joe
Joe & Peggy are seen riding along the river bed in Joe’s garden about twelve feet from the waterfall.

See Peggy and Joe at the upper part of the picture? They are to the right of the white bucket. Now toss the sedum over your shoulder toward the patio. Did it land on the handle bars? If so you win today’s exercise.

Now do it again. What are the odds of landing a second clump of sedum right on top of the first one. I quit trying since I was way ahead. This is my lucky day. If I weren’t in Stay in Place, I’d go and buy a lotto ticket.

I do not gamble except for an occasional lotto ticket or a raffle chance. I stick to knowing the odds of winning and decide I am ahead if I don’t even try. Right now I am feeling the same way about the virus. What are my chances of getting it? With 7.8 billion people in the world I say my chances are one in 7.8 billion. Now, I am not a statistician by any means and I know I am grossly over simplifying my point. Calculating the odds of something happening involves some calculations which I am not prepared to do. I use a kind of common sensical approach. If I limit myself to the USA population my odds are one in 331 Million, and if I limit myself to the State of Illinois my odds are one in 13.1 million. Now I narrow things down to my county in Illinois and my odds are 1 in 69,017. When I use the Stay In Place model my chances are zero. So much for the argument to stay in place.

All these BS odds are meaningless today, because I tossed a clump of sedum over my shoulder and had it land in the hands of Joe & Peggy twice.

That kind of luck puts a special meaning into that little figurine and what it represents. I am forever going to keep it even if I end up in a nursing home. Peg bought that for me and now after we caught two boquets of plant life while riding through the garden together it represents our life together. Perhaps it is a sign from her that she is watching over me even though she is not with me anymore. Whatever, I need to believe something magical in order to save my life from boring solitude.

Take my hint and find something to believe in.

Filed under: Aging, family, Garden, grief, Seniors | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

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