Happy New Year--I hope

 1 January 2022

We were all so happy to see the end of 2020 but I wondered months ago if we wouldn't be as happy to see 2021 in our rear view mirrors. I am although I don't think this year will be anything to celebrate. I have ignored most of the "year in review" stories. Every now and then one has something interesting--rarely. Sometimes the prognostication stories grab my attention. This one was the first thing I found this morning. The author listed several things I hope don't materialize this year but can easily see happening and the long quote from someone who lived through turmoil in Sri Lanka. His description resembles our own experiences over the last two years--our own lives continued in a very normal path while things elsewhere seemed to go off the rails. Every now and then the trends came close--several relatives had COVID in its milder forms and a couple of more distant relatives died, most of the on-line venders had prominent warnings that they couldn't guarantee the 1-3 day deliveries that had been normal, more store shelves sparse or empty (but nothing we absolutely needed), costs going up but nothing we need becoming unaffordable. I expect more of the same. But my seed catalogs have finally arrived--a month to six weeks later than normal. And I can start planning my spring plantings--also a month to six weeks late.

For the last couple of years, the news cycle often pushes me to remember this:

They're rioting in Africa. They're starving in Spain.
There's hurricanes in Florida and Texas needs rain.

The whole world is festering with unhappy souls.
The French hate the Germans. The Germans hate the Poles.

Italians hate Yugoslavs. South Africans hate the Dutch.
And I don't like anybody very much!

And we know for certain that some lovely day
Someone will set the spark off and we will all be blown away.

They're rioting in Africa. There's strife in Iran.
What nature doesn't do to us will be done by our fellow man.

The Kingston Trio--1959

I took out the verse about a "mushroom" cloud but otherwise this is the song as it appeared in 1959 when I was 10 years old. If I had any poetic bone in my body (I don't) I would insert something about COVID, economic and "supply chain" woes, and our political discontent. Or sometimes I think of the Buffalo Springfield song For What It's Worth. You can take a look for yourself. The times may have changed but the problems seem up to date.

On to something else. The weird weather continues. Ours hasn't been as disastrous or destructive as in other places but it still has been strange. A warm fall drifted into a warm winter. Our first accumulating snow came only about a week ago and didn't last long. Most surfaces were too warm for it to stick. It is snowing now and the forecasters have predicted several inches over night and throughout tomorrow. How long will it last? Who know? Maybe I will finally take down the fall door wreath and put up my winter wreath.