Category: Russia

Sipping a cup of coffee and deciding what to write. I am not sure I want to go at what I did yesterday again today. I am sore and need a rest. I am rebuilding the double gate on our land and tore it all the way out. Then I started to dig holes to install new heavy posts. Now I start the plan to build a double gate or a large single gate. The opening is wide enough to allow a very large truck to deliver cow manure or wood and such. It is not for parking and normal use. It needs to be very heavy and durable, for long periods of non use…

Most likely I will continue on the gate today and at least complete the left side that you see in the image. Then I will look over the wood I have and decide; do I need to cut some more or can I accomplish the gate from what I have?

I have a second gate to finish, but I still have too much snow in the way and it will have to wait. I may dig the hole to install the gate post though. This gate is smaller and is the home for Sammy the Volga…

Thus, one big post, dug deep, will suffice…

The image is from the fall time before snow…

The ground is still frozen and I have to take a heavy breaker bar of steel and crack the ground. Then once I get about a foot deep, I can use my post hole digger. Then it goes quick. Though this morning I feel the effects of digging four holes yesterday. The shock of hitting frozen ground with a steel bar is showing this morning. I can hardly clinch my fists…

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I woke at 5 a.m. with a 3.6 mmo/l; That is okay for me, for my body is adjusted to it now, but I still am struggling to get stabilized on sugar issues. I need more starch in my diet to help the peaks and valleys and Vova told me to come up today to get a bag of potatoes. That will help in small portions to spread the effects out over a day. Right now I either have extremes of all protein or too much sugar to stabilize properly…

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It is so beautiful out this morning. The sun is shining and the birds are singing. George my favorite bird was out on our apple trees this morning and singing to beat the band. He says he is looking for a girlfriend to build a home with. He also said that a bunch of little George’s would be a good idea, since he has found a good home spot…

I agree…

Oh and a cute Chickadee couple has taken to the lilacs bushes and it looks like they soon will build a nest…

Boza is watching and kinda does not know what to think, except birdbrains, that is what they are…

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-4 this morning, but the water birds are coming back, the bugs are coming out and Boza and I are working. Just as if it was much warmer. It is all a state of mind and if the spiders can get out and work, so can we…

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We are still snowed in and or I should say, still held by melting and freezing water and snow. The roads which are passable early in the morning, become terrible and scary mud baths. While getting to town is possible early, getting home as it warms up, becomes another world completely. The Fish Village is working on dams and roads and they have sufficiently created a pathetic mess out of the road system. The guy in the road grader and the guy on the bulldozer says, They look a okay to them! What ever…

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Have a nice day…

Time to get to work and or maybe not… 😉

WtR

I sat up in bed and felt like a brick wall had hit me last night. I over did it yesterday, but it is time to get things done. The weather was perfect and I spent the day, dragging logs, fixing the fence, walking for four hours total, rebuilt a sled I borrowed, writing a couple of posts, working on the internet store and dancing a jig… 🙂 Plus a few more things… The dancing jig part maybe stretching it a little bit…

Thus, today I have already walked Boza and he is sleeping again, while I write this article. The coffee is talking to me, as the steam wafts to my nose and the nutty smell of the odor is so enticing…

First thing I did when I sat up this morning is take a sugar reading and my blood pressure. Sugar was 4.9mmo/l (88mg/dl) and BP was 100 / 55… I consider that pretty good, but I seem to have a sinus infection and that made me grouchy. But how can you stay grouchy with vital readings like that. On the same line as vitals, Svetochka has found a oxymeter that goes on the finger tip, to tell me what my oxygen readings are. My last doctor in America was concerned about that situation and he was going to run a bunch of tests. I think he may have been on to something and I will start the process of elimination to determine if I have a low oxygen issue. There is medicine to help me if I do and I will be watching that closely. As soon as she gets back to our village home…

Oh for those who wonder about sugar stuff tidbits; for a diabetic, hypoglycemia worry point is 4 or below, hence the phrase “4 is the floor”…

For a diabetic, the first time that you actually get blood sugar under control, is sometimes a scary thing. Your body has no idea what correct levels are and it takes time to allow the body and your mind to gather and assimilate the data to understand what is happening. I have seen people go into hypoglycemia at 6mmo/l, just because they have never been near that low before or at least for so many years the body forgot what it is like…

One thing that I have found is that newer doctors seem to not be inducing hypoglycemia in a patient to allow the person to feel what it is about. My doctor did this while I was in his office and could control the situation. It is important that before you start taking medicine, you know what to expect. I watch people freak out at 6mmo/l to 7mmo/l because they have never had readings that low and some think they will die or something. The body does react strange at first and the mind definitely reacts strange…

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The day started out great and then Mother Nature decided that we did not deserve more sun and sent the sun away. Then she added insult to injury and start it to rain…

Oh well, you take what you can get…

WtR

Today with the sun shining all day; it is laundry day and serious laundry day on top of that…

Except for the sheets, everything has been washed if it is clothing and it took me three hours to get this all done. The machine helps do larger amounts. But everything is still squeezed out by hand and has to be rinsed. Everything wearable was washed, inside out and then outside in. It took me 10 trips to the well to get enough water for all this laundry. Because even things I have washed by hand had to be be done today. By hand is not the same…

Winter has been long and it looks like it will come back in about a week, but I am taking advantage of the situation and getting the stuff clean. I also was able to finally do some sweeping on the front walk and everything is looking good… 😉

Another couple of days like this and I should be able to get to the Big Village. Cross your fingers, for that will be a treat for Boza and I. To get all the items that I need to start working on the place and pick up more dog food. Boza has 12 boxes left and at 24 X 12 box = 288 / by 15 (1.5 kilos) a day = 19 to 20 days left. Holy Toledo Batman, Boza has eaten about 50 boxes of food so far, since I was able to last buy it…

Not sure what is next, but I have to get my hands unfrozen before I do anything. Ever typed with numb fingers. I am right now and just realized that I better thaw them, because trying to type is hilarious right now. What fingers?

WtR

Sunshine in a Russian wintry day is rare and when we have it, Boza and I enjoy it. It went to -5 last night, but the sun is out and is beautiful. It will be +6 today and lets hope the melt continues…

The gurgle of a creek, even if there really is no creek, is a wonderful sound. Our road near our home is babbling and talking. It really is wonderful and I can sit at the picnic table and listen, just like there is a real creek running by our home…

Life is good…

WtR

The world is not coming to an end, just an old friend, who is just slowing down. Wars and depressions come and go but here we are, still standing. Every person in America and or the world will still be doing all the other activities that constitute an economy, just at a much reduced level. This is good for us and has to be, to grow a stronger next generation. For weakness in society will destroy us, when our enemies do not…

Us old guys know too much now, we see that much of what we believed was lies and we see that the culture has grown jaded making it difficult to be optimistic. But life will go on. Children and grandchildren, great-grandchildren too, will all still be here, doing something for their lives, for their jobs, their education and for their happiness. That’s the most important thing for me now is to help the world understand despite the imperfection of their world, it is still great to live life in whatever circumstance we find ourselves…

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness is available even if it all falls apart and your iPhone’s battery dies…

Time to support some hardship and start it all over. Time to build a new foundation, for this foundation we are built on now has been eroded to the point of crumbling, with the weight of a few crushing the goodness from our country…

Time to be brave and time to ignore being scared…

WtR

Vova made pancakes today…

It is pancake week you know?

Well if you do not, read the link above…

Vova brought a huge platter of pancakes down and him and I gorged ourselves upon the tasty treats. These were what I call real pancakes and not the thin blini that are common in Russia. I knew guys knew how to make pancakes, it is just a natural thing to make huge, big, fat, delicious and mouth watering pancakes…

Oh and yes Boza got a pancake for himself. That was one happy doggy…

Another link for pancakes in Russia…

Maslenitsa, I Miss Real pancakes! (Blini)

Guess what? I got real pancakes today… 😉

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The sun came out for exactly 10 min…. I could see something other than drear and drabness and I found something growing in the back yard…

It was so beautiful and alive, a plant that is alive and green…

Vova said that he will be down as soon as the ground is thawed and he will bring his rototiller to till up the garden. This year, we will have a big garden and after digging out under the house this summer, we will have lots of good safe storage space for roots. A root cellar is what I have in mind…

I just added this small post to complete the day and while I have gotten very little done, because of the wetness, it has been a good day nonetheless…

Tomorrow is suppose to be sunny all day and I will take pictures if it is. The world is still full of snow, but it is slowly coming to life around here. I can not wait for spring to get going…

Have a nice day…

WtR

I took my cup of coffee and sat overlooking the lake this morning. I got up at 5:30 a.m. and felt good! Therefore, to celebrate, I watched nature and her bringing spring to us. Boza chased a fox, while I sat quietly and listened. After Boza calmed down and came back to his guard duty next to me; we started to notice things…

One an upset fox on the other side of the lake was whining, a huge tree behind us, was ram packed full of sparrows another tree farther over had as many chickadees and the ravens were gathered and talking about something in a very urgent tone…

Then…. The world got quiet…

From high up came a shrill and then one more from a little farther over. I saw the ravens almost lay flat on the ground and out of the clouds came the demon of last summer. The devil herself is back…

Mamma Eagle and Papa Eagle have come back last night and they are expressing their control over their domain this morning. The two huge trees full of tiny birds were still as church mice and the ravens became lumps of dirt and hoped that they were convincing. Down flew mamma and she swooped over the ravens, obviously they failed in hiding and shrilled at them. They were smart and stayed silent and still. The little birds all watched and I could swear that I could see thousands of eyes as big as silver dollars, watching the eagles from the big trees. Then I heard a yelp and the fox decided that he had better places to be, than attract attention from the eagles…

Boza and I sat and watched as the eagles swooped and soared above the lake at this point and they were playing rolls and dives as if it was a game. The ravens started to make small noises among themselves and I imagined that it was a pow wow to discuss this new arrangement in the Tiny Russian Village…

Boza barked then at Mamma Eagle and she swooped over us. I shook my stick at her and I swear she realized who we were. No shrill just climbing into the clouds. Ignoring the ruffians of the village (That is us!) Then in a minute, she did something I have never seen before and she landed on the top of the bell tower…

After a minute or so, with Papa Eagle circling above. She literally screamed a shrilling but beautiful, but without a doubt a warning to all. It echoed off the woods nearby and you could have heard a pin drop at that point…

Boza looked at me as if to say, “What about that noisy thing?”

I said out loud to him, “We leave her alone and she leaves us alone!”

With that Boza went down the hill to smell where the fox had been hiding…

As mamma eagle left the tower and her and papa flew in ever increasing circles and disappeared out of sight and mind, I watched twelve ravens detach themselves from the ground, from which they had become a very solid part of it and the communication became earnest and urgent again…

The trees full of little birds exploded with beautiful music again and the ravens made beelines to the forest where they have their nests. I am sure that there will many discussions today about the best way to handle the situation…

For the Queen has come back home after vacationing in the south and her servants must now get back in their pecking order to have peace in the valley, the hills and forests; where the Tiny Russian Village is located…

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The fact Mamma Eagle is back, is the sign that spring is definable here and I looked around this morning and saw little green shoots of grass trying to make their way through the dead weeds and stuff. Yes spring is trying to spring and hopefully Mamma eagle brought it with her when she came home…

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Politics could not ruin this morning if they even tried harder and all I will say is this, “Hillary will be the next president of the USA!” That matters not what you think and who you think should be president, she is on her way and they will do their best to cheat, lie and kill to get her to that spot. Are you able to stop her? Or do you like her? Or do you even care?

Kings and Queens must keep their kingdoms in order and you do what you must to keep it that way or if you get in the way. Trump and other GOP are just smoke to spread the fire thin…

Have fun, for more will die before then…

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I wired the outside lights to a breaker box yesterday. I now have 80% of the yard with lights on it and this will allow me to get much more work done. I felt terrible yesterday from fighting with my blood sugar issues, but I forced myself to concentrate and get a major job finished. I am glad I did and today, I feel good after looking over what I did yesterday. It works and works good. Now just one more outside light to buy and we will have the ability to work around the house all night if need be…

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For breakfast, I fried the last of the ground meat I bought the other day and fried two eggs in the grease left over. A touch of salt and I had a wonderful breakfast. It is the little things in life that make all a-okay. I just miss the bread… 🙁 but feel better without it… 🙂

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Little things are the real soul of life and we have forgotten that as we clamber for bigger and better things everyday of our life…

I went and got water and did not have to break the surface of the well to get water. That is a blessing…

Mamma Eagle is back and that is a blessing…

I feel good, Boza is happy and strong and Svetochka is happy. that is a blessing…

The sun is trying to come out from behind the clouds and…

That is and all above, are blessings. In a world that we should be thankful for what we have and are allowed to have by nature daily…

WtR

I woke at 3:30 a.m. and I was not sure what was wrong. I grabbed the sugar monitor and took a reading. My blood sugar was at Mild Hypoglycemia! (3.0 mmol/l or 54 mg/dl for Americans… Kinda too low…)

I woke with a headache and shaking. I was having a wild dream and was startled awake. Then after a minute, I realized something was wrong. I keep several candies next to the bed for such a reason. I have been diabetic for many years and it has been a serious battle at times. but, I have now lost so much weight that I have to start adjusting my medicine…

I know people will say that you have to go to a doctor and only a doctor understands and has the knowledge to take care of things like this. I wish that was true and I would be happy to trust doctors all the time, but I have dealt with this issue so long, that a doctor just shoots into the dark trying to help…

Best advice I ever heard is; “Check your blood sugar and check it often!” by Wilford Brimley; he is correct, even if it was for an insurance company. Liberty Mutual? I think…

I had one good doctor in America that diagnosed my diabetes and he cared so much that he even came to my place of work several times to check on me. I scared him at the doctors office the day that we did the test for it. I drank the super glucose stuff and literally passed out. Readings off the scale and they panicked as I set in the waiting room. He was good and spent the time to teach me what I needed to know. Sadly he died soon after, but I have been thankful for all the time he spent off the clock to be a friend to help me. Not many doctors like that anymore…

Since that time, I found doctors in America lacking and never caring too much about my condition. It seems that so many people are diabetic in America, that the doctors are becoming blind to the overabundance of cases. That is just my hindsight with America. You may be happy as a pig in a mud waller, but I was a grouchy pig in that mud waller…

Russian doctors are very caring, but simply only less knowledgeable as American doctors in modern diabetes and since there are many less diabetics in Russia than in America, the doctors here have very old fashion Soviet ways to deal with it. Well I found that I had to deal with it and keep abreast of it. I read constantly and discover any new issues with the condition…

Therefore, now I use a combination of what I was told in America, in Russia and what I find on the internet. It works 95% of the time, but lately since I have really lost weight, my struggle has been to adjust at the proper pace. It is a good thing and I suspect that soon I will be able to be on minimum dosages of medicine…

Just makes it hard until I find that new plateau and go from there…

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Boza has gotten an eye infection and I am having to do what I did last year for him. I use old black tea and wash his eye out. This is what is recommended and it works. Boza gets rambunctious and tries to dig up the world as he smells little animals burrowing in the ground. Then he gets dirt, seeds and grasses in his eyes and we go around and around. He will not listen to me to stop digging and I just save a cup of tea everyday to wash his eyes out if need be… ;

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Images above are just a few that I took with the cellphone. I use the phone because it is waterproof and as you see it is very wet and rainy. So we get what we get, until I could possibly find something like a special waterproof camera. Just too expensive and my phone does the job…

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Coffee this morning is really good. Nescafe is the best coffee there is. There are many that come close, but Nescafe has a slight nutty taste and is mild. That just seems to be the best for my taste buds…

I feel bad that I am not with Svetochka, it is International Women’s day tomorrow and here I am in the village and she is in Moscow. She said last night she was bored and I think she maybe wishes she was here in the village. For the village is never boring and never dull…

Do not forget the holiday tomorrow, it is just not Mother’s Day, it is Women’s Day…

Big difference and since it includes all women, you have a much higher chance of getting in trouble. The odds are you mom is already knows you forget holidays, but a less forgiving woman is more the norm. they are not your mom and get them a rose or two…

Yes this was a four day holiday for Russia. Very important!

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Have a nice day, Boza and I will go walk and see what the world is up to. It looks terrible out, but the snow is melting and that is a good thing…

WtR

Long morning and Vova once again keeps things interesting. Vova went to Majara to chase a woman he knows there. He knew better and he admits it this morning. But we guys are kinda stupid at times and his stupidity (or little brain as we call it,) got him buried deep in the snow…

I pulled the battery from the Volga of ours and we got the big 4×4 going at Vova’s. The 4×4 I wished I owned and off we went to pull out a LADA Niva that found itself over its head in snow. The big 4×4 is an animal and I am still yet to understand why anyone would want a small Niva, when you have a big boy waiting patiently to do the job? I have talked about this truck in the past…

Yup…

Then he got it (LADA Niva) stuck again and he had to get someone with a huge tractor to get it out, for this time he slid into a ten foot drift of snow… 🙂

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This is the original start of the article:

This morning I was walking Boza and thinking about what I said to Sveta yesterday. It was a thought that was building in me for awhile now and yesterday, it blossomed inside of my brain…

I can walk!

Okay to be fair, I have always walked or better yet, limped and limped slightly (varying on the day) for at least thirty plus years. I had serious injuries at an earlier time in my life, between massive football injuries and a few more war time injuries on top of that and I spent my life in more pain than anyone should endure. Every step was like stepping on a knife blade and or someone driving nails into my legs in various spots…

It was life and that was the way it was. I refused pain killers and decided that pain is to be lived with and walking is over rated anyway. so I spent the brunt of my life slightly limping and wishing to cut off my legs at times. I slept in pain, I walked in pain and I dreamed of constant pain. It is hard to imaging life without that pain, at least at one time it was…

Not walking made me gain weight and that just aggravated the situation. The more weight I gained, the less I did, the more I hurt the more I ate and so on and so on. Heart attacks, prescriptions and other tidbits lined up to make things worse and never better. Many times a vicious circle that seems to be unbreakable…

Then I lived and live now in the Tiny Russian Village. A place with sandy forgiving soil, a monastery of ancient times, fresh clean air, pure drinking water and no chemicals added to anything. I started to heal…

I was walking yesterday and after about a three hour walk, I realized that I was walking straight, steady and no limp. No Limp! That meant no pain, no weakness and no all night pain. I use to sit up half the nights and rub my legs just to get relief. No more…

I can walk again…. And I definitely thank God for that, then I thank Sveta for allowing me into her life and once again, I thank God for that also. Svetochka is the heaven in my life and the Tiny Russian Village is my assuage of life…

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I am worried about something:

Technology and war equipment is advancing much faster than our brains can comprehend. This is a sign of what I have talked about in the past; computers are creating what we are not able to create and thus, we are developing things that will soon control us and not us them…

I am watching Russia, US and China develop weapons that could only be described as SciFi and we push buttons on these devices and find that they kill very very well. We can everyday get farther from the battlefield and kill more people without meeting those people head to head or eye to eye. The human aspect is being taken out of this situation and war will soon be something akin to a God raining death from above, below and from within and he is not a benevolent God…

War is inhumane enough when you have to look in the eyes of who you kill, but when they are a little dot on a computer screen and you have the button to kill, it becomes easy to kill. Except, no one but the owners of these devices has “God Mode” as many computer game cheats have…

Can anyone say, “Skynet!” For one day we will allow the computers to do it all. For we are just human and humans as we all know, are lazy…

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This Flint lead pipe issue is amazing. We spent many years ago tearing pipes out of buildings and redoing water systems all over America. We and I can honestly say, I was in on some major work in Missouri and we had people breathing down our necks to get all the lead pipes out and do it right. It was terrible work and we had no choice but to take care of the issue. Peoples lives and health were at risk…

Do we live in a world of ignorance and why do we have such variances in degrees of completion and why do we allow laws to change, such as in 2001 the government changed how tap water was to be treated and we knew then that we caused a lead issue. So why was the lead pipes left to rot in so many places?

It also makes me think of the asbestos issue and it seems that we will never learn and always allow the god dollar ($) to rule…

This link is amazing to me. I am someone who saw the issue first hand many years ago and now we act like it will all be okay! In a year or so, >>> Health be damned… <<< Anyone questioning why these pipes are still all in the ground and being used? Instead of fixing many years after the fact, it was suppose to be fixed…

WtR

Busy today so drink some coffee; I did…

Have a nice day and I will post tomorrow or maybe this afternoon. Counts on what is going on in life, today is Big Village day, Vova and I are going on a grocery run. Kinda out of food…

WtR