Leaving the forest – remove debris extinguish fire!
Thistle, I like it…
Cool and almost home…
Lets walk the main road today. Boza is game, are you?
It is about a three hour walk and I took 175 images while Boza and I walked. Boza is worn out and while he is sleeping and dreaming, I am posting this article. Not much to say…
Have a nice day and take a three hour walk yourself. It will do you some good… 🙂
I love these vectors that Raker Tooth makes. He has two of them now and today I will post another close up of a window from a favourite village home of mine. These windows are starting to fall apart and I think that it is important to preserve the look at least…
The vectors do that sufficiently and in fact, beautifully…
If I understand Raker Tooth correctly, he desires to come to Russia and live? I am not sure if he has ever been to Russia before?
There is a mystique about Russia that grabs hold of some people and does not ever let go. That is the beauty of Russia and if you have a soul, Russia will talk to your soul and never let go…
Another Russian Window…
I truly feel that Russia scares people with her ability to grab you and fill you with life and many if not most outsiders, fear that connection and they repel against their feelings. Feelings that are unknown from whence they come and to find they have a soul that responds to Russia, causes apprehension and jitters…
Some, but not many, feel the pull on their soul and many of those do not understand what is happening. When that pull gets strong enough, it is time to go, go to where your heart and soul pulls you…
Sometimes, I feel a pull from China and I want to visit China to see what it is about that great country that pulls at my soul…
I received a comment by e-mail and after thinking about what it said, I decided to post said e-mail. No name, but the person who sent it will know who they are…
Beloved friends;
After reading comments this morning regarding Obama,Iran,voting etc. I mentally folded up my keyboard in disgust. Our country is almost completely subverted – the new generation taking over the helm now is ignorant, rude, crude, immoral and repugnant,., who in their right mind would want to come home to this?
Now is the time to look after one’s own sheep and build better fences. Stop banging your head against the growing wall of indifference, jingoistic pride in the obnoxious, and blind conformity. (Chief Joseph summed it up well enough). You keep on being you and enjoy your home, your friends, your family…see the sunrise over the beautiful fields of your adopted home, hear the breezes blow through the rushes at the lake, watch the birdies flying south or wherever and breathe fresh clean air for me. Please say a prayer at the monastery for me too.
Today I have a lot of housework to catch up on, need to get a new passport photo as I have to get an updated one with all the new bells and whistles. (I want to go and visit my #2 son in Taiwan before I can no longer travel secondary to increasing frailty.). Also want to visit China and investigate Harbin and environs. My mind wants to hike in the mountains but the right knee says NO!
Give Sveta a hug for me next time she comes up to see you.
Love,
They are correct and this summer I have made huge strides in sending myself toward not banging my head on a wall of stupidity. Besides, it has been summed up perfectly for me, by a local member of the community…
George; the bird brain from our yard, followed Boza and I this morning and as we sat upon the hill, overlooking the lake and the valley. George, who is a nightingale by the way, sang the most beautiful song I ever heard in my life…
I do not know where he learned it from, but I do know that if we all sang from our heart like George did, we would have a better world than we do now…
When George was done, the sun was peaking over the horizon and he flew away back to his home at our yard, having said his piece, he did a good job of getting his point across…
Boza, George and I thank you for the e-mail… (and George, I thank you to!)
Nikolai hugged me and said goodbye, Larissa; who at the beginning was wary of me, has changed and become a friend of mine also. Larissa even shed a tear for leaving, I know that she finally realized that Nikolai and I were friends and enjoyed life together, when we went to town…
They made me, have a tear in the corner of my eye and hugging Nikolai, brought back hugging my dad. We should respect our elders, whether they are our family or not…
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The avto magazine did not come up our hill yesterday and the signals the end of the summer for villagers who are just part time. For it is very hard to get food otherwise. Seems that summer was only a few weeks long… 🙁
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Hardwoods are changing…
Love this…
I can see the neighbors!
This morning…
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As the Village Turns!
Vova in his own soap opera called “As the Village Turns!” Is having a terrible time with decisions, it seems, at least with his own mind, that he has five women who are chasing him and they all want him to live with them this winter. According to Vova, they are all wealthy, healthy and wise, but he just can not decide the best way to go…
One woman loves eating fish and he takes her fish, one woman loves eating rabbit and he takes her rabbit to eat, one woman loves to eat duck and he takes duck he has shot to her, one woman loves to eat chicken and he takes chicken to her then the last woman loves his homemade honey vodka…
Now Vova says all these women are great, but he is the most excited about one certain woman and it centers around the fact that she has huge (say huge four times) Baps (he uses the word baps and he means boobs, it is a British slang word for breasts!) I guess he is the most excited about the baps on one woman in particular and he is leaning that direction. Baps according to him are very important and you can snuggle up to baps and sleep like a baby… 😉
So Vova as the center star of, “As the Village Turns,” will make a decision before long as to what dream girl he will spend the winter with…
My money is on the huge (say huge four times) baps girl… 🙂 (She is also the richest of the five!)
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I got the chainsaw ready yesterday and today I will finish cutting off all the plum and cherry tree stubs. Then I will cut up firewood length sections of some other old logs that are more rot than good. These will all be added to the stacked firewood for the winter. The neighbors are cleaning their yard and it is looking good. I am glad to see them take some care for the place and now it looks, as people say, “Someone lives here!”
The outside comment system I was using got attacked and crashed three days in a row. The company will not allow me to use them anymore, for they received some interesting threats, from the good ole USA government, in the form of DDoS attacks and some legal issues being raised to stymie them from allowing such nasty sites as Windows to Russia…
I do not really care, but it was nice to have a breather from such crud, now I have to look at the mess face first again. You should really wonder about why they attack Windows to Russia so bad. I know why! Do you…
Truth is always attacked, by the liars…
Now I will look for another system or way to have comments under control…
PS: I am going to use the most basic Google+ comment system, I also hope they attack Facebook like they do every time. It is basic and URL based only and public to the whole world. All comments are URL wide on the URL windowstorussia.com this way I can have a data base of all comments that people spread hate with and I will lay money that comment trash will stop with this application. In fact, it already has and we will see what happens at this point. The comments can be flagged by me and reported for hate and such… That is what is needed…
I have been an early bird most of my life. I found that I am able to accomplish more in 3 to 4 hours in the morning than most people do all day. But I accomplish the same as those people all day, if I get up too late. I also find that sleeping beyond 6 hours for me, causes me to be torpid all day and then nothing gets done properly at that point…
I worked in corporate food service and was on call 24 hours a day, literally all the days in a year. I ran maybe 4 hours of sleep a day, most of my work career and after years of that pace, plus no sleep for several military excursions of long duration. I finally had to stop after the heart attacks that I brought on myself…
Thus, this morning, I rebuilt 20 meters of fence line, blending the old with the new and got done by 9 a.m. This is the best method for me to get it done. Now I can relax and even take a nap if my system needs it, I can also work at a snails pace the rest of the day and still feel like I accomplished my goals. That is the biggest thing to deal with, your own personal goals and drives. That is the key to no more heart attacks for me. I reach a point of self satisfaction in what I have produced that day for output and spend the rest of the day interrelating with life at a proper pace, especially when the rest of the world is up and about…
It is what works for me. Therefore, I do it and it has stabilized me health wise. I use to run for everyone else and never for myself. It is amazing how your health improves, when you pace yourself…
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The website “Windows to Russia” was attacked again last night. I woke with thousands of injected comments into the old comment section. They were all from my “friends” in Washington D.C. and for the first time in a awhile (two months,) I was threatened with death for Sveta and I…
This is really sad and makes me wonder at the mentality of America anymore. No one will care that I receive death threats and no one will do anything about it. That means you, who are reading this right now, if you are from America. You will just ignore what I am saying. For to acknowledge it, means you have to think about it and to think about it, means you will feel something about it. Thus, ignorance is the way of life for many people and ones who really care, get attacked…
People like to toss Stalinism’s around, but I think instead of worrying about Stalin and the past that we can not change or do anything about, we need to worry about the rise of a new Stalinist sector of life in our backyard. No not Russia, But America…
Want the truth?
I believe that if I tried to cross the border of America, I would be detained and never see Sveta, Boza and all my Russian friends again. My threats to me come from D.C. and other .gov complexes across America itself and not trolls and wannabees…
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Boza and I are going to walk and I have totally understood what Snowden has had to deal with. I may not be famous, but I would be put away and I know this, for our government has lost control of itself and there are many wannabee Hitlers and Napoleons all over the country…
It is raining and then it rains some more. Then after it stops, it decides to rain some more and then after some more, it rains again, just to make sure you are wet… 😉
But work does not stop, just slows down and today I am going to repair some fence. I have a section that is almost ready to fall down and the rain is aggravating it even more. I was looking at it yesterday and did not realize that someone was watching me. My neighbor Nikolai was watching me poke and shake the fence and he decided to bring over five very long thin poles and a bucket of nails. He then motioned how to do the job and said, “Zavtra!” Which means tomorrow…
My first pile of wood is done and covered to protect it. I can honestly say it is dryer than I am right now…
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So this morning since I got up late, from a terrible night of storms, that kept me up for hours, I am going to get moving and get some work done. I have a fence to rebuild and then I have to move more firewood into the new stack I am building. Then over the next few weeks, I will get a third stack of firewood done, after I cut up all the scrap useless wood around the home…
Image to the right is the start of the new firewood stack. To the right of that stack is our raspberry garden, Yummy for my tummy this last summer…
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I have been reading all the Resident Evil books as it rains and even found the movie versions of the books. I have read them before, but just love Zombie stories and movies. These are some true classic Zombie works and they just fit the bill for the weather lately…
4:30 a.m. and the sun is showing her colors as Boza and I walk. I am not the only early bird of the village. The lady in the white home is up and wheeling her cart around gathering goodies from all over the woods. Vova is a night owl and he sleeps until noon half the time. He just does not understand that at 7 p.m. I am inside and going to bed by 9 p.m., for that is prime party time in his eyes…
It looks like rain and the old adage, “Red sky at night sailors delight, red sky in morn sailors take warn!”
The next door neighbors have come for a few days, he is working on repair of the old goat barn. Their mom is living in St. Petersburg permanently now after her stroke a few years ago. The family comes to the old home to have vacations and such. I am glad to see that they continue to take care of the place. It still has the old two chimney connected fireplaces, with sleeping hearth. I wish ours had the original heat system…
I have acclimated to the weather change, humans seems to have forgotten that they will adjust naturally to weather conditions. wild variances are hard on us, such as 40 plus and 30 minus. These get past our ability to adjust quickly to. Though I know that in Siberia, people think -20 is a summer day and I shiver in my boots…
Thus, now 10 above has become warm… (numbers are all in Celsius)
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Sveta sent me this image the other night, as she rode her bike. This is really Moscow, within a few kilometers of where she is riding her bike, is easily several hundred thousand people living. This is a side road (yes you can find dirt roads in Moscow 🙂 ) and mainly a bike trail, but as I have discovered, in Moscow the animals are still kept for food production and people put gardens in everywhere…
Sveta said she counted twenty goats in all and I could tell they tickled her fancy, for she sent me several pictures. Goats in Moscow! One of the largest cities in the whole wide world…
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It is raining and I hear the water running into the big blue barrel, I will need to check and if it is full enough, slide the drain pipe back in place. I keep the water from pooling around the village home, for it makes it hard to use the crawlspace under the home for storage, if it is wet all the time…
I need to get about five more lengths of this u-shaped guttering and make a system for the side of the home also. Just like I need to get another blue barrel, but the store will not have anymore for a week or so. I buy the cheap used blue barrels, left over from having mineral oil in them, the new ones are expensive and the used ones are just as good… (besides, the last one I got had almost a half liter of high quality oil in it, great for lubricating hinges and stuff)
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I call this, “Kinda looks like someone (God) is getting angry!”
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Have a nice day, I am going to read a good book and listen to the rain pitter patter in the tree leaves…
I looked around yesterday and realized that the fields have gone brown. I looked at images I have taken and it seems that in the last week, the grasses have gone brown. The lush fields of green are gone, the flowers are gone and the trees are dropping their leaves…
I have said many times on this website, “There is basically two seasons in Russia! Winter and not winter…” It is all the same with minor variations…
The seasons or lack of seasons in Russia, is a good reason Russians like to travel to Egypt, Tunisia and Turkey. Besides great deals for tourism, Russians get to experience real weather changes. Not just dreary and cold…
The lakes here this summer, never got hot enough to swim in. That should tell you something…
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A white-headed eagle? Not completely white, but this might be a young Bald Eagle? Not sure, but it is huge. Not quite as big as Mamma Brown Eagle, but almost. Russia has Bald Eagles…
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It is going to rain for about three days and I picked up Boza’s food today, plus extra supplies for him and I to eat happily if we get rained in for several days. I grabbed a few sticks of hard dried salted meat (don’t ask what kind of meat, I don’t) and we like to chew on that to act like we are tough and rough… (It has the consistency of the rat meat I ate in Cambodia many years ago! Pretty good…)
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I received a letter by e-mail from a friend in America; it talked about how he became fired from a job he had for 24 years. The company refuses to use full-time people anymore and will run the business with part-time and temp help. He has looked for a job and everything is part-time no benefits. He has found a new job and he has to go to the far east of the world to take this job. He is lucky he speaks several languages, but that does not help in America. He is upset up by the fact that he has kids and a wife and to support them he has to either work part-time job (several of them actually,) no benefits, or get the world on a platter and have fantastic benefits with pay in a far eastern country. But, his family by this action, will be separated…
He is just one of many I know and people are moving overseas to get the pay and benefits they use to get…
I wish him luck…
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The kids are back in school in Russia and the Big Village had cars and people everywhere. I enjoyed myself and found something special for Vova. Vova, if you follow the website, plays spoons to his music and he is really good. Well to make a long story short, Vova left his spoons out on a table near the edge of his yard and when he went back to get them the next day, someone had stolen them. Most likely some of the kids that ride bikes and motorcycles up the hill all the time, took them to play with…
I searched the town over and finally found a little store, behind the main street and it had all sizes of these spoons. I found the best I could and brought them home to try to replace Vova’s spoons he lost…
This image right is exactly like the spoons I bought and I sneaked them up to his house, let Boza keep Miya (his huge dog) happy and quiet and left them where he will find them. I hope they work as good as his last ones. I loved it when he played the spoons with his favorite songs…
Vova playing the spoons and getting wild…
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The power went down while I was doing this post and so it got delayed a bunch of hours. The electric power has done great, but the Fish Village came up to the monastery with a huge backhoe and Mister Monk was there waving his staff of importance. He decided to clear some Monk paths near the transformers and the backhoe acting as a substitute staff of importance, hit our new power line! Zip, Zoom, Sing Sang, Sizzle and Oops; “We are sorry, we snapped the new line.”
They fixed it very fast and all is good… 🙂
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Just put on my work clothes and going to move the rest of the wood today. Got to get it stacked and covered, before a big rain hits. That way it stays dry for burning…
Yesterday, I scoped out a huge fallen tree trunk to use for two big stumps. One to sit on and one to work on. I need this badly and have found the stumps to do the job. I just have to cut them and then get them home. It is about a kilometer away and Sammy the Volga will have to go off-road a few hundred meters. I know it looks like all our roads are off-road, but when I mean off-road, I mean off any path, that any goat uses, anywhere and that includes cows… 🙂
I just hope my chainsaw is big enough to cut them? As I scratch my head thinking!
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Yes, now that is nice and warm. It is wet, cold, windy and dark today. Let a fire warm the spirits and the soul…
Tuesday is the day I definitely go to the market. Nikolai’s and Larissa’s ride did not show up and will not show up for a few more days, thus him and his wife needed to get more food. He went with me and stocked the cupboards again with potatoes, apples, tomatoes and other goodies. He was really thankful, because there just is no other way to get food for them…
Nikolai loves to go to town with me and I like having him along. It is what makes the world go around. How many Russians can say that they had an American chauffeur them around all summer? 🙂 That is what I thought!
They gave me a pig pan full of little delicious plums and told me after they are gone to get all I can eat. Their trees are full of plums and Nikolai explains that eat these plums and everything inside of you comes out the other end, the way it is supposed to… 😉
Good advice, because that could be an issue if it does not come out the way it is supposed to…
Nikolai and Vova sat at our table in our front yard and discussed about the past presidents of Russia. The best I followed is this; Putin (OK,) Medvedev (we do not mention,) Yeltsin (worst kind of drunk,) Gorbachev (American patsy sellout of the country,) Chernenko (Who?,) Andropov (OK sometimes,) Brezhnev (could have been worse,) Khrushchev (they liked,) and they ended with Bulganin and Malenkov (Who?,) and Nikolai talked about Stalin…
Nikolai is 86 years old by the way. That means he was born in 1929 and lived through the Stalin era and said it was OK! Never a problem for him, Vova was a kid during that era and life was good for him. It was good for me too… 🙂
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Now this is what I call a beautiful river, I need a canoe, for this river is perfect for a lazy paddling trip. I think that Sveta would have a blast canoeing this river with me. It is slow enough we could paddle upstream and float lazily back…