Ah. Had a touch of Spring last week, but March has not quite had its last “roar” before we depart the winter and welcome official Spring this Saturday. It is gray on this late (official) Winter day in Virginia’s Piedmont. We honor President Biden’s aggressive Rescue Tour of the Battleground States with 3-minute stops by […]

(LT Mac Showers at War’s end). I am supposed to give a pitch on some history related to the great gray ship now permanently moored in the harbor at San Diego. For all of us who have gone down to the sea in ships, she is a special reminder. Her status is protected, for a […]

The Ides of March: When the Madness Blooms Like you, Refuge Farm is dealing with the Spring Ahead as best it can. There was a vigorous discussion of the moment of discontinuity, the one where a cursory look at the baleful blue light of the clock announced one thing, while the tiny solid black letters […]

Sorry to bother you with this, but it is illustrative of the life of a geezer in the country. It is something that has been troubling for several years and for a variety of reasons. Refuge Farm is a project of love in a lovely place. You have heard about it in endless paeons of […]

I know, I am as startled as you about all the amazing things going on around us. I got a suggestion that the continued use of the term “Swamp Postcard” didn’t actually convey what is going on within and emanating from our Nation’s Capital. I had to agree. It has been a year of curious […]

So, in the course of an accidental career, I was briefly attached to the staff of the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. It was an odd thing for a career intelligence guy, and quite interesting. Secretary Thompson was interested in what the well-manicured briefer from the three-letter-agency had to tell him […]

(Former HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson). We have shared an interesting year, haven’t we? There is more to it than what we are told, of course, and there are several large moving components to the madness. One of the latest new wrinkles is an old one, and brings back memories. You might be interested in a […]

The dawn was brilliant, the only way to describe it. Our intense blue sky was populated with puffy white wisps of the alternative. They tell us the brisk chill air is from that renegade jet steam which will be with us for a week, a cousin to the one that paralyzed us last month. But […]

The Staff Meeting at Socotra House Publications was mostly peaceful this morning. It was a matter of great relief and a demonstration of solidarity among virtually all the editorial personnel. We recognize and applaud the signs displayed by some members of the formerly indigent members of the newly expanded Compliance Department. Given social fluidity, we […]

Dark and drear in the Piedmont this morning- not as cold as during the big storm last week, but the skies are gray and a chill rain is pouring. My joints are all complaining, knees throbbing, shoulders aching. Spring is coming, though. The Lady in Red on the flatscreen assures us that the warmth is […]