When I lived in Williamsburg, I spent a lot of time on Jamestown Island. I cheated a bit - the island has a loop road which doesn't require a entrance ticket but the Jamestown Settlement grounds do. But if one parks along the loop road and hoofs it, it's possible to come in through a back way.

Bad DT, bad! (Nah, I have a lifetime park pass anyway - just don't like dealing with the front office)

So here I am, wandering around the grounds and I got inspired to take this photo of the crowd more than the exhibits (though I have those photos as well).

That's the James River in the background and Scotland Landing across the river. A ferry runs across here; free last time I was there ... (gee, almost 10 years ago. Didn't realize it had been that long ...)

When you get down to it, there's not really much to see here beyond some signs telling one what once was here; some reconstructions, a bit of facade of a 1609 church, some crumbled bricks of old foundations. A building over-standing an old 1600s glassworks pit with an operating glassworks nearby.

A ruin of a home that burned in 1895 and was never rebuilt. Some old graves, a statue of Pocahontas - probably the model was better looking than the person.

I spent a lot of time wandering through places in the woods I probably wasn't supposed to be.

There's a lot of history packed into this region.
I don't want to live there again but I wouldn't mind visiting - many places to re-visit; to see what I missed the first time 'round.

Without presenting anything pro or con, I notice this morning the announcement:

"Psychedelic Stocks Soar After Trump Order ... accelerates psychedelics as the key next wave of mental health treatments."

They used to be at least semi-legal up to about the 1960s. Valium was an over-the counter drug until the 70s, so was effective cough syrup. Methamphetamine was once common and legal ... until the '70s. Then the "it's bad for you" crowd got control.

I'm not going to get into the rights and wrongs - but what I wanted to note is my suspicion that the main reason psychedelics and pain-killers are so tightly controlled is because people enjoyed them, especially during the Vietnam era as a means to "fight them hippies". Then the bureaucracy got involved and started making any such illegal and/or heavily controlled.

(Bureaucracy with power - no matter the form of government - the root cause of many of the problems we enjoy today)

It's the enjoyment that's regulated, not the addiction. That goes back to the Puritans ...

As the less-government type I am, I figure all that stuff should be legal - with immediate consequences for stupidity while under the influence.

Time to take the flocks up to summer grazing and the highway is the best path. The state Rangeland Resources Commission helps coordinate the move which will be repeated in the fall when the flocks return to winter grazing. It's just a short distance up and across the highway anyway.

I post this because just last night I was talking with an acquaintance from California and his Santa Fe girlfriend and they were disdaining "cow and sheep" country ... yet they want to move here. So I sent them this news article.

Yes, I consider the guy a business friend - but stay where you are. At least keep your "I'm from Santa Fe" girlfriend away.

Eagle used to be a remote small town on an island far away from Boise city. It's now a special (expensive) "place" within the metro area. But it also has the Old State Saloon that celebrates "Heterosexual Awesomeness Month" in June to the discomfort of those preferring "Gay Pride Month" so the Boise blue hasn't fully infested the area.

Of course, any such happening has to turn into an "event" - I imagine sometime in the near future they will sell tickets in a park celebrating "our agricultural past" ... while outlawing the actual movement of livestock. Someone will sue for blocking the highway.

But still ... for now, we remain sheep and cow country once out of the metro area.

The people entrance to an old grain mill in Michigan. When I was but a lad, I was fascinated by these places - many still in operation; most if not all, in their last days. The older mills of 1890s vintage might still have had the original belt driven machinery; the sounds and smell of the operating equipment drew me in and held my attention long enough to get chased out of the workmen's way ... though often just to a safer place to watch.

If I was really lucky, a freight train would come by to load or unload whatever it was the mill needed or shipped: usually sacks of ground grain going out, machinery and hardware coming in - the mills in small towns often did double duty as the local hardware store.

Leonard was never large; its population was usually in the mid-200s, occasionally reaching 300.

So on one of my journeys home - that itself long, long ago, I re-visited this old mill. No longer in business, waiting its fate. The trim is new, the door is old. The photo was film.

Due to the miracle of Google Street view, I took an internet journey back to Leonard to see what I could see.

The part of the mill where this door once was no longer exists - the door opened onto what is now near the sidewalk; one would park a vehicle in what is now grass. The outline of the former wall still marks the location. The paint is worn, the windows and doors sealed off with hopes of preventing scavengers and vandals from entering, the road is paved, there's now a sidewalk and curbs, and what was once a worn-out, over-grown tertiary rail line is now a manicured and paved walking path, and there is no sign of the siding where boxcars and flats once were parked for loading and unloading.

Better days gone forever..

Well - after about 4 days of heavy rain, a day of sunshine. It rained so much, so hard,. so fast that I-84 had to be closed down due to flood waters.

We don't get rain like this ... usually.

Not as heavy as hurricanes in Virginia but still.

There is more snow on the peaks I can see out my back door that we saw all winter .

The grass is growing so fast that by the time it dries out enough to cut, I'll need to weed-whack it first or the mower will plug up.

Mrs DT finds gardening peaceful; she'll sit out until dark pulling weeds as meditation.

She ought to be quite mellow here pretty soon.

I'm quite the opposite.

And that's how my day's going. With no complaints.

The grass won't dry out soon; more rain predicted for tonight and tomorrow. And maybe Thursday.
I guess I have plans for the weekend.

Update: This evening's short-term weather forecast just came out on the news. Winter at last!