The New American Digest

It was one of those days where my mind took me off in a different direction. I had this desire for a PB&J sandwich.
OK – nothing unusual about that.
Except I had this urge for blackberry jam.
Fresh blackberry jam. Real fresh blackberry jam.
Maybe it had something to do with it being blackberry season.
Nope – not going to the grocery store.
Nope – not going to a blackberry farm.
I’m going to get me some fresh wild uncaged, free-range blackberries.
So … anybody that knows the Virginia Tidewater country … I lived in Williamsburg and decided to pick blackberries at Battery Winslow* on the Eastern Shore.

So off I go.

Not sure what the ratio of eat-on-site and take home is/was … something more than 1:1 … but eventually I had enough blackberries in a pail to take back with me.

Well – more than enough as it turned out; I didn’t bother looking at a recipe until I was ready to get down to some serious cooking.

Not paying attention, I used a full recipe.

4 cups blackberries
1-2 cups sugar
Tablespoon cornstarch
dash of lemon juice

Mash the berries with a masher.
The recipe didn’t say anything about cleaning the berries … they were clean enough to eat off the vine …
I did wash them.
Stir in sugar
Mix in cornstarch
Boil the mixture for about 15 minutes.
Let cool ½ hour then refrigerate until stiff – maybe another ½ hour.

Construct sandwich in usual manner.

Enjoy your sandwich.

(eechhh, spit. what is in this?)
Oh. Sticks and seeds that we don’t needs.
Oh-h-h … CLEAN the berries.

But it was a fun day anyway. And that’s what counts.
I made another PB&J with store-bought jam …

*Battery Winslow was part of the WWII coastal defense system on the US east coast. It had two 16″ guns and was built in the 1940s and active 1943 – 1948. Another source tells me that the site was built in 1917 for WWI. Anyway, built of earth-covered concrete and steel, the battery is now overgrown – or was when I was there – but the concrete foundations are still in place. It’s now part of the “Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wild Life Refuge”

submitted bt SK via comments

So we talk a lot about big things on this site. High mountains, long roads, wide open spaces, big buildings. Nothing wrong with that, but sometimes we need to put our heads down and look at small things that can delight us. Especially as spring is not far off.

As I walked around the farm this past week dreaming of warmer weather, looking down, I saw first only layers of leaves and hundreds of downed branches and twigs to be collected. The aftermath of winter’s high winds cleaning the trees of their debris and dead bits.

The soil is still frozen hard in most places but I know it is teaming with life. Millions and millions of micro organisms, creepy crawlers and worms ready to get to work when the sun warms them.

I found some small signs of life, green shoots here and there, hiding under leaves, and began to think about spring flowers. Daffodils in temperate parts are sometimes called Lenten Lillies because they begin to appear around the the time of Ash Wednesday and disappear around Easter Sunday.

My old farm is not in what anyone would call a temperate climate. It is susceptible to the dreaded Albert Clippers that hurl themselves down from the northern prairies bringing frigid winds, sub zero temperatures and snow. The local TV weatherman years ago used to refer to them as Alberta Hookers. I never knew if he was joking around or if that was another scientifically accepted name for them.

Still despite the bitter cold, there are very small parts of the garden that are sunny and sheltered. In one of those little spots, protected from wind and cold they arrived, like clockwork, last week. A tiny, shiny, cluster of happy daffodils. They had burst into flower on Pancake Tuesday and brightened an otherwise grey February day. They reminded me of the first line of a poem: “The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.” For it is indeed still winter and yet there they are. Brave little flowers, planted many decades ago my mother, reaching for the winter sun. They may yet come to regret their precocity as temperatures have plunged again this week.

Daffodils have inspired so many poems.
Housman wrote:

“Tis spring; come out to ramble
The hilly brakes around,
For under thorn and bramble
About the hollow ground
The primroses are found.
And there’s the windflower chilly
With all the winds at play,
And there’s the Lenten lily
That has not long to stay
And dies on Easter day.”

Wordsworth wrote probably the best loved one

“I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.”

So here below my first little daffodils to cheer a Lenten week for those in a cold grey climate

I started off writing this as a comment … but doing so may have seemed I was attacking someone for their views and that wasn’t my intent – cause I don’t disagree. So y’all get my ramblings as a main page post instead rather than a response to another comment.

A friend of mine watches too many podcasts about wuflu and politicians and health and pedophiles and … on and on and on. I tell him to quit paying attention to that crap: it’s fake or click bait or the equivalent of poking a hornet’s nest. So crap is coming down on the nation. Can you do anything about it? Is it affecting you directly in this right now here and now?

So whacha gonna do, eh?

Write your congress-critter?
Wait for God to do something?
Start shooting up the streets?

I don’t disagree with the sentiment – I also rant and rail at the never-ending “news” about everything and nothing – but we’re on the roller-coaster – the bolts are loose, the rails are pulling up, and the people in front of you are puking into the wind in your face; it’s rolling along, up and down, rocking sideways – apparently out of control … but we’re the riders, not operators – and we can’t get off to get to the controls.

Regardless of the Electoral College (and assuming the vote numbers are correct – a dubious assumption), Trump only won 49.8% of the vote (77.3 mil) and the whore won 48.3% of the vote (75.0 mil). The country is split near-on 50%.

So whacha gonna do?

Me? I sit back, pretend life is “normal”, and realize I have no say in the matter – good or bad. I deal with this web site and friends I have here as a result, I build models, fiddle with electrons, and have no problem paying for or obtaining supplies for either. I’m not hungry, I have shelter and a wife who loves me in spite of all the crazy things I do. Money in the bank, no debt except house payments which are reasonable. More than reasonable in today’s market. Neighbors are OK, my vehicles work and I can come and go as I feel like.

Life is good. Better if I ignore the news … which I can’t seem to do.

The kids are their own future – let them deal with it; my future is limited – I don’t invest in 20 year bonds, I don’t adopt puppies or kittens as pets. We – baby boomers and older – lived through the best times as adults the world has ever seen. Yep – it’s too bad the best of times have passed but as someone said, “the old live in a foreign country“

If y’all believe “God’s will be done“, then it doesn’t matter, does it? It’s in God’s hands and He will do what He will do.

If you believe in “God helps those who help themselves”, then do what you can – little as it may be outside of local community, friends, and family – to prepare for the likely.

If “end of the world as we know it” is likely, then prayers to Murphy may be in order … and isn’t Murphy a manifestation of God? So live life like there’s no tomorrow – cause there may not be … and there’s not really a damn thing any of us can do about it.

originally posted by Jean, Feb 5, 2026

I present myself
without any intention
of presenting myself
in any particular
recognizable way.
I want my words
to be in the light
 myself in shadow. 

I guess it might be in the nature of mankind to look back after certain events to try and find a “cause”; something that if changed, would have prevented or allowed certain events that did or did not happen.

Going back to kill Hitler early in his life is a common example.


So now in the apparent collapse of the US, we tend to look at some turning point: 9/11, Obama. Reagan, Kennedy’s assassination …

Has anyone ever thought that looking back, it was perhaps the admission of Alaska and Hawaii as states that led to the situation in which we now find ourselves?