Yeah, Rain!

We are finally getting some good rain. The forecasters predict maybe more than an inch over this coming weekend. Thank God!

We are still in a severe drought that one weekend of rain won't cure. The deficit for the year is still right at 14 inches. Farmers and horse owners are having to import hay from Texas and other points with the price per square bale up to almost $10. It normally sells for between $3 and $5 a square bale. The big round bales, which are not as nutritious anyway, can't be purchased at any price locally. Those who have them are saving them for their own horses or cows. The governor has declared a hay emergency in our county so the feds will pay owners up to $1,500 to offset the cost of trucking in hay from other states. You can read some of the pleas for hay here. The drought is having its effect on other prices, too. Dairy farms are hurting and milk is up to more than $4 a gallon in some stores. Cheaper to drink gasoline.
The French Broad River, one of the major rivers in this area, is hurting. This is a picture of the river just across the state line in Tennessee. The French Broad flows on down into Asheville and is one of the great kayaking and rafting rivers in the area when it has enough water. Our lake, fed by the Green River, is holding its own. The power station at the dam is not generating much these days so the lake level stays normal.

Big News
The big news in our household is the addition of Buddy, a 2-year-old Corgi we adopted Dec. 21 from the Hendersonville Humane Society, where his previous owner had left him. That owner named him "bling-bling" but neither the dog nor I liked that name so now he is Buddy. He is housebroken and very smart. He's learning to sit, stay and those good things. He is also learning that his crate is a nice place to sleep.

Smaller News

Quad Goat Arrive at Polk High School
That was the headline in our little local paper earlier this month. Our high school has an educational farm, and on that farm are goats. The four baby boy goats -- called bucks --- were born to a doe earlier this month. That is unusual. Normally only two baby goats are in a litter (if litter is the right word). Students bottle-fed the bucks until they were strong enough to nurse. Last word is that they are going fine. Is this a great place to live, or what?

Cows in the Yard

I had a telephone call from the Polk County Agriculture Extension office asking me to join the Board of Directors of the county 4-H Foundation.
My mother, who used to have to chase me with a broom to get me to mow the lawn, laughed at that one. "Now you'll have to get a cow or a hog," she said. The 4-H Youth Development Program is the youth outreach from the Land Grant Universities, Cooperative Extension Services, and the US Department of Agriculture. The four Hs stand for Head, Heart, Hands, and Health. You've probably seen the four leaf clover symbol of 4-H. Sylvia taught a sewing class for 4-H last year. I'm told that I was recommended by John Vining, the county extension agent, and another board member who lives in Lake Adger and rides to the hounds. First meeting: Jan. 14.

Follows her Husband

A woman whose husband had the highest approval rating of any recent president enters politics on her own. Her husband cannot run again. So she runs for president. And wins. Hillary Clinton? Nope. She is Cristina Fernández de Kirchner who just took office as president of Argentina.
Read about it here. She joins a fairly long list of women who have been elected president in Latin American countries, a fact that surprises many who know only of machismo in Latin America. Most Americans don't realize that Latin American societies are very often matriarchal societies.

Bolivian update

Here is a good update on the Bolivian constitutional crisis.

EARTHQUAKE!

We had a small earthquake at 6:07 a.m. Friday. It only measured 3.1 and for that we are grateful because the US Geological Service says it was centered at 35.32N 82.19W. which would put it 1.41 miles from our front door. They said it was 8.1 kilometers or 5.03 miles down. We had no damage but we sure felt and heard it.
Earthquakes are not as common here as they are in some parts of California, or as common as we knew them to be in Mexico City and Caracas.

Big Award

The Mill Spring Volunteer Fire Department had is annual awards dinner Friday night and it was full of surprises. The biggest surprise was my selection as the department's Firefighter of the Year! Bobby Wise, the new assistant chief, was selected Officer of the Year. The members voted on the officer of the year, and the officers selected the Firefighter of the Year. I got a beautiful plaque to hang on my wall, next to the one I received as president of the Round Lake Hose Company when we left Round Lake, NY in 1981. Bill Cunningham, who has been in the department almost since it was founded, was given the title of honorary chief for life, and the call number 2400. We are station 24 so we all have 24xx call signs, ours being 2414 and 2415. The regular chief is 2401. We are now the only department in the county with a 2400.

It's News to Me...

Almost 70 assembled and assorted tubas serenaded us Saturday at the Polk High School auditorium. This is one of about 20 "Tuba Christmases" that appear around the nation in December. The best-known was in Rockefeller Center in New York City, where they all started in 1974.
This was the 10th year for a Tuba Christmas in Polk County. The music was good, we all sang along on some of the carols , and we learned something about different kinds of tubas-- such as the Serpent at left. There were three guys playing serpents in the group. Some of the bells on the tubas face the front for recording or projecting to an audience while some face to the rear for leading a parade.The ages of the tuba players ranged from 12 to 86. This video shows some of the kinds of tubas.Listen to the tuba fans ooh and awh over the types.We'll go again next year.

Moonshine

While we were musing about the music the County Sheriff's guys made a domestic dispute call and found Phillip Pierce with 144 pints of moonshine at a house out on Henderson Road. The deputies decided that was more than he was likely to consume in one sittin' so they took him to jail. No word about where the still is located.Oh, and by the way, the last line in the story in our local paper says the sheriff's office plans to destroy the 'shine.
There was an "old time moonshiners reunion" down Highway No. 9 at New Prospect, SC in October but we missed it. There were a lot of bluegrass bands pickin' and singin' and, I guess, talking about moonshine. Surely they wouldn't be drinking it.

Winter Sun

We are still dry -- there is still a statewide ban on outdoor fires, including campfires. Our rain deficit for the year is almost 20 inches now. Add that to the shortage last year and it's clear why Polk County is so dry. The drought has, however, got our county commissioners off their leather chairs and into water supply discussions. The Green River flows through the county and there has been talk among some forward-looking people for years to tap into the river for future water supply. Now the commissioners have realized someone else -- such as Greenville or Spartanburg, SC just to the south, might get the same idea. The Comish is also talking about restricting lot size in future developments to seven acres in order to preserve the rural nature of the county and to save water. No decision on any of this stuff yet.

Bolivian Tango

My friend John Virtue is just back from Bolivia, where he was doing seminars and workshops on journalism ethics. He says friends there say the country is on the edge of civil war. We are so inwardly focused in the United States that you don't see that kind of stuff on the evening news until the civil war is in full bloom. What's going on with President Evo Morales and his opponents is a true social struggle, pitting class against class and society against society, all fired by fuel shortages in a country floating on petroleum and gas reserves.
Morales is from Bolivia's indigenous population, the historically oppressed Indian culture.

Morales, who has the solid support of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is shown in traditional dress in this picture.
The class struggle was heightened by the draft version of a new constitution which would allow Morales to be reelected permanently. And to add more confusion: Bolivia has two capitol cities, Sucre and La Paz. Most of the governing is actually done from La Paz. Sucre has the Supreme Court and justice department. But Sucre is the site of the constituent assembly convened to draft the new constitution. Sucre once had all the Bolivian government. Some of those who live in Sucre want that again, so they barricaded the people drafting the constitution. Pretty soon people were fighting in the streets all over the country.

A good place to read about this kind of on-going Bolivian drama is at the Democracy Center blog. The BBC also keeps a good eye on Bolivia, such as this story about the death of British reporter en route to cover the latest events in Sucre. Other journalists in Bolivia have run into trouble recently. The Committee to Protect Journalists keeps pretty close tabs on that situation.