A Good Post-Election Night Slumber

I slept a lot better on Election Night this year than I did after Election Night last year.  

I think others may also have enjoyed similar stressless slumbers. 

That said, let me start with a story about weather.

Granted, "Slight Detour" readers do probably learn more than they want about the weather at the Lovestead and in our area in general.

This morning, however, I want to tell a brief story about the "extreme" weather conditions which fell upon us last Friday and kept going throughout the weekend. 

This extreme condition of a whole lot more snow than we usually see in early November caught many of us offguard and pretty much disordered our thinking and our lives.

Many in this area were just not prepared for winter weather of such magnitude. 

When Bill and I pulled out of the driveway Friday morning and headed for a weekend in Montana, I felt awful, leaving the place for our wonderful house/pet sitter Elisabeth to deal with over the weekend.

We had gone outside early in the morning, armed with shovels, the snowblower and the tractor/plow.  

We feverishly opened up key passage ways for Elisabeth to lead horses to pasture, to haul hay to their shelters, or to sweep off the satellite dishes, if necessary, and to have some places for the dogs to play.

When we left at 8:30 a.m., it was hard to tell that we had even done anything, so I felt bad. 

Nonetheless, Elisabeth survived and attended to her responsibilities just fine, as she always does. 

When we arrived back home Sunday afternoon, my yard was littered with a thick carpet of oak and poplar leaves, all stuck in the snow.  What a mess!

As one who diligently chases after every last falling leaf to see that it's not hanging around and frozen to the ground in the next spring, the sight of that huge leaf patch brought on emphatic groans along with the acceptance that if this was how it was gonna be, I'd have to live with it and make the best of the situation.

Admittedly, I did, for a while, try to rake those leaves off the top of the snow but soon realized that patience and waiting for better times ahead would be wise. 

That extreme weather did a number on a lot of us and others, including my farrier John Fuller.

While removing my horses' shoes yesterday, John told me about trees falling on power lines and his horse trailer at his place and how he was hoping that yesterday would be the first day for him not to be lugging a chain saw around to clean up another mess. 

To put it mildly, many of us look at weather extremes as disconcerting, painful, exhausting, at times intolerable, challenging, etc.  

During this past year of weather, we've seen the extremes---from eight months of rainfall or snowfall to  nearly three months of heat and dry, dry weather, to a nice, short and much-welcomed interlude of normal fall weather.

Then last weekend "Kerbang!" We experienced the early winter weekend from Hell.  And, we are weary. 

If only we could just get a good, long dose of moderation from Mother Nature!

I also look at extremes in politics as disconcerting, painful, exhausting, at times intolerable, challenging, etc. 

We have definitely seen the extremes politically this past year.  Like last weekend's weather, these extremes have caught us offguard.   

In the past year, we have had to adjust.  Some of us have had to dig down deep to muster up patience.

We have also had to learn from the situations at hand, realizing the importance of becoming  more proactive than reactive. 

As with extreme weather patterns, we realize that these unexpected events do happen in our lives and that, in many cases, they're going to cause us both discomfort and inconvenience, among other things.   

So, it's a good practice, in the future, for us not to just sit around griping about the situation but to learn from the experience. 

Then, we need make every effort possible to effect necessary changes in hopes of avoiding the dramatic setbacks that Mother Nature often dishes out to us. 

I think the same strategy is true with our politics.  

If only we could get a good dose of moderation in the country's politics!

That may be starting to happen. 

It could be that people have seen what "extremes" can do to this country as we have known it and have loved it through our lifetimes.  It could also be that we are moving back toward some sense of moderation.

It has and will always take all kinds of perspectives along with a healthy dose of moderation to make this country great.  I sense that voters who were caught blind-sided this time last year are starting to realize that.  

Consequently, through proactive measures and focused energy, concerned citizens are putting the pieces of the puzzle in place to steer us back toward the America we recognize, where long-held, commonly accepted principles still mean something and where a variety of voices are heard and respected.

Moderation is the golden key to American democracy, I do believe. 

Speaking of which, I wanted to include an update this morning about "Reclaim Idaho," the movement founded by Sandpoint's Luke Mayville and Garrett Strizich.  

The "Reclaim Idaho" team is seeing some positive vibes after yesterday's nationwide elections.



From Twitter . . . .

Luke Mayville‏ @lukemayville 8h8 hours ago

After Maine: It’s time for a statewide initiative to expand Medicaid coverage in Idaho 

http://www.idahostatesman.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article178795036.html

I'm so proud of the work that Luke, Garrett and the Reclaim Idaho team are doing here in Idaho to ensure that Medicaid coverage is expanded in our state.


The link above takes you to an informative opinion piece written by Luke last month for the Statesman.  It's well worth the time to give it a read.  Plus, as one of Luke's English teachers, I'm pretty proud of his writing ability. 

My take:  if one potato state can expand its Medicaid coverage, so can the other.  

Yay, Maine.  Yay, Luke, Garrett and the Reclaim gang.  

Go, Idaho in 2018!