Author: Vic Socotra

Life & Island Times: Arrangements

Editor’s Note: It is the Fall Back Morning, and a certain jet-lag or all of us is common. Marlow has provided us a perspective on larger issues, which is welcome, like the Oregon health official who gave the weekly COVID briefing in clown-face. The other news is predictable, doubts swirling about the latest hysterical or […]

Willow Halloween

Willow Halloween Party 2013 Oh, OK. So we were sitting on the back deck overlooking the pastures. The raging waters of the recent hurricane remnant have retreated. I wondered if there was anything to give out, just in case tricker-treaters showed up at Refuge Farm. The general consensus was that none had been observed in […]

Whitecaps in the Pasture

(This is not the water in our boundary stream. It is, as many things in this strange year, an accurate depiction of something else, even if not factually correct. The sentiment is completely accurate in this digital capture, even though it is not as loud). I can’t see whitewater rushing down the narrow gulley that […]

Weather Forecast

I did the Swamp Postcard this week as usual, though of course anxiety rates are up in the Last Week before something happens. I got a note back from a very smart pal. She thought I had assumed a stark perspective on things as they progressed in this marvelous election campaign. I nodded in agreement […]

Swamp Postcard: Headed for the Wire

We have been through a lot together in this strange year of rounded numbers and masks. I appreciate your sticking around for it all. I am already off a step- I had assumed things would be quiet this week except for the anguished pleas from a variety of podiums, buried scandals and breathless polling. Not […]

Prudent Prior Planning

I read a newspaper this morning. I know, I know, so what? That was something that was the core of my morning routine for more than a half-century. Depending on what was going on and where I happened to be, sometimes it was multiple papers representing a variety of viewpoints. The digital age transformed that […]

Arrias: Consequences

Quiz: which is bigger: 50 million or 10 million? Before we answer that, some thoughts on fossil fuels. Lots of talk this week about fossil fuels, zero net emissions, reducing CO2 emissions, cutting oil and gas consumption, etc. But the Biden campaign, taking a page from the once great state of California, wants to force […]

Unrelenting

I wrote the words this morning in the gray pre-dawn. It had been a marvelous display of the end of season, the death of warmth and sunshine, and the gentle scudding of whimsical white clouds. Now it is an endless stream of chill rain and the patter of drops on the awning insistent enough to […]

Crazy Week

I was scooping digitally through files from the three or four computers that lurk in various states of confusion in the cubbyholes under the desk in the great room of the farmhouse in the country. I don’t know about you, but this has been one of the more extraordinary public events I have seen in […]

Arrias: Admirals in Wonderland

Editor’s Note: The pharmacologic supplements necessary to speed efficient recovery from surgery have added a new dimension to the continuing excitement of the election. Last night, the final Presidential debate was interesting. It was filled with empty promises about big plans that have no details. Call me an idiot, but I felt a tugging of […]