It is one of those delightful mornings in the Piedmont. Temperatures hesitantly seemed to be rising to the freezing point, while the astonishing depth of the sky above shouted unsaid that there is beauty in this world, and that it is a pleasure to be alive. Despite the environment, DeMille looked solemn. That is not […]

(Manual Labor beckons from the drive at Refuge farm. The Snow may melt again. Photo Socotra) We had that big announcement yesterday about a New Wrinkle on an old trade in a strange town. Washington, DC. Generally speaking, we have enjoyed the accidents that washed us up there, with the people always at the heart […]

(Original logo artwork at Socotra House founding. Art by Stacy Hoffhine, 2002) Author’s Note: These are exciting and historic times. Socotra House has an exciting new project in the works that will dramatically expand the scope of work of the company. As a part of that, the following represents a portion of a new line […]

Splash is usually more alert than the rest of the crew early on, and maintains that status through lunchtime based on the fact that he is a couple cups of coffee ahead of the rest of us. It could be annoying, but there is a productions schedule to run, bills must be paid, and those […]

Emotional week! It was 7.2 Degrees (F) this morning, the first noted single digit temps this year in Virginia’s rich Piedmont territory. If one does not count the decimal points, anyway. Since the morning chaos over messages and messaging erupted, we have gone up 16.7 degrees. That is the natural world, of course, unlike the […]

(The latest bounty of nature. The limbs down on the fence are residue of a more severe event). Splash said his brother used to live in Arizona, close enough to Flagstaff for a few bright lights and equidistant to the cliffs that mark the seemingly endless plunge down to the floor of the Grand Canyon. […]

Today is an anniversary of a demonstration on Capitol Hill. It was a fairly big deal, though not as severe as other historic events in the location which we will address in a moment. But the true significance of this date is the opening to the campaign that will result in the mid-term elections this […]

The Chairman sent one of the Interns down to the Fire Ring this morning to say we were advancing up the list of those without power due to Winter Storm “Frida.” We think that is the name, but after the new back-up generator failed around sundown last night- that would be Monday, for many of […]

Co-Op power down at 0900, so in addition, first use of new Generex back up power! It works!

“The Chairman says we can start in on the challenges we are going to face in the new year tomorrow. There will only be three “2’s” in the date, and he thinks that is going to be something useful going forward.” “So we can’t talk about any of the three bubbling crises in the world, […]