Thoughts On A Sunday

It is another round of the annual battle against the weeds, with Deb, BeezleBub, and I cleaning, weeding, and mulching around The Manse. I expect this will be the last weekend we'll have that all three of us will be available to attend to the grounds. Usually BeezleBub is working down at the farm Saturdays and Sundays, but he had today off, partly because of Mother's Day and partly because he has a ton of homework to finish. We figured he could take an hour or two to help us out around The Manse.

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The trailer for The Boat is now at the marina, waiting to have The Boat pulled out of storage. It will make a trip back to The Manse for its pre-launch maintenance, cleaning, and check-out. BeezleBub and I will be going over it from stem to stern, making sure everything is ready before it is put back into the water. I have a feeling we'll have one of the better boating seasons here in a long time, mainly because I believe that we won't be seeing as many boaters on the lake as usual.

Seeing that the cost of gasoline at marinas is already above $4 per gallon, with an anticipated price during the summer months of $4.50 per gallon, I expect there won't be as much boat traffic on Lake Winnipesaukee as we've seen the past ten years or so. When gas was $3.50 a gallon last summer, boat traffic was down considerably in July, with a rebound in August (though still not as many boats out there as we would normally see then).

The high gas prices have already affected business around the lake, with many boat slips going unrented. The same is true summer cottages, resorts, and campgrounds around the Lakes Region. There are quite a few places with gaps in their reservation schedules at a time when every available place would already be rented. This does not bode well for the tourist industry in the area.

Our only hope: the strong Canadian dollar will lure tourists from north of the border to replace those not making the trip up from southern New England, New York, and New Jersey.

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From American Thinker, a list of danger signals that warn us when the liberal elite are planning to force the rest of us to do something 'for our own good'. The example provided covers a smoking cessation program, but it applies to just about any idea the so-called elite put forward.

A group of individuals anoints themselves as better-informed than the rest of us. They base this largely on the fact that they listen to the same programs on NPR and consistently vote Democrat.

The self-defined elite group comes to an agreement that the rest of us are not as enlightened as they. This is expressed in many ways, usually involving code words such as "clinging", "mean-spirited", or "greedy". If you hear these words being applied to you or your associates, this is a clear indication that you are not one of the elites.

The elites begin to develop a sense of responsibility for their lessers. This is often expressed in statements like, "It's just makes me so sad to see them like that. I wish there were something we could do to..."

The elites form a plan. The plan generally involves making everyone else behave like them. As enthusiasm rises, what were once "differences" become "problems" and finally metamorphose into a "crisis". When the word "crisis" appears, this usually signals the end of planning phase. The Plan predictably contains the following elements: coercion, moral superiority, lack of debate and voting, and a succession of "experts" who testify on its behalf.

The plan is imposed. If the legislative branch refuses, the judiciary is prevailed upon to conjure up a constitutional justification.

The plan begins to fail. This step is usually followed by demands for more resources to "properly implement the plan", (see the War on Poverty), and angry accusations at non-elite groups for their mean spirited, clingy refusal to change.

The plan fails.

The elites meet to form a new, better plan.

And so the circle of ever more intrusive plans and an erosion of rights continues. All of this in an effort to save us from ourselves. The question is, who will saves us from these busybodies?

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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Instapundit has more about the growing trend of parents not having their children immunized and the consequences of that failure.

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Winter's grip is gone, but planning for next winter's heating season here in northern New England is already under way. Customers of heating fuel companies are already being warned pre-buy prices for heating oil and propane will be a lot higher than last year. Pre-buy prices for propane last year were about $1.90 per gallon. This year we'll be lucky if we see under $3.30 per gallon.

It looks like our decision to heat The Manse with firewood was a good one. Even if we purchased all of the cordwood we would use for heat at $160/cord for green wood, it would cost us only $1200 dollars for the winter. Of course that means we would need to buy it now in order to make sure it would be dry enough to burn come November. But we don't have to buy it, thanks to the WP Dad-In-Law. But we do have go down to the In-Laws with the big deuce-and-a-half and load it up, twice, and unload it, twice. Even with this, our means of heating will have a much smaller carbon footprint than using propane.

It's a small price to pay to stay warm.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where all the snow is gone, the boats are reappearing on the lake, and where the yard work never seems to end.