Reading on a snowy day

Our Deck Yesterday Morning as seen by the camera on my iPad

January 5th, 2015

The days dwindle down
To a precious few,
September, November
And these few precious days
I'll spend with you
These golden days I'll spend with you.

--September Song, music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Maxwell Anderson 

Click here to hear Sarah Vaughn's beautiful rendition of September Song.

We seem to have survived the major storm that was supposed to hit us and then sit on top of us for three days.  Things were different elsewhere, but here, thirteen miles from Paradise, we sat out the storm in comfort.  Well, I did.  Kevin got out at 5 a.m. to plow the local Conoco station's pumps and lot.  They liked his volunteer work so much last year that the owners gave him a gift certificate to our favorite restaurant.  This year, they engaged him in a semi-professional fashion, thanks to the good old barter system.  Yesterday, while he was busy at the station, the fellow from the bakery/café next door, The Butcher's Nook, came over and asked if Kevin would plow his business out as well.  Later on in the day, I got a call from one of Kevin's fireman buddies, a fellow we had plowed out several times last year (note the royal, or is it editorial "we"), asking if Kevin could help him this year.  I gave him Kevin's cell number, and sure enough Kevin headed up into the mountains to plow out Ron's driveway.

We probably got around eight inches of snow from the storm, but then the temperature started climbing.  Each time I checked our weather station on the deck throughout the morning, the temperature was reading 32 degrees Fahrenheit.  It warmed up to 36 by late afternoon, and the snow was sliding off our metal roof in large sheets.  If we're snowed in today, it's because of all the white stuff that came down from the roof, not out of the sky.  And with the temperature above freezing, the snow was turning to heavy wet stuff--the kind of conditions that give you a heart attack when you attempt to shovel clear your sidewalks.  I'm thinking about that right now.

Turkey in the Hay, Oh, Turkey in the Snow

January 5th, 2015

For the most part, I stayed in and read all day.  Oh I washed dishes and thought about fixing dinner.  A friend had posted a great looking recipe for crock-pot Stroganoff on Facebook, and I said "That's what I'm making for supper!"  But the recipe called for Campbell's Golden Mushroom soup, which is not a staple in my pantry, so I called Kevin to ask him to bring some home.  Kevin doesn't eat mushrooms, and pays no attention to the various varieties of fungi out there, so of course he brought home Western Family Cream of Mushroom soup concentrate.  Not at all the same thing, and besides, that is a staple in the pantry.  We had also used up all the stew beef from the freezer, so there was nothing to put in the crock pot.  Kevin dutifully returned to the store (and more plowing) and brought home stew meat and Golden Mushroom soup, so guess what's going in the crock pot for supper tonight.

Librarything.com has a challenge for its members to read 75 books in a year's time.  I've never counted how many books I read, but this seemed like a fairly easy challenge for me.  I'm the guy who, even as a literature major in college, would spend my breaks reading.  My classmates would be comparing notes about their winter break activities:  travel, skiing, visiting relatives, going home, and I would share that I read this, that, and the other thing.  They were amazed because, after all, we were reading so much just for our classes.  Yes, I'd answer, which keeps me from reading the things I want.  The only time to catch up with my pleasure reading is over the break.  Now I'm retired.  It's all break time.  Why not see about reading 75 books during 2015.  It's all the easier with programs like bookbub.com which allows me to load up my Kindle for next to nothing.  Actually, I rarely pay for a Kindle book these days.  There are too many I find interesting being offered for free on bookbub.com.  But in the spirit of there being "no free lunch,"  I do feel a bit of a compulsion to write short reviews of each book I read.  After all, if the author is willing to forego any royalties to get his/her book out in front of people, the least I can do is give the work a plug--especially if I liked what I read.

Several years ago, 2007 to be exact, I saw a movie at the theater in Crescent City that really spoke to me.  Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman starred in a story about a couple of old farts refusing to "go gentle into that good night."  By now, you probably know that I'm speaking of The Bucket List, a movie I heartily recommend to everyone.  I fear that it will only speak to a certain audience.  Younger folk will probably watch it and say, "Huh???"  But for those of us who understand the lyrics of September Song, The Bucket List is a great example of how to live out the remainder of our lives.  In a similar way, Elaine Ambrose's Midlife Cabernet provides plenty of life lessons for the AARP crowd.  It was my first book for 2015, and I recommend it highly.  I know that my friend Carl will agree that there's never a bad reason to lift a glass of red.  I laughed most of the way through this light hearted look at "life, love and laughter after fifty," but was caught too in poignant memories as Ambrose spoke of that period when we become our parents' parent.

I finished my first book on Sunday, and Monday opened a new one on my Kindle, Mark Henrikson's Origins.  I don't read a lot of science fiction, these days, but still consider it one those genres I enjoy.  I even had the thought, back when I was a student of literature, of writing a critical history of the genre going back at least to Voltaire's 1752 work, Micromégas or Montesquieu's 1721 work, Lettres persanes, which I believe still fits the overall perview of the genre.  Whether we're talking Wells, or Verne, or Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke or Ray Bradbury, just to mention a few, Science Fiction at its best forces us to look at ourselves and our beliefs through new, alien as it were, eyes.  In Henrikson's book, three stories are being told simulataneously, all of which come together at the end.  It's a retelling of the story of Exodus, with modern connections, and was marvelous fun. It's also the first in a series of books by Henrikson, all of which retell history with a twist.  I can't wait to pick up the next book, set in ancient Rome.

Sourdough Whole Wheat Bread Fresh from the Oven

January 5th, 2015

I didn't spend all my day reading.  I grabbed the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking cookbook I picked up a Costco a while back, and decided to try my hand at their no-knead sourdough bread.  This involved getting out my stone-wheel grinder and grinding 1 1/2 cups of wheat berries, then mixing that up with sourdough starter, water and unbleached white bread flour, letting it sit for a while, then mixing in honey and salt, and letting it sit for a while.  Take the dough out of the bowl, fold it in thirds, fold it in thirds again, and let it sit for a while.  Repeat, twice more (no lathering though), and finally forming it into a boule and letting it sit for a while, in this case letting it rise inside the room temperature cast-iron dutch oven that I bought precisely for baking bread.   With all that time spent letting the dough sit, I got a lot of reading done, and the loaf didn't come out of the oven until almost 7 pm.  But Kevin loves bread fresh out of the oven, so we cut off a couple of slices and all I can say is that it's yummy.

I don't think it dropped below freezing last night, and this morning when I checked the temperature, it was at 36.  Still is, as of five minutes ago.  I had to take another photo of the deck, just for comparison purposes.  See if you can spot the difference after 24 hours of above freezing temperatures.  Now, as it's the Feast of the Epiphany, it's time to take down the Christmas decorations for another year.  Happy Three Kings Day, Y'all!

Our Deck

January 6, 2015

Let it Snow

Interstate 90 at the Van Buren Street Interchange

Missoula, Montana

December 28, 2014

Whenever I tell Kevin I love him, he always asks "Why?" even though he knows this question drives me crazy.  Last Sunday, December 28th, provided a good example to show just why this man is so important to me.  He is the most generous man I know.

The day brought snow and cold temperatures, and during the night a lot of snow had fallen.  As we headed out for breakfast, Kevin asked if I thought our friend Mike would need to have his driveway plowed out.  Mike has been given a temporary position in Seeley Lake, which is about 60 miles northeast of Missoula, and one of the places in our region that gets a lot, and I mean A LOT of snow.  I gave Mike a call and found him with his mother in Missoula, but he would be heading up to Seeley in the early afternoon because he had no idea what he would find there.  We agreed that after breakfast, we would drive into Missoula, meet him, and follow him to his Seeley Lake home.  Just in case.

After breakfast, we made a quick drive home to pick up my camera (ALWAYS take your camera) and also to throw the chains into the back of the pickup.  I should note that Kevin has a big-ass plowing blade that in the winter usually lives on the front of the pickup.  He uses it to not only plow our third of a mile driveway, but also to plow out the rural fire station, the ambulance barn's parking lot, and the local Conoco station.  If you have a need for plowing, just call Kevin and he'll probably come as quickly as he can.  But with the kind of snow we were anticipating in Seeley, he knew he'd best have the tires chained as well.

The Blackfoot River near Angevine Park

No, this is not a black and white photo

December 28, 2014

What started out as a quick trip home came to a halt near the bottom of our driveway where we found our "next-door" neighbor on his knees putting chains on a Honda sedan that was half buried in the snow on the side of the road that leads to our driveway.  A young man was standing by the car, and occasionally assisting in tightening the chains.  Turns out our neighbor's son and his family had left the house to return to their home, and when they tried to turn off the driveway into the county road, they continued to slide across the road and into the snow bank on the far side.

After kibitzing for a while, during which time another neighbor showed up to lend his advice, our neighbor went back to his house to put chains on his own truck, and we headed home to throw the chains in the back of ours.  I took advantage of the time at home to load a few geocaches into my new Garmin so that I could show off my Christmas present to Mike.  As we headed back out, we found our neighbor ready to tow his son's car out of the ditch, and we waited patiently until the car was safely back on the road.  Only then did we set off for Missoula, almost an hour after we had expected to be on our way.

The roads between Plains and Missoula were wintry, to put it mildly.  As we approached the WYE where US 93 heads north after crossing Interstate 90, we began to hear radio chatter talking about a multi-car accident in the westbound lanes of the interstate.  Because of Kevin's present and past work with Search and Rescue, the Rural Fire Department and the Ambulance Corps, he has a police scanner in the truck which is always turned on.  As we listened, the Highway Patrol asked that the interstate be closed, at least westbound, because the traffic was making the situation worse by the moment.  When we first heard the call, there were two semis, a tow truck, and numerous private cars all involved in the wreck.  The Highway Patrol, understandably, wanted to minimize further damage.

Looking East from Greenough Hill

December 28, 2014

By the time we got to the WYE ourselves, a patrol car was blocking the westbound onramp and we were hearing that somehow the patrol had managed to block the interstate itself so that westbound traffic was forced to exit.  We, however, were heading east, so we drove past the westbound onramp, and took the large loop leading onto the eastbound lanes.  I also took the time to call Mike and tell him that we were, at least, much closer and should be at his place in fifteen to twenty minutes (ten miles away by the highway, but such were the conditions).  Mike suggested that conditions were getting worse by the minute, and he wasn't comfortable with us trying to follow him another fifty miles.  We agreed to leave it up to Kevin, as he was driving, and Mike agreed to wait for us to reach his house.

Streets in Missoula were a mess, but Mike lives relatively close to the Orange Street off-ramp, and we were soon parked in the alley behind his house.  Mike came out with two shopping bags full of books, four hymnals and a fourteen volume set of Elbert Hubbard's Little Journeys, printed in 1916, that he had inherited from his father, former Missoula Symphony Director Joseph Henry.  Knowing how much I love playing hymns, not to mention reading, Mike thought that I would appreciate having these books, and he's absolutely right.  I'll write more about Hubbard's stories in a future post.

Back on the Interstate heading east, I really was having second thoughts about the whole venture, especially considering that we would be driving back home in the dark with the storm apparently worsening by the second now.  We were still hearing chatter about the accident on the Interstate, and in a telling comment on how dysfunctional our state government has become, the Highway Patrol had not been able to get any response from the Montana Department of Transportation concerning closing the highway.  At this point, we had been hearing all the communications for over a hour, and could confirm, if anyone were to ask, that MDT was not responding.  It was at this point I took the first picture shown above which should give you an idea of just what the weather was doing to the highway.

In my experience, if conditions in Missoula are bad, then conditions along Montana 200 as it follows the Blackfoot River are usually worse.  I was really not looking forward to the next forty miles.  You can tell just how little light there was by the lack of color in the photo of the river.  And as I noted above, that is NOT a black and white photo.  I have done nothing to subtract any color from the original shot.

Pyramid Peak and the Bob Marshall Wilderness

Seeley Lake, Montana

December 28, 2014

Fortunately, the road was not as bad as I had feared, and east of the community of Potomac, we actually began seeing some, not a lot, but some color in the sky.  Cresting Greenough Hill, we saw the sun shining on the peaks of the Bob Marshall Wilderness, and that created the gorgeous winter scene shown above.  By the time we turned off MT 200 onto MT 83 for the last fourteen miles north to Seeley Lake, the road was clear.  I had hoped to get some good winter shots of Salmon Lake, but all we saw was a vast snow field where the lake normally lies.  There were a couple of ice fishing shacks up toward the north end of the lake.

Arriving at Mike's place, we found that someone had already plowed him out.  I asked if the shop needed plowing, but Mike assured me that someone would already have done that.  But, one of his co-workers was hard at work at home trying to clear his own driveway with a snow blower.  We got directions and headed over that way.

While Mike chatted with his co-worker, Kevin got busy plowing the driveway and access road.  He decided against putting on the chains, as it was getting late in the day, and without the chains, he couldn't do much about the high buildup on the sides of the road, except make them higher as he drove the plow back and forth along the road.  After six or so passes, he said he'd done about as much as he could, under the circumstances, and we picked up Mike and drove him back to his place.

Boy Scout Road, East Side of Seeley Lake

December 28, 2014

In Missoula, we stopped at El Cazador for supper.  Kevin had his normal Steak Fajitas and I had Chile Relleno a la Jarocha, which meant the that filling included shrimp and crab meat.  Very good.  I recommend it.  The streets of Missoula were, by this time, mostly ice covered, and still people drove way too fast for the conditions.  I wasn't sure if I'd be able to walk the half block back to where we had parked, but taking it slow and easy, I made it to the truck, and with Kevin driving judiciously, we made it home safe and sound.

Can you see why I love him so?  Who else would offer to drive 140 miles, one-way, on the off chance that a friend would need to have his driveway plowed?  And then, upon finding that the friend didn't need help after all, would volunteer to help a total stranger?  He's a good man, and I eagerly look forward to seeing what our lives bring in 2015.

Happy New Year!

2014 In Review, Part I

On this, the 23rd of December 2014, it seems appropriate to write up a review of the preceding year. and since I always intersperse my words with my photos, I'm choosing to write this review on the basis of the photos I've taken over the course of the year--one photo for every month, which means that I'll divide this into two parts, each covering six months.  What follows today then is January through June.  On Friday, Boxing Day as it were, I'll box up the year and put it away.

My kitchen orchid in full bloom

January 5, 2014

January is not normally known for its floral displays, at least not in northwestern Montana.  But one of the big additions to my life this year has been my increased interest in flowers.  My mother always had house plants, and one of the hardest things for her in our move to California was giving up all her African violets which would not have been allowed into the Golden State.  I bought the orchid pictured above three years ago as a decoration for my gallery space on Missoula's First Friday opening night.  I'd never had orchids, but this one bloomed for quite some time, then, as happens, lost its blooms.  January 2014 was the second time it had bloomed in our new home, and I was glad to be able to catch its beauty in pixels.  Since then, my friend Hank gave me his two large orchids and I have great hope that I will see them bloom as well, some time soon.  In addition to the three orchids, I have had great luck with my Christmas Cactus, which bloomed three times during 2014, and I added an Orchid Cactus this spring.  This latter plant has been growing like crazy, its various shoots are now covering my coffee table, and I can't wait to see it bloom this spring.  The ones blooming in the greenhouse where I bought mine looked like a Christmas Cactus on steroids.

Gypsy in the Snow

February 24, 2014

February was a winter wonderland.  With one exception, all the days I spent camera in hand brought back pictures of snow scapes.  Snow on our driveway, snow on the mountains, snow on the trees, snow by the river.  It was like a photographic exposition of Wolfgang Borchert's story Der Viele, Viele Schnee (I cannot find an English translation of this story so I'll call it The Very Great Snowfall) which I read in my early days at Berkeley.  Borchert was writing from his experience on the Eastern (Russian) Front as a soldier in Hitler's Wehrmacht.  Most reviewers comment on the ubiquity of the snow and the silence it engenders, somewhere in Russia.  With five Miniature Pinschers in the house, we never have to worry about silence.  Or perhaps, silence would be a cause for worry.

St. David's Day Cactus

March 1, 2014

March brought more snow, and I have photos a plenty of dogs, deer, mountains, etc. in the snow, but by the 20th of the month, my pictures show bare ground.  I did get a wonderful shot of an Amish buggy at the Mission General Store in St. Ignatius, now one of my favorite photos, but we didn't travel much in March, other than running Kevin's bread route.  My question for the month is "What do you call a Christmas Cactus that blooms on March First?"  Perhaps a St. David's Day Cactus, as the feast day for that Welsh Saint is the first of March.

The Polson Docks on Flathead Lake with the Mission Mountains in the background

April 10, 2014

My photos for April show that grass was turning green, even if there was still considerable snow in the mountains around us.  I have pictures of Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep on the highway, white-tailed deer in the back yard, a herd of elk in a field nearby, cows just down the road, and our first bear (actually the only bear I saw all year) just off Prospect Creek Road leading to Thompson Pass.  But perhaps the most iconic photo I took in April was the one showing the heavy snowpack in the Mission Mountains while Flathead Lake was still too low for boating.  Not sure that anyone would want to be out boating in a Montana April, even if I did see one brave gent driving his convertible down Highway 200 with the top down.

Dahlia After the Rain

May 4, 2014

And what do April Showers bring if not May Flowers?  May was a glorious month.  Kevin had I don't know how many cubic yards of top soil brought in so we could plant a garden.  This was to be a vegetable garden.  My flowers stayed in pots on the deck.  I discovered Dahlias.  Never had them before, but I have them now.  Lots of different sizes, shapes, colors.  What beautiful plants--and they'll bloom all summer long if I remember to dead head them.  May also saw me back out in the wild, GPS in hand, geocaching, beginning with a meeting with other cachers out at Trout Creek.  Mother's Day took us to the Amber Bear Inn in Heron, Montana for Sunday Brunch with Doug Jones and Adar Benjamin, and more geocaching.  Yet another passion of mine, cars, was fed by a visit to Sandpoint, Idaho and their annual classic car show on the 17th.  And still more geocaching.

My 1980 Triumph TR7, Entry 5 in the Plains Day Parade

June 7, 2014

June First took me to the Ross Creek Cedars between Noxon and Troy, Montana.  I have wanted to visit this preserve for many years, and by 2014, the trip was long past due.  That may be why I visited the Cedar Grove three times over the summer.  Or it may be because the grove reminds me of the redwood forests in Northern California. June also saw my hibiscus blooming.  There are now four hibiscus plants in different colors and sizes growing in the den.  Plains Day and the Hot Springs Homesteaders' Day were festive occasions here in Sanders County.  The garden grew well.  Lots more geocaching around the area, and all in all, a good month to be alive.  In fact, I have no regrets for the first half of 2014, and while there are always things we could have done differently, I’m pleased with the way my life is going.  Come back on Friday for the second half of the year.

The Two Thousand Mile Sunday Drive--Day Three

The Big Horn County Court House
Taken 10/5/09 in Basin, Wyoming

Monday Monday, can't trust that day,
Monday Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way
Oh Monday morning, you gave me no warning of what was to be
Oh Monday Monday, how yould cou leave and not take me.

--John Phillips

To hear the Mamas and the Papas sing "Monday, Monday," click here.

First, a disclaimer. None of the pictures I'm sharing today will ever win any awards. They're here just to show you what kind of weather we had.

Just as Saturday and Sunday, Monday got off to a late start. Not because we loved camping in the WalMart parking lot, heaven forfend. As I noted at the end of Day Two's blog, the snow really began coming down. Every time we got out to let the dogs out, there was no evidence that we'd been out earlier--our tracks were completely filled in.

As we exercised the dogs one last time before taking to the road, Major, our newest, got free from his lead and took off. I should mention that the reason we have Major in the first place is that a friend found him running loose in an industrial parking lot and scooped him up--leaving him with us until his true owners could be located. That was several months ago now, and we consider Major our dog. But he does like to run and once he starts, he just has to go. He will not come when called. We had just about decided that Cody would be his new home, when we caught sight of him by a coffee shop across the highway from WalMart. By this time, he was very happy to get back in the truck.

We had asked several people what would be the best route from Cody to Gillette. Neither of us had driven these roads before, although as a child I'd ridden many times as my father drove from Cody to Powell and back to the Billings area. There were three options for our east bound journey: US 14 through Sheridan, US 16 through Buffalo, and there were two ways to get to Buffalo--to Greybull and then along the Bighorn River or through Meeteetse. Both roads meet at Worland, then US 16 continues east.

No one had a good answer for us, although most counseled that given the weather, the road to Sheridan would be difficult. No one told us that Powder River Pass on US 16 is almost 10,000 feet.

Ever on the quest to capture court houses, I prevailed on Kevin to try the Greybull to Worland route. The snow continued to fall intermittently as we headed east, but it was calm in Greybull when we stopped to ask where the Bighorn County Court House could be found. The man we asked answered that the court house was another eight miles down the road in the next town, Basin. Greybull was not the county seat.

The previous evening, I had captured the Park County (Wyoming) Court House, a much more stately edifice than the Park County (Montana) complex. And on Monday I was able to get the Bighorn County (Wyoming) Court House and the Washakie County Court House as well. I also shot this rose on the grounds of the Washakie County C.H. in Worland. I'm sure it wasn't quite ready for winter either.

Rose on the grounds of the Washakie County Court House
Taken 10/5/09 in Worland, Wyoming

East of Worland lies the oddly named town of Ten Sleep. I have heard of Ten Sleep for many years, but I'd never been through the town, nor had I any clue about the origin of its name. For a moment I pondered if it might be from some pioneer Dutch family, but no, apparently it refers to the route the Sioux took from the Platte River to southern Montana, and Ten Sleep was ten nights north of the Platte. Immediately after leaving Ten Sleep, the road began to climb, and we passed a sign saying that if the lights were flashing, the road would be closed seven miles ahead.

The lights were not flashing, so we drove on, passing numerous signs warning of impending road closure--but the lights were never flashing. Actually, we passed so many such signs all the way across Wyoming that we decided closed highways were a regular part of Wyoming life.

Scenery (such as it was) east of Ten Sleep, Wyoming
Taken 10/5/09

I have no idea how many miles we drove from Ten Sleep through what has to be some absolutely stunning scenery. Unfortunately, the snow was falling so thick and fast that we could barely see any of it. We will have to return sometime when the weather is more clement. What I do know is that the road continued to climb before us. We drove so long climbing the steep grade, that I began to doubt the existence of a summit or pass. We would just climb forever. And though it certainly felt that way, eventually we did reach Powder River Pass (9,666 feet), having climbed over 5,000 feet from Ten Sleep. From here it was all downhill.

I'd like to say the weather got better, but that would be a lie. I remain grateful for Kevin's skill and patience. I would have been in a panic trying to get our heavy rig up and over in those conditions. When we finally reached the bottom of the pass and drove into Buffalo, we found a city almost paralyzed by the snow. Broken tree limbs were everywhere, and the McDonalds, where we stopped to eat after not being able to get gas at Cenex ("Sorry, our pumps aren't working.") was not able to accept credit or debit cards. The heavy snow had played havoc with the computer connections around the town. For some undoubtedly unrelated reason, the ice cream machine wasn't working either.

Kevin's view of the road, US Highway 16
Taken 10/5/09 in Central Wyoming

At Douglas we picked up Interstate 90 again, and continued east toward Gillette, Sundance, and eventually Rapid City South Dakota. We continued to pass signs warning that the road could be closed, but it wasn't. Kevin drove through snow, drizzle and low clouds, but he continued on bravely through the weather. At Moorcroft, we left I-90 for US 14 headed toward Devil's Tower. I've never been near enough to the monument to actually see it, and I kept wondering if Richard Dreyfus would suddenly appear on his way to a close encounter. What can I say, the Tower is impressive, rising vertically from the rather level ground around it. Unfortunately, it was impressive but only half visible. We have to do this trip during good weather sometime.

Back to I-90 at Sundance, on past Beulah with its signs warning that this was our last chance to get low-priced Wyoming gas, and cross the border into South Dakota. Should you ever take this route, be forewarned. Gas in South Dakota is at least twenty cents less than gas in Wyoming. Also a word of warning--the price shown on signs in South Dakota is for Plus or mid grade, not regular. Regular is usually about ten cents a gallon more than Plus. As it turns out, Plus is 10% ethanol, and the good people of South Dakota want to make sure that their corn farmers are adequately employed.

Kevin insisted that tonight we would stay in a motel--good thing since none of the campgrounds we tried were open. Super 8 in Spearfish gladly took us, our four dogs and our money, and gave us a room with two beds, a shower, a hot breakfast the next day and a hot tub--well the latter was not in our room. We had to run to K-Mart and get end of season close-out swim trunks at 2.99 each. Running the dogs around the hotel in the middle of the night was the only reason to get out of bed. We both slept well.

To be continued....

Devil's Tower
Pretty impressive even under these conditions
Taken 10/5/09