Tag: Inspiration

What I don’t like about November

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Here we are!

  1. Election Day. How can so many Americans be so dumb, so often, these days? Once in a while, I’m surprised by a miracle.
  2. The time change. Moving the clocks back from so-called Daylight Savings is the real beginning of winter. Where I live, it means sunset in the middle of the afternoon. How depressing!
  3. The foliage is gone. The trees are naked. The landscape’s turned black-and-white for most days.
  4. It’s cold. The fact is, we have to get used to the falling temperatures. It always comes as a shock. By the time we get to February, the same readings will seem balmy.
  5. Christmas songs and décor everywhere. It’s all a big retailing push. It’s not even Advent until the 29th this year – or the end of the month. It’s SO wrong! And remember, the Twelve Days of Christmas aren’t a shopping countdown – they begin on Christmas Day itself.
  6. Garden cleanup. OK, it’s not all bad. Harvesting the root crops can actually be fun. But turning off the water to the outdoor faucets, emptying the hoses and taking them to the loft of the barn, collecting fallen leaves, bringing the hammock in, along with other outdoor furniture and the ceramic pots, can get tedious.
  7. Putting up outside Christmas lighting. I prefer getting this done before it turns into a knuckle-freezing trial.
  8. No more yard sales. My wife’s pretty good at finding things on my everyday shopping list at way-below-retail on most Saturday mornings. Alas, any new items will have to wait till May.
  9. I have to clean ash from the wood-burning stove. It needs to be done every-other-day, at the least.
  10. Can’t sit in the loft of the barn. Not for long. And even then, I can’t leave the hayloft door open.

~*~

What about you?

Out west, it can be a long drive to anywhere

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

When Joshua and Jaya finally arrive in their Promised Land in my novel Nearly Canaan, they discover how far they are from other destinations.

As I recall, some people would drive hours for a fine dinner, and hours going back.

Here are some drive times from Yakima, Washington, to other Western locales.

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  1. Seattle, 2 hours, 16 minutes. I remember it taking more like three or more.
  2. Spokane, 3 hours, 9 minutes.
  3. Walla Walla, Washington, 2 hours, 6 minutes. Having the Interstate down the valley has certainly cut the time here.
  4. Wenatchee, Washington, 2 hours.
  5. Portland, Oregon, 3 hours, 6 minutes.
  6. San Francisco, 12 hours, 6 minutes.
  7. Boise, Idaho, 5 hours, 33 minutes.
  8. Salt Lake City, 10 hours, 11 minutes.
  9. Denver, 17 hours, 19 minutes.
  10. Missoula, Montana, 6 hours, 9 minutes.

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And that’s not stopping for fuel, food, or comfort.

How long does it take you to get to a favorite daytrip destination?

 

Did you know nonprofits are a big part of the economy?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In my novel Nearly Canaan, Jaya resumes her career in nonprofit enterprises – a field she left in moving to the Yoga Bootcamp from Manhattan.

Running nonprofits turns out to be a management specialty – and they are a major player in the economy, even if you don’t read a lot about them in the business section of the newspaper.

Here are some considerations.

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  1. The nonprofit sector accounts for $65 billion of the U.S. economy – 5.4 percent of the gross national product.
  2. Nonprofits hire a tenth of the workforce – more than national defense, construction, real estate, and space exploration combined.
  3. There are more than 1.2 million public charities and foundations in the country.
  4. Only one-third of the organizations file with the IRS, leaving the rest off of the economic radar.
  5. The 950,000 public charity organizations – ranging across arts, culture, education, health care, and human services – comprise two-thirds of the nonprofits sector.
  6. Most of them are small. Nearly 30 percent of the public service organizations operate at under $100,000 a year. The largest group, 37 percent, runs between $100,000 and $499,999. The largest group, of $10 million or more, is just 5.3 percent of the organizations but doles out 87 percent of the money.
  7. Nearly half of their revenue comes from fees for services and goods – ticket sales, tuition, hospital fees, membership fees, and product sales. Another third comes from government programs and grants. The remainder comes from donations (15 percent) and investment income (5 percent).
  8. Religion is the largest charity category, with a third of the pot, followed by education, 13 percent. Other standouts: Health, at 7.4 percent; arts, culture, and humanities at 4.1 percent; environment or animals, 2 percent.
  9. One in four Americans volunteers time and service to these causes. Their volunteer service, averaging 52 hours a year per person, is valued at $1.5 trillion. They also donate $358 billion in fundraising.
  10. The total assets of public charities in the U.S. comes to $3.7 trillion.

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Do you donate to any nonprofit groups? Do you volunteer? Do you rely on their services?

 

Where King Salmon reigns

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In my novel Nearly Canaan, Joshua and Jaya settle into a place unlike anything they would have imagined. Though they live in desert, it still spawns salmon.

Oh, what a fish.

~*~

  1. There are eight commercially important species of salmon in the Pacific, and nine in the Atlantic.
  2. Some species can reach five feet in length and 110 pounds in weight.
  3. The body color changes, depending on habitat and the mating seasons. It’s not always the dark orange we see on our dinner plate.
  4. They have a lot of natural enemies, including big fish, whales, sea lions, and bears. Commercial and sport fishermen take a big toll, too.
  5. They’re healthy food, rich in proteins, Vitamin D, and omega-3 fatty acids.
  6. They can survive three to eight years in the wild.
  7. They travel thousands of miles from their freshwater spawning areas out to the sea and then return to their birthplace to spawn more. They can climb up to 7,000 feet elevation from the sea to accomplish this. Most will then die of exhaustion.
  8. They do not eat any food during the time they swim upstream to spawn.
  9. Swimming upstream, they can jump two yards in the air.
  10. A female Chinook salmon can carry more than 4,000 eggs.