Pragmatism

 Yesterday, Tim came home. He needed to replace some ammunition for next hunting season. Much to his surprise, he found it on sale, and in a much bigger package than he ever would have bought it if it had not been on sale. 

He showed me his very good deal, and then said, "I will never buy this ammo again in my life." He headed out of the room to put his bargain away. 

I was shocked at his words, but he didn't notice. I stood there doing doing some mental math, and realized that he was right. 

We ran up on the hill to talk to Levi. We had a message to deliver. I also had a game for the kids. I sat down on the floor in the dim livingroom and taught the kids how to play 'Nobody Here But Us Chickens' by the glow of oil lamps. 

Tim talked about the political situation. 

I wish he wouldn't. I try to tell him that not everyone sees it the same as we do. He doesn't read the room. I tried to remind him of that, but he held forth. 

Levi said, interestedly, "You don't agree with him then?" 

"No," I said, "I agree with him 100%. I just realize that people don't always see it the same way as we do." 

But Tim talked on, about tariffs and how Canada was threatening to turn off power to New York, Michigan and Minnesota. I looked up from the floor over the tops of the children's heads and said, "We'll all be living like Amish before it is done," and laughed. So did everyone else. 

Tim's latest 'can't drop it' topic is Social Security. He gets a lot of info from facebook. I have told him repeatedly that he cannot consider facebook info reliable. I mean, people will post just about any bs on it. But Tim is afraid, someplace deep down inside and I think that all this conflicting fb crap is making it worse. He went on at great length about social security and if it is lost, five of our tenants will not be able to pay rent...

I said, "Tim, the guy that said that social security will collapse in 30-90 days had just lost his job. He is upset. He's venting. Will that happen? We don't know for sure. We have got to stop worrying about what is going to happen and just prepare for the worse case scenario. We've been through hard times before." 

Amish do not accept any money from the government. It is against their religion.  I imagine that hearing Tim fret just made Levi all the more certain that the Amish are correct to avoid that money. He sat, rocking in his chair, stroking his beard as he listened to me. "Yes, that's right," he said, nodding. Tim looked unconvinced. 

Later, I lay in bed as Tim snored next to me, thinking over the events of the day. About the last ammo he'd ever buy in his life. About the fear that he will not admit to but cannot stop talking about. We've worked hard all our lives, and planned carefully. Those plans may come to nothing before we are done. Who knows?

I've got my seed. Levi's cutting our boards for my raised bed. We're going to get some top soil in. My sister will bring us over a couple tractor loads of old manure that has rotted over a couple years outside their barn. I will get chickens. We are planting an acre of field corn for the deer and turkey. We owe money to no one. In short, what we are doing here is setting ourselves to be ready for hard times. If the hard times do not come, we'll certainly be no worse off for our preparations. If the hard times do come, well...we'll get through them.

Or we won't. 

I guess I'm a little more pragmatic than Tim, which surprises me. I've always been the emotional one. Not sure when that all changed. 

Today, I touched base with our executor to fine tune something that occurred to me overnight.