Beautiful

For right now, we've got regular power going to the cell tower. It's going to have to do until and unless Jamie can find a portable unit we can take back to the compound. That's why my post is so late today--we've had people wiring new solar panels up and setting up a small wind turbine.

It's been a nice day. We've missed a lot of work time out on the farms because of the constant rain, so today we made as much makeup progress as we could. It was so nice out that I think most people just enjoyed the change in the weather and the chance to socialize as they worked. Pretty much everyone was out working...

It's going to take a while to fix all the storm damage. The wall is functional if not pretty right this second, and roofs are being patched. There's no handy replacement glass for all the windows that were shattered by the debris the tornado kicked onto us, so for now it's whatever we can find to cover them.

So that's it for updates.

Looking outside isn't easy at my house. We took some pretty extreme measures early on to safeguard ourselves, which means that when I'm at home and working, it doesn't matter what the outside looks like. My office is always the same.

But I'm sitting on my front porch right now, looking at the sky. I'm seeing beautiful streaks of red and gold across the bottoms of the clouds, all mixed with blue. It's a lovely sight.

I don't want to get too philosophical on you. I know it gets old.

But this is important to me. I look up at this sky, a vision that has no meaning in and of itself. I see the sun passing through the atmosphere and bouncing off the clouds, and I recognize something important. Life is full of a thousand little things that have no base emotional value. They are wonders only because we make them so. We love the striations of a sunset, and we want to share that sense of awe.

Sunsets. Babies coming into the world. The gentle grace of a deer. Small, simple things.

And well worth fighting for. Staying alive in and of itself if vital. Feeling alive is something that we have to always remember to work for...