Fodder for Depression

This is our daughter's pond. There has been so much rain, interspersed with snow, at both of our houses that her pond looks muddy. Can't imagine the blue heron returning to it at this point.
 (Photo: Krehb Fotographie,    Copyright 2013  All Rights Reserved)

              
    I realize now that I don't like Winter very much, and that February might be my least favorite month.  It's cold, even in Virginia, and this makes it tough to take care of the animals on the farm, and it's tough on those of us who do.  My husband has been doing most of it because I have been bothered by a lot of asthma this year. My poor husband is recovering from a cold or mild flu, but still has to keep going in energizer bunny fashion.  We received the electricity bill the other day, and the shock which came in it almost caused an atrial arrhythmia.
            I am still pushing the books as is the publisher, but the process is decidedly less exciting than it was initially.  The news is full of things both shameful and ominous.  Someone in government thought it advisable to stop providing breakfast to our deployed troops, and then said that this was natural in view of a drawdown.  The fact is that some are coming home, and others are being deployed for long assignments, and that the newly deployed will not have breakfast either. It says something about a formerly great nation when they decide to cut breakfast for the deployed military.   These days, it looks as if the mission is to gut the US military itself. There is no shortage of stories of injustice, oppression, and tyranny around the world, and here in the US.
            The fact is, that while we are here, we must continue moving forward. We must continue writing, speaking and awaiting Spring. In this life, good things and good people exist and live right next door to bad people and bad things, and this is true many times.  I think I saw a crocus trying to push up through the frozen mud yesterday.