Covid conscious

If cats can socially distance,
why can’t humans?  
Credit: Coleen Joice Aquino

News blues…

Covid is stressing Western Cape residents and health care workers to their limits. There’s even talk of potentially bringing in the SADF - military - to ensure compliance with basic preventions such as wearing masks, hand sanitizing, and social distancing  (4:04 mins) What does it take to make the uncompliant Covid conscious?

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A helpful coronavirus dashboard presents a series of virus-related topics, from health care to available resources 

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Holidays in South Africa are accompanied by the growing tally of deaths on the roads. This year the tally is lower than last year but still outrageously high: 690…and counting. KZN has the highest rate of fatalities.   (5:25 mins) 

Healthy planet, anyone?

 Credit: Nicholas Georgiadis 

Ivory from a Portuguese trading ship that sank in 1533 preserved  genetic traces of elephant lineages  that have vanished from West Africa. The ivory from the shipwreck was identified as belonging to  forest elephants rather than  the species’ larger, more well-known savanna-dwelling cousins. 

In 2008, workers searching for diamonds off the coast of Namibia found a different kind of treasure: hundreds of gold coins mixed with timber and other debris. They had stumbled upon Bom Jesus, a Portuguese trading vessel lost during a voyage to India in 1533. Among the 40 tons of cargo recovered from the sunken ship were more than 100 elephant tusks. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Covid has confined my elderly neighbor to her house for 9 months. I visit her once every 8 to 10 days. Recently, I arranged for our domestic worker to work for once a week for this neighbor. Yesterday, after our domestic worker spent the morning working there, my neighbor notified me that her neighbor, a physically compromised diabetic, was tested for Covid. He expects results of the test later today.
To date, this neighborhood has been mercifully free of Covid infection. If this neighbor has contracted it, already tight restrictions will tighten and fear and suspicion will increase.
With the emergence of the even more highly infectious Covid variant, I’m more freaked out more than I expected.

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I’ve been in South Africa since January 28, 2020. I expected to return to California on May 28, 2020. Then, I planned to return mid-March 2021. Now? Who knows when I’ll return? A notice issued yesterday from the US Embassy:

Location: The Republic of South Africa
Event: A new variant of the COVID-19 virus, known as 501.V2, is driving infection rates in areas of South Africa. This discovery is gaining increased international attention and currently as many as 15 countries have banned flights and travelers who have spent time in The Republic of South Africa in the last 10 days.
Actions to Take:

• Travelers should consult with their airlines to inquire about potential flight cancellations and rerouting
• Check destination and transit countries' rules and regulations regarding traveling from South Africa
• Exercise increased hygiene measures and social distancing in South Africa, especially in areas where COVID case numbers are increasing.
• Visit South Africa's COVID information and resource portal, https://sacoronavirus.co.za, for additional information.
• • Monitor local and international media for continuing developments.

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I’ve been fretting about what my mother would agree to do on Christmas Day. My brother invited her to his house then changed his mind. The gathering planned by his large and exuberant family morphed from “just family” to “just extended family” to “what the hell, everyone is welcome!” Not a safe situation for anyone, never mind a fragile 87-year-old.
I hesitated to bring her to this house as I was stymied by how to, 1) carry her up the 20-plus steps to the dining area, and 2) shoehorn her - and The dog - out of the house to return her to the Care Center afterwards. Calling the cops or ambulance personnel to extract an old lady who refused to depart her own home for a Care Center she “hates” would not align with the spirit of the “festive season.”
Miraculously, we agreed I’d bring her a platter of mince pies – a British colonial “festive season” fruit pastry – and spend time with her at the Care Center.
Then, inspiration! I purchased enough mince pies for the whole of A Wing and, on Christmas Day, we’ll share mince pies and fruit cake with all her fellow A Wing inmates. I’ll also encourage people to approach my mother in friendship as she’s “too shy to reach out directly.”
Lordy, I hope this breaks her stubborn regime of self-imposed, reclusive isolation.

Fever Swamp

News blues…

As Donald Trump grapples with ways to defeat America and American voters, and invoke martial law rather than be “a loser,” Fever Swamp is an apt description of his state of mind. (6:55 mins)
Moreover, former sycophants are turning on him (and there’s no anger like that of former sycophants). Even right-wing, conspiracy-spreading news outlets such as Fox and Newsmax and turning on him.

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The worse is yet to come? The number of people hospitalized across California with confirmed COVID-19 infections is more than double the state’s previous peak, reached in July, and a state model forecasts the total could hit 75,000 patients by mid-January.
Plans for rationing care are not in place yet, but they need to be established because “the worst is yet to come….” 

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The Lincoln Project: The dream still lives  (0:55 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

The global food system is on course to drive rapid and widespread ecological damage with almost 90% of land animals likely to lose some of their habitat by 2050.

A study published in the journal Nature Sustainability shows that unless the food industry is rapidly transformed, changing what people eat and how it is produced, the world faces widespread biodiversity loss in the coming decades.
The study’s lead author, David Williams from Leeds University, said without fundamental changes, millions of square kilometres of natural habitats could be lost by 2050. “Ultimately, we need to change what we eat and how it is produced if we are going to save wildlife on a global scale.”  

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Summer solstice. The day I slowly began moving belongings into my new small home. Also the day my mother upped the ante on her determination to escape the Care Center.
My giant dilemma: what to do with someone whose determination to “escape” revolves around a fantasy only tangentially related to reality. Terrified of her brush with making an effort to fit in, desperately afraid of rejection, and replete with years of being in charge, she finds herself not in charge. Deteriorating physical and cognitive disabilities make it unlikely she’ll ever be in charge again.
Nevertheless, she’s stubbornly determined to win an unwinnable game – and control the outcome, too.
I, on the other hand, find myself emotionally detached. Emotional distance is what I learned as my mother’s daughter; emotional distance is how I find myself responding. Dutiful daughter. ***
Monkey see, monkey do. Emboldened by their successful raid on my pantry with “paw paws” (papayas) earlier this week, monkeys now case the joint while I’m inside. With the remaining 3 dogs find it above their paygrade to chase monkeys, so monkeys circle the downstairs seeking entry. The potential quick gobble of paw paw in the pantry makes all risk worthwhile.
My response? Shut the French doors, close the burglar guards and shout, “Scoot monkeys!”
So far, scooting is the last thing on monkey minds!

Solstice

Week 39 Day 270 Monday, December 21 - Solstice

Mid-summer in KZN (left)… and mid-winter in California (right)
Click to enlarge. 

I miss my American family, but I don’t miss winter. Living on a houseboat, as I do when in California, has its plusses in the winter. To name several: the confined space of a houseboat is easy to heat; seals and sea lions frequent Delta waterways; the migration of sandhill cranes to the Delta is in full swing. 

News blues…

As numbers of people infected and die from Covid-19, Donald Trump utters nary a word on the pandemic. Instead, he’s focused on overturning a legitimate election and declaring martial law. 

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My hopes for returning to California are dire now that South Africa and UK have been identified as hotspots for the new coronavirus strain:

Germany plans to impose restrictions on flights from and to SA and Britain after the two countries reported identifying a new coronavirus strain, a government spokesman said on Sunday.
He said that the government was working on new travel rules and was in contact with European Union partners.
El Salvador has also banned travellers who have been in the United Kingdom or SA in the last 30 days or whose flights included a layover in those countries….

Goodbye dreams of seeing family, sea lions, and sandhill cranes any time soon….

Healthy planet, anyone?

It's not easy these days to find positive news on the environment. One Tree Planted responds to this dearth of good news by sifting through the headlines and presenting some of the best stories related to nature, conservation, and biodiversity. Here’s their July news…. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

As populations of the SARSCov-2 virus surge, so do populations of mosquitos. What’s a bad mosquito-related event for someone who sleeps under a mosquito net?
Mosquitos inside the net!
What’s worse than a buzzing mosquito or two insides the net?
Buzzing mosquitos flitting through the light emitted by one’s cell phone as one reads the screen.
It’s woman against predator.
So far, predator wins!

New behaviors

News blues…

• A new coronavirus variant? South Africa and the new coronavirus variant: your questions and health department’s answers 
• UK scrambles amid fears a new variant of COVID-19 is spreading more rapidly across parts of the country that could be “up to 70 percent more transmissible” than the original variant. 
• A fairly technical good explanation (if you’re patient) of the new variant of Covid-19 that 'may be spreading faster'  (1:45:40 mins)

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Another look at whacky stuff: Fox Spreading New DANGEROUS Lies about Covid (3:05 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

A photo essay to remind us of the creatures of our beautiful planet 

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We can learn to better love our country. There’s no better time than now: Namadgi national park: ‘A mystery, a relic, a vibrant pulse in the earth’ 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Monkeys, always observant, have noticed this household has trimmed down from 10 to 3 dogs. Their response? House invasion!
AS I departed the house yesterday, I discovered and discouraged (“scoot monkey!) a monkey in the foliage outside the house. This is the closest to the residence that I’ve ever encountered a monkey. I pulled the burglar guards closed and departed.
Three hours later, my return was met with an excited domestic worker who reported monkeys had invaded the house and eaten my paw paws (“papayas”). Paw paws do have a wonderful aroma and it’s likely that aroma attracted the hungry beasts. They’d entered through the burglar guards, pounced on the fruit, then made themselves comfortable on my large worktable and proceeded to eat the fruit.
By the time, I returned home, Martha (domestic worker) had cleaned up behind the monkeys. I can only imagine the mess that she’d faced. Thank you, Martha. 

From now on out we will keep both the burglar guards and the French doors shut.

It’s his nucleus accumbens and dorsal striatum!

It’s his nucleus accumbens and dorsal striatum!

Madam & Eve, courtesy of
South African cartoonists Steven Francis and Rico 

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James Kimmel, Jr., researcher on violence, discovered that “your brain on grievance looks a lot like your brain on drugs.”
In fact, brain imaging studies show that harboring a grievance (a perceived wrong or injustice, real or imagined) activates the same neural reward circuitry as narcotics.” Kimmel relates his findings in relation to Donald Trump:

Scientists [find] that in substance addiction, environmental cues such as being in a place where drugs are taken or meeting another person who takes drugs cause sharp surges of dopamine in crucial reward and habit regions of the brain, specifically, the nucleus accumbens and dorsal striatum. This triggers cravings in anticipation of experiencing pleasure and relief through intoxication. Recent studies show that cues such as experiencing or being reminded of a perceived wrong or injustice — a grievance — activate these same reward and habit regions of the brain, triggering cravings in anticipation of experiencing pleasure and relief through retaliation. To be clear, the retaliation doesn’t need to be physically violent—an unkind word, or tweet, can also be very gratifying.
Although these are new findings and the research in this area is not yet settled, what this suggests is that similar to the way people become addicted to drugs or gambling, people may also become addicted to seeking retribution against their enemies — revenge addiction. This may help explain why some people just can’t let go of their grievances long after others feel they should have moved on—and why some people resort to violence.
It’s worth asking whether this helps explain Trump’s fixation on his grievances and ways of exacting retribution for them. The hallmark of addiction is compulsive behavior despite harmful consequences. Trump’s unrelenting efforts to retaliate against those he believes have treated him unjustly (including, now, American voters) appear to be compulsive and uncontrollable. The harm this causes to himself and others is obvious but seems to have no deterrent effect. Reports suggest he has been doing this for much of his life. He seems powerless to stop. He also seems to derive a great deal of pleasure from it.

Hmmm. Explains a lot…except how to manage it.
Alas, the recent election as “intervention” appears to have upped Trump’s pleasure in wreaking revenge.
Read, “What the Science of Addiction Tells Us About Trump“  >> 

News blues…

South Africans are hosting a new variant of coronavirus, with “three mutations, which is an unusually high number for a new variant, and can bind more easily to receptors in the human body.” This. according to health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize, speaking at a briefing alongside top scientists including Prof Salim Abdool Karim and Prof Tulio de Oliveira.
This “new highly transmissible variant is circulating widely — but it is not clear yet whether it is more severe than the original variants. Nevertheless, it has become the dominant one in the country's second coronavirus wave, and is “making young and previously healthy people severely ill”. 

Healthy planet, anyone?

Mixed results of the pandemic. It cuts funding and volunteer numbers, rises awareness, and results in more people are rescuing more injured animals – and overwhelms systems. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

A good time is planned for all!
My mother will enjoy Christmas Day with my brother and his family. The Dog will enjoy Christmas Day at this house – her previous home.
I hope we can load The Dog (and the mother?) back into the car when it’s time to return them to the Care Center.
I expect my mother’s surging determination to escape the Care Center will be tempered by reality after she visits my brother and his family in their small house. Not only is the house small, the two bedrooms already are inhabited by my brother’s wife’s adult sons and an eight-year-old grandson – and a puppy. Imagine my mother and The Dog squeezed in there! (One hour, max, before mayhem breaks out!)

“Whole-of-America approach”

News blues…

We start a new week – in South Africa lockdown weeks begin on Fridays – with the US experiencing “roughly one coronavirus-related death every 27 seconds.” This, after, Mike Pence, US vice president and chair of the Coronavirus Task Force wrote a summer Op Ed for the Wall Street Journal:

The media has tried to scare the American people every step of the way, and predictions of a second wave are no different. The truth is, whatever the media says, our whole-of-America approach has been a success.
We’ve slowed the spread, we’ve cared for the most vulnerable, we’ve saved lives, we’ve created a solid foundation for whatever challenges we may face in the future.

A lot can happen between now and 20 January, 2021 when Trump et al, depart the White House and escape responsibility for the botched systems we know they're leaving behind (most recently, knee-capping the CDC; a massive breech of national security data . These are some of what we know. What don't we know about yet?)

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Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, stricken with Covid at the White House, retracts his anti-mask advice and urges Americans to wear masks: “I was wrong!”  (1:00 mins)

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Meanwhile, California nears zero capacity in its intensive care units as COVID-19 cases continue to surge. As of Thursday morning, there was just 3% ICU capacity statewide, the California Department of Public Health revealed on its statewide metrics database. 

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In South Africa, 24,000 have now died from Covid-19, with 9,100 new cases in 24 hours.

Healthy planet, anyone?

There’s a tendency for (some) humans to believe that if we just left alone the “natural” world, it would “fix” itself. The problem of “just letting nature get on with” and returning it to its pristine roots? There is no such thing as “pristine roots.” The natural world is in a state of ongoing unfolding. (You know, kind of like you are in a state of ongoing unfolding, too….

…the problem with “just letting nature get on with it” is twofold: first, ecological succession takes a long time. And second, [countries and] Britain now contains so many invasive plant and animal species that we may never get the resulting forests we hope for through a policy of benign neglect. In other words, some management will always be required…
If we want to maximise biodiversity in our wild spaces, we need to consider what grows there, and what food webs and habitats are built and supported. There is no guarantee that nature, unassisted, will arrive at a desired outcome.

Read “Letters: Restoring forests needs both nature and nurture” >> 

An excellent read for a challenging view of nature and nurture is Charles Mann’s 2005 book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Out walking Jessica (the dog) yesterday, I spotted a legavan/ legawaan/rock monitor lizard.

It ran from the Care Center parking lot into the reeds lining the shore of nearby Robin Pond.
Jessica, luckily, did not spot it. Had she spotted it, it’s likely she’d chase after it, barking. Barking is a no no at the Care Center. Chasing critters and barking is a double whammy no no. Last week, she barked and chased a warthog family – with an audience of lawn bowlers and the driver of a vehicle that stopped just before it struck the belligerent dog.
Yes, I am supposed to leash the dog and I do if people are around. She caught me off guard that time as we were heading back home, and I was not vigilant.
Moreover, softy me sometimes allows her off leash so she can sniff at leisure and roll (“roly poly”) on the grass. She is, after all, confined to the Care Center. She doesn’t get out much, and rarely has a chance to bark at anything, never mind critters as deserving (in her mind) of a good bark as a warthog family.
The Care Center inhabitant of the Care Center I’m most concerned about is, of course, Mother Dearest. She’s maintaining her complain-a-thon: she hates the place, she’ll call her lawyer to get her out (he can’t), when will her grandson rescue her (he won’t), and where are her peas (in the fridge outside her door).
Yesterday, I responded to her with a human version of a dog’s bark: “The country – the world – is in lockdown. You’d be well advised to take it day-by-day for the next several weeks. Change the channel in your mind to find something nurturing for yourself because no one is going anywhere while the pandemic rages. With 75 million people infected around the world, and 7 to 10 thousand South Africans infected per day, no one, not even Jesus, will move you anywhere right now.
Like Jessica, if pressed, my bark is worse than my bite.

What can go wrong…

Worldwide (Map) 
December 17 – 73,557,500 confirmed infections; 1,637,100 deaths
November 19 – 56,188,000 confirmed infections; 1,348,600 deaths
October 22 – 41,150,000 confirmed infections; 1,130.410 deaths

US (Map)
December 17 – 16,724,775 confirmed infections; 303,900 deaths
November 19 – 11,525,600 confirmed infections; 250,485 deaths
October 22 – 8,333,595 confirmed infections; 222,100 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal)
December 17 – 873,680 confirmed infections; 23,665 deaths
November 19 – 757,145 confirmed infections; 20,556 deaths
October 22 – 708,360 confirmed infections; 18,750 deaths

News blues…

What can go wrong, will go wrong… On the eve of delivering thousands of vaccines into thousands of willing arms, a major storm threatens:

…shipments of the vital coronavirus vaccine around the US face delay as a monster winter storm pummels states from Virginia to Massachusetts.
Treacherous weather could bury parts of the eastern US in snow, ice or flooding and cause power outages, hazardous travel conditions, or even tornadoes on Wednesday and Thursday, according to the National Weather Service, threatening all forms of transportation being used by the vaccine manufacturing facilities, centered in Michigan, as they fly and truck vials around the country.
The storm, which is set to be a record for December and hit a region stretching from Virginia to north of New York City by late afternoon on Wednesday, was poised to drop as much as 2ft (0.6 meters) of snow in some places by Thursday.

Gosh, maybe the conspiracy theorists (aka “whackjobs”) are 100 percent correct and there is a giant, organized, worldwide cabal of Never Trumpers, socialists, communists, Democrats, God and gods, freedom-haters “out there” looking to “do us harm” ….
Could it be?

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A notice from my island hometown, Alameda, in San Francisco Bay:

Stay at Home Order Extended to January 7th; No New Changes to Permitted Activities
The State announced today that the availability of intensive care unit (ICU) beds has fallen below 15 percent in the Bay Area Region. This means that the Stay at Home restrictions adopted by Alameda County and seven other Bay Area jurisdictions earlier this month remain in effect for the entire Bay Area region for a minimum of three weeks, starting today. Because Alameda County’s restrictions already match the State’s restrictions, there are no additional changes to permitted activities at this time.
After the minimum three weeks (January 7, 2021), the State’s order could be lifted once the region’s projected ICU capacity meets or exceeds 15 percent. As with local Health Officer orders, easing of restrictions will also depend on local disease conditions.

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The Lincoln Project: Never happens here  (1:35 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone? 

One of the pleasure of KZN this time of year – the rainy season – is lying in bed at night listening to frogs sing for a mate. The cacophony is extraordinary. During my next trip here, I plan to bring my recording equipment to capture the amazing variety of frog calls.
In other parts of the world, France, for example, live, breathing, singing frogs are fatally unwelcome:

The French courts have had their final word: Grignols’ grenouilles (frogs) must go.
The frogs of a Dordogne village have been served notice after a judge decided they make so much noise during the mating season that they are a nuisance to the neighbours.
After nine years of legal battles, Michel and Annie Pécheras have been told they have 90 days to drain the 300 sq-metre pond at their home in the village of Grignols: population 587, and get rid of the amphibians. 

A 300 sq-metre pond is home to many, many frogs. 

Has any thought been given to what happens to a 300 sq-metre pond sans grenouilles?

I imagine not. Why think ahead? Why think beyond immediate needs and desires? Why think “big picture”? 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Grrrr. Care Center Mother! 

Each week the Care Center provides residents an opportunity to order whatever “extras” they want from the local grocery store. Care Center staff track orders and deliver items to residents. My mother, however, prefers to phone Martha, her former domestic worker still resident in this house, and order up dog food that I carry to the Care Center. Now, Mother Dearest orders Martha to cook her own food, too. (Naturally, my mother calls Martha directly as she – mother – knows I’d put the kabosh on the order. This puts Martha in a tough spot: she’s officially my mother’s domestic worker but reliant on my to carry the order to the Care Center.)
Ironically, when my mother lived in this house, she ate only Jungle Oats cereal and three Romany Cream biscuits accompanying each of her dozen or more cups of Rooibos tea each day. We’d begged her to eat the occasional serving of over-cooked vegetables. She did so reluctantly.
The Care Center serves breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, and yet more tea. Alas, according to my mother, the Care Center’s food is “awful,” the “vegetables hard” - “no peas!” – and the tea supply insufficient.
In the past, along with dog food – specialty giblets, chicken livers, and rice – and dog biscuits – “the dogs only like Beenos and Montego” – I’ve also carried gem squash to my mother. I brought a package of four as she intended, she said, to microwave one a day. A week after I delivered them, four gem squash remained in the unopened package. My enquiring as to why she’d not cooked them elicited a plaintive, “I have no knife.” Eventually, I asked a care giver to cook her gem squash. Delivery of the cooked vegetable was met with yet another complaint: “It was too stringy.”
Carrying dog food up to the Care Center every two or three days has been a chore. Ditto carrying dog biscuits up the Care Center every two or three weeks – with another delivery due today.
I can’t tell, yet, whether my mother is conducting an ongoing low intensity war of attrition with the outcome her victorious ejection from the Care Center or whether dementia is kicking in faster than predicted. Meanwhile, Martha will semi-comply with her order. I’ll take the flak for Martha not exactly following orders. I’ll carry a small container of frozen peas – uncooked, no gravy – and deliver it, along with a box of Beenos and Montego dog biscuits.
I’m almost thankful that the Care Center locked down to visitors. It allows me an (almost) clear conscience when, masked as usual, I deliver these items to my mother through her window….

***

On the public holiday Day of Reconciliation an Eskom contractor called, seeking permission to enter this property.
Background: Eskom, SA’s national supplier of electricity, brutally prunes trees that touch overhead electrical cable. Last year, they massacred two beautifully mature swamp cypress, leaving only the main trunks; branch and pruning debris remains as litter blocking the free flow of water in the stream.
Accordingly, I’m reluctant to allow them into the garden for a repeat performance.
I was away from the property when the Eskom contractor called. We agreed he and his team would come at noon – “12 o’clock today” – and I’d be back home to allow them entrance. (My hesitation: why are they working on a public holiday? Could this be a scam to gain entrance into the property and rob? At this time of year, warnings about such home invasion robberies proliferate.) I was home at the agreed upon time.
Eskom failed to arrive at noon, or even 1pm or 2pm or 3pm….
Long story short: Eskom never arrived at all. At midnight, I noticed a SMS/text msg: “It seams as if I can’t make it in an hour time, too much work….” Hmmmm.
Correction: I was wrong. Eskom’s representative, Zephraim just showed up. (He introduced himself along with, “If you read the Bible, you’ll see Zephraim and words about Babylon.” How can I resist?)
Zephraim will bring his crew to cut. 

I’ll be out for most of the day.
What will I return to?
If only Zephraim of Babylon had a passage in the Bible about respecting all God’s living work on planet earth!