Thunder Storms

Hail, whipping winds, rain, and in the midst of all that, the frogs in full reproductive mode. I go out to watch, between squall lines, and they're completely oblivious. Supposed to rain most of the week, so I ran to town, liquor store, library, laundromat, brought everything in and took the truck down to the bottom of the driveway this morning. The rain held off until late afternoon, then struck with a vengeance that kept me away from my keyboard. Made a nice clam chowder. Always reminds me of Cape Cod where I could collect enough razor clams for a big pot of chowder in thirty minutes. Winslow and I would night fish for cod, off the beach at night, the ocean side, near Chatham, and freeze the fillets. I ate codfish cakes, with a yolky egg, every morning for breakfast, for years. Available food establishes a diet, best to live somewhere where you like what is available. Going into morel mode here. I've got one bottle of walnut oil left, from a great buy, several years ago, when we were picking up some art in Athens, and I bought a few discontinued bottles at a health food store. I love the stuff. A lot of wild Black Walnut trees around, I could collect a considerable quantity, pay kids to collect them for me, but then what? They're notoriously hard shelled, but if I could somehow shell them, these wild nuts fairly exude oil. Be easy enough the extract the oil. Break up the kernels and put them out in the sun on several layers of un-bleached muslin, press them. Presses are easy to build, a seven ton jack is less then twenty dollars, and I already have a couple. Still, the first gallon of oil will probably cost $100. I hope some of the frogs are taking a break, it's wearing me out. I feel like I need a nap. Another squall, I'd better save. The energy in one of these cells is amazing, the millions of BTU's, billions, in a single lightning flash. Our problem is storage. It's clear, right, some places you have sunlight, some places you have wind, so why are you taking the tops off mountains? From the wind in Wyoming and the sun in Nevada, you could run the entire grid. If you'd just run the cables. You'd have to reconfigure the grid. My first thought is a very large fly-wheel, something that would store a great deal of kinetic energy. Everything's potential, right? what might distort whatever. Fact is, the coal companies have a lot of cash, and we are all subject to bribes. Not that you would take one, or me, but money is a lure, for most people, and they justify it, some way, as their due. I don't understand finance.