September 12, 2026

 Saturday. Left just before ten. Blacksmith. Fairly mild, moderate winds out of the south. Mostly overcast, with gray cover, but also some woolly white, all of it with sporadic room for the sun. Late morning light beginning to get more interesting this time of year. Koningsweg to Vechten and Achterdijk. Corn being cut. Wildflower borders and fields, with sunflowers prominent. Werkhoven to Dwarsdijk. Pears beginning to come off the trees. Wijkersloot to Irenesluizen, then Lekdijk to Beatrixsluizen. The bend in its entirety, starting at the Beusichem ferry, spectacular: the view of the curve of the dike, and to its left the lower marshland, then the river. The marshland still very dry. Further on, the river also looked low. People out, but on the whole fairly quiet. Schipperspad to Merwedekanaal, where the whole world appeared to be out exercising. Into town and Møs. The AD full of domestic and local news, with some Saturday life-style articles added for good measure. If this, indeed, is how the population gets its view of the world, one wonders whether the government's willingness to assist Ukraine as a first line of defense against Russia will find enough supporters for very long. Fortunately, there was one report on the visit of the foreign minister to the Baltics, to receive the advice not to be intimidated by Russian provocations. Instead, immediate countermeasures are the way to show Moscow that Europe can actually stand up for itself--effective deterrence, in other words. Part of that is to maintain credible armed forces, sufficiently staffed. From other articles it appears that the military isn't confident it can find enough suitable volunteers to make that happen and is now developing ideas for some kind of return to forced recruitment; a draft, in other words. That would not be such a bad thing, because the chance that one, or one's child, can be made to serve in the military will at least place the growing emergency right in the middle of lives of people who, until now, blissfully live their lives pretending nothing that goes on beyond our borders (other than wildfires near your vacation address) holds any relevance.