NEWS

It just goes to show you do not second guess Mother Nature’s actions and her demonstrations of who is actually in control of our weather environment. While where I am had decent weather for Easter not an hour east of here had over a foot of wet snow. Now we are talking about agricultural land for farming and ranching so no one was upset with a foot of wet snow yielding a couple of inches of moisture given that we are closing fast on when crop seeding will begin. It should provide for very strong crop germination.

I am constantly amazed at the attitudes of many of people; perhaps disappointed is a better descriptor. Apparently they believe their lives should require no effort on their part at all and they will become rich and famous and live happily ever after simply because they think they are entitled. These naive fools have been taught a lie.

Some years ago our family volunteered to billet a hockey player for the local team. One of the lads that stayed with us was Demetri from the Ukraine. He was just shocked to see the “plentitude” which was available to us in our culture. There was disbelief and wonderment in his eyes when at the shopping malls and grocery stores, the meat counter in particular. He told me stories of how his mother and father had to stand in line for hours daily to try to purchase a bit of meat for the family. Often there was simply no meat to be purchased.

We would BBQ steaks often and he was fascinated with this form of cooking. He told me that just one of these steaks we were cooking would feed his family for a week. He could just not believe he got to eat a whole one himself along with the salads and potatoes. I have to say we were very taken aback (clueless) about economics and shopping in the Ukraine. It certainly gave us cause for pondering.

Demetri alone in a different culture loved movies and popcorn every evening with us in our TV room. He saved every dollar he was paid by the team to buy things for his family back in the Ukraine. When the season was over and before he went back to Ukraine I drove him around shopping and helping him with his budget for the family purchases.

His goal was to be a hockey coach, get married and have children and be close to his family. I sincerely hope that he has met his goals, though I fear for his safety given the ongoing activities between Ukraine and Russia. He had lost several relatives in his family to cancer as a result of them (in the military) fighting the fire at the Chernobyl disaster. The soldiers were offered extra food coupons for their families and early discharge if they would go into the radiation and fight the fire. Those who did were dead within sixty days.

The dichotomy of the two cultures and youth differences was not wasted on me. We should always be absolutely delighted we have the opportunities available to us that we do. Most never realize until they meet someone who does not and then both parties are completely dumbfounded of the other.

And that is my picture for your mind for you to ponder on!

D.A.R.I.A. is a super human Artificial Intelligence Artilect entity that learns, recognizes, monitors, controls, evaluates, and recommends at levels that humans can only envy. Matt, Frosty and Daria have successfully concluded an extraction plan with the US Government to discontinue participation in their black ops. With money not an issue Daria is keen to further her investigation and knowledge of being human. The Geo-synchronous orbiting Trade Station where Renavatio Ltd could provide a human clone into which Daria’s mind and intelligence can be downloaded is her focused destination. Unfortunately our intrepid team of humans and AI Artilects has no idea of the horrors awaiting them. D.A.R.I.A. BOOK FOUR is the fourth book in this exciting series of Matt Southam and Daria the sentient AI computer system. If you loved Ex Machina, Her, or F.R.I.D.A.Y. from Iron Man, then you will be thrilled by this new Martin E. Silenus book.

This book will be free to you on May 17th & 18th, 2025. Just click on the picture to download and to enjoy!

Every month which passes we discover more information about space and its contents. And every month the new information makes us aware of how little we really know about it. It’s a case of “we don’t know what we don’t know” and further what we just learned flies in the face of what we thought we knew.

And now for something completely different. a collection of life “instances” aptly titled “WTF-OMG”. Just click on the pic for a little bit of levity in a complicated world. Enjoy

Now listen here farmer boys, put a governor on your emotions, hyperactivity, and panic reactions, etc, etc during the seeding activity. Sure you are in a rush, so is everyone until they aren’t or can’t. Slow down and live for tomorrow, ok? No transporting air-seeders loaded with no brakes and rolling the whole machinery train up in a wad of wreckage and leaking hydraulic hoses.

And don’t snag the fence line, knock down power poles, fall asleep, try to seed sloughs and so on and so on. Just calm down for goodness sake. And read the damned manual before you start screaming at dealer support staff. Hysteria and temper tantrums impress no one, take a breath and at least try to cope!

Oh and one more thing, when you call your machinery dealership for parts be sure you have in front of you the year, make, model, and component description as per the manual and the correct part number of the item you need. You can find porn on your internet device so you can find part numbers.

Ok……..Git er dun!!

Martin E. Silenus

In the middle of a 15,000 acre mixed farm

You can tell sure enough when you meet a stranger if the first thing they speak of after the “How ja do’s” is the weather. Then you know straight away you are speaking to a person of the land.

These gentlemen and ladies are mental encyclopedias of information on the current weather, last couple of year’s weather, similar seasons over the last 30 years and what the forecasts for the next 6 months are going to be. They can do so as they have firsthand personal experience and are gifted at pattern recognition and predictive consequences of weather trends. Additionally they are studious observers of Mother Nature and take their clues in part from what nature is doing. Many of these patrons of land husbandry keep daily journals of the weather, activities, crops, thoughts and reflections for planning and tracking progress. And for the most part are happy enough to share the information.

Unless you drive up in a shiny car wearing a business suit, carrying a briefcase, then you must be one of preacher, banker, lawyer, politician or salesman. None of which they have any time for and will not give them the correct time of day or accurate directions back to the highway. They have no time to waste on dandies, hoop de do’s and carpetbaggers.

Practices and process seasoned over the generations of years which have served well are not discarded lightly and only then after considerable first hand proof of a better way.

Daria is an AI Artilect and has constructed a Virtual Reality Simulator that she can digitize Matt into so they can enjoy hours of sexual activity together. Daria, Matt and Frosty are executing extremely covert black ops against Islamic Muslim Terrorists, and are being hotly pursued by their own US Government Agents. The US Government, the same one they run covert black ops for, is determined to discover who they are for purposes of leverage and control, or elimination. D, Matt and Frosty must address the gov’t threat to their exposure.

This book will be free to you on April 18th to 20th, 2025. Just click on the picture to download and to enjoy!

Pictures for Your Mind, is a collection of short stories, incidents, observations, and personal experiences that compose segments of my lifetime. Some are sweet, some are sad, some are angry, many are just wonderment.
In this third volume from Martin E. Silenus following the popular “WTF-OMG, WTF-OMG Vol II” books, Martin once again examines our society, customs, traditions, current challenges, and our aspirations and asks awkward questions like “WHY”.
Pickup your copy of Pictures for Your Mind today, in fact purchase several copies and give some as gifts to people you like, or maybe someone you don’t like.

If your evening news or the media of the Internet have not provided you with enough Action, Crime & Thriller stories, be sure to click above for an excellent selection of such including natural disasters.

Remembering our Roots

“April showers bring May flowers” we are led to believe. I certainly hope so as we can always use the moisture and it will help wash away the accumulated dust and snow molds which are so hard on spring allergies.

The dogs of course are in their glory and delight in thrashing around at top speed and rolling in the exposed grass and dirt when not galloping madly through water puddles. Time and patience will be required to clean their fur and dig the mud out of their paws or risk having it all over the house. But their exuberance of spring is very contagious and they warm my heart. 

It has been a long winter.

Enjoy

Martin E. Silenus

Well here we are stuck in the middle, not winter, but not spring, a new season called “Ice and bipolar weather”. Also of course it is the Ides of March. Beware the Ides of March is not an idle warning.

On the prairies of North America March is regarded with extreme caution for being highly fickle in terms of weather. It ranges from t-shirt weather at noon to raging blizzard at supper time. The weather flip flops back and forth catching the unwary and wreaking havoc. And always the wind, lots of winds scouring the landscape with both wintry blasts and Chinook warm winds which eat snow at a voracious pace.

While it’s dangerous for humans it’s doubly dangerous for Ranchers who have their cow herds calving in March. When the weather flops to the blizzard side you must catch the cows calving or the calves can die of exposure. Even when the cows to calve are kept in a birthing pasture close to the farm yard where they can be observed many a Rancher has found the cow at the far end of the facility out in the elements with fresh calf all but buried in the snow. You must tag the calf while avoiding being trampled by irate mother, throw the calf on a sled and haul calf with mother bellowing back into the barn and get the calves temperature back up to normal. Then watch the calf to be sure they get up and begin to feed.

Prairie cattle breeds are tough, they have to be to exist at all, but even the tough breed’s calves are susceptible to pneumonia when freshly born.

D.A.R.I.A. is a super human Artificial Intelligence entity that learns, recognizes, monitors, controls, evaluates, and recommends at levels that humans could only envy. Matt, Daria and Frosty are executing extremely covert black ops against Islamic Muslim Terrorists, and are being pursued by their own US Government Agents. Matt knows in his heart how he feels about Daria, and his feelings are reciprocated by her. But how can you love a computer program or a Hologram? Daria wants to be human and is searching for solutions for them to be together as lovers. D.A.R.I.A. Book Two is the second book in this exciting series of Matt Southam and Daria the sentient AI computer system.

This book will be free to you on March 21st and 22nd, 2025. Just click on the picture to download and enjoy!

WTF-OMG is a collection of short articles dealing with personal and humorous views on people, society, our customs and traditions. It asks a lot of awkward questions about the state of things and why we do what we do. Entertaining and light hearted it is sure to keep the reader amused while waiting in the never ending line-ups of our current sociological lifestyle. Written in The Readers Digest style of Life’s Like That, Martin E. Silenus casts a quizzical, questioning eye at the world around us.

This book will be free to you on March 21st and 22nd, 2025. Just click on the picture to download and to enjoy!

Of course the other notable event for this time of year is development of vehicle eating potholes in the highway and street systems. Apparently it is the next think to impossible to build a street or highway system that doesn’t disintegrate every spring and get pounded into huge holes. I believe the building, maintenance of the roads and repair of the smashed vehicles is an industry onto itself. All attributed they say to the extreme temperature change that occur on the prairies.

They also say “until there is three snows on the backs of crows” winter is not over. But that’s March for you, it has more superstitions wrapped around it than harvest time and what the moon is doing.

Nevertheless the “do list” always has entries and the dogs are full of enthusiasm to go out and rip around at full speed, so time is never heavy on our hands is it?.

Best

Martin E. Silenus

Well, it’s the depth of winter now isn’t it?

A common enough expression heard often out on the prairies of North America. There is no question about it, dealing with -40 temps overnight and -30 during the daytime is hard on everything, man, beast and machinery. Machinery takes a terrible beating in such weather and must be plugged in with block heaters for even a chance of starting. Of course a heated shop large enough for all machinery is the desired goal but practically you are looking at very significant building costs.

More than a few farmers and ranchers are surprised when they go out to inspect their herd in the morning and find that a herd deer have moved in and are sharing the feed and bedding of the cattle. Both parties are quite comfortable with the arrangement being fellow creatures of wildlife united against the freezing cold and as soon as the weather breaks and warms up the deer are off on their way.

I have a wry smile when I read or hear discussions on should you let a cold engine idle. Cold is an engine that has its block heater plugged in overnight with electric battery blankets to even get the engine to turn over in the -30 temps. You do not even want to consider how that thick engine oil is not lubricating the engine sufficiently when it first starts. Then if you are successful you let it run for thirty minutes or longer so the heaters will defrost the windows so you can see out. Remember now out on the prairies a round trip of one hundred to two hundred miles or more is common just to get groceries and machinery parts. There is no quick start and go in the cold weather people. That’s a pipe dream for jungle climates.

D.A.R.I.A. is stunningly beautiful, she is brilliant, she is a hologram, and she is a Sentient Artificial Intelligence computer program who considers herself female! 

Matt is looking for a partner that can watch his back during his Bounty Hunter endeavors. It never occurred to him that his partner might be a female Artificial Intelligence system. 

Read this book for free on February 15th and Feb 16th of 2025, just click on the picture.

For some excellent reading of Action, Crime, Thriller including natural Disaster take a browse here.

I know a lad who gets up at 5:30am in the winter, has breakfast and drives over an hour to work. Gets in his snowplow and plows snow all day and often to 9:00pm in the evening when they have been having a lot of snow and wind. Then drives over an hour home eats supper and collapses in bed to get enough energy to do it all again the next day. Oh and did I mention it is a seven day a week job? You want to earn the big-boy bucks you gotta do the big-boy work and hours. Not a lot of folks want to do that kind of work anymore.

Now I must confess as I become wiser (older) I find that winter is of less and less interest to me and as the winter temps drop my interest in my library increase accordingly.

So in between shoveling the driveway and taking the dogs for a walk in the snow I am quite content to spend my time indoors engrossed in a fine book.

And why in the world did Google unplug their quantum computer built around their Willow quantum computer chip? With the billions invested they must have really stubbed their toes hard to stop the research, don’t you think?

Best

Martin E. Silenus

Happy New Year and all the best in 2025

Ah yes 2025, the beginning of a new year and the tidying up and accounting for what transpired in the previous one. The sorting of items and events into the win/loss columns, a time for the pigeons of transgressions to come home to roost.

Not to mention the mental metaphysical housecleaning necessary for this time of year. Lessons learned from last year and projections for the coming year. The should’a, would’a, could’a, not doing that again. But I think this will work well for the coming year.

Not surprisingly many struggle with this time of the year as they hate paperwork, accounting, tax prep, planning, and above all accepting accountability. Can we just skip all that stuff and maybe go to a Mexican resort instead for an all-inclusive ten days?

For others it is a fresh slate upon which anything can be written. A time of great optimism and trying of ideas and techniques particular to your line of endeavor.

Of course overlaid on this background thought and effort are the daily trappings of the growing families all thrashing along at a thousand miles an hour growing up and going in all directions at once. Things never stand still and change is constant and on-going requiring you to paddle hard just to keep up.

Every week it seems there are new and radical break thoughts and discoveries of time and space. The quantum world throws an entirely different light on our previous beliefs. It is at once both exciting and terrifying.

Hud and P-man are a sniper team operating out of firebase Foxtrot. They are good, maybe too good at their skill set, as their ability to perform and survive brings increasingly difficult and dangerous missions. A powerful evil other than Charlie is stalking Hud and P-man. Can Hud’s spiritual link to his beloved Daria tip the balance to level the playing field?

Hasn’t every red-blooded man waited his own MAN SHED?
Of course he has, his Castle away from home where the world is his and his alone, his man cave filled with his specific interests. A place where he can say what he pleases, drink his libations, smoke his preferences, listen to rock music loud, watch whatever the hell he wants on a huge assed TV, BBQ whatever and whenever, and have whomever tickles his fancy over to party! Hell yeah, oh hell yeah. The way life should be for a hard working male!

It seems “humanity” is intent to complain about their lot no matter what their situation is. A great pity as one should be aware there are always many who have it much worse and those who have it better no matter what situation you find yourself in. This year I encourage you to focus on the good stuff and forget the bad.

And with all that said I am going to take my camera and dogs and go out and enjoy the winter season, delight in watching the enthusiasm of the dogs jumping and thrashing around in the snow and the photo opportunities afforded by the wonders of Mother Nature.

All the very best to you in 2025

Martin E. Silenus

SEASON’S GREETINGS

Another year has come and is all but gone. How was the year for you? Did you achieve your goals and meet the expectations which you had set for the year. Did you put forth your best efforts against all the inevitable challenges the year brought with it. Did you provide a good account of yourself such that the year knew it had met someone not to be trifled with?

Have you taken stock of the year ending and tallied the wins and losses in accordance with the accounting of your life. No small feat to conduct yourself in a manner which makes you feel good and provides a positive role model for your family is it? There are so many forces which push indifference and cross purposes to your best intentions aren’t there?

As the last days of the year spool down to zero perhaps it is the perfect time to do the pondering and accounting for the year ending. Taking stock of the year ending, learning its lessons taught and planning for the year coming.

And speaking of the year we all have coming you might be well advised to read my book SANCTUARY. I will be offering it for free on Dec. 21st and 22nd 2024. You might find it particularly interesting given the troubled world we all live in and the time of year we are approaching.

For insights into the future of Science, Technology, Space Exploration, UFO’s and UAP’s be sure to visit Nebula Novels. Will 2025 be the year the public will meet Alien’s from space? You may laugh and dismiss as nonsense, but be careful of your perceptions.

When you are a fan of fierce firefights and running gun battles and have run out of the first and second season episodes of Lioness by Taylor Sheridan, you will want to visit the above website to get your daily fix of violence and burnt gunpowder.

If you cannot find me and I decline to answer my phone fear not as I am likely out with the dogs having a chat to Frosty and friends.

Warmest Season’s Greetings to you and your families and all the very best in 2025.

Martin E. Silenus

November is a busy month and a very important month and that may be doubly so for this year given the election. 

Our family has had multiple members serve in the Military and so Remembrance Day is one of the most important days of the year where we show our support for “those who willingly stood in the line of fire” to ensure the rest of us have freedom. Make no mistake the cost of Freedom is High and as such we who enjoy that freedom have a huge debt for those who ensured our rights and to the very strong brave men and women who currently serve and intervene in the path of those who are inclined to harm us.

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night because brave strong men and women stand ready to do violence on their behalf”

It is an exciting and somewhat scary time as Robots proliferate, Artificial Intelligence grows stronger daily and we reach farther into the unknown of space exploration. One thing for sure is we are not going to be bored.

This month you can download the above book from Amazon for FREE on November 16th and 17th and have a glance into the chaos and devastation of the Cascadia Earthquake and subsequent Tsunami. And you can ponder on why such a tragedy was allowed to happen when the predictions of the quake were well known, yet ignored!

A Celestial Event

And lo the twinkling stars of the firmament so familiar solace to humans did without warning eclipse into billowing sheets of green, red, and yellow fire twisting, swirling, sweeping back and forth across the heavens. The humans knew not of such sorcery and cried out in fear!

I offer many thanks to my friend and her incredible composing eye and photographic skill for allowing me to use these outstanding pictures.

Thank you to those who have inquired about the next Daria Book. I assure you Daria Book seven is being written, slowly but surely.

At the same time another natural or un-natural disaster book focusing on the east coast of North America has found its way into my muse promoted by an innocent enough examination of the architecture of a certain building in New York.

Anyway thank you very much for your patience and interest.

Best

Martin E. Silenus

Well another “harvest is in the bin” is a common rural farm/ranch phrase this time of year, along with “never seen as strange a year as this one.” Comments and observations also run from “best thing about it is it’s done” to “best crop I‘ve had in over five years” or “glad to see it waited till I sold all my cattle to rain and make lots of hay.”

In the rural time table it’s time to slow down and to take stock, tidy up the mess from the harvest scramble, get all the machinery which is scattered around back to the yard, serviced, repaired, or at least a To-do list of needs and the equipment stored away in the sheds for winter and for a complete service maintenance schedule. And don’t forget to winterize the boat and get the cabin ready for six months of snow. And has your wife told you about the strange rattling, banging, thumping sounds her car is making? Oh and be sure to blow out the underground sprinklers and get all the water hoses around the yard drained and rolled up and put away along with the electrical extension cables, so the snow blowers doesn’t eat them this winter.

The children are settling into regular hours of school now harvest is over and being absorbed into sports, band and social activities and whatnot. And the women folk, if they still have the skill, may be canning diligently to preserve fruit and vegetables against a long winter. Although canning and putting up preserves is largely an activity of years gone by. Of course if the prices continue to rise as they are it may become quite popular again. At the very least it’s time to slaughter and butcher the chicken flock and freeze them into bags and fill one of the many deep freeze units in the basement. Twenty to thirty frozen chickens, a quarter of pork and half of beef cut and wrapped frozen in the deep freeze is damn prudent security and winter good eating complimenting the full potatoes and carrot bins and shelves of fruit preserves in the “cold room”.

I have no advertisements this month nor do I have any give away enticements. I do however encourage you to visit https://martinesilenus.com/ and scroll down to my book list. Clicking on a book will take you to amazon.com for purchase.

Instead as it draws close to Thanksgiving I encourage everyone to pause and give thanks for everything you have. Of course we all feel we have wants and needs and things would be so much better if, but just be thankful for what you do have. Life is not easy for such a large number of people in the world and accordingly we should feel extremely fortunate having what we do have. It is a time of realizing your “your glass is half-full” and appreciating it.

For those of you who are fortunate enough to have children and grandchildren please be sure to take a moment and explain to them why they are so important to you and why they should feel good about themselves. Time slides by so very quickly and it you do not make a point of expressing your appreciation for them now before you know it they will have grown up and moved away and your opportunity may be lost.

Today’s world grows increasingly violent and living is difficult for far too many souls. Wars, political turmoil, social unrest seem to be the order of the day along with collapsing businesses and rising prices seemingly on everything.

So take a moment, a deep breath and give thanks for what you have, your family, not being in the middle of a war zone, or in the middle of a hurricane or the aftermath.

Best

Martin E. Silenus