Family, Garden, permaculture

Working on the Forest Edge

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32  bar steep rise  30.08  0mph NW  Windchill 31   Samhain

Waning Gibbous Dark Moon

Got groceries at Festival.  Grocery prices have gone up, maybe 15-20%.  Many people bought their Thanksgiving turkeys from a young woman with a table set up beside the butcher’s counter.  Christmas music played in the background, in sympathy, I guess, with the lonely retailers who expect no Christmas present purchases this year.

Once again I purchased produce unrecognizable to the check-out person, a friendly girl of about 18.  Is this a rutabaga?  No, jicama.  Is this a sweet potato?  No, a yam.  Oh, do they taste different?  Yes and have different colors, too.  What about these, are they good?  Rambuta.  Yes, just slice around the middle and take the top off.  Are they sweet?  Yes, if you like sweet, you’ll like these.  They’re not too sweet, are they?  No.  Medium.

Then I was on my way with my plastic bags, once again shopping without the cloth bags I’ve purchased for the purpose.   I wish they’d hop in the car without my having to remember.

orchard-week-1frtrees400006.jpgThe rest of the morning I cleared ground along the forest edge so I can put down black plastic, then mulch, to kill all the flora we do not want in the way when we plant the crops that will distract the birds from our orchard.  They will provide a height sensitive edge, stair stepping back toward the poplars, ash, cedar, oak, acacia and pin cherry behind them.

Built up a good appetite.  Still eating the 11-bean soup I made a week and a half or so ago.  Nap.

Now, after the nap, I’m doing inside things I’ve held off until I had a bit of time in the afternoon.  I put ink cartridges in my Canon Pixma printer.  This is a real rip-off.  Even when printing only black, like copies, it uses up colored ink.  This means that you have to replace the color cartridges as often as the black ones.  Guess what?  The colored cartridges are expensive.  Anyone with this printer as their primary printer pays a lot for the privilege.  My laserjet printer handles black and white in an economical manner.

Also cleaned the carpet in the study.  Dogs leave the occasional trail.  Also cleaned the stairs.  Dogs, again.

Kate’s upstairs threshing beans from our garden.  I look forward to using them in recipes over the course of the winter.

The cones are finally on the zone 5 grasses in the perennial garden.  I hope they survive.  They were a nice, delicate touch behind the lilies, iris and, later, the iris and sedum.

Oh. BTW.  No fruits on the pepper or eggplant yet.  It was a false pregnancy.  This may take a while to get down.

Family, Great Work, Writing

What Should I Do?

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30  bar rises 30.00  1mph  windchill 28   Samhain

Waning Gibbous Dark Moon

Kate is my wife, friend and partner.  I had a conversation with her this morning.

“Kate,” I said, “I want to do something substantial before I shuffle off this mortal coil. (Dad used that phrase a lot.  I don’t  know where he got it.)”

She smiled and waited, her face turned a bit up to ease the strain on her neck.

“It’s not that I don’t like my life and what I do with it.  I enjoy diverse things that require different skills.  I’ve accepted that’s the life likely to be lead by a valedictorian.  Good at many things, deep in none.  Still.  I’d like to work on and complete a substantial writing project.”

“What’s your question?” she asked.

“What should I do?” She’s good at answering questions like this.  Most people are not, but I trust her and have trusted on these matters for years.

“Lake Superior.  That’s the first thing that popped into my mind,”  she said, “We could have monthly Lake Superior meetings.  Get a large paper pad and work on the project at least once a month.  We could make a point of going once or twice a year to different parts of the (true) north shore and  pay close attention to it for a week or so.”

“Thanks,” I said, “That’s what I needed.  Now I’m going to go get groceries.”

On the drive over I considered her suggestion.  It was a good one.  We could work on it as partners.  I have a shelf full of books and two large file drawers filled with information on Lake Superior.

A few years ago I started in earnest on an ecological history of Lake Superior.  I made three trip around the lake, visiting local historical societies as I went, purchasing books and making notes.  Taking picture.  I made notes, created an outline and a research plan, dug up many good websites.  I still have all this material.

I may have stalled the first time around because I’d made my objective both too specific and inflexible.  Lake Superior as myth, as geological feature, as water, as story, as an expression of a coming zeitgeist are all rich avenues to explore.  Painting, music, lore.  Some mix of these, positioning Lake Superior at the heart of the continent and the center of a worldview.  Something along those lines.

Art and Culture

Judge Judged by Self

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 31  bar rises 30.01  1mph NW  windchill 29  Samhain

Full Dark Moon

“Man(sic), unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments.” – John Steinbeck

This evening I left home and journeyed to North East for the opening of the show.  It is no longer my habit to leave home much in the evening except for meetings like the Sierra Club or the Woollies.

I felt excited, a bit apprehensive.  After all, our judgments had a role in the evening.

By the time I got there, about 7:50 or 8:00, there was still a large crowd.  A friend from docent training, David Fortney, came up and asked me about our selections.  He had his own.  As did everyone in the room.

At some point I began to feel uncomfortable.  It was a little difficult to track down where the feelings were coming from, but finally I pinpointed it.  I was there as a judge, an arbiter and I didn’t like the role.  I could explain our selections, how we got to them, but the role put me in a place in position to the room that felt icky.

I’m glad we judged the show.  I’m glad we made our decisions yesterday.

Would I do it again?  Not without preparation and thought.  But, yes, I probably would.

Kate’s neck continues to bother her, though I hope some of that will lift tomorrow as the dye diffuses and the pressure from the myelogram recedes.

This is the end of a long series of diverse activity.  That’s what I like, different work that requires different skills with different people.  The downside is that when too much comes close together it can tax me.  I’m glad to be on this side of it all right now.

May head over to the Walker tomorrow.  I haven’t been there in awhile.

Weather +Climate

Blow, Snow, Blow

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35  bar falls 29.87  Omph NE  windchill 35  Samhain

Waxing Gibbous Dark Moon

Another aspect of northern living involves snowblower maintenance.  Each November those of us with long driveways go out into the garage, poke around until we find the 2-stage beast that will work with us through the winter.

Start it.  Hmmm.  That’s good.  It runs.

Oil can to its tin-man parts.  The rotating blower (the second stage), worm oil in the auger’s worm gear (the first stage), oil at various other points where metal grates against metal in the service of snow removal.

Ooops.  There’s a mostly frayed wire leading to the snow deflector.  Not critical.

Rust has bloomed over the snowblowers 15 year service here.  With a wire brush and scraper the paint flakes away and the surface of the rust becomes smoother.  A spray of paint here and there covers the rust with a paint designed to mitigate oxidation.

Check the oil.  In this the oil hits the full top of the dip-stick.  It looks clean.  So, we’re ready for winter to do its worst.

Just as soon as we get gas.

Family, Garden

A Fruiting Body?

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21  bar steady 0mph NE windchill 21  Samhain

Waxing Gibbous Dark Moon (I’ve been wrong on this for several posts)

Kate’s home and likely will be for a while until we get her neck dealt with in one way or another.  She’s read.  She’s sewed.  She’s cooked.   She’s helped out in the orchard work.   Not enough for her sturdy Norwegian work ethic. Her neck is bad enough that work just makes it worse, but when she rests it subsides enough that she itches to get stuff done, a tough place to be in for such an active and alive person.

A bit more garden work to do.  Stake the trees in the orchard.  Put protective sleeves on my 2-year old, toddler trees.  Put down black plastic on the forest edge and the shade garden area.  Still, the end is in sight for this growing season.

This is said sotte voce: I may be a daddy!  My dalliance with the peppers and egg plants seems to have begun to bear fruit.  I can’t tell for sure quite yet, but it sure looks like both plants are with fruit.  If so, I’m gonna be pleased.   I’ll post pictures when I know more.

Paula and Lindsay come tomorrow morning to do some rejiggering of our site plan.  Our work with them feels collaborative and I like that.

Tuesday evening is an event put on by our financial planner, talking about the current market situation.

Wednesday AM, most likely, Kate will have some more diagnostic tests for her neck.
Wednesday night is the Sierra Club political committee evaluation and celebration meeting.  I hope enough folks show up to help us get a good sense of what happened.  How many of our endorsee’s overall got elected.  Why did the four campaigns we targeted win and why did two fail?  What should be a time-line for next year’s political committee?

Thursday morning we see our financial adviser. Thursday afternoon Anastasia, Allison and I will judge the Northeast Minneapolis Art Show.  Friday night we’ll go to the opening.  Friday AM I have two tours and Kate has an appointment with the neuro-surgeon.

A very busy week.

Family, Weather +Climate

A Pain in the Neck

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23  bar rises 30.24  omph NNW  windchill 22  Samhain

Waxing Crescent of the Dark Moon

Change is the future invading the present…  Alvin Toffler

Ready to head outside for some more garden work.  A clear, bright day with a chill in the air.  Good outside working conditions.

Lost sleep last night.  No reason.  Just woke up at 5:30AM and could not get back to sleep.  Oh, well.

Kate got the report back on her cervical verterbrae and the news is not good, though not much different than what we expected.  It highlights the severity of the problem with which she’s labored for so long now.  Now, a few more tests and an appointment with the neurosurgeon.

Life.  It goes on whether you are ready or not.

Aging, Family

Hunkering Down

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33 bar rises 29.77  N 6mph windchill 28  Samhain

Waxing Crescent of the Dark Moon

The October financial storm gathered under the Blood Moon.  Obama’s election comes during a waxing Dark Moon.  Just interesting is all I’m saying.

The red car in the Sandhills of Nebraska.

red-car-trip061450.jpgPicked up the red car from its most recent series of procedures.  This time it got new front constant velocity boots.  They protect the main bearing from wear caused by road debris.  Two new aluminum wheels should solve the slow leak problem the back tires have experienced.  Various bulbs and other smaller matters–oil change, too–thrown in for the trip.  Each visit it comes closer and closer to Theseus’s ship.

Kate continues to suffer with her cervical vertebrae pinching a nerve.  She’s so stoic, so careful.  Right now she’s stopped taking the prednisone which helped because she wants the imaging studies to be unaffected.  She can’t find a way to position herself that doesn’t hurt.  Like hell.

Got tools for protecting the trees in our new orchard.  Later today or tomorrow I’ll install them and begin to put down the black plastic and straw to kill weeds along the forest’s edge.  Much cooler weather now, but it is still a good time to do this kind of work.

This week will be the last for working outside for a while.    I’m ready to hunker down and get some reading and writing done.

Politics

Live Electoral Coverage 2008

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November 4th   Live Election Coverage

6:00 PM  CST

MSNBC has called Vermont and Kentucky.  Obama   McCain

Chris Matthews says Indiana too close to call…bodes well for Obama.  As a Hoosier, I remember when Indiana went Democrat with regularity.  It was a labor state and labor voted Democrat.  Then, Governor Wallace.  He took a third or so of the vote.

Several strong African American commentators like Bishop of Potter’s House Ministry and Eugene Robinson from the Washington Post.  Feels good to me to have a strong Africa-American presence.

I know it may be my projection but it seems Chinese Americans carry themselves in a different way since China has risen in world prominence.  More confident, more sure of themselves in their difference.  It also seems to be happening to African-Americans.  Validation comes in different ways,but it is beautiful to see.

7:00 PM

Pennsylvania projected for Obama.  MSNBC. 

McCain has begun to underperform Bush 2004.   This looks good for the whole race. 

Howard Dean has begun to talk about healing from the last 8 years.  I agree.  The whole country felt different today as I drove home from Hopkins after doorknocking for Get Out The Vote. 

Interesting shots from Grant Park.  Filled with black faces.  Just 40 years ago, in 1968, Chicago had streets filled with vietnam war protesters.  Now African-Americans will celebrate the distance between then and now, between 1964 and now, between 1864 and now.

At this point Obama has 78-111 electoral votes.

7:45 pm  As of now my home county in Indiana, Madison, has voted Obama by 52% with 71% of precincts reporting.

Given the western states of California, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii and the Upper Midwest states of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan combined with Pennsylvania I predict Obama the victor.

General

Check Me on Wednesday

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“I know nothing grander, better exercise, better digestion, more positive proof of the past, the triumphant result of faith in human kind, than a well-contested American national election.” – Walt Whitman

Predictions:

Obama wins 51.6% of the popular vote and at least 320 electoral votes.

Franken squeaks by Coleman.

Bachmann Tinklenberg  —  too close to call.

Madia Paulsen —  too close to call.

Dems do not make it to 60 in the Senate.

If I have to give a reasoned opinion, I don’t have it at this time of night.  These are not hopes, though, but based on reading and poll watching over the last two months.  Which means, of course, that I could be completely wrong.

Here is a cogent analysis. You can read more by clicking on the link or going to Pollster.com.

November 3, 2008
One Day to Go and McCain Is Between Barack and a Hard Place

By Steve Lombardo

Tomorrow, Barack Obama will become the first Democratic Presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter in 1976 to win an outright majority of the votes cast on Election Day — and with it a sizeable majority of electoral votes — making him the next President of the United States.

We make this projection knowing that the gap is closing both nationally and in key states; it is our sense, however, that this trend would have to continue for another 10 days for the election to swing back to McCain.

The following is our rationale for going with Obama:

* The economic recession/financial meltdown dominated the headlines from mid-September to mid-October. The war in Iraq remains enormously unpopular. Bush’s approval ratings are near an all-time low for modern Presidents. And the GOP brand is weak and fractured. As a result of these factors, a majority of this hugely dissatisfied electorate will be voting Democratic to change the direction of the last eight years.
* October was the worst month for the stock market in 21 years. Yes, last week was an improvement, but the month of October was unkind to John McCain and the GOP. Last Thursday, the government reported that the economy contracted from July through September – the first time consumer spending had decreased in 17 years.
* With this environment as a backdrop, Obama will pick the GOP lock on the electoral college by winning six states George W. Bush won in 2004–Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Iowa, Ohio and Virginia–en route to an electoral vote rout.
* This election was always about Obama and McCain was never able to paint him as either “unfit” or “unprepared.” Nor was McCain able to give people a clear reason to vote for him.
* In an ironic twist, it was Obama who defined McCain in a negative light rather than the other way around. They started by claiming that he was “confused” four months ago and then painting him as “erratic” in the last 60 days. Of course, team McCain and the candidate himself contributed to this. It will be interesting to count the gross rating points that went behind contrast ads on both sides. My guess is that the Obama campaign might win that count as well.
* Terrorism and national security virtually disappeared as election issues. These two issues dominated a large part of the national dialogue in 2004 and helped give Bush his re-election victory.
* New registrants, young voters and black voters are going to break with historical pattern and vote in disproportionately high numbers, giving Obama huge margins in certain states and propelling him to victory over an exhausted and disengaged GOP base.
* The Democratic ground game will prove to be vastly superior to the Republican operation (money can do that).
* The turnout will be between 58%-60%, which would be its highest level since 1960. If the total number of voters exceeds 130 million (meaning more than 61% of eligible voters will have voted) then the Obama win could be an electoral landslide because the Democrats have a built-in six-eight point advantage in terms of party identification.