Category Archives: Politics

Great Work, Hydroponics, permaculture, Politics, Weather +Climate

Traveling By Television

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-6  steep fall 30.26  E1  windchill -8  Winter

Waning Wolf Moon

Boy do I feel good.  I recalled that some legislative meetings are webcast, broadcast, or taped.  Turns out the one I need to cover will be on Channel 17 at 3pm or I can watch it live on the web.  God, you gotta love technology.  Normally, I’d head into the capitol anyhow just to get the feel of the place, but the hassle of really cold weather and a long drive, capped with a return trip in rush hour makes the couch a much more sensible option.

I finished the seed database today for all the new seeds.  Tomorrow I’ll enter our left over seeds from last year.  It shows the work ahead in getting transplants ready.  Some plants like the mustard greens and huckleberries will go under the lights in the middle of February.  In two week intervals until May 1st, I’ll be starting different plants inside.

The weather today is what we usually get in the third week of January, really cold.  Paul Douglas, local weather guy, says this air was over Siberia two weeks ago.  And it’s still this cold?  Geez.

Family, Garden, Great Work, Politics, Weather +Climate

Winter Happy

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7  rises 29.48  WNW2  wchill 5  Winter light snow

Waxing Gibbous Wolf Moon

The seeds for the 2009 vegetable garden sit on my desk beside me in piles according to growth habit:  viny, climbing, bushy, root or leafy.  When I get the chance, they’ll go in my homemade database with pertinent data and places to record germination, first bloom, first fruit and eventual production.  I’ve gardened for years, but never taken this much care.  Why now?  Not sure.

Kate’s off to see the physiatrist in Elk River.  I hope he suggests some things that help her. She’s going to stop by Cottage Quilts on the way home.

I’m off to the cities this morning to count ballots for the ex-com and see Michelle.  Michelle liked my first draft of the legislative updates, so it will go out Sunday evening.   Many more to follow.

A light snow this morning, enough to make the outdoors beautiful and wintry.  This kind of winter makes me happy.

GeekWorld, Great Work, permaculture, Politics

Tech in the Service of Political Change

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17  bar steady 30.19  0mph NE  windchill 17 Samhain

Last Quarter Moon of Long Nights

The best way to predict the future is to create it.   Peter Drucker

Quick note.  No, I’ve not gone away.  Just had a busy day.  Picked up the red car and drove it without incident into the Sierra Club and back.  Yeah.  Meetings at Sierra Club with Margaret and Michelle on anti-racism training and communications work during the upcoming legislative session.  I will have a lot to do:  research, weekly updates, action alerts, perhaps co-ordinating some op-ed and letter to the editor material.

Home.  Nap.

Just spent an hour compiling research into usable slots.  Handy with Google.  Technology in the service of political change.

An invitation to do some modest work in the Permaculture arena, too.  Helping Reed Aubin put together some material for a talk on Permaculture and ethics.  Should be fun.

Gotta hit the treadmill.

GeekWorld, Great Work, Politics

Home Work

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8  bar steady  30.27  0mph NW  windchill 6   Samhain

Last Quarter Moon of Long Nights

A busy morning here at the homestead.  I played around with various formats and methods of research for the Sierra Club legislative committee.  One setup uses Google News Alerts and Google Docs to create a real time log of news articles, web entries and video feeds on the five issues the LegCom will target during this years legislature.  This much I can do at home.

My new datalogger for my weather station has not yet succumbed to my troubleshooting, but I imagine I’ll wrestle it to the ground sometime soon.  Something about ports seems to be hanging it up right now.  Requires detailed attention and I have to set aside time for that.

Kate and I had our business meeting.  In spite of the negative financial weather swirling around we’re fine; not as wealthy as we were in, say, August, but fine nonetheless.

Good news on the car front.  It was only a blown tire as far as they can see.  Everything else looks fine.  Under $400 bucks and I’d imagined multiple thousands.  Quite a relief.  We decided we’ll keep this one running until the plug-ins make sense.

Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Great Work, Politics

Star Filled and Wonder Saturated

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-4  bar steady 30.28   0mph SW  windchill -4   Samhain

Waning Gibbous Moon of Long Nights

I have a run of almost 3 weeks with no outside obligations.  This is a time of the year, even when I worked for the Presbytery, that I would stay home, take up a research project or a book I’d wanted to really absorb.  This habit probably started during the Presbytery time because no congregational folk wanted to talk to judicatory people during the Christmas holidays and immediately afterward.  Which was fine with me.

Right now it’s quiet.  It has been dark since about 4:30 PM.  The long nights have begun to swell and take over the rhythm of the day.  This means more silence, more time to enjoy the darkness of mid-winter.  This is a time of year and a natural cycle that draws us all inward.  This inward pull pushes some of us to string up lights, go to multiple parties, perhaps drink to excess, spend money beyond our means.   We’ll wake up sometime in the new year, ought 9 in this case, with a hangover wondering how the season got so out of hand.

The season can be filled with holy nights, silent nights.  Starred filled and wonder saturated nights.  It matters how we come to the season.

Instead of driving in to the Sierra Club meeting tonight I chose to participate by phone, as did all but two of the other legislative committee members.  By the time I got done with my workout and shower, a lassitude crept over me, borne of the tensions and aches of the last couple of days.  If I had driven in, as it turned out, my trip would have taken twice the time of the meeting.  Not very efficient.

My original reason for driving in, to match peoples faces with names, would have been thwarted, too.

As it was, I was on the phone for 45 minutes, took notes, then hung up and went upstairs to read the Story of Edgar Sawtelle.  Without the long drive it felt like I’d cheated.

Cooking, Politics, Writing

Research, Writing, Meditation and Beef Broth

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6  bar steady 30.24  0mph  SW  windchill 6   Samhain

Waning Gibbous Moon of Long Nights

I made a beef broth today.  Took four hours to cook.  Now it’s ready but I have not tasted it yet.  I’ll probably use it as a base for soups.161_beef_stock_p928.jpg

Blew the snow from last night around 1pm after the city plows had gone by.

Did some research on the issues central to the Sierra Clubs work at the legislature this year.  Home work assigned by me since I still don’t know the terrain very well.

Got back to working out today after two days of feeling crummy after two hours on my feet at the Russian Museum and a couple of hours sitting beside the freeway.  Felt good.

Tomorrow I can begin research, writing and meditation.  About time.  I hope I can keep it up right along.

Aging, Politics, Weather +Climate
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8  bar rises 30.11  0mph WNW  windchill 4   Samhain

Full Moon of Long Nights    Day  8hr  47m

I hear you saying often that you’re not turned on to politics. Well let me bring to bear the lessons of history. If you’re not turned on to politics the lesson of history is that politics will turn on you.—Ralph Nader, Countdown

Yes, Nader is right, but I wish he’d take his own lesson to heart.  Quixotic campaigns that drain the vote of the left and left independents have had their day.  Until or if the left can mount a credible candidate we should support the Democrats.

In this and many other ways I can tell I have reached old fogey status.  Twice in the last couple of weeks I’ve sent notes to the Sierra Club’s legislative committee that reveal, to me later, and probably to each member at the time, my more conservative approach.  With a $5+ billion budget deficit I think we should pitch our stuff in light of savings to the state budget.  Instead my colleagues queue up to decide which expletives are more appropriate for sulfide mining.

Used to be me.

We’ve had a cold December so far, considerably below normal.  This is the weather most of us here yearn for and miss as the winter’s have grown warmer.  The snow stays on the ground; the air is crisp.   Sleeping becomes a treat, a warm bear-in-the-den snuggle.

I have finally caught up, again, with my various chores including all the outside ones.  That feels great, but it does mean I have to reorient my daily activities and I’m still in the in-between place about that.  Soon.

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Politics, Weather +Climate

A Magical Effect

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26  bar steep fall 29.56  0mph NE  windchill 26   Samhain

First Quarter Moon of Long Nights       Day  8hr 53m

At last snow has begun to fall.  Already we must have gotten an inch or so and it may well snow through the night.  I have the patio light on so I can watch it fall.  The reindeer, lit with white l.e.d. lights, turns its head back and forth, its wire frame body now sketched in fluffy snow.  The lit holly and berries on the patio table also have snow cover, the lights blinking up through small mounds of white.  We only have lights in the back and few at that.   They do a touch of whimsy to the long winter nights.

A gentle snow has a magical effect on the heart as well as the landscape.  It is one of mother nature’s outright expressions of joy.

Tomorrow I have agreed to go to a workshop on dismantling racism as I wrote earlier.   When I was in seminary, I participated in anti-racism training seminars run by James and Mary Tillman.  I even traveled to Atlanta and went a weekend long seminar with students from Morehouse University, one of the south’s premier black colleges.  With Wilson Yates, a professor of sociology at United Theological Seminary, we created an anti-racism training kit complete with videos for rural congregations.  At one point I worked with a professional program evaluation company, Rainbow, and evaluated the work of the James and Mary Tillman programs in various institutions.

Institutional racism and the unearned advantage of being white and male have been part of my political analysis ever since.  That first round of work was now over thirty years in the past.  It is a testimony to the intransigence and institutional nature of racism that now another generation has taken up the fight.

Part of me does not look forward to a long day on a difficult and unpleasant subject while another part of me is eager to get back to practical, political work on the issue.  We’ll see how it goes.

Kate’s neck bothers her today.  She has improved a lot in the last three weeks, but she has quite a ways to go before she can go back to her full time work schedule.

Great Work, permaculture, Politics

Home As A Political Statement

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15  bar steep rise 30.05  5mph NNW windchill 11  Samhain

Waxing Crescent Moon of Long Nights   Day  8hr  56m

Below are photographs of recent work underway along the wood’s edge here.  Almost done for this year.

orchardinwinter350.jpg

The fruit trees as winter takes hold.

marshhay350.jpg

Marsh hay before use.  AKA hay without seeds or straw without seeds.

plasticandmulch1350.jpg

View along the wood’s edge facing due north.  The straw in the foreground and mid-ground covers the black plastic.  The area covered is approximately 15 feet wide, that is, 15 feet between the truck path and the beginning of the forest proper and extends perhaps 150-200 feet from end to end.  This whole area will have shrubs and small trees planted in the spring.

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This gives you a better picture of what’s going on here.  I ran out of hay on Sunday and had to get the new load visible in the first shot.

Do you remember how you felt when you first realized you loved someone?  I have that feeling over and over with the land here.