• Tag Archives Kate

  • Hey, Buddy, Got Any Pictures?

    Posted on by Charles 2 Comments

    55  bar falls 29.59 8mph NE  dewpoint 36 Beltane

                     Waning Gibbous Moon of Growing

               grandmaanddescendants.jpg

    This is Grandma and her descendants, Gabriel and Ruth.  Gabe still has to learn to suck and swallow.  He also needs to wean himself from the canula that deliver an oxygen stream.  Both of these are maturational tasks that would have completed on their own in the womb, so he just needs to grow and get older.  Right now everyone wishes he’d do both quicker, unmasking one of the many contradictions in human development.  As we age, no one wants to get older and grow bigger. 

    Kate came home last night.  She was sad.  Ruthie now knows her and runs up with a smile and arms out, “Grandma!”  That’s tough to leave.  Gabe, too, is in a vulnerable place even though she’s confident he’ll be fine.  She also helped out Jon and Jen with domestic matters like cooking, grocery shopping and Ruth care when Ruth was not in daycare. 

    Having a child in the hospital creates stress just because, but there is stress, too, because work goes on while the daily routine gets disrupted.  No one gets enough sleep.  A tough time for the Olson family, Denver branch.  It will receded into the past, someday, and become the stuff of family legend.  When you were a baby, Gabe, you were in the hospital so long and we were so worried.

    A reader from the Webiverse asked to see some photographs of my hydroponic setup.  It occurred to me that it might be the feds trying to catch a not too intelligent dope grower.  Go, ahead, buddy, show me your pictures.  Heh, heh, heh.  I hope so, but because boy are they going to be disappointed.

                               hydro2300.jpg

    From this and the next angle all you can see are lettuce and tomato plants, but there are also morning glories, cucumbers and three varieties of beets.  These last are not as far along in the growth process and will go outside as soon as the weather warms up.

                               hydro300.jpg

    As I’ve begun to work with the hydroponics, this setup seems small.  The megafarm is the larger of the two; the smaller is sold as Emily’s farm.  

                              Here’s the whole deal, including the seed sprouting area. The halide bulb and shield are just out of sight near the top.

                              hydrosetup300.jpg

    It’s amazing the charge I got out of working with seeds and young plants when snow and cold weather blew around the house.  I plan to branch out (ha,ha) a bit over the year to include flowers and, maybe, carnivorous plants.  No, I don’t know why.

                             


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality Family Great Work 📎and tagged

  • Hazards in the Learning Process

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    41  bar steady  29.96  0mph ESE dewpoint 24  Spring

                        Last Quarter Moon of Growing

    Spent a good part of the afternoon on mechanical and electronic stuff.  It was time for the first changing out of the nutrient reservoirs in the hydroponics. 

    I first tried the way the setup suggested, that is, drain the reservoirs onto the plastic shelf on which they both sit.  This is not as crazy as it may sound since the shelf has grooves pressed in to carry used nutrient mix and water toward a drain plug at the end of the shelf.  So, I hooked up some plastic tubing by cutting a small hole in the end of the cap and opened the taps.  This is slow.  The drain hose is not too big.  It’s also messy since the hole in end of the plug allowed a bit of the liquid to drain around the tubing and drip on the lights (electric!) and the floor. 

    Hmmm.  Had to be a better way.  Then I thought of all those car thieves hard at work stealing gas.  Siphon!  By chance I had one hundred feet of plastic tubing and it fit inside the drain tubing quite neatly.  I pushed this tube through the hole in the drain cap, sucked on it a bit and voila!  Both of them drained all by themselves.  Still took a while, but it is a handsoff operation.

    As I read somewhere, I took the used nutrient mix out and poured on the garlic, garlic is a heavy feeder and impervious to the cold weather we’ve had.  That’s important because you can’t encourage growth in most plants when the temperature can still go below freezing.  That possibility exists here until May 15th.  I also poured it on some daffodils about to bloom.

    Then I made 9 gallons of fresh nutrient mix and poured it back into the reservoirs through the pots holding the lettuce, tomato plants, three kinds of beet and morning glories.  A tip I read in the hydroponic bible (according to the folks at Interior Gardens) suggested swapping out the nutrient every three rather than four.  So, I did.  This is fun.

    The treadmill still has some hiccups.  I had to rewire it again this afternoon.  Landice apparently thinks they may have sent me a bad rheostat.  If so, that means I swapped a bad one for a bad one rather than a good one for a good one.  More work ahead there.

    I also put away all the material from the Weber tours and the bronze tour I have a month or so ago.  The library is neat. (in a manner of speaking.  That is, my manner.)  I have a file to read for the three hour bronze session I have for Family Day on the 11th.  I also have a number of articles and objects to use as reference while I write something about Urania visiting the MIA.

    Kate called today, too.  Ruthie ran out of the kitchen yesterday, into the dining room and tripped, falling on the corner of the coffee table.  Big cut.  Lots of angst.  But super grandma was there to be calm.  She and Jon took Ruthie to urgent care for stitches.  This is a busman’s holiday for urgent care doc, Kate Olson, but it gave her a feel for the other side of the examining table.  As she often does, she felt guilty.  Not her fault.  Ruth is a puppy, running and playing and trying out the world.  There are hazards in that learning process and none of us escape.

    She comes home tomorrow and I’m glad.  The bris has been delayed because Gabriel still has not decided to eat enough and he’s still on some oxygen.  Until he can eat and breathe on his own, he’ll remain in the level 2 nursery.

    And.  No snow!


    📂This entry was posted in Family Garden GeekWorld Great Work 📎and tagged

  • Morning Glories in the Lead with Cucumber Right Behind

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    52  bar rises 30.13 0mph S dewpoint 39  Spring

                 Waning Gibbous Moon of Growing

    The moon of growing has fulfilled its role.  Daylilies have popped up everywhere.  A few magnolia buds have popped open.  I found a couple of daffodil’s with flowers still furled around the stalk, but visible now, where they were still hidden a day ago.  No tulip flowers visible yet but the plants themselves are in full leaf.  A few aconites bloom in the front, hidden by the asters of last fall.  I have to cut them down so we can see the blooms.  Leaves to rake.  Last year’s perennials to cut down.  The growing season outside is slowly getting underway.

    Kate’s getting ready for her Gabe trip.  She’ll probably head straight to the hospital to see the little guy.  I’ll feel better when she’s there.  She’s got a lot of experience with infants.  A lot.

    I’ll take her to the airport, then return here and probably work in the garden for a bit.

    The morning glories have begun to rocket up.  I only planted them four days ago and they’re already an inch and a half above the plug.  The cucumbers race right along behind them with, for now, the cylindria beets.  I can see evidence of seedling’s emerging from most of the other plugs, too.  The vegetable garden has begun to grow, right here in our house.  Meanwhile, the lettuce and tomato up top with the halide bulb and the hydroponics continue upwards as well. 


    📂This entry was posted in Family Garden 📎and tagged

  • Compounding Pharmacies

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    44  bar rises 30.06  2mph N dewpoint 31 Spring

                  Waxing Gibbous Moon of Growing

    A gray, cool start after a shirt sleeve day yesterday.  We’re still in the hurry up and wait phase of gardening.  It’s a bit too early for clean up, certainly too early for planting anything but cold weather crops.  We don’t tend to do those, at least not so far, so the hydroponics are our primary entry in this years vegetable garden.  The lettuce seedlings and tomato plant I put under the light first have grown rapidly.  Not ready for harvest anytime soon, but on the way.

    Kate made me aware of compounding pharmacies, a vestigial remnant of that which all pharmacies used to be, independent pharmaceutical manufactories.  There are six in Minnesota including one in St. Paul, St. Peter and Wayzata.  The Wayzata pharmacy has a glitzy name, RxArtisans.  I knew a few of those when I was in college.  The growth and reach of pharmaceutical companies has reduced the average pharmacy to nothing more than a retail distributor of already compounded drugs.  This results, of course, in a matching of patients to available drugs and their available dosages, whereas the compounding pharmacy matched drugs to patients both in dosage and delivery vehicle. 

    The Delta buyout of Northwest, not a merger, will not be certain for some time to come.  The pilots association of Northwest and the other unions flight attendants, ground crews and mechanics are about to become part of a larger, non-unionized pool.  This creates probable labor and culture conflicts from day one.  Also, congress and the regulators still have to approve, as does Wall Street.  Both companies share price dropped the day after the announcement, an unusual event.  Also, both airlines have an aging fleet of planes and debt hangover from their respective bankruptcies.  The State of Minnesota wants its incentives back since Northwest, with the merger, violates the remain in Minnesota provision.  All this reflects the turbulent nature of an industry who excels in nothing quite so much as an uncomfortable experience delivered for hundreds of dollars.


    📂This entry was posted in Family Garden Travel Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • The Tragic Sense of Life

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    51  bar falls 29.82 4mph SSE dewpoint 28 Spring

                   Waxing Gibbous Moon of  Growing

    “To fall into a habit is to begin to cease to be.” – Miguel de Unamuno

    Unamuno has slipped from awareness, it seems, but this Spanish existentialist, poet and author speaks truth even when it is uneasy and unpleasant.  Here’s some brief information about him:

    Spanish philosopher. In Del sentimento trágico de la vida en los hombres y en los pueblos {at Amazon.com} (The Tragic Sense of Life) (1913) {at Amazon.com}, Unamuno described human existence as torn between the irrational hope for immortality and the rational expectation of death. Since faith can never outweigh reason, Unamuno supposed, the best we can achieve is a life of authentic struggle with the human predicament.

    Recommended Reading: Miguel De Unamuno, Three Exemplary Novels, tr. by Angel Flores (Grove, 1987) {at Amazon.com}; Victor Ouimette, Reason Aflame: Unamuno and the Heroic Will (Yale, 1986) {at Amazon.com}; and Gemma Roberts, Unamuno: afinidades y coincidencias kierkegaardianas (Colorado, 1986) {at Amazon.com}.

    The house party for the Power 2 Change campaign had three attendees:  Frank Broderick, Bill Sutherland, and Ann, a former school teacher.  Jessica, a Sierra Club worker, attended to explain the campaign.  She fell into a trap the young activist often does, asking too little of her audience.  She kept referring to the things that were easy:  talk to a friend, sign the petition, read the literature, volunteer at the Sierra Club for a phone bank.  George Bush made the same disastrous mistake after 9/11.  He reassured us and asked to go shopping.  That’ll show’em.

    People want to sacrifice, to do the difficult thing.  Why?  Because when we sacrifice, or do something that stretches us, we become engaged.  We know in our gut; this is important.  If it’s not important or significant, don’t bother me with it.  If it is important, figure out a way I can take action.  Help me find others, then assist us in getting our handles on the levers of power.  That’s the way change happens. 

    As often happens to me, as I write this, especially with Unamuno dangling just above these words, the pointed finger takes on an impossible curve and aims straight at my chest.  I know in my gut that climate change and the energy issues are important, perhaps the important issues of my generation and certainly ones in which we are culpable and therefore responsible.  So, in addition to the work I need to do on other writing projects and at the MIA, I need to pick up this challenge, too, as I agreed to do last September in Iowa.  I’ve done too little and I can do more. 

    Kate’s snacks and party layout, on the other hand, were delicious and beautiful.


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality Great Work Politics 📎and tagged

  • My Y Chromosome

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    32  bar steep rise 30.08 1mh NNW dewpoint 27 Spring

                  Waxing Crescent Moon of Growing

    This  invitation is also for any of you read this blog and would like to come.   I’d love to see you.

    Sierra Club Power 2 Change House Party Monday, April 14th 

     7:00-8:00PM

    Hosted by Charles Buckman-Ellis 3122 153rd Ave. NW. Andover.Learn about the Power 2 Change campaign, an effort to educate the public about what is at stake in the 2008 elections. High gas prices and America‘s dependence on foreign oil have made energy one of the most pressing and important issues of this political season.  We face a crossroads, and we need to challenge all of our elected officials, including the next President, to provide the leadership we need to move America in a new direction on energy.  Between now and Earth Day on April 22nd, the Sierra Club is working to get the word out that we need leadership who will make the right choices.  Join us for refreshments, meet your neighbors and learn how you can take action.  RSVP to Margaret at 612-659-9124 ext. 306 or Margaret.levin@sierraclub.org Visit the web site to learn more about this important effort: http://www.sierraclub.org/power2change/minnesota/ 

    Note: This is NOT a fundraiser.

     Come to the event if you can.  I’d love to see you.  (Anybody who reads this is welcome.)

    Whenever Kate comes home and I’m watching a football game or a basketball game, she’ll say, “Aha. Caught you with your Y chromosome in action.”  Doesn’t happen often, but had she not been in San Francisco, she could have found me watching the last half and the overtime of the Kansas/Memphis game of the NCAA finals. Whoa.  What a game! Kansas, down by 9 with 2:12 left to play and down by 3 with less 2.0 seconds left to play. Chalmers hits the three.  Tie.  In overtime Kansas takes advantage of a missing big man (Dorsey) and goes on to win pulling away.   

    That wasn’t all though.  Tonight was also Woolly night at the Istanbul.  This is a y-chromosome only club.  We talked about Rome, about China-Tibet, Danish desserts and Pawlenty’s veto of the Central Corridor light rail.  Stefan and Bill celebrated birthdays.  A guy’s night out. 

    Talked to Kate when I got home.  She’d called the home phone, left a message and said she forgot I was the Woolly’s and that she’d call tomorrow.  I picked up the cell phone, called her cell phone.  She answered.  I said, “I just called to tell you we’re old farts.”  “Why?”  “Because I could have had my phone turned on and you could have called me at the Istanbul.”  “You called me on the cell phone just to see if I’d answer?”  “Yeah.  If you hadn’t, that would have meant we were O.F.’s for sure.” 

    Mailed another package to the serviceman in my life.  Still strange.

    .


    📂This entry was posted in Family Great Work Woolly Mammoths 📎and tagged

  • Really Creepy Vampires

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    42 bar rises 29.73 0mph W  dewpoint 28 Spring

             Waning Crescent Moon of Winds

    OK.  I’m taking off my hair shirt and hanging up my cilici.

    Today is Ruth’s second birthday.  Ruth is our first granddaughter.  The thought of another life, connected to your own, just starting out, makes the world seem a more congenial and more precious place.  Her blue eyes, mischievous quality and alertness augur an interesting and bright future.  She feeds the dogs, carrying their bowls with that peculiar toddler rolling gate.  She also crawls in the dog crate and closes the door to go night/night. (She’s just pretending.)  Jon and Jen are good parents, another fact that makes the world more congenial and more precious.

    A quiet evening after the workout.  Started watching 30 Days of Night.  Vampires attack Point Barrow, Alaska just after it heads into 30 days with no sun.  One of the vampires says, “We should have come here a long time ago.”  A bit of Draculian humor.  A good movie so far.  Great production values, interesting actors and really creepy vampires.

    Kate leaves tomorrow morning at 6:15 AM (with me as taxi driver) for Denver to celebrate Ruth’s birthday, then onto San Francisco for a family practice CME.  I plan to do some garden work tomorrow, like put down weed preventer and remove some mulch, maybe rake a bit.  It’s still too early to do much, but I’ll be able to get started.


    📂This entry was posted in Cinema and Television Family Garden Travel 📎and tagged

  • Natural Rhythms and Time

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    53  bar falls 30.03 omph W dewpoint 32 Spring

                Waning Crescent Moon of Winds

    Over to IHOP for some of that down home country fried food.  Always a treat.  Kate and I did our business meeting, deposited several thousand dollars in Wells Fargo and came back home.  Lois was here.  She commented on the amaryllis which have bloomed yet again for me.  I do nothing special to them except take them outside in the summer, then back inside in the winter.  At some point they decided its ready to bloom, so I put them in a window and water and feed them.

    I have no tours tomorrow and so have a good stretch with no art tour work.  I like that. 

    Went outside and looked at the trees.  Looks like at least five, two Norway Pines and two River Birch got trimmed back to the hose I used to protect them from sun scald.  Those rascally rabbits I presume.  In the other area, though, two white pines thrived during the winter, as did a Norway Pine, an oak and, I believe, a River Birch.  Feels good to see them growing.

    The garlic has begun to push through the soil, a bit pale under the mulch, but I removed it and they will green up fast.  Garlic are hardy plants that like a cold winter and they had one this year.  They come to maturity in June/July.  Drying, then using our own garlic will be a treat.

    Wandering around outside gets the horticulture sap rising.   I’m itchy to do stuff.

    Signed up for a Natural Rhythms and Time course at the Arboretum.  It’s a symposium put on by the University’s Institute for Advanced Studies, a real find.  If you live in the Twin Cities, I recommend getting on its mailing list.


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality Family Garden Our Land and Home Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • Leaving A Profession Well Engaged.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    28  bar steady 30.34 0mph SSW dewpoint 24 Spring

                 Waning Crescent Moon of Winds

    “If you’re strong enough, there are no precedents.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

    In spite of the perhaps down note I struck in Climbing the Wall yesterday, most of the time I realize that the decision I took when I met Kate, that is, to leave the ministry and concentrate on writing, took a kind of courage and strength many folks have, but never exercise.  At 40 years of age, to leave the comfort of a profession well engaged and one in which your prospects appear (at least to others) bright, is too much for most of us. 

    Without Kate I could not have pulled it off, but I did find this remarkable woman at just the right time.  She has supported me every step of the way, including times when I thought I was climbing the wrong wall again.  Between the two of us we have managed to defy acculturation with her earning the large salary and me at home.  Both of us have brought necessary and key gifts to our marriage, neither more valuable than the other, though, again, the what it means to be male messages of my childhood and those what it means to be female messages from hers could have created shocks too strong to overcome.

    It took strength on my part to pull away from the church, but it also took acceptance by Kate of an unusual, even aberrant path for me.  It took, in short, the strength of two of us.  As most of you who know me well know, this path has not been without difficulty, but it has been worth it.


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality Family 📎and tagged

  • Making Room for New Work

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    34  bar steady 30.10 3mph NNE dewpoint 10 Spring

                   Waning Gibbous Moon of Winds

    “Our power is in our ability to decide.” – R. Buckminster Fuller

    Since long ago college days, I have found primary life guidance from the existentalist perspective.  The existentialists believed, as do I, that we are responsible for our actions and always have a choice.  I know there are Buddhists and cognitive scientists who might differ with seeming clarity of the I in this case and, even, with the notion of free will it implies. Who knows? They may be right.  Until they convince me, (a circular notion if you think about it) I will continue to act as if I am acting.

    Kate and I had our business meeting at the IHOP nearby.  Gourmet breakfasts for seniors.  Omlettes and pancakes.  Yum.  After concluding that we’ve done well of late, except for that excess in Hawai’i, we drove to Wells Fargo Bank where I got a medallion seal on a letter to Vanguard adding Kate to my account and putting the assets of the account in our living trust.  We set up the trust last October and I’m glad we’ve both lived long enough to finish moving our assets into it.

    Ever since Monday I’ve been on a tear, getting this and that done.  Got a loan.  Got the beneficiary stuff completed.  Filed tax stuff.  Cleaned out my in-box.  Sent an e-mail to Headwaters Parish about my upcoming preaching assignment there on April 13th.  Set up the hydroponics and am into the third chapter of the large Permaculture Design book by Bill Molison.

    All this deck clearing provides, eventually, room for new work.  Perhaps a novel, certainly outdoor work later this month, more reading in Taoism and art history.  Whatever.


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality Family General 📎and tagged