And Just Like That, It Came and It Went

At twilight last night—the first day of July—we went outside to gather the day's eggs and begin the process of closing up the flocks.

We were both going about our business in the summer chicken yard, Mary looking for eggs in the outside nestbox, me collecting the eggs from the main house, when I noted a strange sound coming from the south. It was not the sound of a car on the gravel road, nor was it the far-away sound of a truck on the highway. It was not an airplane, and it was not the rising of the wind.

We looked at each other.

Rain.

It never occurred to me that the sound of rain approaching is different from the sound of the wind. It is a  white noise, almost devoid of characteristics, made up of countless tiny little granular noises subsumed within one another. In contrast, wind is complex and dense, rich with layers of turbulence and harmonics; bigger chunks of sounds made by lots of large, chaotic things interacting.

We quickened our pace, hurriedly closing the gates behind us. "Can you see it yet?" We looked to the distant treeline, far to the south. As we looked, the treeline disappeared behind a grey wall. The sound became louder, more insistent. The nearer treeline disappeared, then the trees in the backyard. We ran and ducked beneath the overhang of the shed just as the rain reached us, laughing as the roaring deluge obscured the world around us and pounded the earth.

Then, no more than thirty seconds later, it diminished to almost nothing, moving on as quickly as it had arrived. The ground, so recently assaulted, was barely wet; beneath the trees, it had stayed dry. And the sound of rain leaving is nothing to compare with the sound of rain coming.

It's too bad, because we really needed the rain.

"Agnus Dei," Samuel Barber, 1967

Memorial Day, a year ago.

I sat in the sweltering cab of the threadbare truck, seeking a brief reprieve from the sun that baked the deep dry slash along the power line right-of-way. Sweat soaked my shirt and shorts; the glare made my eyes hurt. Small dark things crawled among the hairs of my calves. The last year and a half had been an unremitting struggle. Waking every morning for a job I hated more with each passing moment; barely bringing home enough to retard our long slow slide to the precipice; fighting with a bank the very epitome of mindless, heartless, soulless bureaucracy; waking in the middle of each night to wonder what worse thing the next dawn could possibly bring.

Hanging my head and panting from the heat and exertion, I flicked on the radio. The first notes from the radio seized me, held me, and like a single shard of glass, sliced me open from head to toe. I began to sob uncontrollably, tears mingling with the sweat streaming down my face.

“Agnus Dei,” Samuel Barber's choral arrangement of that part of the Latin liturgy to his own “Adagio for Strings.” Three lines—a total of just eleven separate latin words—sung so the words nearly disappear:

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace.

I am old enough to have sat through many a latin mass in my formative years. Yet I doubt my conscious mind made a connection between the ethereal music I heard that blazing noon and those ancient words buried so deep. But there is no missing or mistaking the soul-wrenching depth of emotion conveyed in that simple, spare, elegant piece. I have written before about the power of 'Adagio,' yet this version manages to surpass the original in conveying such immense sorrow and release in such a restrained and concise package. 

This is the version that cut through my callus that day: Sung a cappella by the Choir of Trinity College, Oxford, conducted by Richard Marlow. This might straight-up be the most beautiful and moving nine-and-a-half minutes of music I can imagine.

[Addendum, September 9, 2016: I have long wondered when listening to this version why I cannot simply 'follow along with the lyrics.' It is the nature of choral music; the four parts (Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass) sing the lyrics at different paces, passing the melody from one to another at different measures. At the emotional climax of the piece, around the seven-minute mark, the four voices come together on the word 'pacem' ('peace'), followed by a long silence, then reprising the phrase 'dona nobis pacem' ('grant us peace'). For details, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOwRW8ee458 ]

Quoting the greats:

"The thunder draws its breath from lungs of pine and oak, and prepares to pound the mountains and hills in short order. In my memory, there are always thunderstorms over the mountains."

The "R1100-Less"

So Beast chewed-up and spit out an alternator belt a couple of weeks ago (seriously--there was a little black rubber bird's-nest under the front cover when I took it apart). I rode fifteen or so miles on battery power, and knew it likely wouldn't make it to any shop under its own power. So I figured I would try my hand at fixing it myself—how hard could it be, right?

Once I had a replacement belt in hand, it was time to make my first incursion into the mysteries beneath the swoopy skin in nearly ten years of ownership. In order to do things right, the body panels had to come off; and after gently removing countless little fasteners, the inner Beast was revealed.

Pretty neat. The bulbous asymmetrical aluminum tank, studded with various mounting bosses, sits on the backbone like a lustrous face-hugger. The black snorkel swoops out around the left side of the tank from the airbox, and various and sundry components and assemblies hang out in the breeze.

With the exception of the ludicrously purposeful hardcases still hanging off Beast's hips, and the tiny little red mask around the headlamps, it's kind of 'streetfighter' looking. Not beautiful, not exactly ugly, but different. And what I discovered on my ride home yesterday afternoon was that the same fairing that protects you from the icy blast in the winter also keeps the cooling airflow off you when it's 86 degrees and 65% humidity.

Not a gigantic difference, for sure. But I definitely felt more breeze on my upper body without the windshield, and generally more airflow all over. That's really a bonus in commuting traffic; it's pretty much like having a standard motorcycle again, and not much of a burden for the brief stints I spend at highway speeds. The biggest difference is how the wind feels: unfaired, 65 mph feels pretty much like 85 mph with a fairing; anything above about 70 mph feels like re-entry.

The question now is how long will I live with the 'streetfighter' look, or how soon will I chicken out and put Beast's clothes back on. Barring any unforeseen ill effects of riding naked, I could see this lasting until the first frost, for sure. And when Beast does get dressed again, I think it's time for the carbon-fiber livery. The 'little black dress,' so to speak.

Dominus papa squalus laetabundus

I don't even know where to begin with this. So I'm just going to leave it here.

The Whippoorwill

This evening, we sat out in the garden in the twilight and listened to the coming night sounds. The local whippoorwill began his singing, and after a few introductory passes of sixty or seventy repetitions, repeated his call two-hundred and eighty nine times before pausing. After a pause of about six beats, he began again; but I stopped counting.

Regional Studies

I have been reading "Night Comes To The Cumberlands," a thoroughly engrossing and disturbing study of the history of Eastern Kentucky.

The book was written by Harry Caudill and originally published in 1963. The story it told of poverty, illiteracy, ignorance and deprivation motivated John Kennedy to create the Appalachian Regional Commission to improve living conditions for the residents of the Appalachian poverty belt.

Caudill established his bona fides in the introduction, which helps deflect a certain amount of the heavy-handed approach he takes to his subject. (Caudill's tone strays to the patronizing and somewhat condescending at times, and his take on both slaves and Native Americans betrays the era from which he is writing).

But if I were to create a "Regional Studies Reading List," I would certainly begin with "Night Comes to The Cumberlands," and add:

• "Born Fighting" by James Webb,
• "Far Appalachia" by Noah Adams,
• "The Foxfire Book" by Eliot Wigginton et al, (at least the first three volumes)

The subject needs to be understood, if for no other reason than that the issues and attitudes described in this book are still very much with us today in our current political discourse. The attitudes of the earliest white settlers of Kentucky are still with us. They are manifest in a concept of 'freedom' that is defined not by "What  do I have the ability to do?" but rather "No one can tell me what I can't do."

The two approaches are clearly not equivalent; and they lead to radically different ends.

****************************************

Edit: another book I'd add to the list: "Skyland" by George Freeman Pollock, for his odd (and somewhat condescending) take on the mountaineers he encountered when building his Skyland Lodge. Skyland became the nucleus of Shenandoah National Park, which displaced those mountain families into the Piedmont and the Shenandoah Valley during the Great Depression. This diaspora into 'modernity' changed the lives of the mountain people irreversibly, and not necessarily for the best. What Cryphonectria parasitica did to the American Chestnut, the coming of SNP likewise did to the mountain families of the Blue Ridge. 

The Birds we have here...

American Crow, American Goldfinch, American Robin, American Tree Sparrow, Bald Eagle, Barn Owl, Barn Swallow, Black Vulture, Black-capped Chickadee, Blue Jay, Brown-headed Cowbird, Canada Goose, Carolina Chickadee, Cattle Egret, Cedar Waxwing, Chimney Swift, Common Raven, Cooper's Hawk, Downy Woodpecker, Eastern Bluebird, European Starling, Gray Catbird, Great Blue Heron, Great Horned Owl, Green Heron, House Finch, House Sparrow, House Wren, Indigo Bunting, Mourning Dove, Northern Cardinal, Pileated Woodpecker, Purple Finch, Purple Martin, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Red-shouldered Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk, Red-winged Blackbird, Rock Dove, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Ruffed Grouse, Scarlet Tanager, Sharp-shinned Hawk, Turkey-Vulture, Whip-poor-will & Wild Turkey. Plus a kettle of migrating hawks, which counts for something.

I'm So Confused...

We woke up this morning to a beautiful fall day: Forty degrees, clear blue skies, brilliant sunshine, brisk breeze from the northwest. But hold on, it's Madeline's birthday today, and if I recall correctly, she was born on May 25th...wait a minute...??

On the other hand, it's a classic opening day for the pool.

Recursive Nature

Right now the spring wildflowers are blooming in a generous gifting of color and scent; both the variety of species blooming and the quantity is just stunning. The Indian Bloodroot and triliums have passed, but there are jack-in-the-pulpit aplenty and more things on the way.

At some time, the classic English garden became the pinnacle and epitome of what gardening was meant to be. An "English Garden" defined 'garden.' And countless amateur gardeners have strived over countless decades to emulate and express that particular style, with varying degrees of skill and success. Constrained by space, time and budget—constraints not necessarily shared by the estate gardeners of ages past (who labored within a wholly different world of constraints) contemporary gardeners aspire and more often than not, fall short of that aspiration.

But history shows a different relationship between model and result, between pattern and product. The classic English gardens of the era we strive so badly to emulate were ebullient (and somewhat pallid) efforts to recreate...the wildflowers of Virginia. The early explorers of the mid-Atlantic were avid amateur naturalists, and worked tirelessly to collect new specimens of plants to return to England.

So I stand and look at the wildflowers with a newfound appreciation of what we have right here in our back yard. To manipulate Virginia's natural landscapes in an effort to recreate the English styles we are so fond of is "To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet...add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish..."

Compare & Contrast

Interesting backstory here.

Edit: Listening to Zep's version this morning in the car on  the way to work, I remembered one of the most amazing musical moments I've experienced.
A decade and a half ago, we were all camping somewhere out west (Great Sand Dunes, probably) and in the evening Phil brought out his acoustic guitar and started noodling around. Then he started playing this beneath the stars, and with each note, the campground got quieter and quieter until all you could hear was his playing --and the crickets. It was an amazing shared moment.

Prejudice and Discrimination II

The houses you travel past—at least those you travel past on foot or on two wheels—form a perpetual cyclorama, with which you can do one of two things:

1. You can strive to discriminate the finer details and parse the fabric of a thousand lives frozen in a moment, or 
2. You can ignore the discriminate details and simply use that cyclorama as a canvas upon which to project what is already formed in your mind.

I find that I switch between the two, based on my frame of mind. When I am feeling good, I do the former; when I am feeling bad, I do the latter. I think that's significant.

Smallpocalypse

Massanutten was burning.

I first saw it one afternoon as I came home down the long valley, a small wisp of white smoke rising from its east flank near Veitch gap as though Massanutten were a volcano and the smoke from a fumarole. By the next morning, the smoke had several sources and the cool air in Front Royal was sweetly perfumed with the most amazing incense. That afternoon, and for many successive days, the smoke grew and thickened across valley, deepening as the June air warmed and grew humid.

The fire took hold in a period of bright, clear dry days with parchingly low humidity and challenging winds. It spread from a small patch of an acre or two to tens, then hundreds of acres. It burned in an area far from roads on the rocky east slope of the eastern ridge of the dual mountain, and could only be fought on foot by firefighters carrying hand tools and water. It was tough going and slow. And because there were so few man-made things nearby, and little value to the coarse timber, there was no great sense of urgency to battling the fire and it seemed to linger. The perfume became rank and cloying, burning the nose and throat.

Then one day, the breeze carried the scent of burning pine across the mountains into our county. The smell  was pushed southeastward, riding the bow wave of a raging mass of angry, roiling air.

That night, the storm came.

The silence of twilight, the low-hanging half moon, a handful of dim stars in the still thick haze. Then, with the night, sweeps in a dark curtain—a wall across the western sky, malign and laced through with lightning. With little warning other than the sound of the wind racing across the nearby hills, it breaks upon us like a wave breaks upon the empty beach. The trees have nowhere to go and the storm shows no mercy, offers no quarter. In a brief time the storm tramples us and moves eastward.

We awake Saturday to a disheveled, wrecked world. We consume a tank of fuel in the chainsaw before our second cup of coffee; all around us we see unexpected and utterly random damage. Trees toppling other trees, crashing down onto fence lines; trees snapped in half, others losing branches that themselves are the size of trees. The destruction is without rhyme or reason or pattern, an unspeakable elemental rage brought down upon us. 

We join our neighbor to walk the road and assess its state. This is one of the small pleasant rituals we have discovered since moving to our house in the woods, after snow or heavy weather, reminding me of Frost's 'Mending Wall.' We set the road right, clear debris from ditches and culverts, remove the downed branches  and return up the lane to our respective places, having restored a small measure of normal.

Yet the bulk of the damage largely remains, and it is prodigious. It adds another layer of work to be done onto an already lengthy list, and the damaged fences cannot be ignored for long. The paths will be cleared, the debris removed, but the storm has left a mark that will be long in erasing. And we are fortunate we suffered no damage to our home or our buildings, and neither we nor any of our animals were hurt. But we will be fixing this for a long time to come...

__________________________________________

The Derecho of June 29-30, 2012, ended the forest fire threat on Massanutten, as well as causing a hellish amount of suffering and damage from Ohio to Delaware that persisted for a very long time. But far worse for us was a microburst thunderstorm some weeks later, which broke or felled at least ten large trees in our yard alone while doing very little else around us. We hadn't finished cleaning up that when Hurricane Sandy dropped a huge double-stemmed pine tree among other things. That one managed to just graze a fence line with some branches amazingly enough, as it had the potential to take out several powerlines. 

So we continue, keeping fingers crossed, and an eye on the sky. It's been a tough year for the trees, without a doubt.

I heard the news today, oh boy

I was reading an article today about fracking, in particular about the experiences of landowners adjacent to properties where fracking has taken place. Often these landowners receive no financial benefit from the sale of the gas produced there, either because of some sneaky dealing with the previous owners, strong-arm tactics by the gas companies, or simply their reluctance to sell the drilling rights. As an acquaintance used to say, "All of the onus, none of the bonus..."

One story mentioned a man who had working in one of the incidental positions related to fracking--he washed the mats that surrounded the drill sites once they were done drilling and were taken up, in preparation for trucking them to the next site.

The man developed a debilitating skin condition from having his feet in the chemical-laden wastewater, and after seeing forty doctors, was no closer to a cure or palliation. He is unable to work.

This is not even a remotely remarkable story in this day and age. But what literally made me gasp out loud was the byline of the story--Clearville, Pennsylvania.

For a brief time, a million years ago, Clearville was my mailing address. It is a beautiful area in south-central Pennsylvania, maybe fifteen miles above the Mason-Dixon line as the crow flies, not near anything in particular. It lies among the many long north-south ridges of the Appalachians as they begin the sinuous turn eastward that defines the topology of central Pennsylvania. Much of the land hosts state forests that came into being during the depression, when farm after farm failed and reverted to neowilderness. It makes for good hunting and fishing land, and as I recall, is flush with wild blueberries in the summer. It also lies atop the infamous Marcellus shale, the home of our benighted culture's mad 21st century gold rush.

Gobsmacked, I looked a little deeper into what's going on with fracking and that little slice of Pennsylvania with which I have a passing familiarity.

Turns out that fracking is all over the map there, and people getting sick from it is just the beginning. While Clearville was my postal address, the actual location was a tiny little crossroads even closer to the Mason-Dixon and farther from anything of consequence. And it turns out that little hamlet was the scene of a natural gas compression station fire in 2010 that required the evacuation of over 40 homes in the middle of the night.

My first thought was "There are actually over 40 homes in Artemas? Really?" My second thought was how heartbreaking is was that Artemas now hosted a natural gas compression station.

Even back in the day, natural gas was a thing there. There was an old capped well atop the property; locals talked about how in exchange for allowing (old-school) drilling on their property, they received free gas stoves, heat and refrigerators (yes, you can make cold by burning gas) and from time to time you could hear the sound of a drill rig off in the distance on a cool summer night.

But a compression station running 24/7, right there...that's another matter.

It was a really, really quiet place; the kind of place where airplanes were generally absent from the sky, where you heard the wind and the rain coming for minutes before they arrived, where birdsong was common and plain to hear, where a car coming along the long gravel road was never a surprise.

The two streams and spring nearby ran cold and clear. I guess that's all changed now, and that change can't ever be undone by us or our children or our children's children. I'll just try and keep it in my memory, how it was. And as much as I abhor folks who randomly quote scripture, it seems very Genesis 25:25-34 to me.

Edit: Apparently I conflated two parts of the story. The man who got sick was elsewhere in Pennsylvania; the Clearville incident involved a number of horses and other livestock who sickened and had to be put down. But the basic gist remains the same. A beautiful state is being destroyed to obtain a commodity whose price just keeps falling, just so we can ship it elsewhere in the world.

A Moment, 2012

The sun rises on Main Street on the longest day of the year. What do you see? What do you smell?

Serious groove...

Heard this for the first time on a college radio station while driving a U-Haul down from Boston to DC. All the more awesome because, well, it was a really foggy drive, and the sky started appearing for the first time in several days when this was playing. Had no idea who it was, but when we got home googled 'calamine lotion' + lyrics, and wa-la. Who knew the VU were so awesome? Apparently everyone besides me, that's who.

Snowpocalypse Porter post-mortem

Well, the time spent in the bottle did the Snowpocalypse porter no favors.

Hard to describe, but it had a thin flavor profile which did little to bolster and round out the smoke notes. 'Phenolic' is a polite way to describe it, and like the description of the apocryphal book, "...once I set it down, I couldn't pick it back up again!"

So bottle #1 was poured and languished in half-drunk mugs in various places around the room until the following day. However, phoenix-like, it (along with bottle #2) was resurrected that evening in a simple but hearty stew of ox-tail (okay, really cow-tail, but a convention is a convention) which was absolutely awesome.

I'm pleased. It was fun to brew at the time, pleasant enough to drink along the way, a fun reminder of a unique time, and it met a good end. What else could you ask for?

Now on to other brews. Two all-grain batches teed up for February...

There is still...

...no better Christmas song than "Fairytale of New York" by the Pogues.

Addendum: I should qualify this: Christmas song with lyrics. "Linus and Lucy" is pretty awesome.

12-2-2012

We knelt together on the cool damp ground as the afternoon sun fell behind the forest, diminishing light slanting long shadows across the garden rows. With fork and hand we delved the dark row, groping blindly through the dirt for the few tubers hiding there un-mole-sted. For every root, a rock; for every rock, a root. And we slowly picked clod-by-clod and morsel-by-morsel, tossing away the weeds, dried stalks and tendrils. By the time we reached the end of the tiny little furrow, we had both a greatly increased pile of freshly liberated rocks and a bucket piled high with potatoes of all sizes and colors. Red, white, blue and green, the size of a pea to the size of an Irishman's clenched fist.

With our early winter prize gathered, we scrubbed the clinging dirt from our hands and from beneath our nails, then returned to the garden table to sit and share perhaps the last glass of wine there for the season. When the sun was gone and the long December twilight was faded, we took our bucket of potatoes and scrubbed them, then sorted the best to keep for later. We supped on a peasant's feast of freshly dug multicolored potatoes, boiled with a little salt and served with simple leftover turkey gravy.

Not bad; not bad at all.

A Recipe for Beer—The Infamous Snowpocalypse Porter

Snowpocalypse Porter—February 10, 2010 (Round 2 of the Blizzards of 2010)

2 lbs. Wasmund's smoked malt

2 lbs 120-l malt

2 lbs Chocolate malt

1 lb honey

½ lb Blackstrap molasses

½ lb Molasses

1 tsp gypsum

3 quarts water from melted snow

Step mash

Initial gravity 1.052

Chilled wort in snowbank, which is remarkable inefficient unless you are constantly fiddling with it.

*******************************************************

We have two champagne bottles of this stuff left, and we haven't tasted it in well over a year. We will be killing those off sometime over the holidays, so keeping fingers crossed...could be spectacular.

Cattle Egret

A few days ago, we were driving through the county to visit our friend's little dairy, when something moving off in the distance caught our attention.

It was a bird, brilliant white in the low-slanting sunlight of the morning, flying gracefully and purposefully towards the northwest. Both its brightness and it's flight pattern were distinctive, but at such a distance we had a difficult time identifying it. As we arrived, it flew behind the crest of the hill and disappeared.

As we went about our business at the dairy, my curiosity got the better of me. After asking permission—of course—I unchained the twin metal gates and quietly as I could, entered the adjoining field. Securing the gate behind me, I walked cross-country slowly and deliberately through the field, among the dozens of cows and calf grazing there, towards the crest, scanning the horizon as I went for any sign of the bird.

As I reached the ridge, there was a flash of white downhill to my left. There the bird stood in all its brilliance. It was tall and elegant, and as best I could see, pure white from wingtip to wingtip and head to tail. It moved with great poise and consideration through the russet grasses, plucking seeds and insects as it went. It studied its surroundings with great care and diligence, and seemed utterly serene.

From time to time, it would take flight for a few yards, moving to a new patch of grass to feed. And when it arrived in a new location, it paid no attention to the residents in place—calf, cow, steer or border collie. It simply went about its business with great focus. At one point, a calf, seemingly annoyed by the bird, charged it and ran after it for a few yards; the bird simply flew just a few feet ahead of the calf until it tired of the effort. It did the same for the border collie, who seemed to feel this avian intruder was not showing the proper respect.

But in a few minutes, the most amazing thing occurred. The same tan calf (or an identical looking one) slowly moved closer to the bird. For a brief moment, the two stood motionless, face-to-face, addressing one another. "There is no veil."

Then they simply went about their respective businesses.

It turns out the bird was a Cattle Egret, not common to this area, but not unknown. We are on the edge of their natural range. They are well known for their commensal relationship with livestock, feeding on insects drawn to and stirred up by the livestock. The livestock neither particularly benefit from, nor are harmed by, their presence. They seem to have no natural distrust for the animals surrounding them that dwarf them, but instead get along with them in an admirable display of neighborliness.

Its graceful flight, brilliant plumage and regal, assured presence made the Cattle Egret one of the most impressive birds I have ever seen in person. I'm very glad I decided to take that little walk into the field to see what I could see.

Road To Kilmarnock

On a cold gray November morning, I am driving to Kilmarnock, a small town at the distal end of Virginia's Northern Neck. The neck is bounded by the Potomac on the north and the Rappahanock on the south; at its tip is the Chesapeake. The land is mostly flat sandy farmland punctuated with rich stands of pine and long walls of grey-brown oaks with their leaves around their ankles. The spine of the Northern Neck is a long, low dwindling ridge breaking the flatness and adding some twistiness to the roads. Soybeans are being harvested today by giant John Deere combines; corn is long gone from the fields, leaving only the rough stubble of its stalks behind.

I travel Route 3, a state highway that begins in the Piedmont at Culpeper, crosses the Fall line at Fredericksburg before meandering down the coastal plain and ending in Gloucester. It waxes and wanes on its way to the waterside, first four lanes, then two, then four again so many times over that it's hard to keep track. I note that every time it dwindles to two lanes, the driver ahead prefers to drive at least ten miles below the speed limit. This phenomena, and the astonishing length of the Northern Neck—after a short time driving, I reach what I assume to be the midpoint. It is not; I still have almost an hour and a half ahead of me—contributes to my sense of having been driving for ever and that I will never, ever, reach Kilmarnock.

I was wise to leave my arrival time vague.

A few miles shy of Kilmarnock, I crest a gentle rise and see in the distance a figure walking on the shoulder amid the wind-blown leaves. Though he is walking determinedly, with his back to me, I can tell by his posture he is hitchhiking. As if in confirmation, he hears my approach and turns to stick out his thumb. I have already changed lanes and begun to slow down.

He trots along the shoulder to where I have stopped. (I am always glad when hitchhikers do that; there is nothing more infuriating that a dawdling hitchhiker.) The front seat is full of a jumble of things, so I reach back and open the rear door so there will be no confusion. I am slightly embarrassed for making him ride in the back, but there is only so much...

He ducks in gratefully, trailing a nimbus of stale cigarette smoke behind him. He extends a scarred and calloused hand for me to shake, and thanks me profusely for stopping. I run through the obligatory preliminaries—how long you been out there, how far you heading, and so on, and find myself pleased that though my long and arduous trek to Kilmarnock is nearly done, I am still going just far enough to get him to his destination.

He tells me his story.

He is a plasterer. Not a drywall man, but a real plasterer. He was called out to a job first thing this morning and hitched there, but the lead was called off to another site and there was nothing for him to do. So he is heading home late in the morning, not a dime richer and hoping tomorrow will work out better. I surmise a lifetime of working with alkali is responsible for the condition of his hands.

“We're working on an older hoese, maybe from the 1830's. The original lintels over the windows were made of plaster, but they've rotted oat over the years. Instead of rebuilding them with plaster, we're building them up from cement. The final finish we'll do with plaster, so they look right.” 

“The hoese has walls that are two feet thick, ceilings ten, twelve feet high. The lintels themselves are eight feet up, so everything we do, we gotta do from either up on a stepladder or on scaffolding. It's tough. And there are a lot of windows...” he trailed off and gestured out the window. We had arrived. 

He exits the car and thanks me once again. I had spent four, maybe five minutes with him, and it was like stepping back into the 18th century; his trade, his description of his work, his self-reliant demeanor, his generous attitude. But mostly his ancient Virginia accent, with its distinctive bending of vowels that still maintains here and there, mostly in those low places close to the saltwater. It is the still-living language of the English who came here sometime between the founding of the country and the Civil War, and it is beautiful to hear it being spoken in a land where we have lost almost all marks of regional distinction.

Really glad I stopped. No idea why I did.

Also: This timely piece.

Missing Beast

Gaaah. I'm stuck here for the fifth day as a pedestrian in this dystopian stripmall flatscape, with perfect weather and a ragged inability to get a good night's sleep. I really think an hour or so of quality time with Beast would go a long way to smoothing the rough edges of my tired-out brain right now.

If I was gonna be stuck here for very much longer, I'd track down that place I looked up that rents bikes and pay for an afternoon's worth of riding in circles.

And it's weird: even the BMW riders here don't wear helmets and they aren't in Aerostich suits. Go figure.

O-B-L-I-V-I-O-U-S

I'm not sure what brought this to mind recently, but I was reminded of an incident from a long time ago, that seems more remarkable every time I reflect on it.

I was about fourteen or fifteen, my exact age doesn't really matter. I was a member of the Explorers, which I refused to acknowledge was in any was associated with the Boy Scouts. Regardless of its affiliation, the organization presented an opportunity to escape the stifling confines of suburbia one weekend a month and get out into the woods with a small cadre of like-minded miscreants.

In any case. Besides my hanging with a tough crowd of middle class white teenagers, my parents also owned a share of a farmhouse in the shadow of the Blue Ridge in Sperryville, just a couple of miles from the boundaries of Shenandoah National Park.

So I had the bright idea of heading out with the Explorers on a weekend trip to Shenandoah, and using that as a launching point for an epic day hike beginning at Skyline Drive and following the Piney River down Old Hollow to Apple Hill.

In fact, I may have actually, um, you know, helped plan a weekend trip for the Explorers—a circuit hike, you know—for the rest of them. I'm kinda sketchy on those details at this point. So, on a fine spring Saturday, we piled into the van and left Arlington for Shenandoah National Park and Skyline

Drive with a mixed bag of understandings of what was going to transpire. At the trailhead, we parked the Green Monster and saddled up—them with their full packs with tents and sleeping bags, me with my daypack...

We set off down the trail, and as I was kinda fleet of foot, I got out in front of everyone. Of course, I was also not encumbered by a full pack, so had a bit of an advantage. So I hiked like a boy possessed, and within a few short minutes, I was alone in the wilds, making a solid four-plus mile an hour pace. I still can recall how the wind felt and how the air smelled that day.

The trail began along the ridge, then dropped down to follow the stream valley. By noon I was near the park boundary, and by a little after one I had arrived at Apple Hill and had lunch with my family.

But, strangely, I had never thought to mention my plans to Bill, our Explorer post advisor - chaperone -  resident adult. I'm not sure I even explained things to any of my peers in any great detail. In my mind, I wasn't participating in an Explorer outing; I was simply catching a convenient ride out to the mountains with them.

From an adult perspective, I can't imaging what must have gone through Bill's mind that evening when the group assembled at the campsite with one fewer hiker than they began with. I never really did find out, and I don't recall our ever speaking of it later. I know that if some little smart ass pulled a stunt like that on me, I'd make sure we had an understanding once we were both back in the world.

What gets me is recalling exactly how this made perfect sense at the time, though in hindsight it seems the very epitome of obliviousness. As a young teen, I passed through the world like a shade, wrapped in a self-sustaining mantle of invisibility. I left no trace, made no mark, had no impact, made no difference. So I completely believe it—and sympathize—when young people do dazzlingly dumb or inconsiderate or thoughtless or ridiculous things. It's likely they lack any way to gauge,  no way to recognize that they make a mark on the world, however faltering or tentative that mark may be. 

We need to remember that for the first decade or so of our consciousness, we really don't make much impact on the world at large, and perhaps the greatest revelation of growing up is that moment when you reach out and the world resonates beneath your touch. 

XKCD remembers Hurricane Zeta

In regard to this: http://rlymi.blogspot.com/2005/12/damn.html I present:

Thank you, Randall Munroe for this and all the XKCD awesomeness you have rendered. Original version here

Addison through the Looking Glass

My day began under a tormented gray sky, blowing a thick layer of pine needles from the roof and skylights and flashing and gutters, then policing the odds and ends subject to being wind-tossed from the open spaces, then felling the massive, spectral skeleton of a pine tree which menaced the turkey yard and which nearly menaced me...all while the temperature slowly fell and the winds slowly rose.

But shortly I found myself six miles above some vaguely discernible part of the south in an airplane packed every cubic inch with restive travelers and their Brobdingnagian rolling suitcases and ubiquitous iFarkles. On arrival, despite the boogeyman of checked luggage, my bag reaches the concourse seconds before I. I have arrived in a broad, flat tan landscape strewn with scores of mirror-faced office buildings gleaming like chunks of galena shattering the light of the setting sun. In the east the gibbous moon takes ownership of the sky. I feel like I have been teleported into a terrarium.

I ditch my bags, shuck my travelling clothes and spend my first hour just walking around taking stock of my new neighborhood and getting my bearings. The air cools down quickly with so little humidity to hold the day's warmth, and it is warmer here than at home during the day but colder at night. In Texas. Go figure. On a Sunday night, late to me, the traffic is manic, hostile and unrelenting.

And the birds...there is some kind of dark flocking bird, similar to grackles or starlings, who are all but invisible in the trees and amidst the buildings, but whose cries and calls absolutely fill the air. As I walk, I notice the sidewalks beneath the overhead lines—beneath anything that offers a perch or roost-- are thickly whitewashed with their droppings. Their screeching and calling is otherworldly in this garish landscape.

Back in my room, I roll through the cable channels as quickly as the remote allows. I am concurrently watching a dozen programs, serial snippets in rapid rotation, comprehension uninhibited by the mosaic but assisted by the glacial pace of television storytelling. I am trying to feel like a part of the growing catastrophe that is consuming the eastern seaboard while I am exiled here for the week, a storm for which a new vocabulary must be created.

I look for news of the wind, of the rain, of the coming snows and the loss of power and of the dozen other vectors of misery and suffering and dislocation and loss. I look for news of home, and feel so powerless to be so far away. There is no need for me to be there, nothing I could add or bring to bear, but it is in my blood and soul to wish to experience the darkness of such an event, to be able to say I was there, and came through it unscathed.

I watch long into the night, image after image relentlessly strobing the bland room and its bland furnishings. I am so dislocated; I feel warn and exhausted but not sleepy, so continue to provoke my senses until long past the time I should have given up, given in.

The dawn comes oddly late in my temporary home. A full ten minutes later, by my recollection, than it had come on the last cloudless morning. Timezones are funny things. East and west, north and south; if you notice these things, then you know when they are not right. And though we acknowledge the east and west of things, we rarely comment on the north and south of things, and how changing longitude will affect your sense of time in a different way than simply where you fall in time. Relative differences and absolute differences.

It is cold and clear at dawn, but the air quickly warms with the sun and its fun-house rising. Again I am transfixed by the flashing images, of the process proceeding without me. Back there the cold rains have come, the sideways rains, and in some places things are beginning to fall apart, though not in my places. Things remain mostly routine in my place until some hours after nightfall, when the power finally fails. It will stay failed for just over a day, and then it will return with little fanfare, and as best I can tell, little disruption of the normal routine.

The cold rains fell for many many hours, until over four inches had fallen. In those places where our rains usually came in, this time they did not. The snow did not come, the leveling winds did not come. All appears to be normal, for the most part.

But from my vantage point in this terrarium, I still cannot resist making the ice-blue images march unrelentingly across my eyes. I cannot turn away, and it fills my brain with shrapnel and shards that will not let me sleep. Images of flood and wind, of streets turned inside out, of homes evulsed, of arc flashes bringing day to night, of towers rent asunder, of masks of anguish, of crushing snows and tides of broken pieces and of ravening fires consuming all, unquenchable in the dark heart of a hurricane. In the middle of the night, I admit defeat, acknowledge that sleep is not coming anytime soon, and open the floodgate once again for another bout.

I walk briskly to lunch in my shirtsleeves; were there any humidity, I would probably break a sweat. My glasses darken in an instant from the sunshine, and there is still not a solitary cloud in the sky. I spend the end of the afternoon on the patio, chatting amiably with the other until the sun finally goes down and the chill arises. The bird calls begin to rise as the darkness encroaches. I am here right now and there is no other place I can be for the time being.

I will try to sleep tonight. Happy Samhain.

TOTD

Time isn't holding us; time isn't after us.

Benchmarks

October 6, 2012: Fired up the wood stove for the first time of the season. I love the smell of hot dust.
October 13, 2012: First frost.
October 14, 2012: Cabernet bottled, 25 bottles.
October 15, 2012: Last hen transferred to the winter yard. Summer yard gets a chance to rest.
October 15, 2012: Sauvignon blanc started.

A Long Day in the Dairy

Sunday began bright and early with a quick post-coffee cleanup of the kitchen. Without pause or interruption, we proceeded directly into the first of a long series of interwoven projects: I delabeled the last few wine bottles we needed for the oft-postponed bottling of the Cabernet, and Mary brought in three gallons of milk from the outside refrigerator so it could slowly come to room temperature. She then skimmed the many quarts of milk on hand, gathering six pints of cream. As the milk and cream tempered, Mary packaged up an earlier batch of butter.

Then began the making of the new batch of butter. No homely churn for this task; the blender is a fine and expeditious helpmeet. In relatively short order, the butter was churned and the extravagant buttermilk set aside as a treat for the poultry. The scrubbed wine bottles were ready for a thorough washing. On to the next project—about five pounds of pure white fresh cheese, made the previous Sunday, waiting to be salted, divided and improvised upon.

The greatest measure of this cheese was simply salted and frozen as an ingredient for later. For the balance, we decided to take two tacks—Mary would make savory cheeses, I would make sweet. So together we crafted several flavors of soft, spreadable cheeses (including a savory Boursin clone and a brandied five-spice sweet cheese) which joined the butter in the freezer for enjoyment over the long dark winter.

By now the large pot of milk was ready to begin its magical transformation. We spent the bulk of the afternoon and well into the evening transforming three gallons of fresh milk into a small wheel of cheddar cheese through a process of strictly regulated heating, enzymatic action and physical manipulation that made mashing and brewing an all-grain beer look like fixing a glass of lemonade.

I would have to say there are a handful of magical transformations in the realm of the cooking arts. Mashing is one, where suddenly thick, starchy porridge becomes a sea of grains suspended in a clear, golden wort; another is the nixtamal reaction, where thick cooked corn is transformed in a different way, releasing the smell of fresh sweet corn where a moment earlier there was nothing; and cheese making, where in an instant, milk polarizes into clear liquid and a snowstorm of curds.

Did I mention that somewhere in there, we also started roasting one of our turkeys, to have for dinner?

So, by sometime after dinner, the cheddar was ready to be set aside to drain for a bit. But we're not quite done yet—still one more dairy project to take care of.

The three gallons of whey from the cheddar is heated, and to it we add a pint of whole milk. Somehow, from this meager beginning, we manage to produce over a pound of fresh ricotta! That is the most amazing step, because it really gives the appearance of getting something from nothing. (In reality, the cheddar extracts most of the casein protein from the milk with the help of the enzyme action of rennet; ricotta uses a near-boil heat and mild acidity, provided through the addition of a small quantity of cider vinegar, to capture the remaining albumin proteins from the whey). After this final magical transform, the last iteration of whey—stripped of protein but still vitamin and mineral rich—will be fed to the poultry as a supplement.

It is bedtime when we are finally done. The cheddar is undergoing its first pressing; the ricotta and butter are in the refrigerator chilling. The turkey carcass has been picked apart and the leftovers are put away. For all intents and purposes, we have spent the entire day on our feet, in the kitchen, by the stove or around the island, working together on these interwoven projects. It is all we can do to tie up the loose ends of the day, to make sure what needs to be closed up is closed up and what needs to be secured is secured. We are as sore and exhausted as had we been working in the garden or in the woods for as long a day.

And still the cabernet sits, unbottled.

Who Knows Where The Time Goes ?

Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving
But how can they know it's time for them to go?
Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming
I have no thought of time
For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?

Sad, deserted shore, your fickle friends are leaving
Ah, but then you know it's time for them to go
But I will still be here, I have no thought of leaving
I do not count the time
For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?

And I am not alone while my love is near me
I know it will be so until it's time to go
So come the storms of winter and then the birds in spring again
I have no fear of time
For who knows how my love grows?
And who knows where the time goes?
________________________________________

I'm not sure how I got to my advanced age without hearing this song (ca. 1967), but it has stuck with me since I first heard it a few days ago.

It's so beautiful it makes my teeth hurt; it brings tears to my eyes. Part of it is the incredible voice of the late Sandy Denny; part of it is Richard Thompson's lyric, languid understated filigree of guitar work embellishing that voice. Part of it is the ethereal power of the imagery. I think a large part of it is that maybe you can't really appreciate a song like this until you are middle aged, and yes, you do begin to wonder...who knows where the time goes?

Buttoned suits, white shirts, receding hairlines, horn-rimmed glasses...the epitome of cool.

Paul Desmond's will passed his royalties from his compositions to the American Red Cross...which still receives about $100,000 annually from his music.

Dave Brubeck, piano; Paul Desmond, saxophone; Eugene Wright, bass; Joe Morello, drums.

Stone Cold Bitch

The last weekend was vintage Virginia August.

Hot, muggy, but with a persistent breeze that tousled the trees and kept things from getting too miserable. By mid-day Sunday, the haze had thickened and the skies to the west were darkening. Around three, the first rumbles of thunder came from far off.
By four, the air quieted and stilled; the proverbial calm before the storm. A few drops of rain fell here and there, then the wind began to pick up as did the rain, in unison. The rain began to spray, sudden intense sheet of fine droplets that sounded like sand scouring the windows and skylights.

The group of us sat nearly mute in the dim greatroom—not quite cowering, listening intently to the rising storm. A bright flash of lightning, immediate smash of thunder, wind tosses the lawn furniture across the grass, and a loud thud, as of something hitting the house.

Then the wind diminishes as quickly as it arose, the rain becomes more gentle and steady, and the sky slowly lightens. I venture outside to inspect the aftermath, and am relieved to see no apparent damage to the house or any of the buildings.
But my goodness there is a lot of cleanup to be done.

The major limb of a wild cherry sprawls across the fence line of the summer chicken yard, mercifully falling where the fence was already damaged. A tall pine leans lazily across the driveway into the embrace of one of its comrades. The crown of a massive tree snapped off, taking two other trees with it into a tangled mess of oak, cedar and ash that thoroughly blocked the lane.

But the best is yet to come.

In the back yard, it is hard to count the number of trees downed or damaged, but I will try. Live pines, felled or mortally damaged: five; dead pines downed or broken, three; deciduous trees broken: one, a poplar missing half a stem; collateral damage: the large apple tree, struck by a fallen short-needle pine—the pine is still there, so we cannot assess the damage; numerous other trees still concealed amidst the wreckage of their comrades; at least two massive snags still suspended in the air menacingly.

The first order of business is to remove the upper half of the pine that snapped and smashed the west gate to splinters, coming to rest on House #2. Amazingly, though it bent the fence and pulled the fence posts askew, it appears to have done no harm to the chicken house, not even budging it from its cinderblock foundation.  The birds are all safe.

There is more rough weather anticipated for the days to come. It will take weeks—probably months—to clean up wood that fell in those fifteen seconds.  Some of it will be gathered and tossed on the pile waiting to be bucked to firewood. Some will be chipped for mulch or cut to lengths to be used as borders. Some will be burned, neither fit for any other purposes nor worth the trouble. Some will be left to rot where it fell, to return to the meager skin of soil stretched across these rock ribs.

This is not what we had planned to do this weekend. But you know, sometimes Mother Nature can just be a stone cold bitch.

On This Occasion, Let Us Remember Those Who Have Fought, Sacrificed and Died For Our Freedoms:

A. Philip Randolph; Alex Odeh; Alice Paul; Amelia Boynton Robinson; Andrew Young Jr.; Barnett Slepian; Bayard Rustin; Bernard Lafayette; Betty Friedan; C.T. Vivian; Cesar Chavez; Charles Evers; Charles Morgan Jr.; Charles Sherrod; Clara Luper; Claude Black; Claudette Colvin; Coretta Scott King; Crystal Eastman; Daisy Bates; David Gunn; Diane Nash; Dolores Huerta; Don Bolles; Dorothy Cotton; Edgar Nixon; Eizabeth Peratrovich; Elijah P. Lovejoy; Elizabeth Cady Stanton; Ella Baker; Eugene Debs; Fannie Lou Hamer; Franklin Kameny; Fred Shuttlesworth; George Moscone; George Tiller; Gloria Steinem; Gordon Hirabayashi; Harvey Milk; Hosea Williams; Humberto Noe Corona; Ida B. Wells; Jack Herer; James Bevel; James Farmer; James Forman; James Lawson; James Orange; James T Meredith; Jo Ann Robinson; John Britton; John L. Lewis; Joseph Lowery; Judy Shepard; Julian Bond; Julius Wilson Hobson; June Jordan; Lola Hendricks; Lucy Burns; Lucy Stone; Madalyn Murray O'Hair; Malcolm X; Mamie Till Bradley Mobley; Marie Foster; Martin Luther King Jr.; Marvel Cooke; Medgar Evers; Myles Horton; Nellie Stone Johnson; Prathia Hall; Ralph Abernathy; Robert F. Williams; Robert Hill; Robert Moses; Roger Baldwin; Rosa Parks; Roy Wilkins; Ruby Hurley; Samuel Gompers; Susan B.Anthony; T.R.M. Howard; Thomas C. Wales; W. E. B. Du Bois; Walter Francis White; Walter Nelles; William S. McIntosh; Wyatt Tee Walker.

This is a brief and cursory list of those brave individuals, who without color of uniform, power of authority or compulsion of force, have placed themselves in harm's way to expand the promise contained in our founding documents—The Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution.

It always has been, and always will be, individuals who risk everything to expand the scope of rights we enjoy. Civil Rights are not zero-sum; rights expanded for one are rights expanded for all.

We need to take a moment and think with awe, respect and gratitude about those brave people who stopped and turned among the teeming mob and said "Enough. This cannot stand; We must change."

And while many are renowned for their efforts on behalf of a single cause, it is heartening to see how many worked across boundaries to expand the rights of all. Apparently "A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats" does not simply apply to 'supply-side economics.' This is how it should be.

We will remember what you have done and what you have sacrificed, with gratitude.

An Interesting Juncture

We have reached an interesting—and not insignificant—juncture. With the recent assistance of our local electric utility, we have essentially gotten control of a broad band of our little hilltop from its northern boundary to its southern boundary.

Last month, the power company spent a few weeks clearing trees and brush from the power line rights-of-way in our area. As our property is criss-crossed by a number of different power line, this meant that a number of broad swaths were cleared first, by crews with chainsaws, then second, by an armored bush-hog.This was a super-duper bonus for us, because first of all, we had long planned to remove many of the trees that were dropped anyway (we have a long-standing no-spray preference for the rights-of-way, which imposes a reciprocal obligation to provide a modicum of maintenance) and had that done for us.

The bush-hogging was great, because it replaced a lot of messy undergrowth with a thick layer of coarse mulch that will help keep the open spaces open and temporarily suppress regrowth. Finally, we appear to have gotten a decent amount of firewood on the ground for the gathering, and have already made an effort at harvesting that for eventual bucking and splitting.

So, beginning at the northern property line, we have a cleared swath beneath the power line. This abuts the open pines, then the summer chicken yard, then the main garden. The significant part of this is that we have finally cleared and tilled the last major portion of the garden around the old maple stump, so for all intents and purposes, everything within the fenced area is productive garden or flock space. To the east and west flanks lie broad bands of forest which we at least have a basic understanding of, and plans to one degree or another. Along the garden and summer chicken area, we can see clearly how we have pushed the forest back by several ranks of trees, to provide more open space and more unobstructed sunlight for the growing spaces.

Continuing along the hilltop, in the back (south) yard, we will be fencing a garden area in short order, producing a fenced-area-within-a-fenced area to grow veggies safe from the marauding poultry. In the winter, this will give us another secure area for the turkeys to occupy, netted over and protected from the harshest winter winds.

It has only taken us to our seventh growing season here to reach this point, and without the little boost we got, I wouldn't feel quite the same sense of completeness. We still have a lo-o-o-o-ng way to go, but it makes me feel like we've made some kind of breakthrough, some kind of milestone. It feels good.

One of those people...

...Who divides the world into two categories: Things that might be green, things that are kinda heavy, things that  could get hot, and horses.

Technologies, appropriate and not

I work in I.T., and spend a fair amount of time considering the intersection between technology and those who use it. Generally, this is a barren, ugly, benighted no-man's land of frustration and wasted time. So my mind keeps going back to Schumacher's concept of "appropriate technology"—which seems to have almost no relationship to information technology, as far as I can tell, with its obsession with smart phones, busy farkles, angry birds and augmented realities.

But it's a good jumping off point for considering my personal relationship with technologies, and those devices that strike me as 'appropriate technologies.' Many years ago, I considered 'technology' to equal 'tools,' and tools to represent the intersection or interface between the human body and a problem needing solving.

In that spirit, I would like to give credit to those tools which, in my mind, represent the most perfect solutions to the problems they are designed to address. These are the few devices which I have selected carefully, have owned for many years, and which in general, always make me happy when I use them. They are:

• Stihl Chainsaw. The most amazing force-multiplier I've ever used.
• 2003 BMW R1100s (and, by extension 1983 BMW R80ST)
• Troy-bilt rototiller, ca. 1974
• Skil worm-drive circular saw.
• Craftsman wood chisels. Even after the kids sculpted stone with them.
• Buck Multi-tool. For some reason, I've never seen a Leatherman I liked nearly as much or that did such a fine job, even though the Buck tool is a little...sui generis.

There may be others I have overlooked, but this little group is very special in how well they do what they are meant to do. They represent the perfect intersection of the human experience and a specific problem in need of solving. I have others that might eventually merit inclusion on this list, but we do not yet have the accreted personal history to justify their inclusion with this rarefied and select cohort.

A Sense of Foreboding

I cannot help but feel an inescapable sense of foreboding. I cannot recall a time when it has been this hot, this dry, so early in the season. We have come through a winter without snow, without rain, without any real cold to speak of.

There is no leaf cover yet, so there is no shade from the harsh sun. The early plants that were lured out by the preternatural warmth are already sun scalded and bleaching. The spring earth is light and dusty with no moisture to bind it. In contrast to many Aprils past, when we wait for the damp earth to dry and warm before planting it, now we worry if what we have already planted can survive this harsh trial—a concern more common to June and July.

The trees have not come on yet. When they begin their colossal transpiration, what little moisture remains will be sucked from the ground and given to the sky, draining that reservoir to its limits. We can only hope for a change that would be both unlikely and unrealistic. Once the dry season sets in, it creates its own paradigm and relinquishes its hold only in the face of great perturbations, changes that carry their own hazards—hurricanes and tropical storms that burst themselves against the ramparts of the mountains. And the streams already run low, in April.

What we are experiencing now foreshadows a summer of heat and drought. The wider risk is of fire, both in the present and well off into the future. With some effort, we can capture the few small rains and shunt that water towards our most critical needs: the vegetable gardens, the young, unestablished trees and shrubs. But drought means that there is no rain; the small storms become smaller, fewer and farther between. We watch them anxiously on the radar, popping up nearby only to fade and dissipate before quenching our desperate thirst.

We can care for the few and the dear, but each summer of drought—and we have seen more of them than we would like to acknowledge—pushes the forest closer to the edge, to a point where something will happen that cannot be undone. Call it a tipping point, call it anything at all. But what we will see is a slow diminution, a gentle reduction in the health of the forest canopy and understory, until one day a wind comes and takes it all down in a final act of loss and destruction.

It is not hard to stand on this rocky hill with its thin mantle of dry soil, and envision the steps to a dry and wide-open future—slow decline, death, sweeping fire, rain, erosion—and what was once the great eastern climax forest of mixed hardwoods, home to deer and black bear and wild turkey and bobcat, to raccoon and possum and pileated woodpecker and ruffed grouse and green heron and box turtle has become the great eastern savannah, home to whomever is left.

In lieu of the great cool forests that greeted the Europeans, where it was said that a squirrel could traverse the forest canopy from the Chesapeake to the Mississippi without touching the earth, we will bequeath to our grandchildren and great-grandchildren a vast, open grassland, a prairie spreading from the Atlantic to the Continental Divide.

I am at once glad that I will not be here to see it, and moved to grief for what we will leave behind for those who follow. 

The Trees

Not long after we got here, I noticed something about our forest. Most of the trees, regardless of species or stature, seemed to be doing poorly. Some, like the eastern dogwood, were affected by anthracnose; the pines were suffering with bark beetles; the few hemlocks had wooly adelgids, and the oaks were suffering from something, maybe Sudden Oak death—a disease related phytologically to the Irish potato famine, but symptomatically to Dutch Elm Disease and the Chestnut blight.

These diseases have wreaked havoc with the great Eastern forests over the last century. Chestnut blight removed fully a quarter of the eastern forest canopy in the blink of an eye; the tannic-acid rich skeletons of the ancient chestnuts can still be found in some places, resisting decay to the very end. Likewise the dutch elm disease, though it more specifically targeted the massive urban planting of stately elm trees. Cities still bear the scars left from the death of these giants of the shaded boulevard. In my own lifetime, I have seen the deep green ravines of the Blue Ridge, once lined with timeless hemlocks, bleached of the deep cool green to a lifeless pale grey, sunlight streaming through their barren and denuded cathedrals to bake the earth and streams below.

But locally, on our little hilltop, some species fare better than others: the prolific, though prosaic and not particularly useful maples and poplars. Quick growing and producing plentiful airborne seeds, these species provide less mast and forage than the oaks and hickories, and their wood burns fast and clean in the stove. But it is light wood, and a cord of maple and poplar has a fraction of the heat value of a cord of hickory or oak, for about the same amount of bother in bucking, splitting and stacking. (Actually, poplar and maple are joys to split compared to oak and hickory; it makes one feel powerful to go through a stack of poplar in no time flat, a great heap of neat, nearly geometric cleavages).

Recently, we have come to understand the geology underlying our hilltop a little better, and this led me to a better appreciation of our poor little forest. They are doing the best they can. Because if you scratch the surface here, quite literally you will find rock. Lots of it. Wide spread and not too far beneath the thin dirt surface, in long ribs and ridges, blades running north-south parallel to the greater ridge and ravine formations.

In a gamble typical of nature, the seeds were cast onto this hillside that three generations ago was probably open pastureland. It is clearly second-, third-, or fourth-growth forest. The axe has been known here for a very long time, and the plow, and the fence row, and the hoof. These trees took their gamble and are making the best of it they can given the thin poor soil and the unremitting porpyhry underlying it.

I feel like we have taken the same gamble. We cast our lot onto this thin, poor hilltop, and are making the best of it. We have good days and we have bad days. We will go on growing here, to what end we do not know. We will give it our best, as we have done for these six years so far, and hope that the fates will look kindly on our little venture.

I feel a little better about the trees now that I understand better exactly what may be keeping them back. I feel a little bit of kinship, I guess, understanding now the sere cloak of earth that covers the ancient bones beneath.

An odd snapshot

A quiet Sunday morning.
A lone turkey hen stands in the living room, staring intently at the stereo and singing along with Yo-Yo Ma.
Over her intense protestations, I must physically carry her out of the house and return her to the flock in the yard.

A Perfect Day for Some Trail Work

Last Sunday was cold, dawning in the teens and barely topping out at freezing. But it was clear, with few high clouds, and the harsh bitter winds had calmed down. So early in the afternoon, we set out to do some long-postponed trail work along the stream near the northern property line.

The first order of business was a recent deadfall across the trail at the big pool. We had been watching the tree’s increasingly perilous posture for some time, and finally, a month or two ago, it let loose. It crashed into the fork of a nearby oak, briefly wedging itself high across the trail before gravity finally broke its back and settled it to earth. With a few quick cuts, we cleared the way and set the cut section alongside the trail.

Our big task was clearing a good-sized dam the recent heavy rains had formed just above the second stream crossing. A stately sycamore, rooted in the bank of the stream with water rushing over its roots, had caught several sections of massive logs, which formed the armature of a dam of brush and debris. The dam funneled the rushing water hard against the western bank, eroding and flooding the stream crossing, and eating away the bank and trail immediately downstream. The vast slack water it created upstream has also allowed the streambed to fill with sand and silt, obscuring the rocks we had so diligently placed as stepping stones in the warmth of summertime.

We paused at the upper crossing and changed from our trail shoes to high muck boots. And what an outfit: Woolen cap, ear protectors with face shield, thick layers of warm fleece, chainsaw chaps tucked into/over knee-high rubber boots, and idling chainsaw. I crossed the upper crossing, walked down the bank, and waded into the icy rushing waters. The waters swirled around my calves and undermined the sand on which I stood.

Mary began tearing the dam apart from the western bank, using the larger pieces to shore up the eroded trail edge. While she did that, I started attacking the middle of the dam, grabbing handsful of leaves and muck with one hand while holding the growling saw in the other.

With the loose debris gone, the spine of the dam was laid bare. A tree trunk maybe six or eight inches in diameter that spanned from well onto the east bank to the roots of the sycamore. I was able to easily saw chunks from the center and pass them end-over-end to Mary, who placed the chunks strategically along the stream bank where they would do the most good. The heart wood was a beautiful deep rusty color like cedar, but without any noticeable odor and much denser than cedar would have been.

We cleared more of the loose debris from amongst the logs, tossing the mouldering leaves and twigs into the swirling waters downstream to disappear. Bit by bit, we picked that dam apart, and as we did, the slackwater energized, resuming its temporarily impeded drive towards the river. As it accelerated, it slowly and deliberately scoured away the accumulated sand and silt, reclaiming its deeper channel and gnawing away at the impudent banks.

The heart of the dam was a stout section of tree trunk, maybe ten feet long and fourteen inches in diameter. It appeared scoured and beaten, as though the stream had brought it to this place from some distance, or perhaps has relentlessly scoured it here once it lodged in place. This wood resisted the saw, and I had to work with some effort to free sections from it. Somehow, sand from the stream had found the saw chain and wreaked havoc with its edge, forcing me to push the saw harder than I would have liked, driving the acrid smell of hot wood from kerf, and reducing the ejecta to a dusty rain rather than the confetti-like curls that are the mark of a keen blade.

Once freed, the four-foot long sections were massive and unwieldy, and it was all both of us could do to roll them awkwardly into place downstream, filling a hollow the waters had carved where the trail had so recently passed.

With the heart gone, the remnants of the dam slowly dissipated with the fast-flowing waters, leaving just the worn root ball, stranded high and dry nestled against the sycamore. Together Mary and I wrestled it loose and sent it over the edge into the stream below, to dam or be damned once more. When we were done, we were both feeling the day’s cold in the bottom of the narrow stream valley, with the sun already disappearing behind the grey trees and high flanks of the rocky hills. We abandoned our ambitions for any further trail work for the moment, succumbing instead to the lure of a warm fire where we could dry out and warm our extremities once again.

We have yet to go back and see how matters have settled out since our reengineering efforts. Maybe this weekend: it promises to be cold once again, but this time with rain, sleet and snow as well. Perfect weather for getting outside and doing some trail work, I say.

Halloween 1979

The cold comes on suddenly on the edge of the Northeast Kingdom, where it never really goes far away. It lurks just out of mind all the time, and drops in impulsively from time to time just to assert itself, lest anyone doubt its primacy.

In late October cold is a given, and the frost was truly on the pumpkins. It destroyed the faltering vines and left ember orange fruit naked and exposed across the roadside fields. Worse luck for the farmer, it was a hard freeze; hard enough to seize up the flesh of the large succulent pumpkins and slowly rend it with a million tiny daggers of ice. The larger the pumpkin, the worse it fared. They sat ruined in the midday sun, slowly deflating into mottled puddles of pulp and seeds, beyond resurrection at the point of their greatest glory.

But here and there, scattered throughout the field, a careful observer could spy smaller pumpkins that survived the cold. Fleshier, drier varieties, with less moisture to freeze and better insulated by their own mass, they managed to pass the cold unscathed. None larger than a man’s head, some as small as a softball, all perfectly shaped and brilliant orange.

The field was a total loss, not worth the farmer’s effort to glean even as feed for his cows and pigs. We had free rein to gather what we wanted. Yet I could find no one among my jaded and aloof compatriots to share my enthusiasm for the task. So I set out alone, walking the dusty shoulder of the road to the farmer’s field with my empty sack over my shoulder and the late afternoon sun warm on my face.

I filled the sack with a half-dozen or so pumpkins of varying size and description, and stuffed two more smallish gourd-like fruit in the pockets of my army jacket.  My shadow stretched long and far before me as I returned to my room. There was still time left before nightfall, if I worked without delay.

As short walk and a brief stop in the general store later, I settled in the communal kitchen with my pocket knife and began the work of transforming the lowly pumpkins into Jack-o-lanterns. I did the best I could with the time available and tools on hand; no simple triangle eyes and square gap teeth for me. A Jack-o-lantern must have a personality of its own, and its native shape of course determines its personality. So a certain amount of deliberation must take place in the span between the initial craniotomy and innard scooping, and the final flourish of rind striping intended to release the pumpkin’s inner demon.

The sun was just set, the cool evening air settling rapidly. I now had six Jack-o-lanterns, where just a few hours earlier there were only orphaned pumpkins abandoned in a field. It was time.

I walked briskly and purposefully down the winding gravel lane to the old farm graveyard, sack slung over my shoulder now filled with Jack-o-lanterns. It was a short walk, less than a mile through the rolling hills and fields, but the light faded quickly and stars appeared faintly overhead.

Within the bounds of this tidy plot lay a score of graves, most sharing the name of this ancient farm, and a few others represented as well. I found the boundary stones marking each corner of the sanctified ground, and gently placed a Jack-o-lantern on each, face to the cardinal points of the compass. The others I placed atop the tallest gravestones, facing east. I lit the small candles inside them, and then climbed up the hill behind the graveyard and sat among the balsam fir as the eerie glow countered the deepening twilight.

RDWHAH

I posted this to an online homebrewing forum, and thought it worth reposting here as well: 

For anyone who hasn't been paying attention, the acronym 'RDWHAH' gets tossed around here a lot...it's pretty much my stock response to most questions posted here, as well as a solid philosophy of life. ('RDWHAH' = "Relax, Don't Worry, Have A Homebrew'--which I think Charlie Papazian came up with BITD)

Seriously. This isn't rocket surgery. If you're getting angsty, you're doing it wrong. Remember there are still cultures that make their beer by chewing up grains, spitting them out so the salivary amylase converts the starch to sugar, then letting native airborne yeasts do their thing. They catch a buzz off of it just like any beer, and without software or hydrometers or anything.

Beer=Alcoholic beverage made from fermenting sugars whose primary source is from grain—as opposed to from fruits, vegetables, honey, et cetera. Got a source of grain-based sugars? Got other sugars to add in just for fun? Got yeast? Then you'll get beer--I swear.

I (and my friends and family) have enjoyed, and finished up, pretty much all of the hundreds of batches of beer, cider and wine I've ever made. I can think of two experimental beers I dumped post-bottling and one or two that I forgot about and left in secondary so long I just didn't care to bottle them, but otherwise, wherever I began, I ended many months later with two cases of empty bottle once again.

Don't worry about re-creating something fabulous that someone else has made. That's one benchmark for sure, but if no one ever struck out on their own, we'd still be drinking just murky ales, or that saliva-based stuff I mentioned above. Go for a style, but don't be a slave to it...most great styles were created from a need to adapt to local resources, not for any noble adherence to the rules.

And Reinheitsgebot? ...Don’t even get me started! It's not about beer purity; it was about protecting interests. It's like passing a law saying "you can henceforth only make soup from water, salt, onion and frog. Anything else is not soup."

The list of things you can brew with/from is pretty much endless, and just to mention a couple I will say pumpkin (messy), red beets (great color, gotta cook 'em, mash 'em, and then, well, mash 'em) mint in lieu of hops (absolutely awful, but re-brewed into a kick-ass stout) sorghum syrup (disappointing, but had promise) an entire watermelon (blenderized first--did you know that once strained, it only leaves about a fist-size lump of solids?) and basically anything else in the house that contains or could be converted into fermentable sugars or has an interesting flavor or aroma (I'm looking at you, spice rack).

My basic point is: Follow the basic instructions and observe basic rules of cleanliness and sanitation common to cooking and canning. There is no reason for this wonderful pastime to accrue any stress or worry or angst. It should relieve you of stress. If you are worrying about it YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.

I lay awake at night

...thinking about how much coffee I drink.

On Caribou Barbie:

"...Palin is running for Prom Queen of America and she’s more than willing to give out free cookies (literally) to bribe the feel-good vote."   —from PoliticsUSA.com

Heh. That's funny. 

This is Why I Do Not Ride in Groups

I generally avoid discussing specific incidents, because they don’t often have a broader applicability or relevance. But I will make an exception for last weekend’s horrific accident in California—involving two cars, twelve motorcycles and twenty-one motorcyclists. Four motorcyclists and a passenger in one car died, and a number of motorcyclists were hospitalized for a variety of horrific and life-altering injuries.

Short version: ‘Riceboy’ attempts to pass a group of twelve motorcycles on a remote two-lane highway. Driver of oncoming vehicle panics, drives onto the right shoulder, over-corrects and swerves into the middle of the pack of motorcyclists. Car driver suffers fractures; his passenger dies from a motorcycle impacting the passenger-side door. ‘Riceboy’ fled the scene.

The injured car driver appears to be an innocent victim. ‘Riceboy’ is currently the object of a massive manhunt in both California and Mexico. But…

…But goddamn those motorcyclists. They should have known better.

Look—our roadways and our traffic laws and conventions are intended for units of one vehicle, whether that one unit is a motorcycle or a tandem tractor trailer. They are not meant for social organisms. The rare—and in this case, ironic, exceptions are funeral processions; but even those operate under strictly defined protocols, very constrained circumstances, under a societal imprimatur and generally with an official escort. But a pack of a dozen motorcycles, operating en masse?

Let’s assume the most concise configuration—six pairs of bikes, riding side-by-side, ‘ChiPs’ fashion. That alone will occupy about five to seven standard car lengths. Stretched out single-file, the same bikes could occupy up to fifteen car lengths. Now, in a perfect world, it shouldn’t matter. But as the members of the Saddletramps MC tragically found out, we live in a very imperfect world. Who knows why the driver of the mysterious gold Honda Civic couldn’t bear to stay behind a group of twelve motorcycles any longer? Maybe he didn’t like the sound of twenty-four loud pipes? People have all kinds of reasons for wanting or needing to pass, and we won’t know his explanation until he is brought to justice.

I have on several occasions observed large motorcycle groups under the direction of a “Ride Marshall,” an individual, often self-appointed, with the putative responsibility for overseeing the ‘safety’ of the group. The Ride Marshall generally starts their motorcycle first, then rides or steps into oncoming traffic, bringing it to a halt while the remainder of the group files onto the roadway one-at-a-time—a process which can take several minutes. This commandeering of the public roadway in this manner has no official sanction; it is simply done because nobody has the nerve to object. This group protocol would appear to provide some modicum of safety to the motorcyclists en masse (by excluding automobiles from their midst) but that appearance is simply an illusion. It creates an unnatural situation and an utterly false sense of security. Formation riding on public roadways neutralizes a motorcycle’s greatest inherent safety asset—its superior maneuverability, acceleration and performance.

I cannot fathom what riding gains by being part of a pack of a dozen or a score or several dozen or ten thousand riders; I get uncomfortable when another motorcyclist begins to encroach on any portion of my full lane-width. I know from experience that free range of lateral motion is a critical part of a motorcyclist’s defensive tools. Safe riding often depends on having a generous bubble of open space on all sides that allows me to make full use of a lane as circumstances vary. Having another rider in my space is just a bad practice, regardless of any fellowship gained by riding in close formation.

I know Saturday’s carnage is not the fault of the Saddletramps. But I can’t help but think that it didn’t have to happen to them, and that there were lots of little things they might have done to forestall such a tragic and senseless outcome. Whatever fellowship they set out share with one another in their close formation ride has been irrevocably shattered along with the lives of the survivors.

This is why I do not ride in groups.

Good old H.P. also foresaw the 'Tea Party...'

...Otherwise, how could he have written this trenchant critique of the movement, 84 years ago?

“…the inability of the...mind to correlate all its contents…a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity…dissociated knowledge…such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein…either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age…a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind…This thing, which seemed instinct with a fearsome and unnatural malignancy, was of a somewhat bloated corpulence, and squatted evilly…with undecipherable characters…the seat occupied the centre, whilst the long, curved claws of the doubled-up, crouching hind legs gripped the front edge and extended a quarter of the way down toward the bottom of the pedestal. The cephalopod head was bent forward, so that the ends of the facial feelers brushed the backs of huge fore paws which clasped the croucher’s elevated knees…a sort of monster, or symbol representing a monster, of a form which only a diseased fancy could conceive. If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings; but it was the general outline of the whole which made it most shockingly frightful. The very sun of heaven seemed distorted when viewed through the polarising miasma welling out from this…perversion, and twisted menace and suspense lurked leeringly in those crazily elusive angles of carven rock where a second glance shewed concavity after the first shewed convexity. The odour arising from the newly opened depths was intolerable, and…a nasty, slopping sound…It lumbered slobberingly into sight and gropingly squeezed Its gelatinous green immensity through the black doorway into the tainted outside air of that poison city of madness. There was some peculiarly abominable quality about them…mingled mud, ooze, and weedy Cyclopean masonry which can be nothing less than the tangible substance of earth’s supreme terror…built in measureless aeons behind history by the vast, loathsome shapes that seeped down from the dark stars...hidden in green slimy vaults and sending out at last, after cycles incalculable, the thoughts that spread fear to the dreams of the sensitive and called imperiously to the faithful to come on a pilgrimage of liberation and restoration. Slowly, amidst the distorted horrors of that indescribable scene…the titan Thing…slavered and gibbered like Polypheme cursing the fleeing ship of Odysseus…” 

—At least, that's how I read it.  

Election Day 2010, seen from three-quarters of a century ago:

"As for the Republicans — how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial ideals exalting sheer acquisitiveness and condoning artificial hardship for the non-materially-shrewd, dwell smugly and sentimentally in a distorted dream-cosmos of outmoded phrases and principles and attitudes based on the bygone agricultural-handicraft world, and revel in (consciously or unconsciously) mendacious assumptions (such as the notion that real liberty is synonymous with the single detail of unrestricted economic license or that a rational planning of resource-distribution would contravene some vague and mystical ‘American heritage’…) utterly contrary to fact and without the slightest foundation in human experience? Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead."

— H.P. Lovecraft, 1936