Archives for posts with tag: irony

Bunker Mentality

August 17, 2014 //
8

Bunker Mentality–

A.V. Walters–

IMG_1868

We’re building. It’s a small footprint, our cabin at the edge of the woods. We picked the site for its view across the valley, and so that we’d get sheltering shade in the summer. We are months behind schedule. If I were the type, I’d be getting close to panicky. On our walks, I note that we’re seeing the occasional flash of early color in the trees

Initially, we had weather delays—frost well into May, administrative delays—title and permitting problems and then, a comedy of errors on the foundation.

This county requires that building plans be prepared by an architect or a licensed “building designer.” Since we’d already drawn up our plans, we went with the building designer method—to check for technical and structural details, and to make the plans look professional. We informed the designer that there was a slope to the property—but he wasn’t concerned—I guess he figured it wasn’t his department.

When the approvals were finally complete, we hired a local mason to build the foundation. Though Rick is a builder, there are very good reasons to hire out parts of the job to those with greater experience. Most of our building proficiency is from California, where foundations are usually poured concrete (with lots of rebar reinforcement.) California has earthquakes, and they take their foundations seriously. Michigan foundations are often built with concrete block—especially for smaller buildings like our little cabin. It’s heavy work and we are not young.

The plans called for a crawlspace—just enough of a foundation to meet the frost requirements for local code. It’s a cabin, nestled into the gently sloping hillside, with a cozy, low profile. We knew we might have some adjustments because of the slope. We consulted with the mason. He didn’t see a problem, maybe a couple of extra courses of block. He instructed Rick on exactly how he wanted the excavation to be done. Rick did the digging, per instructions, with the Kubota. As he did so, it started to look like the back-side of the hole was a lot deeper than the mason had described.

IMG_1883

On the mason’s return, he too, was surprised by the depth of the hole. He accused Rick of not digging level and true. Measurement proved that it was almost perfect, (a little less than a half inch off, across a forty-foot run.) The mason shrugged. He’d have to go at least an extra two courses of block—and he submitted a revised bid. We nodded. The price seemed fair. After all, what do we know from masonry?

A day or so later, he advised that the wall sill wasn’t high enough, to address issues of drainage and slope, he’d have to go yet higher. This crawlspace was exceeding crawl (except in timing.) We’d gone past duck walk to homo-erectus—though still not a legal height basement. I ran down to the County permits department to advise of the change. The clerk asked me why we didn’t just go all the way, for a full basement. Oh no, it’s just a little cabin. That would be thousands of dollars more and we didn’t really need a basement. It’s a cabin—and with the extra height, we’d be giving up on that snuggled-into-the-hillside look.

It was a Friday night. I went into town for milk and beer. I ran into our buddy, Linus, from up the road. He was picking up a pizza. Linus works at one of the cherry farms, but used to be in heavy-equipment and construction. During cherry harvest he works long days—and pizza-to-go is part of the equation.

“How’s it going with the foundation?”

“Well, it’s a lot deeper than we thought. We’re up to ten courses.”

He nodded. “So you’ll be pouring a floor, then?”

I shook my head. “No, we’ll still keep it to a crawl space—now, it’s just a tall one.”

“No, you’ll be pouring a floor… a four-inch slab.” It wasn’t a question.

I looked up at him. “We really weren’t planning on a full basement, it’s too high.”

“I doesn’t matter. At ten courses, you pour a floor for stability.” He was nodding his head with certainty. He doesn’t talk much, and, for him, this was pushy.

“Yeah? You think so?”

“Four inches—no less.” His pizza was up. He nodded at me, “Tell Rick I said so.”

The weekend was a running debate. We had to have a serious discussion with the mason. Could this be true? Why hadn’t he said anything? Rick reconfigured the plans for a full basement, just in case. If you have to pour a floor, you might just as well go the full twelve courses for a legal basement. And, if you’re putting in a full basement on a slope, you should put in a door on the downslope for a walkout, and, yeah, maybe a window, for light. We tried to imagine our little cabin, perched up on an eight-foot high, block foundation. A bunker. An eyesore! “Don’t worry,” Rick assured me, “If we have to go this route, we’ll bury as much as we can. We’ll landscape it.”

IMG_1904

Monday morning was telling. Rick put it direct to the mason. “A friend said we should be pouring a four-inch, slab floor—for structural reasons—any truth to that?”

The mason didn’t meet his eyes. He scuffed his boot in the sand. After a long silence, he offered, “Well, it is a good idea.” Why hadn’t he said anything before? That made the decision. I zipped up to the county offices with Rick’s revised plans. The clerk nodded.

“You won’t regret it, a basement is really handy.” She smiled, a little smug. But, she’d been right.

For the next couple of days we watched as the courses of concrete block grew, towering above us. We looked for the bright side. You can always use extra storage… right? Rick could have a shop downstairs. We could move the laundry down there, too. And, we told ourselves, the added height gave us a hell of a view from the front porch. The foundation price was now double the original bid. We sighed and wrote progress payments.

During the foundation work the mason’s little daughter took ill. Really ill. She was hospitalized for over a week. Though we only lost one “official” day of work, the family’s trials cost in “attention” time. Who could blame him? If I had a little one at risk, I’d be glued to her. These are the important things in life. We were happy to accommodate.

We did have a little tiff over the details of the floor. We wanted a vapor barrier under the slab. The mason didn’t want to deal with it. We insisted. It wasn’t the norm, he said. He got more than a little grumpy about it. In the end, we’re the owners—we insisted and prevailed.

With the block work and floor complete, the only remaining thing was to insert the rebar and pour concrete into the wall cores. We were anxious for completion—because then the project would be ours again. With us at the helm, we could make up for some lost time. Rick asked the mason about the rebar placement. Given his California roots, Rick was concerned about what looked to be sparse reinforcement. After all, we’d doubled the wall height, so for structural reasons, now was not the time to go light on strength.

The mason threw a fit. Was Rick questioning his professional integrity? He was almost yelling now. The mason went to his truck and took out his copy of the Michigan Code Book. He shook it in Rick’s face. “It’s all in here. I don’t go by California code. I go by Michigan rules. We don’t have earthquakes here!” He threw the book back into the cab of his truck and left for the day.

Tired of being at a disadvantage, Rick came home, went online, and purchased his own copy of the Michigan Code book. But, in the meantime, we had little choice but to trust the mason. He came the next day for the “final pour.” It was a relief. After our inspection, scheduled for the following Monday, we’d finally be able to start our building process. I paid the mason.

Well, “we” failed the inspection. California, Michigan, it doesn’t matter. The code is pretty much the same, no matter, and the amount of rebar in our foundation didn’t meet code. (So much for “professional integrity.”)

I emailed the mason. He called, livid, like it was our fault—accused us of pissing-off the building inspector. We told him to speak to the Inspector, himself. Apparently, that conversation set him straight. We didn’t even have to say that he should read his own Code Book, instead of shaking it in our faces. He was whipped and compliant.

It took another week to get it finished. The inspector told him exactly what he expected in reinforcement—even more than what code would have required, but by this time, the mason was cowed and obedient. We helped with the final pour. Now we have the strongest foundation in the county, a literal bunker. If there’s ever a tornado or a hurricane, we know where to go. Oh yeah, and turns out the vapor barrier, we fought over, is Code, too!

IMG_1914

The foundation took a little over a month. Not too bad, considering all the changes and hiccoughs. It’ll be nice to have a basement, and there’ll be that incredible view from the front porch.

Tags , , , , ,
Categories Building, chores, forest, foundation, humor, season

Killing Fields

June 28, 2014 //
5

Killing Fields

A.V. Walters

The view out our window.

The view out our window.

We knew. We’d even talked about it. Our landlady rents the acreage around her house to a local dairy farmer. He grows corn to feed his cows. We stand at the edge of the lawn, where our clothesline is, and we look. There are no weeds in this cornfield. The farmer does not practice no-till planting. On a windy day, the sandy soil catches, and the air fills with an ominous dustbowl specter. Worse, he plants corn, year in, year out, without any crop rotation, depleting the soil of nitrogen and other nutrients. Why should he care? It’s not his land. Some people actually like the tidy lines of weed-free corn in formation. I find it sinister.

You see, I know that nature abhors a vacuum. Weed-free is unnatural. It means that her fields are sprayed with Round-Up. I live within spitting distance (literally) of GMO corn. Worse yet, the lower part of our property is downwind of it. It’s a little funny; for years I’ve been protesting and writing about the dangers of GMO and its impact on the environment, and now, I have a front row seat.

Yesterday morning was as still as death—unusual in our normally wind-whipped world. For that, I’m thankful. I’d gone out to the compost and heard, and then saw, a tractor headed up the road in our direction. I had a bad feeling. I sprinted back inside, gathering up a loose cat along the way, and closed the windows. Sure enough, it was the farmer coming to spray the field. I stayed in most of the day, canceled my plans to do laundry, and kept the cats inside—feeling a little trapped. But, my little garden is out there, on the side facing the field. If that Round-up went airborne, it’ll be dead within days

I know that this is the norm in agricultural communities. As a kid, I remember they’d spray the fields right by us, even as we walked to school. Even now, nobody thinks twice about it—it’s a way of life. Yet, there are studies galore showing the neurological impact of pesticides and herbicides on those living within a mile of sprayed crops. A new one came out this week showing the correlation (not causation) between the increased incidence of autism in the children of women so exposed. I have a friend who has Parkinson’s—the legacy of her childhood exposure to pesticides in California’s Central Valley. It’s not just her saying it—the medical studies bear her out. In my world-view, chemicals have become the problem in farming, not the solution.

My landlady thinks that my property—vacant for twenty-five years, overgrown and wild—is an eyesore. She was glad I’d finally appeared, thinking I would whip things into shape. She thinks that any insect or weed on her property must have come from the undisciplined wilds, of mine. We were at a function together when she informed me that she’d told her farmer how much I’d love to have him grow corn on my bottomland.

I recoiled in horror. “You said what?”

“You know, get rid of all that scrubby pine and weeds—he pays well. We have good soil here.”

We are worlds apart. There are times when one should hold one’s tongue. Unfortunately, when it comes to neighborly relations, I forget about those times.

“Think again. I wouldn’t let that man set foot on my property.”

She looked like I’d slapped her. “He’s a good farmer—and what’s wrong with corn?”

So, I let her know what’s wrong with corn, at length—especially with the way it’s grown on her property. I’m afraid (but not totally regretful) that I even said that she stands by while he’s killing her soil. She looked injured. Well, she only knows what she knows. She grew up on a farm and better living through chemistry is deeply ingrained in her limited, world-view.

What will we say to the next generations? Maybe (just maybe) those of my landlady’s generation have an excuse. They just did what everyone else did, what the Agriculture People told them. My generation started out knowing better. We started out with Silent Spring and a glimpse of the damage done by “modern life.” Where did we go with it? From fertilizers, to organophosphates, to GMO/ Glyphosate, to neonicitinoids. How will we explain a world of dead soils and contaminated groundwater? How will we justify the loss of the bees? And this is just farming I’m talking about.

For much of my adult life, I grieved that I was unable to have children. I’m at peace with it, now—maybe it’s even a little bit of a relief. I have always tried to do my part—to garden within the rhythms of nature, to avoid products that do damage to the environment and to limit my participation in our throw-away culture. I look around now and realize that taking personal responsibility isn’t enough. We all need to do more, to tip the scales back in balance. So, there is a sense of relief that I’ll never have to look into my children’s faces to tell them we knew, but we didn’t do enough to stop it.

 

 

Tags , , , , , , , ,
Categories Advice, agriculture, bees, blight, country living, environment, farm life, GMO, groundwater, Health and Medicine, pesticides, pests, Silent Spring

Okay, Work With Me Here…

June 17, 2014 //
4

Okay, Work With Me Here…

A.V. Walters–

 

The unfortunate placement of this volunteer spruce begs the question.

The unfortunate placement of this volunteer spruce begs the question.

It kicked on at 10:20 in the morning, and it got me thinking. It’s a beautiful day. Clear and clean, post-storm. It’s not hot out, though it likely will be later today. Upstairs, the landlady’s central air conditioner has kicked on, already.

I’m sorry to burden you with my rant, but more people need to think, to plan a little, in their trajectory on this planet. This is only partly about landscaping but it starts there.

I identify a particular brainless “yard pattern” with Michigan, though I expect it’s all over. You see it driving down any street or road, though it’s particularly noticeable in the country. Michigan is a fertile state. If it’s not planted or maintained, its natural tendency is to revert back to forest. So it’s a bit of a shock that folks will buy a place in the country, cut down all the trees, and put in a lawn. They plunk their house in the middle of it—kings of their environment. Landscaping? Well, it’s a border mentality. They plant along the lot-line. Daffodils, trees, whatever, regardless of aesthetics, they celebrate ownership with a string of ill-advised plantings whose only assignment is to state, “This is mine!”

A century ago, farmers were not so self-absorbed. Clearing land took a lot of energy, which they reserved for their fields. They oriented their homes to take advantage of the sun’s rays in the winter. They had adequate roof overhangs to protect them from the rain or heat of the summer, and—they strategically planted deciduous trees to shade them from the heat and still let the sun’s warming rays help them in the dead of winter. I lived in such a home in Two Rock, a turn of the (last) century farmhouse that never got too hot, because trees were planted to provide shade. In the winter, the sun’s low rays streamed in through the living room window to provide welcome warmth and light. In really hot summer weather, we’d close the curtains and windows to the sun and the daytime heat. When the evening cooled, we’d open everything up again to the refreshing breeze. No air-conditioning, just good, old common sense. In the seven years I lived there, and despite some really blistering heat waves, that house never went above 81˚F. Where did that wisdom go?

This house we’re in now has been here for some thirty or forty years, yet nobody has ever planted a shade tree to provide summer cooling. (Instead, there’s a line of spruces on the lot line, whose long winter shadows screen the sun’s warmth when it could be useful.) The house is surrounded by lawn, which, to look good, requires regular watering—with the electrical expense of pumping that water. There are plenty of windows, but no one ever pulls a curtain against the summer heat. Instead, before the dew is even off the grass, the air-conditioner fires up its relentless drone. In an era of global warming triggered by energy use, somehow the air-conditioning solution seems to miss the point. I can almost hear the planet sigh, “Work with me here!”

You can always retrofit with well-placed trees. Drapes closed in the daytime, especially in a home that’s empty while you’re off at work—that’s not too much to ask, is it? We have a regular steady breeze—so you can open the windows in the evening, smell the fresh country air and cool your home. We can work with nature, instead of against it.

Rick and I have selected our building site based on existing tree placement. We’ll have the summer shade even before we have the home. Those trees will lose their leaves and we’ll get some winter warming and light on the south side during sunny winter days. Window placement is designed to maximize light and sun, when it’s needed and to avoid unnecessary heat loss. In that way, it’s an old-fashioned placement. Sure, there’ll be a view—but not at the expense of energy. We can all do a little more, to use a little less.

That’s my rant. (Live with it – we all can!)

 

Tags , , , , , , ,
Categories Advice, agriculture, Building, country living, energy saving, environment, farm life, plant propagation, Renovation, season

Somewhere to Put It–

February 9, 2014 //
2

Somewhere to Put It–

A.V. Walters–

“No, you have to start a lot wider than that. Over by the trailer is your line.”

I looked at him like he was crazy. “Dad, it’s a driveway, not a runway.”

“Just do it. In February, you’ll thank me.”

It’s still snowing here, and that brings back my father’s voice. When I was a teenager, we moved north to snow country. For my dad, the move took him home to the routines of his youth. We had a steep learning curve to adapt to the Keweenaw snows. He was doing the teaching, and we were doing the shoveling. There are two basic frameworks for how to approach snow control—pick a line of demarcation and stick to it, or clear wide in preparation for a winter of snow. My dad adhered to the old ways, taking a seasonal perspective on snow removal.

We felt silly; at our house we started the season clearing the snow five to ten times the width of the actual driveway. The neighbors scooped their driveway only 10-feet wide. Ours looked like a parking lot. We used the traditional Yooper snow scoop, pushing the day’s snow far from the driveway, into the woods. We thought our Dad was nuts. We scooped and shoveled anytime there were 2, or more, inches of snow. Needless to say, we shoveled—a lot.

By February, it was clear that there was a method to his madness. It snowed and snowed and snowed. And, we shoveled and shoveled and shoveled. Our neighbors were still maintaining their 10-foot driveway, but the accumulated piles on either side were so high that they had to throw the snow up, and over the banks they’d created. Then, they actually had to climb up on top to re-shovel the piles back even further. And, they had no visibility entering or leaving their driveway. Having pushed our early snow way to the sides, we were still shoveling, but we had plenty of space to put the accumulated snow. Our banks were manageable, and our driveway clear. My dad didn’t even say, “I told you so.” He just crossed his arms and nodded.

This week, in the local paper, the headline read, “We’re Number Two, Thankfully.” Snowfall to date, here in Leelanau County, is second in the state only to my old haunts up in Keweenaw County. Nobody with a shovel wants to be Number One. (Ask my mum and my sister, back home.) Many, these days, avoid the whole issue by using snow-blowers (or by scurrying, tail-between-the-legs, to Florida.) We still shovel. Rick does almost all of the heavy lifting here, and he started early season snow removal with a wide open swath of driveway. (How did a California boy know such a thing?) Though we didn’t expect this year’s record snows (and, admittedly, our banks are higher than my Dad would’ve liked) we still have a wide, clear area in our driveway.

It’ll be interesting how our two counties fare over the rest of the winter. Keweenaw’s lake, Superior, is 93 % frozen, considered “frozen over” for all practical purposes. That means that back home they won’t be seeing any more “Lake Effect” snow. Our lake, Michigan, is only just over half frozen, so, we should still be seeing Lake Effect snow, for some time. Who knows, we may yet be Number One!

I help some with the shoveling, and I like it. Nothing brings back my father’s voice like a smug and heavy snowfall in February.

Tags , , , , ,
Categories Advice, chores, cold, country living, weather, winter

The Other Side of Winter II

January 24, 2014 //
1

The Other Side of Winter II

A.V. Walters

Too windy even to bury the car!

Too windy even to bury the car!

It’s blowing and cold out there. It is snowing, but the wind is so strong, that it’s tough to tell what’s new snow, and what’s just being whipped around and redistributed. The usual storm pattern swoops across from the west or northwest. We look out and the snow is horizontal. We’ve noted from the national weather maps that in the center of the county, near where we’ll be living come spring, there’s a pocket of particularly heavy snow accumulation. One look at the winds today tells the story. All the snow from here ends up there. I see a Kubota in our future.

Without appreciable new snowfall (indeed some areas now have less than before) the driveway has drifted over and needs another shoveling. Rick has taken the laboring oar on snow removal. He maintains a beautiful driveway and paths through the yard. He’s learning to sculpt them so that the wind helps keep them clear, though in some places, drift, it will. I’d love to brag about his efforts, but since much of my family lives far north of here (and with really heavy snow) they’d just scoff. My niece reported on her facebook page the other day that she and her children are tobogganing off their roof. We just can’t compete with that.

Still, some things are universal. No matter where you are, everyone complains that, shovel as they may, they just hate it when the plow comes and negates their hours of work, filling in their driveways with road accumulations. Rick bemoans that it isn’t just more snow, plow snow is heavier and crustier. If you let it sit it will turn to a driveway-blocking wall of lumpy ice. It’s not an observation; it’s a conviction.

This past week our local weekly paper did a feature article on ‘the snow plow drivers of Leelanau County.’ It’s appropriate. Those guys (and they seem to be all guys) are doing a hell of a job keeping the roads clear in this record-breaking year. Now, in mid-January, our to-date snow-fall total is 152 inches, which exceeds the usual seasonal total. Only two weeks ago the paper quoted a local meteorologist as saying that we’d hit our 150 and then it would stop. Think again. Anyway, I had to laugh when the veteran snow plow driver stated that his pet peeve was when homeowners would push their snow into his road. (Apparently it makes for a rough ride.)

Tags , , , ,
Categories chores, cold, country living, season, weather, winter

War of the Worlds

January 20, 2014 //
2

The War of the Worlds–

 A.V. Walters–

We’ve had a couple of gorgeous days, low to mid-thirties (F), warm by winter standards, some sun and wind. It’s given us some lovely hikes, before the nippy temps return tomorrow. Some predict a return of the Polar Vortex, others, just a resumption of seasonally, cooler temperatures.

Last week, NPR did a piece on the up-side of the recent Polar Vortex. It turns out that the Emerald Ash Borer—the imported critter that is devastating our Ash forests—cannot survive in the super-frigid temperatures spun off by that Northern phenomenon. Indeed, a number of the pests on the move, may be stopped (or slowed in their tracks) by a return to the type of winters we knew as kids. And, the models for climate change (essentially more weather extremes) may well mean repeated episodes of the Polar Vortex. We can complain about the cold, but if it means hope for the ash trees, fewer ticks, or other invasive critters, I’m all for it.

The science is out of Minnesota, where they found that temperatures in the -30F range, kills the larvae of the Emerald Ash Borer. Because of Lake effect, we don’t get those uber-low temperatures, but I can only hope that repeated cold episodes will weaken the larvae and that fewer of them will survive the winter. What can I say, I’m an optimist.

The Ash Borers were introduced by humans. The ticks are moving north with climate change. And, interestingly, the incidence of the super-cold Polar Vortex appears to be the result of (or at least related to) the destabilization of the jet stream, caused by, you guessed it, human-induced climate change! It reminds me of the Orson Welles radio play—where the invading monsters were ultimately undone by the rich, bacterial biodiversity of the Earth. We have become invaders of our own planet—and at least in this small regard, maybe the general disease of climate change is acting as the cure for some of the specific symptoms. Lucky? I guess that’s a debatable question. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

Tags , , , ,
Categories cold, country living, environment, winter

Musings from the Polar Vortex

January 9, 2014 //
4

Musings from the Polar Vortex–

A.V. Walters–

Just enough snow.

Just enough snow.

Now there’s a new phrase for you, eh? The only vortex part of it is the rushing-in from the void of all the misinformation about weather, generally, and climate change, specifically. Oh, how the reality-based wonks among us rue the day that somebody started calling it “global warming.” It so distorts the opportunity to study the facts, and create meaningful policy, (or dialogue) in an atmosphere of an anti-science witch-hunt.

Now, the cold snap has subsided, leaving us in the more normal seasonal range of temperatures in the 20s. This weekend they’re predicting a warming trend—one that will bring us sunshine and above-freezing, nighttime temperatures. You’d think we’d be happy about that. In fact, it creates just another set of problems.

First, there’s the leaking roof. In winter’s cold, it’s not a problem. But when things warm up, the leaking roof, in combination with ice dams (damns?) makes this little rental an interesting place. (Buckets and mopping up.) The landlord knows, but it was a bad roofing job and now there’s nothing he can do until spring. At the same time, he plans on putting in new windows—which will be a big improvement, though we’ll be long gone, by then.

That kind of freeze/thaw cycle also creates treacherous roads. The thaw provides the fodder, in the freeze period, for black ice and other hazards of navigation—both pedestrian and vehicular. It means we’ll be strapping on yet another layer of winter gear (spikes) onto our boots. I used to think that these were for old folks. However, my mom swears by them and she insisted that they become part of our new, winter wardrobe. I’m a regular Yeti fashion-plate. At least it’s safe.

And, finally, I don’t want our snow to melt. I’m just about to get cross-country skis. I like look of winter. I love roads with a nice, thick, white, base. (I’m not a fancier of salt or the dirty slush it brings.) So my fingers are crossed that the snow stays through the warming spell.

There are northern things that will take some adjustment. The winter tap water is frigid. My California roots say, “Don’t waste water—use it cold and straight from the tap.” My fingers say, “Skip the frostbite, run it ‘til warm.” The water is so cold that it hurts your teeth to drink it. Northern living takes longer to get anything done, whether it’s the time suiting-up, or shoveling-out, life has to be a little more… intentional. And, the butter is too damn hard to spread on toast. (I can hear my sisters, “Turn up the heat, goofball. Good Lord,” shaking their heads, “They live like a couple of Eskimos.”) This might be solved when we have our own place, and it has insulation. For now, unless I’m baking, the kitchen is chilly. Otherwise, our winter redoubt suits me fine, for now. If only someone could convince the cats.

 

 

 

Tags , , , , , , ,
Categories cold, country living, safety, season, winter

This Is How It Goes

November 26, 2013 //
0

This Is How It Goes–

A.V. Walters–

Up north, in the U.P. where my mother lives, folks are getting Lyme disease. These are hearty, out-doorsy people, who spend a lot of time in the woods. Lyme disease isn’t new—it’s been around for decades, just not up there. It’ll take a little time for people to wise up to the new reality—the ticks have moved north. Soon, folks will take precautions, recognize symptoms, and will have made the adjustment so that a bite doesn’t necessarily mean a long-term, debilitating illness. You adjust.

In Michigan, (and southwest Ontario) the forests have been devastated. A shipment from China apparently, and inadvertently, imported the Emerald Ash Borer. It’s a pretty, little bug. Here, we have plenty of ash trees, and no predators. Estimates are that, so far, 20 million trees have been infected and died. There is no cure—they offer some heavy-duty, toxic treatments that can hold it at bay, (if your favorite yard tree is at risk) but nothing can be done to protect the forests. Before it runs its course, we will lose about 80 million trees. Now that the seasonal leaves are gone, you can look into the woods, as you drive by, and see all the fallen trees. It’s heartbreaking. Ash naturally grows in a diverse forest—so there are still plenty of other trees standing but, like the elm before, this area can kiss its ash good-bye.

We have forested property. We walk its hills, shaking our heads. The ash are dying and falling. The tree has a distinctive bark, so even in the winter it’s easy to identify. As we walk, we see not only the downed victims of the blight, but every one of those standing trees, with that lovely deeply-grooved bark, is doomed. They say to expect 100% losses. There are timber restrictions on the movement of ash wood-products. Areas are quarantined to try and prevent the spread. Our quarantine area is Lower Michigan. It’s spread to some counties in the U.P. now, too. So far as I can figure, the only winners in this game, and it’ll be short term, are the woodpeckers, who eat the larvae.

Bat White-Nose Syndrome is spreading across North America. It’s caused by a fungus. In some bat populations, the mortality is 95%. Because it affects a wild species, and the primary transmission route is bat-to bat, there’s not much that can be done. It originated in Europe. Nobody knows how it arrived here, but human transmission is likely. The fungus can be transported by the movement of people and equipment, in the forest. That’s the likely way that it got here. Unlike the European bats, ours have no immunity to the disease. It thrives in cold temperatures, infecting bats during hibernation. Unfortunately, the close contact of bats cuddling in hibernation, speeds its transmission. People shrug. Too bad about the bats, eh? Well, it’s more serious than that. The bats eat the bugs. What are we going to do with the resulting bumper crop of bugs?

Dutch Elm, West Nile, Lyme disease, Emerald Borers, White-Nose. I could go on. (Don’t even get me started about the bees, who are primarily the victims of neonicitinoid pesticides.) These are pests that are spread beyond their borders by the impact of people. In some cases, it is simple relocation, like our Ash Borer. In others, because our climate is changing and so extending the range of existing critters.

Maybe, like Lyme in Northern Michigan, we can adjust to new threats. What about the bats, or the bees, or the ash trees? How will we adjust to a world without bats? What will we do with the resulting bonanza of bugs? More poisons like neonicitinoids? How can we know the rippling impact of these changes? It threatens to change the face of nature. Most Americans don’t live in nature and they won’t notice. They get their food—sprayed, plastic-wrapped and GMO’d. They fail to comprehend that diversity is a necessary component of a healthy environment and take no notice of the rapid level of extinctions all around us. Most Americans don’t know we have a bat crisis, or that the Ash trees are dying.

For my part, next spring I’ll put up bat houses and maybe purple martin condos. I’ll shun chemical interventions and try to live lightly on the planet. I’ll read and try to stay informed. Because this is how it goes.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories agriculture, bees, blight, environment, GMO, pesticides, pests, woods

Maybe Too Much of a Good Thing

November 7, 2013 //
0

Maybe Too Much of a Good Thing

A.V. Walters

We all want our food to be safe. We all think that one of the roles of government is to ensure a safe food supply. And they are trying. (Take that any way you like.) There’s regulation pending that would make it hard for organic and small farmers to sell produce. You see, growing food isn’t a spotless operation. It’s done in dirt. Major producers can afford the equipment (and use the chemicals) that give you that pristine, scrubbed, (and not nearly as fresh) produce. Small farmers and roadside stands can’t. It’s as simple as that. Note that most of the outbreaks of food borne disease aren’t coming from small sustainable producers–they’re coming from Big Ag. We need to amend the proposed regulations to provide exemptions for sustainable producers. What looks like a good thing actually favors Big Ag over traditional farming. For more information or to make a comment supporting change to the proposed rules, click on the link. http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/50865/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=12303

Tags , , , , , , , ,
Categories agriculture, environment, farm life

Online Timing

June 11, 2013 //
0

Online Timing

A.V. Walters

I cannot tell you how many friends have been after me to go online with social media. I always resisted, citing my privacy concerns. So, finally I did it, just in time for the Edward Snowden revelations and this blizzard of media attention to privacy issues. No, I’m not happy about it. And now all those same friends are laughing and emailing me about having chosen the worst possible environment in which to “go public.” What nobody is mentioning is that, while the government is a problem, multinational corporations have NO constitutional limitations on what they do with your private information and they are out there, swapping your personal info like bubble gum cards. (Buy Them, Trade Them, Collect the Whole Set)

I heard on the radio yesterday that Orwell’s book, 1984, has been an overnight success in sales in the past few days. Too bad George missed the peak. Everybody’s trying to find a way to sell their novels.

Tags , , , , , ,
Categories creativity, humor, privacy, Social Media, writing

Social Media Angst

June 9, 2013 //
4

Social Media Angst

A.V. Walters

They say you’ve got to do it. An author, especially a self-published author, has to have an online presence. I have resisted. Not that you’d notice from this blog, but I’m shy. (Really, you can be opinionated and shy, at the same time.) I have an inherent distrust of corporate ethics and, to engage in social media, you have to trust them with your personal information. They said I had to blog, so I blogged. Not that I regret it, but later when they acknowledged that a blog don’t do diddly for a fiction writer, I felt some relief. Now they say I’ve got to go on social media. I blanche. My chest tightens and my brain becomes waterproof, impervious to new information. Facebook. LinkedIn. Google+. I shudder.

Toe in the water, I’m now on Facebook and Google+. (Check it out, AV Walters) I know that registering is just the first step. I’m supposed to post regularly, to engage with the world through technology. Sheesh. I see them, my friends, with their faces glued to the screen. They’re following the cartoons and Youtube links sent by their friends. But, the day is beautiful. And, there’s gardening to be done. Still, the steady glow from the screen has them in its grip.

I don’t know. Just all part of the grand experiment, I guess. I still think you need to actually live a life in order to report on it. If this enhances the experience of living—I’m all for it. If it’s a substitute for living, well, I’ll see you in the garden.

And, here’s the irony of it—I’ll be blogging my impressions. Go figure.

 

 

 

Tags , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories humor, publishing, Social Media, writing

Voters and Chickens

June 1, 2013 //
2

Voters and Chickens:

Rights (or the lack of) and Repercussions

A.V. Walters

The Chickens have the floor…

Our emus may have to adjust to a different future that I’d imagined for them. It all goes back to a wacky election in 2008.

You see, in that year, animal rights activists put a referendum on the California ballot that would forever change the way chickens are kept on farms in our state. The measure was poorly defined, and the drafters were a million miles from anything in the world of chickens or eggs or economic realities. Still, the objective was to decrease the level of “cruelty” in livestock agriculture. Who could be against that? With some measure of bitterness, I note that that same election cycle produced another measure that stripped marriage rights from gay and lesbian couples in our state. Here we are, over four years later and to date we haven’t sorted out either one of these issues. Chickens given rights, people losing rights! Only in America!!

On the same-sex marriage issue, we are leaping into the future. In part because of the unfairness in the Proposition 8 law, the public dialogue has changed radically. One by one, states are stepping up (as well as the international community) to ratify human rights, ending discrimination in our antiquated, marriage laws. Sadly, in California the situation remains unsettled because actual law moves more slowly than public opinion (and that may be a good thing, sometimes.) This deplorable referendum has worked its way up through the appellate courts and into the highest court in the land. I can’t say the chicken situation is working out so well, either.

Everyone would love to know that the chickens (or eggs) they eat come from some warm and fuzzy, loving farm-home. Modern farming, especially livestock, isn’t warm and fuzzy. Large scale farming is even less so. Since the Chicken Rights referendum wasn’t specific about how chickens should be kept, litigation immediately ensued. (How ironic, a “what came first” thing—the rules or the legislation.) So, farmers waited for instructions. While we’re moving towards an ascertainable standard, the deadline for compliance looms, and many of the older farmers are just closing up shop. What is clear is that the chickens need more “personal space” and elevated wire cages may soon be a thing of the past.

Elmer’s been watching the issue since that election. He’s attended the poultry conferences and seen the new, demonstration equipment. He’s lived on a chicken farm for his entire life and has watched poultry and egg production methods come and go. “Cage free is the future,” he says, “And that’s what we had when I was a kid!” He shakes his head.

“When the cages came in, it was supposed to be the wave of the future. The elevated, wire cages solved a lot of the problems—the waste dropped through the cage for easy removal, the feed was delivered to the troughs along the cage and the eggs rolled forward on the wire chute for easy gathering. Since the chickens weren’t standing in their feces, a lot of the diseases we dealt with, in the past, just disappeared. It was clean and modern.”

The downside to the economy of scale was, well, the scale of it. The press for more production led to overcrowding, and some kinds of wire cages were harmful to the chickens’ feet. Now the consensus is that chickens should be back on the floor, they should be cage-free and should have material (greens, straw or shavings) for “scratch.”

The new law won’t solve the issues of scale and size, and disease becomes a bigger concern. Given the new (and still unclear) restrictions, and the high costs of labor, the commercial solutions offered are high tech and expensive. Nobody wants to see egg costs go to $6.00 a dozen—which we sometimes see here from organic “boutique” farms. The operations challenges remain the same, waste removal and disposal, food delivery and egg collection. The industry is pimping gorgeous equipment—rolling (conveyor) floor beds, automatic feed dispensers and egg collection, all the bells and whistles. And the cost for an operation the size of Elmer’s? Try a cool, half-million dollars. It’s so high, that the only way to make it work is to seriously expand production. So this law, while well-meaning, will drive small producers out of business, and create even bigger factory farms. Good news for chickens?

Elmer is experimenting. He could retire if he wanted but instead, he’s going back to “chickens on the floor.” He’s cutting and bailing his own hay and straw for scratch and bedding materials. He’s resurrected old brooder boxes from over sixty years ago (farmers never throw anything out.) He’s modifying his manure collection system, using bedding materials for absorption, and thus minimizing the frequency of full removal (as relocating the chickens for cleanup is stressful to the chickens.) In short, he’s going back to the kind of farming they practiced when he was a boy. He’s mindful that he’ll need to keep an eye out for any increase in disease and, even at this experimental stage, he’s seeing a increase in predation

Chickens in elevated cages are relatively safe from predators. Elmer’s barns are designed for cage operations, with open sides for ventilation. On the open floors, especially where the chickens are given some access to open-air yard areas, he’s seeing a return of raccoon losses and fox and coyote problems. Even with his small scale experimental operation, he’s losing a chicken a day. This too, is like the old days.

He asked me today if I thought emus could guard against raccoons. In an instant, I saw the writing on the wall (or the broad side of a barn door.) It burst my bubble— the image of our emus patrolling the open range with sheep. I don’t know how emus would react to raccoons—but they’d be good guards against foxes and coyotes. A quick online search reveals no firm information on the emu/raccoon dynamic. It makes me a little sad to think of Gatsby and Kelvin guarding a chicken barn. But, on a farm, we do the work that comes our way. So, we shall see.

Tags , , , , , , ,
Categories agriculture, chores, emu, farm life

Bent

May 18, 2013 //
2

Bent

A.V. Walters

My sweetie, Rick, is in a funk. I understand; I was, last week. There’s very little I can do to help. You see, Rick and I are in the process of divorce. The situation is really bent. But I’ll have to back up a bit to explain.

Things are bent when circumstances can only make sense in the context of some larger idiocy. Rick and I find ourselves in the category that the New York Times calls “The Undivorced.”

Up until recently, we actually considered ourselves to be a happily married couple. You see we are happy. We are a couple. And we are married…just not to each other. Perhaps now, you’ll begin to understand. And that’s what’s bent about it, that it only makes sense in the larger picture of lunacy.

I left my marriage six years ago. I was suffocating and the only way I could find air was to leave. I left with almost nothing—I was so broken, so guilt-ridden by my failures, that I fled. It’s not like my ex was generous in the process. I have stories that would curl your ears. I found refuge in Two Rock, and have been here ever since.

Rick has a similar story. He, too, fled an unhappy union. He found a safe harbor in a little apartment near his home, so he could maintain relationships with his children. Three years ago, we found each other. It was dicey at first. We’re both a little roughed up, and battle shy. But we share common values and humor and… well, we both like Scrabble. Neither of us felt we were in a position to end our marriages.

I am self-employed. I didn’t pick the best of economies in which to launch my freedom flight. Married, I share in health care through my husband’s retirement. Those rights were earned during our marriage, and so long as I remain married, I have coverage. I also have a pre-existing condition. It’s not serious—I’m fine so long as I watch my diet, but it’s enough that I would not be able to procure health insurance, independently. So I’ve remained legally tethered. That’s bent. My husband didn’t mind—it’s put him in the catbird’s seat. So long as I needed health insurance, I couldn’t squawk about the fact that he’d kept all of the marital assets.

Rick is a cancer survivor, and self-employed. He also has kids, which meant that maintaining “the family unit” was important to the health insurance picture for his whole family. My pre-existing condition pales next to his, yet we both enjoy relatively good health. His business dried up in the bust of the housing bubble, and we’ve shared that it took every ounce of our combined ingenuity to make ends meet during tough times.

The much-heralded American health care reform means that, soon, insurers will not be able to discriminate against those with pre-existing conditions. While I’d much prefer a sane single-payer system, I can finally see a horizon where health coverage needn’t dictate my life choices. In January, I steeled myself, and filed for divorce. My ex is not happy that he’s finally being asked to share what we built together. He has a short admonition for why I should walk with nothing, “But you left.” As though that explains everything that happened in a failed, 28-year union. There’s acrimony and accusations and unreasonable demands. We both have lawyers. It’s a bit ugly, but it’s not surprising.

Unexpectedly, things changed in Rick’s family dynamic, too. He filed shortly after me. I don’t think he expected his ex to be as much of a jerk as mine but life provides many revelations. So we’re divorcing. Simultaneously.

In the long run, it’s a good thing. We’ll get through this. In fact, we can really empathize with each other—it’s common ground. Under the microscope, though, there’s an insanity to it. Lives should not revolve around some insurer’s definition of health, or family or coverage. As a nation, we’ve handed the reins of our lives over to corporations that care more about profits than about the services they render. Health care, eh? And that’s just totally bent.

NYT’s The Undivorced: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/fashion/01Undivorced.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Tags , , ,
Categories Advice, Divorce, Health Care, humor, therapy

Digital Pickpockets

April 1, 2013 //
2

Digital Pickpockets

They say that you should check now and then. I didn’t really believe it, but, because they say you should, from time to time I do a Google search on my own book titles. Really, to be extra careful, one ought to Google a section of text, which might be a better test.

So it’s the end of the month and I ran through the Smashwords standard SEO search on both The Emma Caites Way and The Gift of Guylaine Claire. I didn’t expect to find anything unusual, just the routine references to my blog and the on-line booksellers who carry the books. In all honesty, it’s a rote thing; I’m not even sure what I’m looking for.

And then, there it was! An on-line retailer (who, until this is fully resolved, shall remain nameless) that was listing The Emma Caites Way for download as a PDF. Looking closer it gave the online “handle” for the individual who “shared” it, and that person was not me. Somebody was actually stealing my book and making it available for online download. Can you say copyright? A few more clicks confirmed my suspicions. I don’t know whether to be outraged or flattered.

It wasn’t even a very sophisticated theft. The Emma Caites Way is a particularly distinctive title. I did that on purpose. They didn’t change it—I guess because that way they ride my negligible marketing coattails. Nor did they remove my name from the PDF (a not impossible task.) One has to wonder how this can pay. I’m a pretty small-scale target, a self-published author with only a couple of books. That leads to the inescapable conclusion that they didn’t select me specifically. It’s no measure of the quality of the product. To make such a violation financially viable, this character would have to hit many, many authors and let the numbers do their work.

This must be pretty common. The website has a message to copyright holders who contend that their work has been illegally listed. There’s a form you fill out, the DMCA Complaint Form. (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) I guess that with this kind of theft so common, one needs to streamline the process. That’s another argument that this is about the numbers, not about someone who picked me, because of the content and quality of my work. I suppose it’s an argument against smashwords free downloads, but I hate to restrict that as a marketing option for a new author.

I filled out the form and submitted it. Someone on the other end will look at the information and no doubt delete the pirated listing for my “document.” And that will be that. There was a time when theft of copyright was at least a compliment.

Heads up out there. It’s probably not about the dollars and sense of it, but you do need to watch your back. Constant diligence, in this, and in everything.

Tags , , , , , , ,
Categories "The Emma Caites Way", "The Gift of Guylaine Claire", Advice, creativity, publishing, writing

Boomerang Advice

January 25, 2013 //
3

Boomerang Advice

A.V. Walters
Once I had a very long conversation with a census worker. He confessed that he loved to scuba dive, but that he’d gained some weight and his wet suit no longer fit. As soon as he lost the weight, he was going to get back to it. I looked him squarely in the face and said, “Buy a new suit.”

No, that wasn’t necessary–he was using the new suit as an incentive for the diet. So I asked him how long it had been since he’d been diving. Ten years.
Clearly, the new suit wasn’t enough of an incentive and actually, instead of being a carrot, had turned into the stick. He felt guilty about the weight and used that guilt to self-flagellate and deny himself the pleasure of an activity that would enrich his life and would probably help him to lose weight. I told him so. He looked liked I’d slapped him.

About a month later he was back on my doorstep. He’d come to thank me. With the new wet suit, he’d been diving and was feeling more alive than he had in years. Of course, then he asked me out–and I declined. Why it is that I get into these conversations with perfect strangers is another thing entirely, but the message is to get to the business of enjoying life and accepting the challenges presented. Every time we put off being who we are, we lose time–the most precious commodity of all.

It’s advice that, once given, should always be taken right back. Look in the mirror. What aren’t you enjoying today? Get to it.

Tags , , ,
Categories Advice, Aging, humor

Now Ya Tell Me

January 24, 2013 //
1

Now Ya Tell Me

(Not that I shouldn’t have noticed)

A.V. Walters

I’ve just logged over a year of blogging, and I‘ve been looking for a way to commemorate the passage, accounting for it, now that I’m no longer a newbie. The assessment isn’t an easy one. I broke my own rule when I started. Usually when I begin a new endeavor, I first ask myself the critical question—what’s the objective? If you don’t do that, then you’re left with no way to measure the results.

I confess that I blogged because people kept telling me I had to do it. I’d already self-published my first novel, (The Emma Caites Way) with another in the pipeline, and my writing compatriots kept saying, “You need an online presence, you need to blog.” Because I have privacy issues, I have steadfastly resisted having anything to do with Facebook. I can’t bring myself to hand over my personally identifiable information to a company hell-bent on constantly changing the ground rules, and often without meaningful notice. (Now they tell me that I’m suspect because of my failure to have a Facebook page!) Maybe I’m just old-fashioned.

Conventional wisdom told me I had to have a presence; I had to play the game. It was, they said, the way to sell books. So I gave in and blogged. It’s been like starting out on a journey without a clear destination, a little bit of a ramble, but if you pay attention along the way, not without its rewards. I’ve come to realize that I enjoy blogging. It gives voice to my gardener, rural alter-ego, something I haven’t explored in my other writing. I’ve come to know some wonderful people (and a few, slightly off-center) along the way—all over the globe. Who knew? But I cannot say that the blog has sold a single book. If it has, there’s certainly no evidence of it.

I follow a number of other bloggers. Many of them are gardeners, science geeks, or (like me) wannabee writers. I think we quietly blog for each other, lulled into the rhythms of it, like a very exclusive, private club.

Maybe I’m a failure as a blogger. But this week I made a discovery. I regularly read the newsletter from CreateSpace. I especially read anything by Joel Friedlander. He’s affiliated with BAIPA (Bay Area Independent Publishers Association) where I’m a member (and an award winner for The Emma Caites Way—Hey, it’s all about self-promotion, isn’t it?) His presentations are always informative and substantive. So after reading his headline article this month, I clicked on another selection, Is Blogging Good for Fiction Writers? (https://www.createspace.com/en/community/docs/DOC-2031)

Oh my! He nailed me (and many of you, as well.) I’ve been blogging away for a year, apparently without a clue. Yes, most of my readers are other struggling fiction authors; and yes, many of the blogs I follow are self-publishers and writers. Since my books (Yes, I finished and published the second one, The Gift of Guylaine Claire, and a third is in the works), don’t have a clearly defined, common theme, (and if they did, it’s not what’s in my blog) this lovely ramble has been just that.  It’s a clear demonstration of the blind leading the blind. And, given the fiction writer’s conundrum, a blog isn’t likely to achieve any results beyond that warm and fuzzy sense of community that I’ve come to enjoy.

I’m not sure where this all leads. I can’t imagine abandoning the blog after all this—after all, there are relationships in it now. All I can say is, Now ya tell me!

 

 

 

Tags , , , , , , , ,
Categories "The Emma Caites Way", "The Gift of Guylaine Claire", Blogging, publishing, writing

The Bad News and the Good News

December 21, 2012 //
0

The Bad News and the Good News

A.V. Walters

We were already pretty much resigned to it. Yesterday was the deadline. It was several days past the last possible date on which we could expect the emu eggs to hatch. With as many doubts as we had about Mr. Emu’s ability to incubate the eggs during the coldest days of the year, I can’t say that modern technology did any better. (And, it’s been cold, into the twenties at night, several times.) At the moment, the score is: emus—0, electricians—1. Sadly, it was not the much anticipated storm-driven power loss that did us in; as best we can tell, it was the inadvertence of renovation. So yesterday we walked down to the incubator and flipped off the switch.

When the storm clears we’ll remove the eggs and take them outside, to open and bury them. We feel compelled to do an ‘egg-topsy’ to determine whether they were ever viable, and if so, at what stage of development they failed. I’ve done this before, and believe me, you want to do it outside. If you’ve ever experience a rotten egg—think of that times six (for the size of the emu egg) and with an explosive force rivaling anything outside of a military application. One time, an egg exploded when I was burying it. I was enveloped in a cloud of shimmering, golden light—a halo about 12 feet across. It was beautiful—until I took a breath. OH-MY-GOD! The stink—I thought I would die. There I was, encased in a cloud of rotten egg, my clothing saturated in the stunning mist of it. It was breathtaking, literally, in every way. There was no escape. Quickly, I finished the burial and headed directly into the shower—clothing and all. So this time, we’ll be very careful.

I’m sad it didn’t work out. Before we went to do the deed, Rick chopped up a bunch of apples. We thought it would be nice to visit the emus, after pulling that plug—sort of an affirmation of the reason we made the effort, in the first place. We hadn’t been up to visit them in four days, which isn’t unusual. So, we crossed the highway and headed up the hill. That part of the farm is almost a mile from our side, and we chatted about whether we should intervene in the emus’ future efforts, at all. (It’s not like we get a lot of support with it, and we’re not sure anyone even wants more emus on the farm.) Still, those emus keep trying, so it’s hard to not want them to succeed.

Well, it’s lambing time. (I know, it seems odd to bring those baby lambs into the world at the coldest time of the year, but they are dressed for it—100% wool!) I have to admit, it’s fun to watch them cavorting about, in the sun. (I mean, They actually frolic!) Sheep are lumbering, dirty and dumb, but watching little lambs, though, is like watching children. They bounce and run. They form little bands of trouble, and then, at the slightest provocation, run lickety-split, back to their moms.

Anyway, when we got to the high fields, only Mrs. Emu was in sight. We exchanged nervous, knowing looks. Well, when we had removed the eggs, we’d predicted it. Emus will continue to breed until the days start to lengthen. A search of the field revealed what we already figured—Mr. Emu was bedded down with five new eggs. By week’s end, we’re sure there’ll be more. (Those darned emus—you turn your back for a minute…)  This time, we won’t take the eggs. If Mr. E can keep them alive over the next 55 days or so, they’ll hatch into a warmer, Sonoma County Spring, with a good chance of surviving. (It’ll just be a question of outsmarting the predators.) We decided their start date is December 15th, so we’re counting down. There’s some good in this, beyond winter timing—the earlier batch of eggs was conceived during the worst period for emu nutrition (the late fall is yucky, dry grass and a few treats from us), this later clutch comes after two months of green grass and plentiful water. So perhaps these new emu babes have a better start, out the gate. A door doesn’t close, but a window opens…

 

Tags , , , ,
Categories emu, farm life

Playing Possum on the Bell Curve

December 18, 2012 //
2

Playing Possum on the Bell Curve

A.V. Walters

It’s about nine miles into town and, at certain times of the year, it’s carnage. This is that time of the year. The hills are verdant. Our seasonal rains have started and the wild critters have come out, in force, to take advantage of the return of resources. That means they’re moving about and, unfortunately, they don’t understand the rules of the road. The only rule that should concern them (besides, RUN!!!) is that they cannot win in a faceoff with a motorized vehicle.

About a month ago, I noticed (what my partner calls) the annual, ‘Running of the skunks.’ All of a sudden, for just a couple of weeks, the skunks decide that they need to cross the road, now (and often fail.) Yes, of course, they’re trying to get to the other side, but why the sudden, yearly mass-migration, just to get there?

The steel-verses-fur imbalance is especially true of the possums. There were four of them on the shoulder today and they weren’t playing possum. Possums have an unusual survival strategy. When confronted with extreme stress—a life or death choice—they lose consciousness. That age old technique was a winner when their primary opponent was a predator. Some time ago, (say, a millennia) there was a survival advantage to fainting in the face of danger. (It worked for Victorian era women, too. Go figure!) Those oddball possums who developed this strategy, lived to see another day, and bred like rabbits.) It worked because many predators will only eat live prey, so the ‘play-dead’ strategy fooled them. Embedded deep in the predator instincts is the caution not to eat carrion—to protect them from illness borne by rotted or poisoned meat. (Oddly enough, that’s the strategy my partner used, growing up, while foraging through the family refrigerator.) But the possums don’t just ‘play’ dead, they actually go into a neurological overload, and completely shut down. They are literally, out cold.

When the threat at hand is a three-thousand pound, multi-wheeled projectile, hurtling directly at you, this passing out thing doesn’t quite cut it. Possums have failed to make the evolutionary connection to address this kind of threat. (On the other hand, they are such prodigious breeders, their niche in the ecosystem is safe— unfortunately, the predators don’t fare as well.)

In most species, a variety of coping mechanisms falls pretty evenly on a bell curve—some are aggressive, some passive (and in our species, some are passive-aggressive, but that’s another blog.) Someone once explained it to me this way: in an earthquake, some people will seize the moment and run outside the building at the first sign of a tremor. Others will hunker down in that “triangle-zone of safety” next to the kitchen counter or behind the sofa (or the I-beam tee-pee they had welded, ‘just in case.’) Nature can’t choose who will survive so she takes a Darwinian approach, and provides a range of personality types to address life’s risks. Maybe the guy who gets out, by running into the street, will be the lucky one (or maybe he’ll be crushed (inexplicably) by an I-beam tee-pee or cut to ribbons by the tons of falling glass from the skyscrapers above.) Perhaps the building won’t fall and the guy curled up behind a well-built sofa will brush himself off and go about his business. (Or, maybe he’ll die, trapped in his Ikea-built ‘cocoon of safety,’ before the rescue dogs can find him.) Since survival of the species appears to be nature’s objective, (okay, sometimes it‘s just a crap-shoot) she relies on variety to ensure that at least part of the team will make it to see another day.

Possums are failing that strategic variety test, and driving down the road, past the possums, makes me wonder how we’re doing in the strategic variety department. I wonder how the Walmart mentality of endless consumption ranks next to the possum’s self-induced anesthesia. Are we failing to diversify our options? From overreliance on fossil fuels, to the loss of species diversity, and the loss of knowledge of “the old ways,” (gardening, canning, cooking, building, animal husbandry and such) in the general populace, I worry that our culture is failing in its obligations to future generations (not to mention ourselves.) Politicians rail about preserving “the American way of life” without noting that it’s a recent phenomenon—and potentially unsustainable. What’s truly needed in our culture is a renewed diversification of talents , interests and, well, thinking.

I attended a party, last night, where the adults stood around chatting, wine glasses in hand, and the teenagers were in the next room, glued to the video games on the TV screen. I wondered, what kind of real, survival skills do video games develop. (Here’s a test you can do at home: Shut off the power, and see which kid gets up and looks for the fuse box, and which one just sits there in the dark.) In my narrow view electronic entertainment is a sorry waste of opposable thumbs. (Not that opposable thumbs would have done the skunks much good.) Still, the party was a holiday celebration for folks who’d volunteered all year to help fix up the homes of the poor and elderly. Those in attendance were builders, architects, tradespeople and genuinely nice people who volunteer their time for others. Wait a minute, there’s a survival strategy, altruism. On balance, I guess that helps a lot. That’s one area where we are ahead of the possums.

Tags , , , , ,
Categories agriculture, chores, season

The Anxiety of Young’Uns (And, what thanks do we get?)

December 7, 2012 //
2

The Anxiety of Young’Uns (And, what thanks do we get?)

A.V. Walters

We’ve been in a tumult lately. My sweetie’s teenage daughter has been in a downward spiral. You know, the you-can’t-tell-me-what-to-do phase, only in a big way. From strictly a developmental point of view, this is entirely normal. (Well, to a point.) Parents need to learn that they have limited control, and the best that they can do, is their best. Beyond that you cross your fingers and fasten your seatbelt. I believe that psychology has failed to fully plumb the depths of all the various, developmental periods in our lives.  Oh, they have the early years pretty well mapped; it’s easy to check out this tortured teen. But they’re missing the point, these life stages continue to unroll, dependent upon our own circumstances. Once we hit adulthood, the shrinks roll their eyes and say, “That’s just life.” (“So, how does that make you feel?”)

Many of these developmental plateaus are linked with common-life events, a marriage, the birth of a child, divorces, the death of a parent. They all resonate at deep levels that challenge our interior balance and make us question how to move forward, from here. My dad passed away almost two years ago. I still miss him terribly, but we did the best we could and that’s all anyone can ask. It changed me. I feel protective towards my mom, and I find myself planning my life for a different kind of future—planning for the fruitful and productive end-game. Now, I’m next in line, as the older generation. Not a geezer yet, but it’s on the horizon. Another stage, waiting to be explored.

My landlord is retrofitting one of his barns. Around here, a lot older farmers just let their barns decay and collapse. It seems wasteful, but it turns out there are ordinances about being able to tear down a derelict barn. Sometimes it’s about preserving historical structures or, to hold the ‘country-estate’ developers at bay, rural counties have legislated protection for aging agricultural buildings. Elmer is a hold-out. Despite his advancing years, he’s still fixing and building. There’s always some construction project going on around here, usually several at once. They seem to drag on forever that way, but time ticks by differently if you’re busy. By remaining in a constant mode of renewal, I think Elmer is cheating time. His knees are trouble and he says he’s ‘semi-retired,’ but he may well be the busiest man I know. And I think there’s something to that. If you think retirement is your golden time to sit back and relax, I think you may be planning on checking out. The secret seems to be staying in the thick of it—being busy and engaged. (I know, this ain’t a news flash, but a lot of folks seem to forget it.) I can’t imagine anything better than being too busy to notice the passing of the years.

But, there’s a downside to this meditation, and well, nobody’s perfect. As part of the ongoing barn work, Elmer had an electrician come to test and redo some of the wiring. No one remembers how long the power was down (or at least they’re not owning up to it) but when Rick went to check on the emu eggs, the incubator they’re in was now fifteen degrees lower than it should be. How long that had been going on, or how low it had gone before that, who knows. There we were, all set with strategies for enduring a storm induced power outage and, without notice, inadvertence steps in. With any luck, these eggs should start hatching as early as next week, but now, we don’t know if they’ll make it. There’s nothing we can do now except wait, and see. I guess it’s no different than teenagers — we just do what we can, keep an eye out for ‘power outages,’ and hope for the best.

Tags , , , , ,
Categories Aging, emu, farm life

It’s Sooooo Dry…

September 23, 2012 //
0

AV. Walters

And no rain, in even a normal year, for at least a month. We’re not getting our usual heat wave this month–and with the fields like tinder, that’s a good thing. We are all wary of the risk of wild fire. In most years I take the advice of ’30 feet of defensible space’ seriously–I clear everything away from the house diligently. This year there’s no need. Not even the weeds grew in this dry season. There was a fire yesterday–somewhere between here and town in the other end of the valley. It was a grass fire–it’s a different smell and taste than a more serious structure or forest fire. Smoke lite. Apparently they got it out, because the air cleared and the lingering haze made for a lovely sunset.

I’ve been following fire and emergency news these days because I’ve become more involved as a volunteer with our local fire department. Not fighting fires–I think I’m a little long in the tooth (and clumsy to boot) for that. But I can chip in with administrative stuff, or selling T shirts for fundraising. It’s a small community, everybody does what they can. It’s so dry that our new firefighters have to train on the hoses without water. Don’t laugh. Nobody has excess at the wellhead these days, so they learn to man the hoses dry–with the seasoned volunteers pulling and pushing at the back end of the hose to simulate the force of real water. Consider it a dry run, in the most real sense of the term. They revel at the chance to share training programs with nearby departments that have city water.

Our wells are low and that intensifies the mineral salts–leaving a cloudy blush on the glasses, if you use the dishwasher. When canning, I have to put vinegar in the water with the bottles, or they’ll come up clouded and gritty feeling. Some of this is normal at this time of the year. The rest has us seriously conserving and sniffing now and then for smoke when outdoors. It’s a good thing that the rainy season runs during the same time as the winter heating season. By the time I put a fire in the stove, it’s cold and wet out.

I buy bottled water for coffee–not because of contamination (our well is high up on the hill) but because I’m a coffee nut, and I like the flavor of a less–gritty–source of water. In the low part of the valley the wells are contaminated. It’s a fact of rural living–nitrates in the water. Those folks must drink bottled water, especially kids. It’s a reminder that , even here in rural county, we need to be aware of our footprint on the planet. Nitrates are a common form of contamination in areas with heavy livestock concentrations, especially where, like here, people rely mostly on shallow wells. This is a dairy area, with chickens and beef cattle thrown in for good measure.

Many years ago the county put in a dump, (now called a transfer station and refuse disposal area) about a mile from here. The runoff from the site runs into our local creek. There’s a debate in the valley, not too seriously entertained, that the county dump is the source of the contamination. Folks who’ve been spreading manure on these hills for generations wince–and don’t point too many fingers, except occasionally, for sport.

 

 

Tags , , , , , ,
Categories agriculture, farm life, Healthy Food, Uncategorized

Just Label It! (GMO)

June 20, 2012 //
0

All our efforts have paid off, but this is only the beginning of the fight. In November, Californians will get to vote on whether or not genetically modified foods must be labeled in their state. This spring the California Right to Know (GMO) initiative effort collected 971,126 signatures in support of the measure, almost twice the number needed to qualify for November’s ballot. A broad coalition of organizations came together to launch this statewide referendum that will require that any genetically modified foods, or products containing genetically modified ingredients, be labeled in the marketplace.

Who worked for this? Volunteers fanned out across the state. We are gardeners, organic farmers, health professionals, scientists, parents and regular people who are concerned about the inevitable consequences when ‘Frankenfoods’ are released into the food chain and into the environment. The public support for the labeling movement is enormous, even in this divisive political year. A National poll taken by the Mellman Group found that 91% of Americans favor labeling of GMO foods. (see website http://www.labelgmos.org/)

But it’s not over yet. We still need to win in November. GMO seeds and their companion chemicals are big business and those corporate interests aren’t going to go away without a fight. Already, the storm clouds are on the horizon. Despite overwhelming public support, every similar measure across the country has been defeated in the last weeks before the vote, flooded with corporate money and disturbingly inaccurate PR. They paint us as anti-farmer! The nerve! Just watch the airwaves; we will be inundated with the tragic tales of farmers who need GMOs to get by. We’ll be told that GMO technology is essential to feeding the world. We’ve heard it all before. This initiative isn’t anti-farmer. It doesn’t ban GMO products. If farmers and food producers want to grow and use these products in our food, they just need to tell us. This bill is about transparency and our right, as consumers, to know what we’re eating. We’ve proven with other food labeling that consumers use the information on those labels, and that providing that information isn’t prohibitively expensive to producers. When we win, California will be the first state to successfully protect its consumers’ right to know.

This country was founded on the idea that, in the marketplace of ideas, the best will rise to the top. For that to work, we, as voters and as consumers, need to have the information to make our own decisions. That’s what labeling is about. It’ll be a big fight, but I think we’re up to it. Almost a million people signed the petition. If you believe in this, talk about it, tell your friends, volunteer. I can’t imagine any good reason why labeling isn’t a good idea. After all, if what they’re pandering isn’t sinister, why are they afraid to tell us what’s in it?

Tags , , , , , ,
Categories agriculture, farm life, GMO

Trot Out Your Crazies for the Young Folk

June 6, 2012 //
0

A.V. Walters

Trot out your crazies for the young folk,

The looney uncles or grandma with her spells.

Empty the closets of skeletons and bottles.

Raise up them kids to recognize peculiarities,

without obsessing on deviants,

To accept eccentricity with humanity,

without succumbing to the mutual degradation

of appeasement.

Gently divulge your family ghosts and bastards,

so they’ll recognize ghosts elsewhere.

Share the humor and history

and spare them from embracing some sitcom gestalt,

leaving them longing for Ike.

Trot out your crazies for the young folk,

so their stories are woven into the fabric of regular living

like the time when Geri went out on the roof.

Discuss diagnoses at dinner, and options. . .

intervention, therapy or fluoxetine

So they’ll speak the language

when they move

to California.

Tags , , , ,
Categories humor, poetry

Snake on the Road

June 5, 2012 //
0

Snake on the Road (and Behind the Wheel!)

A.V. Walters

I was driving into town today and saw a dead snake on the side of the road. It was a big snake, maybe three feet long. Driving by, I couldn’t tell what kind of a snake it was, not that I’m an ophidian expert. But I do know that snakes fill an important niche in the ecosystem. Admittedly, I’d wouldn’t want a rattlesnake close to the house or anything but for the most part, like most creatures, if you leave them alone, they’ll leave you alone. What disturbed me about this snake was that it had been run over. It was well over on the side of the road, squished flat in two spots; so somebody had to have aimed at it. Since generally folks don’t go driving on the shoulder, I guess that, seeing the snake sunning itself on the edge of the road, the driver veered off the roadbed proper to kill it. It wasn’t near where anyone lived–sort of an open fields area. So why go to the trouble to kill a snake that wasn’t posing any danger to anybody in particular?

The stretch of road between here and town is a pretty dangerous place for wildlife. I know, a deer hit me there, just a few weeks ago. In the paper-scissors-rock game of survival, it doesn’t matter who started it, the car has the clear advantage. On any given day there are several roadkill victims along that stretch, mostly deer and possum, with the occasional raccoon or skunk thrown in. These though, are accident victims. I don’t get the feeling that anyone is aiming at the poor possums. (But, given what I saw today I might have to adjust my thinking on that.) Unfortunately for them, their stress coping mechanism (passing out and  “playing possum”) may work well for those predators who won’t eat dead meat, but it’s just not working with the yokels in pick-ups, crowd.

I’m squeamish about spiders, so I can understand that some people might have their hesitations about a particular species. I’ll dispatch a spider if it’s in the house. But I hold my breath, and go on about my business, when I encounter them outside. They, too, have their place.

I understand we have a lone (and lonely) wolf that’s made the news in Northern California. He’s tagged with a tracking collar. Apparently he roamed south from Oregon, in search of a mate. That wolf has a hinky sense of direction, as there aren’t any prospective partners for him down our way. There’s been an outcry from some of the locals in that area–against the wolf–so much so that the wildlife researchers studying him have to be careful not to release any real-time information about his whereabouts. The anti-wolf contingent would go out of their way to hunt him down. Some are ranchers, concerned for their livestock. Some are hunters, worried that the wolf will kill something they might’ve wanted to kill first. The wolf’s scat reveals that he mostly eats rodents and small critters along with the occasional deer, not exactly your big game opportunity. Some people don’t like wolves on principle. Even the fairy tales treat wolves unfairly. Our language picks on them, too, “a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” or “a wolf at the door.” (And, of course, the reference to a predatory male of our species.)

I’m having trouble with that. What makes us think that we should be the arbiters of what is, or isn’t a desirable species? That snake was just minding his own business when, out of nowhere, somebody decided to snuff out his existence. Up until that moment, it had been a pretty good day. (For me and the snake.)

Tags , ,
Categories farm life

Presbyopia

April 22, 2012 //
0

A.V.Walters

Presbyopia

(Where the heck is that?)

I am a person full of theories, and I think that I just naturally look for the patterns of order in the universe. I’m not saying my theories always make sense–they’re certainly never subjected to the challenges of science, or peer review. I look for meaning in the little details. This has always been true of me, I’m given to rumination and to trying to make sense of things. I believe in developmental phases, both hard-wired and those triggered by a combination of chronology and circumstance. We all know of the “terrible twos”, and the agony of adolescence. (For kids and parents.)  We know that there are acquisitional phases and times to consolidate our gains–those things that we’ve learned and are now solidly under our belts. I know that there are new and different phases continuing through the whole continuum of human existence that are not yet recognized. Indeed they could not have been, because too few lived long enough for any such phenomena to be observed, tested, catalogued and acknowledged.

Now with life expectancies stretching easily into the eighties and nineties, there are new paths to chart, even as we’re only just beginning to get a handle on the fifties and sixties. (I think we did the forties back in the sixties, if you know what I mean—the recognition of the mid-life-crisis seems deeply cemented in the movies of my youth.) I’m a trailing boomer, so I’m following in the footsteps of the developmental stages of the largest demographic bulge ever studied. If they’d just get it figured out, aging will be a veritable yellow brick road for me. However, while some things are obvious, the connection to meaning that I’m seeking, is less understood. In the crevices of this process I’m looking, maybe in vain, for reasons. What rhyme or reason is there to this process that, on some days, just feels like an inexorable death spiral? Still, if you hit your fifties and things aren’t starting to fall into place, in terms of world-view…ya gotta wonder.

That brings me to vision. As a kid I had incredible acuity. My brother and I were the eagle-eyed of my family, taking after our mother.  She told us that this kind of vision was a special gift, and nobody could take it away. She was only in her early thirties at the time, with eyes like a hawk and nary a glimmer that it wouldn’t always be the case. So, in our forties, my brother and I took our failing vision as some kind of personal insult. I suppose we could have, and should have, taken note of our dear mum’s progression of ever-thickening specs, but we didn’t. In my mid-forties I just flat-out refused to believe that my vision was failing. (Hey, my mom said that nobody could take it away!) That came at a high price because as time went by, I failed to notice that I was reading less and less. Sewing and weaving fell by the wayside—too busy, I told myself. But, I still obsessed in the garden, its open-air setting fit my advancing presbyopia quite nicely.

When I came to Two Rock the fireplace in my lovely, rented house had been painted over so many times that you could hardly tell it was tile. The outermost layer was metallic gold–and that had to go. So, I asked Elmer if I could strip it down. Of course he quizzed my on my intended method and, when it sounded like I knew what I was doing, he gave the okay. I cranked-up the hot air gun, grabbed a putty knife and slowly, peeling off about eighteen layers of paint, revealed an incredible Arts and Crafts era, tile fireplace. It’s a gem. Elmer was thrilled with it. Not long after that, I found myself struggling to read regular-sized print. For some time I’d been squinting at labels in the grocery store–even started to carry around a pair of dime-store “cheaters” in my purse, and I just cursed the world for using such ridiculously small type. But finally, I had to face it–there I was, middle-aged, newly on my own after a long-term, failed marriage and suddenly (okay, not so suddenly), blind as a bat.

Digging-in my heels, every inch of the way, I finally made the dreaded appointment to get my eyes checked, where it was confirmed. Biology had turned on me and bit me in the ass–I was no longer the super-hero of vision I had once been. I ordered the eyeglasses, progressives, but I was surly about it. Elmer’s almost two decades my senior but he doesn’t wear glasses. (But his friends make jokes about it and it’s common knowledge that he’s a terrible hunter because he can’t see to shoot.)  I railed. My parents laughed. My brother commiserated. Then, (with a dirge, rather than fanfare) my new specs arrived.

And what a shock. I could actually read, again. I could see the instruments on the dashboard. (I wondered how long that light had been on!) Who knew it was so bad? And, oh my god, the work on the fireplace really sucked! It turned out that I hadn’t done a very good job removing all of the paint, after all. Sure, you could see the tile, but it had a shabby-chic look that hadn’t been my intention. So, I went over the whole thing, using a dental pick, no less. (Apparently Elmer never noticed how bad a job it was, confirming that he can’s see either!) Now, the fireplace looks really good. But, it made me wonder–what else had I missed before I finally broke down and got those glasses? How much of my life had been out of focus? Maybe it explained a lot. How lucky I am that that kind of blindness brought me here.

And just what purpose does losing one’s vision serve? I’m looking for the deeper meaning, here. I mean, I’m a far shot from being pushed out to sea on an ice-floe. There’s still plenty of tread on these tires. Nonetheless, a century ago, most of the women my age didn’t make it this far. This aging business is largely uncharted territory. So, exactly how are we served by failing eyesight? I’d hate to believe that it’s just a senseless result of decline. Of course, being who I am, I have a theory about that. I think that far-sightedness forces us to teach the younger generation the skills they’ll need, that we mastered earlier, but can no longer do. It’s not lost on me that, uncorrected, my current comfortable focal distance is just right for looking over someone’s shoulder–to watch and check their work. I’ve gone from the age of super-vision to the age of supervision. Where it not for this decline, we’d all just go on doing everything ourselves, and not pass on the know-how. Still, eyeglasses are a godsend, even though they may put a wrinkle in the natural order of things.

Well, that’s my theory, and I’m sticking to it! I feel it’s so much more comforting than the only other rationale that occurs to me–I don’t want to face that not being able to see close, up may have been symbolic of my life’s circumstance, that I could see everything at a distance, perfectly–outside my own sphere–but not the important things that were right under my nose. Maybe, like the fireplace, things had been falling apart for some time, but I just couldn’t see it. But don’t get me wrong, I’m not so pessimistic that I’d want to countenance that as a phase of living. I’m just saying…

Tags , , , , , ,
Categories humor

Henrietta

March 29, 2012 //
0

A.V. Walters

Henrietta

When I first moved to the farm I’d been in the city for 29 years. I was viewed with gentle humor as a kind of exotic transplant. You know, Big-City professional with a ‘tude. It took the garden as a way for me to earn my chops. In the meantime, I was an avid observer of the dynamics of this small farm. I have come to believe that everything in life is personal.

Shortly after I arrived, the farm took in thousands of “used” chickens. (“That’s right, folks, these babies have had only one owner and only laid on Sundays!”) Elmer had a chicken-farmer friend who was retiring. These days that usually means that a small farm is going out of production. The college-educated children of farmers have little interest in farming. More and more, farming is being relegated to agribusiness, by default.

So, the chickens were transferred to one of our empty chicken houses. More often than not, I don’t understand the movements of livestock around farms. Cows, sheep and chickens are on the move all the time around here and, aside from the obvious management of grass length, I understand little of it. But this chicken transfer was a simple move; as a recent transferee to the farm myself, I understood it very well. It was a busy day, trucks with trailers stuffed with chickens in cages, rolling up the lane for most of the day, then deadheading back down the road to the retiree’s farm, empty cages bouncing and clattering, to collect more chickens. As I’ve since learned is often the case with a big transfer, a number of chickens usually escape. It takes a few days to round them up and get them back into cages.

That same day I was having a water problem. I didn’t want to bother Elmer in the middle of so big an operation, so I laid low until after the trucks had made their last run. Things go from full speed to dead pretty quick on a farm. When the work is done, the day is pretty much done. By the time I went looking for Elmer, the place was deserted. I checked the house, several of the chicken barns, even Number Four—but no Elmer.

Finally, I peeked into the chicken barn where the new chickens should have been settling in. Hardly. Chickens don’t like changes to their habitat and the barn was a cacophony of poultry, with feathers flying as chickens reestablished the pecking-order in their new digs. The cages in the chicken house hang about hip-height, and another tier above that. Now, below that, scores of the escaped chickens were roaming the floor, clucking up at their caged compatriots. Some jumped, wings flapping, in vain attempts to get back into the cages! I stood in the opening of the barn’s rolling door, flummoxed. If ever I thought chickens were smart—this cured me of that notion. Other than the escapees, there was not a soul in sight. I watched those loose chickens in their desperate antics, crestfallen. It flew in the face of my own recent flight to the country. Those dumb chickens wanted back into their familiar confines! (And let me tell you, the familiar for an egg-producing chicken is not a pretty thing.) Still, there is that old saying, “The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.” I recoiled from any message that might lurk there, for me.

Peering into the darkening expanse of feathers and dust, I yelled out, “Run Chickens! Now’s your chance, make a break for it while you can!” It fell on deaf ears. Mostly.

Out from behind a rack of tall cages, stepped Elmer, his eyebrows knitted quizzically. “What are you telling my chickens?” he laughed. I blushed, relieved that the cool, dark of the barn kept this secret. Elmer shook his head, still chuckling. I decided to pretend that the only words I spoke in that chicken barn were about my water problem. He nodded and said he’d get up to the tank-house to fix it.

Most of the chickens were retrieved and repatriated over the next few days. All but one—a feisty little hen that eluded capture. Apparently, she’d taken heed of my message, made a run for it and wouldn’t let anyone near her. On a farm that houses tens of thousands of chickens, no one is going to waste a lot of time and effort pursuing just the one. Over the following weeks she grew fat and bold, feeding on spilled chickenfeed and bugs. Over time, her feathers filled out. She preened in the sun on the apron of the barn. We saw her frequently as she made her rounds. She became the talk of the farm, as one tenant after another alerted Elmer, or the farmhands, that there was a chicken on the loose. They’d nod, “Yup.” A loose chicken will usually fall prey to any number of hazards. There are dogs, foxes, hawks and coyotes around here, any one of which will gladly make a meal of a fugitive chicken. Still, she survived.

After about a month, this hen settled in the garden area around Elmer’s house. It became sport to spot and collect her eggs. Emboldened by freedom and the realization that no one was after her, she started hanging around the farm shop, especially when the farmhands took their breaks. They fed her treats from their lunches. They took a poll to name her. Some of the suggested names were getting crazy. Well, after debate, Elmer took the farm-owner’s prerogative and put his foot down on the matter. The chicken would be Henrietta.

I watched this unfold with some measure of mirth. Here this one chicken had, by force of stubborn personality, managed to elevate her status from escapee to pet. She made it personal. One of the farm hands brought her raw sunflower seeds. They argued such things at break-time like whether it would be okay to feed her popcorn—you know, because of the salt. They were teaching her to catch treats tossed in the air. The best of it was that everyone saw the humor (not to mention the irony) in it—a chicken farm with a pet chicken.

One day Henrietta mysteriously disappeared. Not a trace, no evidence of “foul” play. Folks would ask each other if they’d seen Henrietta.  Everyone kept an eye out. This really shouldn’t have been a surprise; we all knew the risks. But still, nary a feather to be found. And it did seem odd, since she generally stayed so close to where people were. As you would expect, her absence sounded louder than her presence ever had. Break-time talk lapsed back into the work at hand and any funny story of the day. (Farmers are such gossips!)

We have a guy on the farm, Bill, who works the chicken houses. He mostly keeps to himself and doesn’t come down and hang with the other hands at break-time. He’s developmentally disabled and is more comfortable taking his breaks in his quarters, or out wherever he’s working that day. He’s nice enough, but shy, and uncomfortable trying to keep up with the ribald conversations in and around the shop. Well, about a week after Henrietta’s disappearance Elmer mentioned it to Bill. He nodded, “That loose chicken? Yeah, I finally got her.”

“What? You caught her? What did you do with her?” Maybe Elmer’s tone was a little too strident. Bill, who thought he was just doing what he was supposed to, got defensive and flustered. “I put her back in the cages.” “Which cage?”

“I dunno—over in Number Six, somewhere.”

Elmer couldn’t exactly be angry. A farm hand had put a loose chicken into a chicken cage. It’s what’s supposed to happen. How was Bill to know that this was no ordinary chicken? It had never been explained to him that Henrietta was now a pet chicken. I know that Elmer spent some time looking, walking the aisles between the cages in Number Six. I think most of us did. You’d think she would have been easy to spot, but it’s difficult to tell one brown hen from all the other brown hens, in a barn with thousands of other chickens. Whatever it was that was special about her, she didn’t stand out when you were peering through the wire.

Tags , , , , ,
Categories agriculture, chores, farm life, humor, Uncategorized