Moose Hill Notebook

Doomsday Procrastination

2011-05-08T15:28:00.000-07:00

Here's a letter I submitted to our local newspaper regarding the on-again-off-again shopping mall project on the edge of town. The developers bulldozed scores of acres of beautiful mature forest and let it sit barren and unused for a few years now as the reality of our current economic condition remorselessly plays havoc with their plans. I've ranted about this development a few times before on my Moose Hill Journal in September 2008 and November 2009. This letter was published in the April 22, 2011 Sharon Advocate.

It is with perplexed sadness that I watch community television coverage of ongoing meetings regarding the Sharon Commons development. It's like watching slick presentations about the exact style and placement of deck chairs on the Titanic. Developers of yet more unnecessary big box stores try to perpetuate the illusion that we are still getting the “lifestyle mall” originally promised so many years ago now. They present drawings of fake facades and sloping roofs and talk as if a few more windows will change the fact that they are building just another mall with acres of asphalt, no residential component, and no public transportation.

This plan is based on 20th century thinking with no one pausing to consider where the 21st century may be headed. It was $4 per gallon gas and a deep recession that brought this project to a screeching halt a few years ago and prompted a cheapening and down-scaling of the project. Guess what? $4 a gallon gas is on the way back and, as recent debate in Washington shows, we are broke and the days of happy motoring and buying ever more cheap junk from China are over.

This project is never going to happen. It's unlikely it will be built, and if it is, stores will sit unoccupied. Consider the real state of our economy and then look at the local malls we already have (Plainville, Dedham, Avon, Stoughton, Easton). I understand that we residents of Sharon are desperate for tax relief, but this mall is not the answer. We have raped scores of acres of beautiful forest for an obsolete idea that is doomed to failure. We need a new plan and a new project. We need new vision for a future that that is not based on personal automobiles and mindless consumption. We are on the doorstep of a new age where it will be the real things that matter: clean air, clean water, clean energy, local food and community. This project provides none of these things.

Dust to Dust

2011-05-08T15:10:00.000-07:00

Here are some thoughts I recorded after my mother-in-law Minna Greenberg's funeral on Friday, April 22, 2011.

We buried my mother-in-law today. Mom was a good woman who lived a life of comfort on her own terms. She was wonderful to the people she liked, but could be cold to those she didn't. I consider myself lucky that she was always very good to me. It could have gone the other way. As far as we could tell, she suffered little during her decline and the end was mercifully sudden and swift.

When I say we buried her today, I mean that quite literally. The customs of Judaism concerning death and dying always resonated with me. Upon death the body is buried as quickly as possible - ideally within 24 hours. There is no embalming. A simple pine box with no metal fasteners or adornments is used - dust to dust with no steel or concrete in the way.

After a brief chapel service that included moving personal remarks by my wife, daughter and nephew six of us, including her grandson - my son, lifted her onto our shoulders and carried her to the hearse. At the cemetery, we carried her from the road to the grave and four of us lowered her into the ground with cloth straps.

After a few more remarks by the rabbi we began the task of returning Minna to the earth. Slowly, reluctantly at first, using the back of the shovel, we took turns filling the grave. At first, the soil thudded on the wooden box, but soon the sound was more muffled. A rabbi once taught that the soil filling a grave was much like the life that it was covering - some of it easy and soft like sand, some of it hard like the rocks that are always found in New England dirt. We like to think that Minna's life was mostly like the sand.

Several family members took turns throwing in the first ceremonial shovels-full, but after a while a few of us men finished the chore of filling the grave. It turns out this is real work. It takes a lot of dirt to fill a grave. I sensed that we all wanted to do the job well - a final gesture of thanks to a woman who loved us all. My nephews who know so much about these things supervised and directed our efforts; making sure we filled the grave uniformly, leaving no voids. We tried to work quickly and efficiently so as not to prolong the task, but with a respectful lack of eagerness to see it finished.

In a world full of hype, buzz, glitz, exaggeration and hyperbole, this simple ritual serves as a reminder that death for all of us is a simple reality. In the end, we are all the same. We take nothing with us and all we leave behind is the love of those who knew us. Life is real, and so is death. It is love that transcends those realities and makes us human.

One Carrion Per Passenger

2011-01-20T08:07:00.000-08:00

One thing I've learned in my past few years of observations on Moose Hill is that when I see an animal doing something unexpected, there's usually a reason for it.

Nancy and I were enjoying a mid-morning jog up Moose Hill Parkway today when we saw a big red-tail hawk fly up from the roadside. It flew a ways up into the oaks and pines and perched, no doubt watching us. I think of red-tails soaring above fields or sitting in trees along the highway, not sitting on the ground along a narrow road passing through heavy forest.

As we passed the spot the hawk took off from I looked over the high snow bank looking for evidence of a kill. I soon discovered a mangled deer carcass with a large spot of exposed flesh. I assume the deer was killed by a car, but it's possible that it fell prey to coyotes.

I never thought of red-tails as carrion feeders. Maybe the difficult winter we're having has pushed the bird out of it's normal patterns. Yet again, Moose Hill is a source of new insights into our natural world.

Going Viral

2010-12-05T18:19:00.000-08:00

Since I don't live anywhere near Madison County, Indiana, I figure there's not much point in my calling any county officials about the plight of 72 year-old Dick Thompson being evicted from his own 38-acre rural property just because he lives in a trailer with no running water or septic system. I'm thinking the only thing I could do that has even a slim chance of helping is to encourage the news people to stay on top of the story. To that end, here's my second e-mail to the TV reporter that did a piece on the story:

Keith Olbermann Should See Your Dick Thompson Piece

Dear Mr. Edwards:

Your Dick Thompson story is going viral!

This is just the sort of thing that Kieth Olbermann loves to pick up as a cause to fight on his show. (Remember the one about the fire department that let a guy's house burn down because he didn't pay a $75 fee?) Such coverage would highlight your good work to millions of viewers nationwide and do a lot of good for one old man. I encourage you to ask your people to contact MSNBC and let them know about your fine reporting.

Sincerely,

Alfred Mollitor

The Bastards of Madison County

2010-12-02T14:28:00.000-08:00

I've been reading the Tiny House Blog a lot lately. I am interested in the idea of building small, efficient homes as an alternative to the monsters most people seem to lust after these days.

A recent post on that blog tells of the plight of an old man in Madison County, Indiana being evicted from his own 36-acre property for code and safety violations. A TV news report about the situation can be viewed here. It just seems to me that there could be more to the story and I was moved to write the TV reporter who covered it, encouraging him to stay on top of it. I figured I would save the letter here.

Dear Mr. Edwards:

I just watched your moving report (online) about 72 year-old Dick Thompson who is being evicted from his own 36-acre property by Madison County officials. One wonders, in this age of homelessness and high unemployment, why the County would expend so much time and energy harassing a poor old man living peacefully on his own 36 acres. Surly, one old guy living alone on that much land can't pose a threat to the health or well-being of anyone else. Unless, of course, there is more to this story than is evident in your initial excellent report.

I encourage you to heed the journalist's maxim: "Follow the money!" Who prompted Madison County to go after this poor fellow? Who stands to gain if he is gone? What developers have an eye on the property? What affluent former city-dwellers have recently moved to the area and are now disappointed that the area doesn't fit their image of a rich suburb? Which big-box store would love to bulldoze the property?

Please follow up on this story. Your viewers will be eager to hear more about this battle between traditional American liberty and the power of big government and greedy corporations.

Sincerely,

Alfred Mollitor

When TSHTF

2010-11-03T15:26:00.000-07:00

Haven't been blogging much at all lately. Facebook seems to absorb most of my limited output. I'm thinking about copying a few of my Facebook comments and saving them here. I'm sensing an interesting evolution in my own thinking these days. It started a few years ago as I read stuff by James Howard Kunstler, and I've written quite a bit about that. More recently, I've discovered Chris Hedges and Derrick Jensen and they are having a strong impact on the way I see the world around me.

Kunstler thinks we're screwed because the oil will run out, we've squandered all our wealth building stupid and unsustainable suburbs and the financial industry has been royally screwing us without Vaseline.

Hedges thinks the liberal left has disappeared and we're left with a pampered, comfortable, soft liberal elite who likes to talk a good game but will never rock the boat enough to to put themselves in any kind of jeopardy. We think we have freedom, but in reality we only have as much freedom as the corporations and government want us to have.

Jensen thinks that civilization itself is a disaster and human society will inevitably destroy the world. Our constant push for growth, productivity and progress can only convert the living into the dead: dead people, dead rivers, dead soil, dead oceans, dead forests, and so on. The powerful at the top are only concerned about their own wealth and comfort and will stop at nothing to get what they want.

I am coming to believe that we are steadily sliding down a very slippery slope but no one with any power to change anything will dare step up to make real change. In response to a comment by a FB friend that yesterday's elections - when the house changed hands yet again - will only bring more of the same, I wrote this:

"I fear we can never hope to see any meaningful change from Washington, our current political process or anybody in the so-called 'liberal' media that is said to control everything. The liberal left (I imagine just about anyone reading this considers themselves liberal or progressive) is too comfortable and is too much part of the system and has too much to lose to make a real difference. It's all talk and entertainment. Do you think you'll ever see Keith Olbermann (who I enjoy watching) throw himself in front of a bulldozer? Will Jon Stewart ever chain himself to a redwood? Will Rachel Maddow ever storm a NY police station demanding justice for another black kid shot by cops? Not likely. No, we still have a long way to slide before TSHTF."

I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for the few real heroes among us; those who are willing to truly lay it on the line for justice and a better world. Let me know if you find any.

Survival of the Fittest

2010-06-28T04:48:00.000-07:00

I saw a garbage picker this morning. When I went out to throw some last-minute stuff into our spiffy new single-stream recycling bin, I saw a guy with his old station wagon, rubber gloves and little poking stick going through the neighbors' trash picking out anything he thought might have value. I'm all for it - better to have something reused than to have it dumped, burned or even recycled.

Seeing this made me think of genetic variation and evolution. OK, maybe I'll burn in Hell, but I believe in evolution and that the world is quite a bit older than 5770 years. I can't help it. I was forced to take 10th grade biology by those godless secularists that ran the public schools back in the Sixties. A little education is a horrible thing. But I digress.

Anyway...as I understand it, any population has a little genetic variation. The vast majority of individuals are adapted perfectly well to life under the current conditions. But every now and then an individual is born that's a little different, either through some genetic mutation or some statistically rare combination of genes from its parents. If this individual is too different, they simply die. If they are a little different, they may survive but not thrive. But, if conditions in the environment suddenly shift, maybe - just maybe - that rare individual will be better suited to survival under the new set of conditions and everyone will struggle or die. That lucky oddball will go on to pass along his/her genes and the population will being to evolve into something new and better suited to their new world.

I saw the garbage picker as that oddball. Today, most of us here in the U.S. have adapted to a life of comfort where we don't have to think much about things like where our next meal will come from and how we will clothe the kids next winter. Everything we really need - things like food, water, clothing, basic shelter - are widely available and cheap. But what if conditions were to change? Let's say the climate really was warming, the oil was really running out and political turmoil was right around the corner. Who would be the fittest then - the pampered pretty boy who spent the last two generations in an air-conditioned cocoon, or the guy who new something about picking through garbage?

I put this here on the Moose Hill Notebook rather than Facebook because I get too much static over there about how boring and gloomy I am. I maintain that while I might be boring, I'm not gloomy. I observe our current state of affairs with much interest and take great pleasure in dreaming about those valleys on the other side of the mountains.

Is Facebook Killing Blogging?

2010-05-20T12:09:00.000-07:00

I recently, after a long period of neglect, procrastination and denial, opened a Facebook account. I did it with some trepidation, because those that know me warned that I would fritter away even more of what remains of my puny little life. While that was pretty true for the first week or two, I think I'm getting it under control. Having been blogging for four years may have helped. I've alredy got a lot of stuff off my chest and I don't need to start all over again now on Facebook. I can just rant about new stuff as it comes along.

I joined in large part to help connect with long lost friends. I'm registered on Classmates.com, but as a super cheapskate, I resisted paying to join there. I've since heard that bad things can happen once the get a hold of your credit card number, so I'm glad I didn't succumb. So far, I've reconnected with a few friends from high school and earlier. I'm having a little trouble with college friends because my school isn't listed in Facebook's classmate search engine. I guess "State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry" just wouldn't fit. They could have tried SUNY ESF. That would work for us.

I was pleasantly surprised to see how many of the friends I've made strictly through blogging are on Facebook. That does, however, raise the question: Does Facebook kill blogging? Now the kind of post I might put on the Moose Hill Journal would never fit on FB. Admittedly, my posting frequency there is sporadic, but I get so few hits there anymore anyway, I wonder if everyone isn't so busy on FB that they don't bother to read blogs anymore. They certainly aren't posting comments. Most of the shorter posts I might put on this Moose Hill Notebook would fit on FB nicely, so I figure this blog is more or less pointless. Although, for what it's worth, if I have anything to say that I'd like to be around for a little while, a blog might be better than FB. I have no idea how long FB posts stick around, but I'm guessing it's not very long.

So, dear reader, check me out on Facebook. Say 'hello.' It's easy. Maybe too easy.

First Tick

2010-04-15T07:22:00.000-07:00

Remember when getting naked with your partner and checking each other out used to be fun?

My wife and I were out on one of our Moose Hill natural movement adventures this morning. We even sprayed some insect repellent before we left home. But as we were doing a bear crawl up Pettee's Hill, I looked down between my arms to see a deer tick crawling up my shin.

I found my last tick of last year buried in my bicep in mid-November. My best guess is that it started crawling up my arm when I was pulling firewood from the woodshed. I discovered it about a day and a half later and a small bullseye was already starting. Three weeks of Doxycycline followed. We like to blame deer for spreading Lyme disease, but mice are also a vector.

So, it looks like deer tick season in eastern Massachusetts is at least seven months long.

Beyond Barefoot

2010-02-02T17:46:00.001-08:00

OK, Boomers out there (Heck, the way things are going, I could ask a 16 year-old the same questions!): When's the last time you climbed a tree? When's the last time you hopped over a fence? How about a forward roll? While hiking, when's the last time you got down on your belly and crawled under a log blocking the trail rather than looking for a way around? If you found yourself on the tenth floor of a burning building with no elevator and no shoes, could you save yourself? Could you save your companion?

When's the last time a book changed your life, even a little bit? I won't try to review Christopher McDougall's Born to Run here. It's been all over the news, and by now just about anyone who has an interest in running has read it or as heard all about it. What I want to do is reflect on how some of the revelations in the book have influenced my thinking about a lot of things.

I'm a cynic. I know it, and everyone close to me is sick of it. But, as I like to say, I come by my cynicism honestly. One of the main threads through this book deals with the myth and the scam of the modern running shoe. Humans evolved for millions of years and survived by running barefoot, yet in a few short decades the running shoe industry has everyone convinced that they can't jog a step without the the latest high-tech - and high-profit - footwear. OK, I am predisposed to the argument that running shoes can wreck your body because I'm suffering with a nagging and persistent case of plantar fasciitis, but the basic argument makes sense to me: Because of their form, support and cushioning, running shoes encourage runners to land heel-first, putting tremendous unnatural strain on the body. Furthermore, by supporting feet so thoroughly, these shoes actually weaken them.

Born to Run is mostly about running barefoot, but it is helping me to braid together several threads of thought that have be twisting around in my brain for some time now. What it is boiling down to is that we American adults - in typical Boomer over-achiever fashion - are going about exercise all wrong. How many of us spend hours on a treadmill bored out of our minds, going nowhere? How many millions of miles have we pounded out on asphalt running in straight lines preparing for 10K's and marathons? How many millions of dollars have we spent because we are convinced we need gyms, trainers and fancy equipment? I say, rather than behaving like machines or drones, we need to behave more like cavemen, or - dare I say it - children.

We need to make exercise more interesting, varied, fun, simple, and maybe even a little risky. Lately, instead of a typical slog on the road for an hour, I like to go for trail runs. I'm lucky in that from home I can quickly run to Moose Hill or nearby Town conservation land. I'm not ready for barefooting yet (Plus it's February in New England.) and I don't have any of the new minimalist footwear yet (I'm still a little skeptical about that, too.), so I focus on landing more on my mid-foot and less on my heel.

As I move across soft and variable trail surfaces, I notice that my foot doesn't hurt nearly as much as it does on pavement. Moving through the woods, I watch the terrain in front of me and try to let my body flow with the landscape; moving left and right, up and down. I start to feel like a wild animal moving gracefully through the forest. (OK, I'm an overweight mid-50's guy with a bad foot and a bad shoulder, but endorphines are powerful drugs that help me hallucinate.) As I run, I scan my surroundings for playthings: A log on the ground makes a good balance beam. A granite bolder lets me become king of the hill. A low-hanging tree branch is a good pull-up bar. I look for different ways to move my body: I bend to clear sticks from the path. If a log is in my way, I don't hesitate to hop over or crawl under. I look for stones to lift and throw. If I see a soft spot on the ground, I might do a somersault. The idea is to vary the movement and use many different muscles to stretch and strengthen the whole body, not to become over-trained in just one way. With all that running, bending, rolling, climbing, throwing and crawling, one should be ready for any physical challenge that comes up in everyday life.

There is also another component to my new thinking about exercise: Useful work. Let's be honest: Most of us have to exercise because we live cushy lifestyles and work at jobs where the biggest physical danger is the risk of a paper cut or maybe carpal tunnel syndrome. For most of us, exercise is actually something of a leisure time luxury. I don't think migrant farm workers go home at night and yell: "Let's go to the gym!" How about this: Next time it snows, don't call the plow guy. Get the kids off the couch and go out and shovel for an hour. Rather than agonize over the price of heating oil for next winter, go out and chop some firewood. Rather than drive to the Piggly Wiggly for your Pringles, hop on the bicycle and pedal over there for some whole wheat flower. Rather than hire a lawn service, push a mower for an hour a week. Better yet: Get out a spade and turn that lawn into a garden. We can find lots of way to get some exercise while doing something useful.

I like to find new ways of looking at our everyday world. I like to think about simple ways to make our lives and the world a little better. Born to Run is helping me to do that.

Read Your Labels!

2010-01-29T09:15:00.000-08:00

I bought a bottle of ketchup last week at my local Big Y supermarket. Ketchup is one of those things that just always seems to be in the house. I don't think about it much, and since I don't use much of it, I don't buy it very often. I like a little with eggs or on a salmon patty or veggie burger.

Since it didn't seem like a big deal at the time, I didn't spend a lot of time in front of the ketchup shelf at the store studying all the labels. The house brand was a little cheaper and in big letters on the front label it said: "ALL NATURAL!" Hey, good enuf for me!

Back at home, my dear wife said, "You know, that stuff is loaded with corn syrup." Me: "No way! It clearly says ALL NATURAL!" Sure enough, on the back, right after water and tomatoes (Or was it before tomatoes?), it said one of the major ingredients was "High Fructose Corn Syrup."

Do we really live in a world where a company can proudly proclaim that high fructose corn syrup is "all natural"? I went on the Big Y website and sent them a comment that I thought their label was misleading if not downright dishonest.

I haven't heard back.

Moldy Bread

2010-01-28T13:13:00.000-08:00

My bread was moldy this morning, and that's a good thing. These days, about the only bread I eat is home-made in the bread machine. Nothing fancy, just basic 100 percent whole wheat bread. This time of the year, when it's cool in the house, I just keep it in a plastic bag on the kitchen counter. This morning, when I took out the last bit of a loaf I made nearly a week ago I noticed spots of mold growing on it. On the one hand, I didn't like wasting food, but other other, it was good to see that mold would eat my bread.

As Michael Pollan says, if food is so devoid of nutrients and so full of preservatives that it won't rot, it's not good for people, either. So, I'm happy to share a little bread with my fungal friends. But then again, maybe I'll just eat my next loaf a little faster.

We're on the Way Up!

2010-01-26T05:19:00.000-08:00

It's bleak at the bottom, but my annual watch of daily minimum temperatures is over. After a few depressing days at 21 degrees, the temperature chart on the Boston Globe weather page ticked up to 22 degrees yesterday. These are just average temperatures, of course, but I now have a reason to hope, at least, that tomorrow will be a little warmer than yesterday. Spring is on the way!

Stimulate This

2009-11-10T15:14:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, I just can't help myself. Saturday's front page of the Boston Globe had two stories in juxtaposition that illustrate perfectly how screwed up we are. One article talked about a proposal to spend millions of our much-ballyhooed federal stimulus money for a footbridge across a highway to connect two parking lots operated by the multi-billionaire Kraft family, owners of the New England Patriots NFL football team and the new "Patriot Place," a collection of upscale shops,restaurants and entertainment establishments. The other article told how services for the homeless were being cut because of a budget crisis in the State House.

I fired off yet another letter to the Globe, but I needn't have bothered because it seems quite a few people were struck by the same irony and several letters were published today. Luckily, I know a blog that is very good about publishing my whinings. The "Tom" I mention is Tom Brady, star quarterback of the Patriots. The photos of the stadium and shopping areas were taken this morning as I biked by while doing my laundry delivery.

Here's the letter:

$9 Million for a Parking Lot?

On the same front page (Saturday, November 7, 2009) that presented a story about $9 million in federal stimulus money for elevators and a footbridge over Route 1 to an empty parking lot at Patriot Place in Foxboro (For the Krafts' Patriot Place, a golden gateway) was a headline about further cuts in beds and services for the most vulnerable among us (Budget trims lead homeless shelters across Mass. to cut services and beds). When will we have leaders with the vision and courage to take us into a brighter, more sensible future; a future where people and the environment matter and we stop worshiping personal automobiles? Patriot Place is a vast wasteland of asphalt and concrete. It's a billion-dollar shrine visited by those with the time and money to spend on idle entertainment, overeating and excess consumption. In no sense does Patriot Place contribute to a real community with real services like homes, schools and grocery shopping. It's not even close to any of those things. Virtually every visit to the mega-complex is made in a private car driven many miles.

It's time to spend our dwindling resources on living arrangements with a future. We are broke and running out of energy. It may not be fashionable to dismiss the work of Tom and the boys as anything but noble, and it may be difficult to admit that we don't need to buy more junk made in China, but do we really want to put our children and grandchildren into debt for the betterment of NFL Football and Christmas Tree Shops? We need to devote our efforts to building real communities where people can live, walk, bike and take public transportation to jobs that matter. We need to invest our shared resources in manufacturing, education, renewable energy, local food production and affordable housing. Let's build in a better world.

Marathons Not Required

2009-09-12T14:12:00.000-07:00

The Blue Zones by Dan Buettner reports on a quest to find small pockets of extreme human longevity around the world. Dan and his team report on four places - Sardinia, Okinowa, Loma Linda and Costa Rica - where an exceptionally high proportion of the people live into their 90's and 100's.

What I find most interesting about these stories is the things these places have in common, and the things we can incorporate into our own lives to be healthier and happier.

Not surprisingly, there are no marathoners or triathletes among the longevity champions. That's not to say they spent their lives on the sofa searching for sit-com reruns with the remote while snacking on Pringles, but they didn't spend hours and hours working out either. Instead, all the old-timers lived lives that included steady, regular, moderate low-intensity exercise in their day-to-day activities. They walked or cycled to get around. They hiked to pastures to tend sheep. They worked on the farm or in the garden.

Eating habits seem equally important. Blue Zoners ate lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, usually grown or gathered personally. They drank lots of water. While they did eat meat, it was consumed rarely and usually on special occasions. Foods mentioned in the book that I hope to eat more frequently include: tumeric, fava beans, miso soup, tofu, sweet potatoes, ginger, nuts and tomatoes.

Family connections also seem essential to long-term survival. Many of these people live in multi-generational homes. In a tradition that is almost unknown in America today, children, parents and grandparents all live in the same house and support each other. The grandparents have something to do in helping with the children and the children benefit from the wisdom of the ages.

Whether it's watching the grandchildren or volunteering in the community, a reason to live seems extremely important in living a long and happy life. We all need love and companionship, and helping others is a great way to get it.

One That Got Away

2009-09-12T08:19:00.000-07:00

Around the time of the fortieth anniversary of Woodstock, an op-ed piece appeared in the Boston Globe extolling progress America has made in civil rights and social freedoms as a result of the spirit of love and peace that arose from the sixties as epitomized by Woodstock.

Not surprisingly, I'm prone to looking at the world around me and wondering: "Where did all those hippies go?". I look at the miles of strip malls, the big-box stores, the ubiquitous Chinese crap, the suburban subdivisions grinding up forest and farmland, the religious right, wall street greed. Human nature being what it is, I'm not really surprised. People want to take the easy way out and do what feels good now without considering long-term impacts or affects on others. So what if shopping at Walmart puts Americans out of work and despoils China? I can save ten dollars on that plastic Santa to put on my brown lawn this year! So what if they pour tons of fungicide on the soil and pump fossil water from hundreds of feet underground? I want to supersize my fries at the drive-through!

I wrote this letter, but it didn't make the paper. I'm not surprised. Online comments show there were many responses to the article. When I told my wife that I wrote yet another letter to the paper, her basic response was: "Get a life. Nobody cares what you think." How can I argue with that?

August 29, 2009

Rene’e Loth goes a little too easy on the Woodstock Generation (“Woodstock pays dividends,” Op-Ed, Aug. 28). If body piercings, flip-flops in the White House and corporate branding of things like Woodstock itself represent progress, then those great leaps forward must be balanced against the accomplishments of the culture that also brought us SUVs, McMansions, lawn care service, high fructose corn syrup, an obesity epidemic, reality TV, NASCAR, cage fighting, liar loans, credit default swaps and the Iraq war. For every boomer that paddles a kayak or pedals a bike to work, there are thousands who drive alone in a car. For every hipster who lives in an integrated urban neighborhood or on a commune, there are scores who lust after gated communities.

We boomers like to pat ourselves on the back, but we had our chance and blew it. We talked about peace, love and harmony, but what we really wanted was just the sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. Let’s hope a new generation rises up to foment true revolution.

Photo: "One Minute to Midnight" San Francisco, February 2010

Burning Our Future Forests

2009-09-02T18:20:00.000-07:00

A recent article in the Boston Globe about plans to build wood-fired power plants in Massachusetts made me worry that the voracious appetite these plants have for wood, and the scale of the machinery used to harvest the trees will make wise forest management that has traditionally been focused on high-quality hardwood logs impossible. Back in the 70's I observed one of these operations in New Hampshire. They gave lip service to setting aside quality logs for lumber or veneer, but we watched as one beautiful birch after the other went right into the chipper.

Proponents of these plants often make the claim that forests are renewable and that trees can be re-planted. Well, native New England mixed hardwood forests are never planted. They regenerate naturally after harvest, and to ensure that this regeneration happens properly, a trained forester should be involved to make sure harvesting operations are planned and conducted in a way that allows for good quantity and quality of regeneration. The kind of people that worry about delivering tons of chips to a power plant today are not the kind of people who dream about what a woodlot will look like 50 years from now.

My letter in response to the article appeared in the August 2, 2009 paper:

Beth Daley’s piece on proposed wood-burning power plants in Massachusetts ( “On wood, burning questions,” Boston Sunday Globe, July 26, 2009) prompts concern about the future of our forests. To feed the beast of a biomass-burning power plant, trees will likely be harvested by big, expensive machines on very tight production schedules. The pressure to constantly supply huge quantities of chips will prohibit much discrimination in selecting trees for harvest.

The most valuable trees in Bay State forests are high-quality hardwood sawlogs, typically red oak. Deciduous forests in New England are not planted, they arise from natural regeneration. High densities of quality sawlogs don’t just happen, they are nurtured by careful control of regeneration, species composition and stem quality by professionally-trained college-educated foresters known as silviculturists. This careful woodland culture requires thoughtful care over periods that span decades.

While the increased demand for timber that these power plants create may enhance opportunities for timber stand improvement, professional supervision of forest operations with equipment and techniques that harvest the right trees is essential. Biomass might help supply our future energy needs, but the harvest of that biomass must be done in a way that protects the character and value of our forests for generations to come.

Snow in August

2009-08-12T14:47:00.000-07:00

Or: Where is Gary Larson when you need him?

So, on a recent Friday morning I'm riding along Route 1 South in Foxboro, right near Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots, on my way to make a delivery with my bicycle and trailer. I'm minding my own business and am riding well out of traffic in the breakdown lane. I was lost in a reverie about dreams that do indeed come true when, from the passenger-side window of a speeding pickup truck, a skinny, shirtless tanned twenty-something hangs his head out, looks at me and yells "BLAAAAAAAH!" at the top of his lungs.

He was loud, but not very articulate, so I have no idea what his message might have been or what he was thinking. I'm pretty sure he didn't do that to every car they passed, so I'm assuming that my being there on bicycle somehow prompted his utterance. Was he trying to startle me? Did he think he was being funny? Was I annoying him? Was he feeling superior? I suppose trying to plumb the depths of a post-adolescent male mind is a pointless exercise, but I had to wonder.

One thing I'm quite sure of is that he wasn't upset because seeing a guy doing work on a bike suddenly made him realize that the power and joy he was feeling in a pickup today might be only a distant memory when he is an old man like me. He probably didn't suddenly understand that the world of his parents and grandparents would not much longer be his. He most likely didn't see that he had better get busy planning for a future world much different than the world of rock music, football and internal combustion that he now takes for granted.

A favorite old Gary Larson cartoon immediately came to mind.

Two long-necked dinosaurs are standing amid the prehistoric tropical plants. A small furry animal, looking something like a scruffy hedgehog, is passing by. One dinosaur is pointing at the proto-mammal with his dinosaur foot and laughing heartily at the silly little thing while the other dinosaur is looking at the sky with a puzzled and worried look on his face and is holding out his stubby foot to catch a snowflake.

From the Less is More Department

2009-07-01T16:44:00.000-07:00

I suffer from commute envy. No, I don't long to be stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic for hours listening to bad radio and fighting off fits of road rage. Rather, one of the things I envy in those who go to the same place of employment every day is the chance to be a bicycle commuter. The chance to get fresh air and exercise twice a day while happily pedaling by those trapped in gridlock just seems cosmically correct.

Since I don't have a real job, a regular bike commute is not really an option. Much of the work I do involves carrying all manner of tools and materials, and while I may be a dreamer, I'm not yet crazy enough to start strapping two-by-fours and table saws onto my bike.

One of my business activities, however, does involve making twice-weekly laundry deliveries to a physical therapy office. This is a small account and the bundles are not very big. It always seemed a little unfortunate to be doing all that driving for so little and I eventually began to wonder if there was some way I could do it by bike. I got the idea to try a bike trailer and in the process of asking around about trailers, one of my biking buddies offered me a kiddie trailer he no longer needs. (Thanks, Harvey!)

My goal is to make the trip by bike about once a week, weather permitting. The weather has been abysmal so far this spring and summer, but I've been able to pull the load under my own power several times so far, and it's fun. It's about 16 miles round trip and with my heavy bike, the trailer and the cargo, the ride takes a bit over an hour - about the same as an exercise class at the gym. That's quite a bit more than it would take in the car, obviously, but in the way I measure these things, it still makes sense. Much of the ride is through nice streets in the community and along roads through the woods. I could even pedal over Moose Hill, but I don't want to get carried away with this. It is work, so I want to consider efficiency a little.

I have to ride along busy U.S. 1 for a couple of miles, but the shoulder is wide along this stretch, so it's not too scary or annoying. Plus, I've discovered that pulling the trailer has its advantages. When motorists see the bright yellow trailer, they think "Baby!" and give me more leeway than usual. If only they knew it was just an old guy with dirty laundry!

It feels good to get outside on a sunny summer morning and do some work, get some exercise, burn less gas, create less pollution and take up less space in the world all at the same time. Sometimes, less truly is more.

Turtlehead Boulder, Borderland

2009-06-18T17:36:00.000-07:00

One of the traditions of bouldering is to name the rocks. It's a bit of a mystery to me who gets to name a boulder. Maybe it's the first climber to find a rock and bother to name it. Perhaps the honor should go to the first to climb it. Giving a unique name to a rock has obvious advantages, if for no other reason than to help other climbers find it.

Several of the boulders in Borderland State Park have names that have been published online on New England Bouldering and the Mountain Project. I've been able find - if not climb - a few of these rocks including the Ames Boulder, Hardly Working and the Ridge Boulder.

One rock I like may or may not have a name already, but for now I call it "Turtlehead" because it looks like the head of a giant tortoise emerging from the bowels of the Earth. It is right in the middle of the French Trail, not far from its intersection with the West Side Trail. This boulder is in an area with many other good climbing opportunities for beginning and advanced climbers.

This is not a large boulder - maybe 8 feet high - but it has a variety of climbs good for beginners. A few routes have generous handholds and footholds, and one side has a sloping slab with small finger-holds where a climber can practice trusting the grip of his shoes.

The Ridge Boulder

2009-06-15T18:15:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the good people at The Mountain Project and their detailed information about bouldering in Borderland State Park in Sharon and Easton, Massachusetts, I found another good climbing boulder close to home. As if carefully placed in the forest by the giant unseen hand of God, the Ridge Boulder sits in the forest at the end of the Ridge Trail about a tenth of a mile up an old woods road from Mountain Street in Sharon.
This big granite erratic is about 15 feet tall and offers many different routes to the top. So far, I've been able to climb four of the easier routes, but there are at least that many more that may be forever out of reach for me but might be fun for those with more favorable power/weight ratios.

On our first visit to this rock, climbing buddy Shai and I met Aubrey, a local climber with lots of experience in the area. He generously offered a couple of beginners lots of good tips and let us use one of his crash pads. Aubrey was wearing a climbing helmet. Many may think that wearing a helmet for bouldering is overkill, but it turns out that Aubrey is a neurologist. Now, when a neurologist - someone who knows a thing or two about head injuries - wears a helmet, I pay attention. Call me a dork, but I now wear one too.

Pac-Man and the Devil

2009-05-17T17:42:00.000-07:00

My newly-discovered interest in rock climbing that germinated on a walk to the Boulders on Moose Hill continues to grow. I've been reading, watching You-Tube videos, and I even purchased a pair of climbing shoes. I've learned that a subset of rock climbing known as "bouldering" seems well suited to my ability level and available resources. In bouldering, as the name implies, one finds a big boulder and climbs on it. This can be very easy or very difficult, depending on the size and shape of the rock. A boulder may have gently sloping sides with lots of places to place hands and feet, or it might have tall, sheer faces with nary a bump or crack to grab.

I'm discovering that there are many fine climbing boulders close to home. There may be some on Moose Hill, but the best local climbing spot could be Borderland State Park that is about a 15-minute bike ride from home. This park is said to have many good boulders and I've already visited a few of them.

Even closer to home is Devil's Rock. This huge much-visited glacial erratic is along Massapoag Brook on Sharon Town Conservation land and is easily reached via a blue-blazed side trail off the orange-blazed Massapoag Trail.

Devil's Rock is maybe 20 feet tall, has three very steep sides and one sloping side. I can make it up the sloping side with the help of an old, dead tree trunk that leans on it, providing secure hand-holds on the steeper lower half of the climb. The upper half has a slightly gentler slope I can scramble up quite easily - if slowly - with the help of the sticky rubber soles of my climbing shoes. I find getting down much more nerve-wracking than going up. It's much easier to see where I'm going while looking over my hands than when looking between my legs.

The vertical sides of Devil's Rock are way beyond anything I hope to climb in this lifetime and creeping up and down a smooth slab of granite loses it's interest pretty quickly. Luckily, the Devil has a smaller sister boulder that may well have split off the big rock millennia ago. I call this rock Pac-Man because a big chunk of it has also split off in a way that reminds me of the 80's-era video game character.
Pac-Man has four or five different routes to the top that I've been able to complete so far and a nice traverse - or sideways climb - along the "chin." I hope to complete a few more routes as my skill improves.

This is a good rock for a beginner. Some of the routes are very easy, and others are a bit more challenging, requiring long reaches for small hand-holds or reliance on single small toe-holds. The climber is never very far from the ground, so chances of injury are small.

As I hoped, I am finding that rock climbing is healthy full-body exercise combined with bike rides to the woods. After work just the other day, instead of a car trip to the gym, I rode my bike through the neighborhood and did some good stretching, reaching, pulling, gripping and climbing while listening to the calls of ovenbirds and veerys on a warm Spring evening.

Back to the Future Again

2009-05-16T19:11:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I bought a 12" cast iron skillet. I've been cooking more lately inspired by Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food and Mark Bittman's Food Matters. I've been trying to get back to basics, using whole foods in simple recipes. It seems appropriate to take the same approach to cookware.

I also suffer from increasing distrust of corporations and the things they tell us. I've been feeling a nagging unease while wondering what chemicals might be leaching into my food from now-ubiquitous non-stick cookware coatings. Sure, I've been frying all kinds of stuff at high temperatures on these miracle coatings for years, and it's no doubt too late to worry about it now, but what the heck.

After searching around the web, I settled on a skillet and matching lid from a major outdoor sporting goods supplier. I liked the idea that it was pre-seasoned and made in the USA.

So far, I'm very pleased with my frying pan. I use it to saute big batches of vegetables and then add heaps of beans, rice and curry powder. It's great for baking whole-wheat flatbread that quickly becomes a pizza when topped with tomato sauce and mozzarella. It bakes a wonderful corn bread and fries fresh, local eggs. It's so big, that one session in the kitchen yields enough for several meals. Many of the things I put together taste even better a day or two later.

It's about as easy to clean as any pan with a high tech coating. I simply rinse it with hot water while scouring with a copper pad. I dry it on the stove for a minute and then coat it with a little grapeseed oil to keep it seasoned. My mother would have used bacon fat, but, well, we don't have any of that around these days.

They're Back

2009-05-05T18:22:00.000-07:00

Every year, in late April, I start my sky watch. My eyes are peeled for the first "cigar with wings," or chimney swift, flying over the neighborhood. They arrive around May 1st and depart on about September 1st. I saw my first one on Saturday, May 2nd. It was alone, flying high and fast. I suspect the regulars that spend every summer zooming and swooping over the house will be here soon, as soon as a nasty weather pattern clears the area.

Check out the "Spring Sightings" map on Chimneyswifts.org.

Not So Silent Spring

2009-03-31T05:35:00.000-07:00

Spring has arrived in eastern Massachusetts. How can I tell? The early migraters are back. I heard the first rusty caroling of a robin just the other day. The crocuses are up. The snow and ice are gone. Hints of green are everywhere. But none of those things say "Spring" like the roaring drone of small internal combustion engines.

As early as 8:15 this morning the landscaping crew arrived to begin the spring clean-up on the massive lawn of our friend and neighbor's yard. I counted at least one riding mower and four backpack leaf blowers. The relentless drone went on for nearly an hour.

I was reminded that I have about eight months of this noise ahead of me and I am reminded how sick and tired I am of it. I've ranted about this before and I won't repeat myself here. I'll simply say that I dream of a day when we, as a society, see how stupid we have been regarding the pointless waste and pollution we create in our mindless quest for the perfect suburban lawn.

The Egg

2009-03-05T12:25:00.000-08:00

In case anyone asks, the egg came first. But I want to talk about chicken eggs, the kind you eat, not evolution.

There's an old farmstead in town that was the home of a revolutionary soldier that is famous for being a woman who disguised herself as a man so she could fight for our liberty. For years, decades maybe, I've been driving by this well-known landmark and seeing a sign for "fresh eggs for sale" without giving it much thought. We get our eggs at the supermarket. Well, as part of my new awareness of the wisdom of supporting local agriculture, I called last week and made arrangements to buy a dozen eggs produced about a mile from home. I even stopped on my way to another errand, so I didn't have to make a special trip.

The proprietor wasn't around when I picked up my eggs, leaving my payment in the honor system box, but I hope to chat with him soon so I can learn something about poultry husbandry. It feels good to eat food that comes from close to home, knowing the good people who grew it, and knowing the birds weren't abused or force-fed chemicals.

Simply Amazing

2009-02-25T17:39:00.001-08:00

I've been thinking about food a lot lately.

A few months ago, I read Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food. Now I'm reading Food Matters by Mark Bittman. (Not to be confused with Mark Bittner, the Telegraph Hill parrot guy.) Both are well worth the time and can be eye-opening.

I've been doing a pretty good job of sticking to a New Years resolution of eating more mindfully. I'm trying to eat mostly food I've prepared from something close to scratch so I know what's going into it. I stole my son's new bread machine (Don't worry, Dave, I'll get you another one once you have a real place to live.), and have been making some pretty good whole-grain breads. I try to bear in mind how little food one really needs to stay healthy and active; it's obviously a heck of a lot less than most of us have been eating lately. I try to avoid the industrial, corporate, packaged food-like products that passes for food these days.

I'm not on a diet. I have a new diet. I like to think this is permanent. (Hey, I can dream.) I did something like this a few years ago, so I know it's good. It takes discipline - something that is often in short supply around here - and I'm hopeful that my resolve will be stronger this time.

I think the thing that helped get me started again this time is the story of Scott Cutshall. I won't tell the whole story because he has his own blog: Large Fella on a Bike. He has a bit of an edge, and it's a bit hard to find the meat of his story his vast blog, but it's worth looking for because this guy went from 501 pounds to under 180 in just over three years by totally changing his eating habits and riding his bikes.

In this post, Scott has a YouTube video of his transformation. Check it out. It's a simply amazing example of what the human spirit can accomplish.

First Vulture

2009-02-18T12:25:00.000-08:00

I spotted my first turkey vulture of the year as it coasted over the house this afternoon. I wasn't really expecting to see one for another week or two. I'll be keeping my eyes, ears and nose open for more signs of Spring!

Monterey Baydreaming

2009-02-09T18:45:00.000-08:00

If you live long enough and have a warped sense of memory, things come around. About five years ago now, our wonderful daughter moved to the Monterey, California area to work as a VISTA volunteer in Americorps helping mentally-handicapped adults get their lives together. She is the kind of young person that gives me hope for the future. We loved to visit once or twice a year to visit her and tour the fabulous sights in the Monterey Bay area. We took a kayak out into the bay looking for seals and sea otters, we rode bikes along 17-mile Drive to Carmel, and visited the Monterey waterfront. I promptly read John Steinbeck's Cannery Row about the lives of a collection of colorful depression-era characters in the days when the sardine fishery thrived in Monterey Bay.

From the 1920's to the 1940's, the sardine was the most valuable fish in California and Cannery Row bustled as boats unloaded their catch, and factories on the waterfront processed and canned the silver bounty. Eventually, commercial fishing caused the sardine population to crash and Monterey fell on hard times. In the 1970's a new boom began as new restaurants and shops attracted tourists. Now, all that remains of the sardine industry is a museum and a few remnants of old iron pipes and tanks rusting along the bike path behind the converted factory buildings.

Do Boomers eat sardines? I never did. Something about those little fish complete with skin and bones packed in those little cans always struck me as totally unappetizing. But visiting California made me think I should try some as a way to experience a link to some interesting history. But I never did, until today.

Sometimes, forces converge. Last week, I was listening to Tom Ashbrook on NPR's On Point chat with New York Times food writer Mark Bittman on conscious eating. One remark that caught my attention was the suggestion that we would be easier on the planet if we would try to eat a little further down the food chain. Instead of eating so much meat, we should eat more of the plants we feed to animals. Instead of eating lots of predatory fish like salmon, we should eat more plant-eating fish like sardines.

Then, on Friday night, I listened with great interest to a presentation by Dr. Maya Shetreat-Klein, the founder of Mitzvah Meat, a group that is trying to bring locally-raised grass-fed kosher meat to the Northeast. Apparently, grass-fed beef has a much higher concentration of the highly-desirable Omega-3 fatty acids than does typical corn-fed beef. In our discussion about Omega-3's, the good doctor also told us that sardines are a great source of this vital fat.

I may be slow, but when I get two signals within days to get off my butt and do something I've been thinking about for years, I take notice. I went to our local supermarket and picked up a few cans of pacific sardines canned in olive oil. I selected the ones that came from Canada rather than the ones packed in Poland, figuring anyplace in Canada was closer to Monterey than Gdansk.

For lunch, I ate a whole can, sandwiching little chunks of the oily fish between saltine crackers. You know, they were pretty good! Plus, I could almost feel the Omega-3's greasing the neurons in my brain. I think I'll try to eat more sardines and less tuna. Eating lower on the food chain is better ecologically and the contaminants in fish - like mercury and PCB's - that we worry about will be less concentrated in plant-eating fish.

It's funny how a simple thing like a few little fish from a can for lunch can connect me to so many thoughts that have been rolling around in my head. Maybe that's what conscious eating is all about.

Revolutionary Acts

2009-02-02T16:24:00.000-08:00

I'm such a rebel. You know what I did today? I went to the library. I wanted to read "The Dystopians" by Ben McGrath in the January 26, 2009 edition of The New Yorker. Now, any self-respecting, middle-class, middle-age suburbanite would dive down to the local big-box bookstore and score a personal copy. But, for a number of reasons, I've been trying to use the library more. I won't bore you with all the details about my struggles with clutter, or wanting my to walk on errands rather than drive, and issues like that. No, I want to reflect on community.

One of the things that made America great was our creation and support of public institutions. Things like public schools, public parks, mass transit systems, waterworks and libraries. We are letting all that slip away. We buy our books online, we drive our own cars rather than take the train, we send our kids to private schools, we build playgrounds in every backyard, we even buy individual servings of water in plastic bottles.

The time has come to see that we can't go it alone much longer. We can't continue to pretend to support the public sphere while trying to do everything on our own. We can't pay both taxes and pay for private replacements for things the community used to provide to everyone. We need to pull together again. If we all use and value our public spaces we will value them more and take better care of them. If we spend less selfishly on ourselves, we will have more to contribute to the public good, and we will all be better for it.

Be a revolutionary. Borrow your next book from your library, take your kid to the park and drink a glass of tap water.

More Reasons To Eat Local

2009-02-01T07:03:00.000-08:00

Good grief.

I just heard a piece on the radio about how Chinese honey is finding it's way to U.S. markets via other countries so they can avoid paying an import tariff. And, as so often seems the case lately, the honey is contaminated. Naturally, this honey is so much less expensive than domestic honey, that suppliers can't resist the temptation to use it. But what are the real costs? Once again, we see how we know the price of everything but the value of nothing.

Not long ago, a friend told us how Chinese tea producers dry the tea leaves by spreading them out on the ground and backing diesel trucks up so the exhaust dries the leaves. Add this to the growing list of contaminated food and pharmaceutical products coming out of China, and it seems to me we'd be better off getting our food and drugs from closer to home. OK. We won't be growing any tea in New England until global warming really gets going, so for now, we buy organic tea.

Make that VERY close to home. Even careless or greedy domestic processors can mess us up as we see with the latest contaminated peanut butter problem.

I believe in a future where so many of the things we need will come from sources closer to home. Our economic and energy problems may force this on us, but I hope we see the day when we understand that life is better that way.

All That's On Offer

2009-01-29T17:38:00.000-08:00

Once again, my mishugas makes life harder than it needs to be.

I was in Wally World early this week, not because I crave low, low prices, but because they and their ilk have managed to eliminate just about all the competition for miles around. I don't make a special trip there, it's on my route for other errands I routinely make and I pop in about once a month to pick up a few odds and ends. In a perfect world, I'd never darken the door of this evil empire, but I'm no hero and I try to avoid tokenism and martyrdom. Besides, places like this won't be around much longer, but that's a different story.

I was looking for some rubber sink mats, the kind that go on the bottom of a porcelain kitchen sink so it doesn't get all scratched up during pot scrubbing. A simple thing, right? In America, more often than not these days, when we go to buy a simple item, we are often overwhelmed with a blizzard of choices, but on this day I faced a different problem.

I found what a first glance looked like just what I was after: a plain, inexpensive, rubber sink mat. But, wait! What's this? The mats were treated with something called "Microban." I didn't spend a bunch of time studying the miraculous benefits of this marvel of modern chemistry. I didn't want it and the entire line of rubber and plastic kitchen accessories on sale in this store were from the same supplier and they were all treated with this anti-microbial chemical. No untreated product was on offer.

I'm proud to say my local doctor is enlightened and not easily swayed by the pleas of sniffling patients for drugs. I know many docs will blithely prescribe antibiotics at the first sign of a cold, and I'd venture a guess that the vast majority of Americans wouldn't think twice about taking antibiotics for a cold. But most colds are viral and antibiotics will do no good, and unnecessary drug-taking may well come back to bite us.

Likewise, antibiotics are fed to our food animals. Chickens and cattle are regularly fed all kinds of drugs, partly because they are so crowded together on factory farms that many would sicken and die as diseases swept through the vast poultry sheds and squalid feed lots. Also, animals fed a diet laced with chemicals grow faster and fatter and are more profitable. But what could all those drugs be doing to our world?

We seem to be facing wave after wave of childhood diseases and disorders today that were almost unheard-of when we were kids. ADD, ADHD, allergies, asthma, autism: you name it, and that's just the A's. What's going on? Perfect parents who have done all the right things for their precious darlings like to blame mercury in vaccines. I like to think that if we let kids be kids and didn't program and schedule all the fun out of life so they can all get into Harvard, kids would be a lot more relaxed and better behaved. But maybe we're doing something else, too. Maybe our kids are too clean and our germs are too strong.

We've been trained by modern science and commerce to believe that all germs are bad and should be exterminated. We've also been taught - at least for the past eight years - that evolution doesn't exist. Well, not all germs are bad, they can't all be killed anyway, and the ones that don't die will evolve and develop resistance to our weapons.

We try to raise our kids in sterile worlds where everything is scrubbed, sprayed and treated. Little bottles of hand sanitizer are everywhere. I think you can even buy entire kitchen countertops treated with some kind of germ-killing poison.

How many times do we hear a story about somebody who went into the hospital for some minor routine procedure only to be infected, consumed and killed by flesh-eating bacteria. Even multi-million-dollar NFL quarterbacks can go in for a little knee-scoping and wind up with a staph infection.

So, now we have the world's largest retailer selling only kitchen accessories that are biocide-enhanced. I'm not buying it. I'll keep my kitchen clean (If you can call it that.) the old-fashioned way with a little detergent and elbow grease. I embrace the friendly microflora that dwell happily in my sink, in my mouth and on my body. I want my gut to be an ecological wonderland. I want my soil to be a veritable Garden of Eden for worms, bacteria and fungi. I want us to keep our powder dry and save our miracles of modern medicine for fighting real diseases and not to make our Big Macs cheaper.

Crap. I did it again. Can't I even go to f-ing Walmart without getting all worked up. What time does the Super Bowl start?

The Miracle of the Monarchs

2009-01-27T19:27:00.000-08:00

I just watched the PBS Nova program on the amazing story of the monarch butterflies. Every fall, these tiny, fragile creatures fly from Canada and the northern United States as much as 2000 miles to a special mountainous region in Mexico. There they spend the winter and in the spring migrate back north to Texas where they finally mate and die. Three successive generations of butterflies continue to move north in stages through the summer until the fourth generation mysteriously and instinctively knows to head to Mexico. Just how they manage to do this is not yet fully understood. Naturally, people are finding all kinds of ways to mess things up, and this spectacular natural phenomenon may soon be lost.

The show makes no mention of Monarchs on the west coast. Places like Pacific Grove, California celebrate their Monarchs, but I don't know if they follow a similar migration pattern, or not.

It's shows like this that help me believe there is some value to television.

"The Incredible Journey of the Butterflies"
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/butterflies/

Climbing Out

2009-01-26T11:15:00.000-08:00

Perusing the weather page in the Globe at lunch today, I was thrilled to see that, as of Saturday, we started climbing out of the depths of winter. Many celebrate the winter solstice as the moment that the days start getting longer. That's a wonderful thing, but it's when the temperature graph turns upward that I start getting truly hopeful for Spring.

The average daily minimum temperature bottomed-out for a few days at 21 degrees (F). On Saturday, January 24 the average minimum ticked up to 22 degrees. There is over a month's lag time between the time the days start getting longer and the time temperatures start to rise.

Obviously, there will be days when it is colder than the average minimum, but hope and anticipation are on the rise, and nothing can stop that.

The Fattening of America

2009-01-08T06:08:00.000-08:00

One of the main reasons I cling to the Boston Globe, is the op-ed section. I usually turn there first for interesting views and analyses of our world.

Today, there was a piece praising the work of a commission that came up with a long list of things our new president could do to combat our obesity epidemic. OK, the institute is based at a law school, so I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that the list of recommendations includes all kinds of programs, incentives, requirements, funding, regulations and taxes. It sounds more like a full-employment plan for lawyers than a health plan for America.

Here's a letter I sent to the Globe in response. Thanks to Michael Pollan and In Defense of Food for sharpening my thinking on this subject.

Dear Boston Globe:

Richard Daynard and Mark Gottlieb ("How to fight America's obesity epidemic," January 8.) summarize 47 recommendations from The Public Health Advocacy Institute on how to combat the shocking fattening of America. Not surprisingly, the recommendations are obese with more government programs and taxation.

One step, not mentioned by the authors, is to stop all Federal incentives and subsidies to large, corporate agribusinesses that pump us full of cheap fat, salt and sugar. Like so many things in American life today, if we had to pay the real costs of food like that, and healthy alternatives could compete on a level playing field, we would be free to make better choices.

The pervasive influence of corporate lobbying has rendered even the best intentions of government unreliable at best, downright destructive at worst. Let us keep our money and our freedom, and we'll do the right thing.

UPDATE: This letter was published in the January 18, 2009 Sunday Boston Globe on the back page of the "Ideas" (my favorite) section.

The Amazing Shrinking Newspaper

2009-01-06T15:19:00.000-08:00

When I walked down my driveway to get the Boston Globe this morning, I was taken aback. When I bent over and picked up the newspaper in its usual plastic bag, I was surprised at how physically small, thin and light the package was. Back inside, I checked to see that the main news section had only 10 pages. The metro/local/business section had only 16. The sports section, which - after a quick check for cycling news - is promptly sent to recycling, had eight pages, and that in a town with very active pro and college sports scenes. For the very first time, I think, the classified section was totally absent. I don't recall seeing ANY store flyers.

OK, I know the holiday shopping season is over, so one would expect advertising to be down. I also know online services like Craiglist have made classified ads more or less pointless. But, wow. Undoubtedly the local car dealers have have been a major source of ad revenue, but under the current economic conditions, the car business is in the toilet. I've long thought that one big retailer, Macy's, was single-handedly keeping the paper afloat with its multi-page ads. I'd never voluntarily set foot in the place, but I was grateful to it for propping up my paper.

But, I'm really starting to worry. Can't an area like Greater Boston support at least ONE decent newspaper anymore? I wonder if our current recession may be the last nail in the Globe coffin. I know things are tough all around in the news business, but I am worried and saddened about the prospect of living in a world without one serious newspaper.

The Globe has been shrinking for some time now, and I've been giving serious thought to dropping it in favor of the New York Times, but I really would miss some kind of local coverage. We have a little weekly paper in town, but it is next to worthless as a source of any real local coverage. The Globe rarely has anything to say about our town, but it's nice to read about the region in general.

Why do I worry? Well, let's face it. TV news is a joke. Even the local stations that pride themselves on hyper-local coverage are spending more and more time on any sensationalized national crap that has good video. Even the local coverage is driven by video. Crime scenes, car crashes, perps in cuffs, celebrities and political horse races. In a half-hour news show, a big percentage of the time is devoted to sports, weather, entertainment and consumer news. No longer is there a time and place for in-depth investigation, coverage and analysis of important issues.

I suppose if one is educated and has nothing else to do, one can spend all day searching the web for news and commentary, but I think most of us would benefit from one or two trusted news sources. There is still something to be said for journalism. We need paid, talented, skilled, honest professionals who can sort out the events in the world and make sense of it all for the rest of us. We need hungry reporters who can doggedly dig for a story. We need finely-crafted opinion pieces rather than sound bites. We need honest brokers who can differentiate truth from hype and spin.

Even the Romans gave the people bread and circuses. All we get is entertainment and advertising posing as news. As the title of Neil Postman's book says, we're amusing ourselves to death. We have a collapsing economy, incompetence and corruption at all levels of government and a world going up in flames and all we get are stories about John Travolta's son. Shouldn't somebody be keeping an eye on the serious things for us?

Ice Dam Nation

2008-12-22T18:42:00.000-08:00

It happens every ten years or so. We had at least a foot of snow this past weekend, and now it is bitterly cold. It barely made it out of the teens (degrees F) today and we may see single digits tonight. These are perfect conditions for ice dams.

An ice dam is a phenomenon that occurs on the roof of a house after a deep snow in cold temperatures. Heat escaping from the house melts snow on the roof surface. This water then flows downhill under the insulating blanket of snow until it hits cold surfaces at the eaves or gutters (eaves troughs, for my Canadian friends) where it refreezes. This freezing water builds up until a dam of ice forms. When the dam gets high enough, a puddle of water forms behind it. When this puddle gets deep enough, the water may back up under the roof shingles and leak into the house. The problem is often worse on flatter roofs because the water doesn't have to be very deep before it gets under the shingles. This water may show up inside windows or dripping from ceilings near exterior walls. Sometimes it runs down inside walls and shows up downstairs. In some cases the damage can be extensive and expensive with damaged drywall, paint, plaster and woodwork.

Ice dams are a symptom and not a disease. The disease is heat loss. Warmth from the house escapes into the attic or the space above a cathedral ceiling because of poor insulation and/or air leaks. The effect can be exacerbated by inadequate ventilation of the attic or cathedral ceiling system. A house that is well insulated and ventilated will not have ice dams. A roof should be cold.

It is easy to spot the houses that are likely to have ice dam problems. As I drive and walk around town I always notice the homes with the prettiest and most dramatic icicles. Those are the houses that are wasting energy and probably having leaks inside. As a comparison, one can look at an unheated shed or garage and see no ice at all.

You have plenty of insulation, you say, but still get ice dams? In that case, there may be other sources of heat in the attic. These might be uninsulated recessed lights or leaky HVAC ducts. The worst situation is where the actual hot air furnace is located in the attic. All of these things represent poor design and unfortunate energy waste.

What to do when confronted with ice dams? Well, when water is actively leaking into the house, there's only one thing that can be done, and that is to get the snow off the roof. If the water source is eliminated, the leaks will stop. The best way, if the house is not too high, is to use a roof rake. A roof rake is a wide blade on a long pole that is used to pull snow off the roof while standing safely on the ground. If the roof is not too steep, it might be possible to get up there with a snow shovel. I've also had some luck with chipping channels through the dams with a hatchet to allow the water to escape, but this must be done carefully to avoid damaging the roof and gutters. Needless to say, climbing around on icy ladders and roofs is dangerous business, so Kids, don't try this at home.

Longer term, there are other ways to treat the symptom without curing the disease. These include heat cables to melt channels through the dams (That's a favorite American solution because its' just throwing more wasted energy at the problem.), rubberized membranes under the roof shingles, and strips of sheet metal along the edge of the roof.

But really, especially in this age of climate change, dwindling energy supplies and global conflict over fossil fuels, we just need to make our houses better. Install as much insulation as practical, seal air leaks, and eliminate heat sources in the attic. You'll save energy, be more comfortable and avoid unnecessary damage to your home.

First Juncos, Bad Cats, Dead Squirrels

2008-11-12T16:41:00.000-08:00

I noticed the first few juncos in the yard today. (I can't remember, what are we calling them these days, dark-eyed or slate-colored?) When I see these handsome little birds, I know winter will soon be upon us, but they always help to lift the mood a bit.

In other news from the yard, I've been enjoying the antics of a few young red squirrels in the back yard. They've been scampering up and down the big Norway maples and eating maple seeds from the driveway. I have mixed feelings about these rodents. Just as I feel I'm turning the tide in my war with the many generations gray squirrels that have been chewing holes in my house, I'm pretty sure these reds are getting into the eaves as well. I haven't issued any war declarations yet because they're pretty discreet in their comings and goings and they're awfully cute. I also like they spunky way they chase the gray squirrels who must be twice their mass.

Just the other day, I was sitting at the kitchen table, looking out at the falling leaves and the gamboling squirrels when an orange cat who frequents the yard streaked a good 30 or 40 feet from under the deck across the yard to the base of the maple by the garage to nail one of my little reds. By the time I jumped up and ran outside the cat was already trotting away with the squirrel hanging limply from its jaws.

The very next day, as I walked by the back door, I heard some thumping out by the deck. I looked out to see the same cat struggling to subdue yet another red squirrel. I ran out, but was too late again.

I assume these were young squirrels that didn't get a second chance at their survival lessons, but this cat certainly does seem an efficient predator. I must confess to having some mixed feelings. As they say, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Although these little guys are fun to watch, I don't relish the prospect of spending more hours repairing the exterior trim on the house. On the other hand, red squirrels are not that common here and for every red, there must be 20 grays. I appreciate a little diversity in the yard.

I know that predation by house cats is a real problem that takes a heavy toll on native wildlife populations. If I saw this one cat kill two animals in two days, I shudder to imagine how many he and all the other cats I see around here kill in the course of a year. There are those who say cats will be cats and hunting is instinctive. But these cats are not native to this area, and they have the advantage of warm homes, regular meals and veterinary care, so they are healthy, strong and more numerous than they would be in a natural system. Their killing seems recreational rather than for food.

I saw the cat again today and noticed it had a collar. It turns out Hobbes is a friendly (to humans) cat and it was a simple matter to approach him and read his name tag. I discovered he lives with neighbors I know quite well, and, in fact, the man of the house is quite an environmentalist, so I figured he would receive my phone call in the spirit in which it was intended. I called tonight, told my story, and suggested that a larger bell might help to warn potential victims. I'm happy to report "Calvin" seemed quite understanding and I feel sure he'll get a new bell. I could tell he wouldn't have been as receptive to a suggestion to confine his pet to the house and I didn't push that point.

Bill Nye, Science Guy

2008-11-06T17:07:00.000-08:00

Back in mid-October we were at our son's parents' weekend at the Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate New York. We've attended the so-called Brick City Festival for each of the five years he's been there. No, we're not helicopter parents, we just like Central New York in October, the crisp days stimulating fond memories of college days in Syracuse so many years ago.

Among the many fun activities at the festival is an annual keynote speaker. Over the years we've heard from people like Robert Redford and Erin Brockovich. This year the speaker was Bill Nye, the Science Guy. I'd certainly heard of Bill and his famous TV show, but I don't think I ever actually watched it. His talk was entertaining and thought-provoking. He touched on many of the sort of things that have been on my mind lately, particularly alternative energy sources and wise use of resources. Knowing he was at a tech school, he exhorted (in a funny way) the hundreds of students in the audience to come up with solutions to many of the problems he discussed, telling them if they did, they would "GET RICH!". I'd like to touch on a few of the topics he discussed.

He talked at length about transportation and how we need to find ways to free ourselves of fossil-fuel powered vehicles. It will take some time to wean us off oil, but it is foolish not to use the technology we have NOW to slow the depletion of our oil reserves. Eventually, however, he sees us moving increasingly to electric vehicles and had an interesting idea. One of the problems of renewable energy is storage. How do we run things when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining? He imagines a day when we will all have plug-in electric cars with big batteries. When we're not driving, we'll plug the cars in and SHARE the power. When renewable energy is flowing, all the batteries will charge. When power is low, cars with full batteries will loan some electricity to those who need it. We'll all be part of a decentralized, mobile power company. You can imagine how we'd need plenty of techies to engineer a system like that.

He spent a bit of time on vehicle efficiency, talking about, say, the relative efficiency of his Prius and his neighbors Suburban. He also talked about the HKEV, the "highest-known-efficiency vehicle" - the bicycle. "One bowl of oatmeal - thirty miles!" For what we spend on a typical road engineered to bear 18-wheelers, we could build covered bikeways with big wind scoops so the cyclists would always have a tailwind.

Nanotechnology was another area he encouraged his young hosts to explore. He described how buckytubes of carbon might one day be used as super-low-resistance conductors that might vastly improve the efficiency of photovoltaic cells and all manner of electronic devices.

Regarding nuclear power, he was less optimistic. He pointed out that it is the most expensive source of electricity and that the waste problem remains unresolved. He acknowledged that France gets most of its power from nuclear plants, but got a chuckle from the crowd when he said they haven't solved the waste problem either. They just store it in caves in the mountains. Over near Germany.

I like it when people think about turning big problems into big opportunities. He described how huge quantities of fossil fuel are used to produce the nitrogen fertilizers we need to grow our food. Then he talked about the tremendous pollution that comes from huge pig farms in the South and how one farm can produce as much waste as a small city. Rather than view hog farm runoff as waste to be treated, why not collect it as a valuable resource to feed our crops? He didn't come right out and say it, but I think he meant us to understand that the same could be said of human waste. Why dump all that treated sewage into our waterways when it could be recycled onto farmland?

Now I'm not one who believes technology will solve all our problems, especially when that belief is used as an excuse to perpetuate old bad habits while we wait for high-tech salvation. But I do have some faith that visionary and courageous political leadership that supports scientific innovation can help us build a better world and a brighter future. I'm glad there are guys like Bill Nye out there spreading the word.

Back to the Future

2008-10-21T06:55:00.000-07:00

We were returning from a run to the summit of Moose Hill this morning when I spotted something not seen in this neighborhood for quite some time: chickens! There were about six of them in a small coop and pen in a driveway a couple of streets down from our house.

Now, we live in a suburban community where just about everyone commutes to somewhere else for work and the yards are landscaped and manicured - mostly by professional yard maintenance companies with lots of power equipment - and virtually all of our food comes from supermarkets. So, when a flock of chickens appears, it's something worth noting. Once upon a time, it might have been commonplace to have a few hens in the back yard. In fact, I have an old chicken coop behind my garage. It was here when we moved in 20-plus years ago along with a few old fence posts and scraps of rusty old chicken wire. It looked like it hadn't been used for poultry for many years before we arrived, and it now serves as my woodshed.

The new chickens in the neighborhood raise some interesting questions. How will the neighbors react when the wind is blowing just so on a hot summer day? Will these birds be used to produce just eggs, or meat too? Will the chicken scratch be strictly store-bought and, if so, what are the economic and ecological implications of that compared to growing feed on-site? Will we soon have a rooster crowing at dawn?

This could be a sign of things to come. If our economic system does indeed collapse around us, many more of us may be looking for new ways to get our food. Even if we avoid another depression, maybe distrust of food from places like China and the increasing cost of transporting agricultural products across the continent will promote more home-grown farming.

I like to think and hope that there are silver linings in the financial storm clouds swirling around us. If we start getting real about our connection to the land and stop pouring so much energy into growing bluegrass and pansies, that will be a good thing. Maybe the chickens are finally coming home to roost.

Thinking Alternative Energy

2008-09-17T16:55:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about solar energy lately. I'm giving serious consideration to putting a small photovoltaic panel on the roof of the house. I don't have any plans to power the whole household or sell power to the electric company. I just want to get a little experience with what I believe will be an increasingly important part of our lives as we move into the 21st century.

I started off thinking about collecting enough solar energy to do something simple like charging cell phones during a power outage. Then, I started thinking about what else could be powered in an emergency situation, and I started thinking about the house phones and heating system. (All the news about blackouts in Houston after the hurricane make such daydreams seem more practical.)

Our phone service now comes through the cable service and this requires a cable modem. It has a battery backup, but I'm not sure how long that would last. We mostly use portable phones, but these won't work without power. We still have one hard-wired phone that we almost never use but it comes in handy when the power goes out. Our heating system is gas-fired steam, but it has electric controls, so if we lose electricity, we freeze.

Okay, but I don't want to invest several hundred bucks just to sit around waiting for the power to go out, so I started wondering what I could power with my solar system on a regular basis. Since my steam boiler and cable modem are in the basement, I'd have to deliver my solar-derived electricity down there from the roof. My little home office is down there, too, so I started wondering how much power I would need to power my desktop computer. I figured if I could power that, I could satisfy my other emergency needs if we have a blackout.

Now, I needed a way to estimate how much power that might be. Thanks to high school hiking buddy Chris, I ordered a P3 International Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor. This is a cool little device that costs less than 20 bucks that measures electricity use. It arrived today and I've just started checking various devices around the house to see how many watts they use.

Here are some examples:

Charging Cell Phone: 4 watts.
TV/Cable Box/VCR: When on, 100 watts. When off (!) 26 watts.
Old Clock Radio: 1 watt low volume, 2 watts loud. (Surprisingly low.)
Desktop Computer and Monitor (Old CRT type.): 130 watts. (I thought it would be higher.)

Thanks to the miracle of YouTube, I found a bunch of videos of homebrew solar systems. So far, it looks like I'll need a panel on the roof, a solar charge controller, a deep-cycle marine battery and a DC-to-AC power inverter. Now, I need to fine-tune the power ratings for the various components and start learning about prices and availability of these parts. Stay tuned.

I'd love to hear from readers who have dabbled in solar power!

From the Ironic Foot-In-Mouth Department

2008-09-07T16:29:00.000-07:00

I was on a bicycle ride with one of the large regional bike clubs today. This is an annual event (The Flattest Century in the East) that attracts hundreds of riders to routes ranging from 25 to 100 miles through beautiful countryside in southeastern Massachusetts and eastern Rhode Island.

A small group of us from our local club rode together (We did a 68-mile route.) including three tandems (Bicycles built for two.). Someone asked if my wife and I ever rode a tandem (My wife is an excellent cyclist.), and I said: "No, she can't even let me drive the car without constant comment , I can only imagine how she'd be on the back of a tandem. Maybe it would work if I rode in back because I'm better at biting my tongue." (Hey, I'm a pretty good driver, but then, I guess I'd be the last to know.)

We then had a discussion about how it's almost always the male partner that's the pilot (Rides up front and does the steering, braking and shifting.) while the female half of the team is the stoker (Rides in back and mostly just pedals, but can also ride hands-free to help with maps, cell phones, etc.). Just then, we passed a tandem that did, indeed, have a woman as pilot, and as we went by, I yelled out "Hey, there's a woman on the front!"

Later in the day after we finished riding and were enjoying a little tailgate party, my riding buddy that pilots the bike he and his wife share looked out over the parking lot where other riders were streaming in. He said, "You know that guy that was on the back of that tandem? He's blind."

Mower Update

2008-09-01T11:29:00.001-07:00

My good friend and most loyal blog reader Wayne saw my post about the crummy push mower I gave up on and gave me one of his to try. (Thanks, Wayne!) This is an American (brand name) mower and it seems to work much better than the imported toy I threw away. This one is heavier, wider and has larger diameter wheels. The reel and cutting bar seem much more solid.

I used it for the first time today and, while not as clean-cutting as my power rotary mower, it does a pretty good job. This time of year, when it's warm and dry, the lawn doesn't grow much and tends to get spotty as different weeds respond differently to the weather and the lawn grasses slow in growth. So, even the most effective mower won't make the lawn look great. I'm finding these manual mowers have a tendency to push some grass blades over without cutting them, leaving an unsightly stubble that make the effort feel a little futile. Also, since I'm low on the learning curve, I don't know how sharp or dull this used mower is. A quick search on the web yielded a couple of sites that provide instructions on how to sharpen a manual reel mower. It seems fairly easy to do, so I'll give it a shot, probably before next mowing season.

This exploration of alternative lawn care may be suffering from artificially elevated expectations. Decades of high-input industrial lawn care has altered our view about what a lawn should look like. Thanks to advertising and social pressure, we all have come desire lawns that look like the Fenway Park outfield. Maybe even the best I can hope for with a push mower, no watering and minimal chemical inputs will look a little ragged. Maybe I should just fence in the yard and get a goat.

Godspeed My Little Friends

2008-08-31T15:56:00.000-07:00

The chimney swifts are gone. Every year, they arrive from the south on about May 1st and they leave about September 1st. They spend the summer patrolling the sky over our house, mostly to the west, swooping and zooming, usually in formations of two or three. I love to sit on the deck and watch their joyful flight.

This year, I remembered to start watching the sky in late August, trying to mark their final day. On August 28th I saw a lone swift fly over and I haven't seen one since.

I wish them a safe journey and look forward to their return next spring. I'll watch their northbound progress on ChimneySwifts.org.

It's with a little sadness that I see them go. It's just one more reminder that the summer is slipping away.

Trying To Do The Right Thing

2008-08-25T05:24:00.000-07:00

Does this happen to anyone but me? I come up with great ideas and noble intentions all the time, but being an inveterate procrastinator, my great plans often fall by the wayside, unrealized. In spite of myself, every once in a while, I actually get my act together long enough to follow through on one of my brainstorms, only to have my effort thwarted by some unforeseen roadblock. At times, it feels like the story of my life.

We have a pretty small in-town suburban lot and only a fraction of that is in lawn. I often ponder the wasteful folly of big suburban lawns with the inputs of energy, water and chemicals they demand. Wanting my actions to be more consistent with my beliefs, if I have to have a lawn at all, I thought it would be appropriate and sensible to get a manual push mower.

I used a $100 gift certificate to a garden supply catalog store from my generous sister to buy a Ginge Comfort 38 mower. To be blunt, it's a piece of crap. It simply would not neatly cut the grass. Even after three or four passes, the lawn looked ragged and unkempt. Now, I'm pretty handy and not afraid of a little physical effort, but no amount of tinkering with blade settings or vigorous pushing would cut the grass neatly and efficiently.

The mower sat unused in my shed for a couple of years, a constant reminder of yet another personal failure. Last week, I took it out for one last try, only to find two different plastic parts on the mower broken. I unceremoniously tossed it on my pile of scrap metal. At least it felt good to bring closure to another failed enterprise.

I'd love to hear from a reader that can recommend a quality, satisfying push mower.

On the bright side, one of my little plans is literally bearing fruit. I had an interest in gardening years ago, but the yield never seemed worth the investment. This year, I dipped my toe back in. I filled four 5-gallon buckets with compost, planted Sweet 100 tomato seedlings and put the buckets on the deck. Now, in mid-August, we have a nice cupful of ripe, sweet, cherry tomatoes for every salad.

Every once in a while, even a blind hog finds an acorn.

Greetings from the Green Mountain State

2008-08-10T17:05:00.000-07:00

This week I find myself in Burlington, Vermont. My wife is at a conference, so I sit alone in a motel room with a slow internet connection drinking cheap zin from a plastic cup.

This trip is bittersweet. The last time I was here was about 32 years ago. It was my first summer of research for my masters in forest soil science. I spent several weeks here digging soil pits and measuring trees along the Winooski River. I think back on those days and just shake my head. So much energy, work and enthusiasm; so little guidance and support. I know what it is to carry disappointment around.

While I on the subject of disappointment, when I first learned that we would be spending a few days at the University of Vermont, among the fist things that popped into my head were memories of the wonderful dairy bar at UVM. During that summer in 1976, I found every excuse possible to visit campus so I could get ice cream at the shop that, as I recall, was a mini-enterprise run by dairy science students. They milked the cows, made the ice cream and other wonderful dairy products, and ran the store. (At least in my idealized memory students did all those things, learning valuable skills along the way.) When I searched the web for direction to the shop, I learned instead that the shop was closed in 1995 when the building that housed it was torn down. It seems, the dairy bar was never reopened in a new location.

In my cynical, conspiracy-theory-prone brain, I saw local heroes Ben and Jerry giving a big donation to support the establishment of one of their shops in the new student center on the condition that the dairy bar not be reopened. More likely, no one on the staff wanted the hassle of running the store when it was easier to let a mega-corporation do it in return for some profits that could be exported to headquarters. Students don't want to learn that stuff any more anyway.

A little mild melancholy aside, we're having a great time. Burlington has a reputation of being a green, livable, walkable, bikeable city, and that seems true enough. The downtown is a fun mix of local color and national chain stores. Walkers and bikes are everywhere and a significant shopping street is for pedestrians only. From many places one can enjoy views of sea-like Lake Champlain, the Green Mountains to the east and the Adirondacks to the west.

But then, this is August. Biking probably isn't quite so much fun in January. I've also been reminded of another little problem that plagued me three decades ago: mosquitoes. With the lake, the river and it's wetlands and all kinds of ponds, puddles, swamps and bogs everywhere, this place has more mosquitoes than any place I've been - with the possible exception of Wisconsin. (I've never been to the arctic.) I recall how, when I was studying my floodplain soil pits so many years ago, one of the primary tasks of my assistant was to constantly swat my back with fern fronds to keep the bugs at bay.

So far, we've taken two wonderful bike rides. The first went in a big loop up north along Lake Champlain and a few of the big bays. We even crossed the river within sight of one of my old research areas. There are some great bike paths and a local cycling club (Local Motion) even runs a bicycle ferry service to shuttle cyclists across a cut in an old railroad causeway that now serves as a bike path. It looks like the old causeway was built on waste from marble quarries and a couple of artists have used the white rock as a stony medium; one painting a landscape and the other carving a huge jumping salmon.

Our other ride took us south to Shelburne Farms. This is a 1400-acre farm, historic site and environmental education center. For a few bucks, tourists can walk the grounds and imagine what the landscape used to look like. It's certainly beautiful, but obviously few working farms from the 19th century had the benefit of Frederick Law Olmsted doing the landscaping and Robert H. Robertson doing the building. This farm is more a museum than a working agricultural enterprise. I imagine more of its income comes from the exclusive inn on the property, tourist dollars and donations than comes from the delicious cheddar cheese they produce on site.

It's a good thing there are museums like this because the fabled Vermont landscape is fast disappearing under the blades of bulldozers. As we pedaled south of Burlington, we saw parcel after parcel of recently-farmed land being turned into subdivisions, condos and apartment complexes. I can't help but smirk and sneer as I see how often these developments are named after the things they have destroyed, with names like "Lakeview Farms." Of course now, the only farmer is the Orkin Man, and soon enough the only view will be of the three garage doors of the new mini-mansion across the street.

I can't help but think that the day will come when we wish that we could have those farms back and that a few more kids had worked at the dairy bar.

Even Starbux

2008-07-29T06:58:00.000-07:00

No, it was not a nightmare. I was walking along Route 17 in Paramus, New Jersey. This is what a world looks like when people can imagine no life not totally ruled by the automobile. There are no sidewalks. This is not a limited access highway, but Jersey barriers separate northbound from southbound lanes and a pedestrian would literally risk life and limb to cross the road. To get to the other side, there is no choice but to get in the car and drive who-knows-how-far to the next overpass to reverse direction and then drive back.

On a short morning stroll to see what was around, what should I find but a Starbucks. A couple of doors down from the "Romantic Depot" porn shop and next to the plumbing supply warehouse was a recent incarnation of the once-thought-to-be-hip Seattle coffee cafe. Other than the sign outside and a hint of slightly nicer than average fixtures inside, there was nothing to differentiate this coffee outlet from a Dunkin Donuts or a McDonalds.

We have a Starbucks back home in Sharon, Massachusetts. It has become the focal point of our little town center. Friends rendezvous there and bicyclists begin and end rides there. Would-be high school hipsters hang out there. Business people meet there. Naturally, I would prefer some kind of funky locally-owned cafe, but for our struggling town center, a Starbucks is pretty cool.

Now, after about seven years, we get the news that the bean counters at headquarters are closing our Starbucks. There are two newer outlets nearby down on Route 1 (Our version of Route 17) that apparently get more business because automobile access is much better that will remain open.

Maybe I'm prone to romantic notions (In addition to those catered to by the likes of places like the Romantic Depot.), but I liked to think of Starbucks as the kind of place that would help build a community, a place for people who cared about their hometowns, a place for people to discuss the important issues of the day and form warm personal relationships. In my heart, I knew better. Starbucks is just another mega-corporation selling an illusion and focusing on the bottom line. If that means drive-up windows in Paramus, so be it.

Damned if you do...

2008-07-28T04:54:00.000-07:00

A front-page article in today's Wall Street Journal tells us that Americans are driving less for the first time in about forever. That's the good news. Because the federal gas tax is a fixed price per gallon (18.4 cents a gallon) and not a percentage, as we drive less, money flowing into the Highway Trust Fund decreases. This means we have less money to repair our existing roads and bridges, to build new ones and to invest in public transit.

Naturally, as with everything in America, the Highway Trust Fund is running at a huge deficit. Any money spent from the fund on sensible public transportation would further decrease resources available for more public transportation, so this system has a built-in disincentive to conserve.

No politician without self-destruction fantasies would propose or endorse an increase in the gas tax. Indeed, John McCain got behind the push for a gas tax holiday. At least Barack Obama had enough sense and courage to point out the folly of that idea.

Watch as out wizards in Washington look for new sources of funding for our highways. They will raise taxes on other things so even more of our dwindling wealth goes into propping up the Happy Motoring lifestyle.

Not long after 9/11 when all those cute magnetic decals were appearing on cars I saw a wonderful political cartoon in the paper. An SUV owner was pumping gas. A magnetic ribbon on the vehicle said "Support Our Troops." Another on the gas pump said "Fund Our Enemies."

The gas tax should reflect the true cost of driving and be structured in a way that encourages conservation and transportation innovation. We have to stop sending more and more of our wealth to those who hate us. We must not further drain the life blood from America to prop up a lifestyle that has no future.

Pathetic Irony

2008-07-05T19:41:00.000-07:00

I was watching the opening stage of the Tour de France bicycle race on the cable sports network "Versus" today. One of the ads was for "Auto Zone" car parts stores. It shows a young teenager riding down a dusty road on his bicycle. He comes upon an old junk car by the side of the road that has a cardboard sign stating "If you can fix her, she's yours." He spends the rest of the summer riding his bike back and forth to the Auto Zone store to gets parts for this shitbox. Finally, at the end of the ad he has the junker running and he states, "At least now when I have to go to Auto Zone, it won't be on my bicycle!"

This commercial makes me so sad for two reasons. First, who the heck at this channel matches up commercials with the programming? I mean, come on, people are tuning in specifically to watch the greatest bicycle race in the world (You can be pretty darn sure not many of us will stick around to watch "Tap Out" cage fighting and PBR bull riding!) and they play an ad with the punch line: "At least I won't be on a bike." I wonder if anyone at Versus or Auto Zone saw the ironic disconnect in that.

Obviously, the second reason this makes me sad is the way they perpetuate the typical American attitude that only kids and losers get stuck riding bicycles. It's better to cruise around in a broken-down, worn-out, junky gas hog than it is to ride a bike. Hello! Gas is at four bucks a gallon and heading up. People are dying in Iraq. We're getting ready to drill in National Wildlife Refuges. We're all getting fat, sick and lazy. Can you idiots on Madison Avenue wake up, please?

This Could Get Nasty

2008-07-04T05:03:00.000-07:00

I was riding my bicycle on a bunch of work-related errands yesterday. I was in a small shopping plaza, riding down the strip of stores along the edge of the fire lane out front. A guy in a dirty Mercedes SUV zoomed up and drove right behind me getting closer and closer. He was approaching so rapidly and closely that I felt compelled to put out my left hand to signal my intention to pull to the sidewalk in from of the stores. As he passed within just a few feet of me he yelled something at me about "Why didn't you tell me what you were doing?" I yelled back "That's what the hand signal was for!" Now this was a quiet little parking lot on a bright sunny morning. There was plenty of room for him to drive around me or simply slow down. As he pulled over to park (illegally in the fire lane) I heard him squabbling with a woman in the car and saying something about "I'll wrap that damn bicycle around his neck." This guy was clearly just fundamentally annoyed that a bicycle should in any way disrupt his happy motoring.

This is the sort of thing that would have upset me when I was younger, but now I just find it amazing. Every now and then I encounter behavior that is irrational and bewildering. It would be amusing if it wasn't so troubling. This episode got me to thinking. I fear that, as times get harder, we will see more and more selfish and anti-social behavior as people squabble over the scraps.

Just yesterday, I heard a story about people stealing manhole covers (Below-the-street utility worker access hole covers, if you prefer.) for their value as scrap metal. Can you imagine, opening a hole in the road that could lead to serious damage and even death for a couple of bucks? Stories about thieves stripping copper pipes from basements and copper roofs from churches are common. In some places, motorists are puncturing the gas tanks of their neighbor's cars to let the fuel drain into cans.

As more people start feeling angry, confused, cheated, fearful or neglected as they witness their American dreams crumbling around them, I worry that we will see more and more bad behavior.

Let's stick together people! We're all in this together.

Two Ways To End the War

2008-06-25T04:09:00.000-07:00

Here's another letter I sent to the Globe. It was prompted by columns by two of their regular columnists:

In his response to Alex’s mom in MoveOn.org (“Answering Alex’s Mom”, June 25), Jeff Jacoby’s “John McCain” answered as only a politician running for national office could. He said how the war is actually going quite well and he didn’t mean that Americans would by actually fighting and dying there for a hundred years, but only babysitting the fledgling democracy.

What he couldn’t tell Alex’s mom is the truth. The truth is that if we were drafting the kids of white, affluent, upwardly-mobile, educated parents like Alex’s mom, this war would be over in about a week. Most of us go through the day without giving the war a thought. Why? Because the burden is inequitably borne by the children of those with little voice and few options. The rest of us get to worry about getting our kids into the very best schools and whether or not high fuel prices will affect our summer vacation plans.

Speaking of fuel prices, Derrick Jackson (“Big Oil and the War in Iraq,” June 24) tells us that, thanks to the sacrifice of those brave American kids, Iraq is finally safe enough for big oil companies to line up to get their hands on Iraqi oil. We whine about four dollar gasoline, but if the price at the pump included that portion of our military budget that is aimed at securing current and future oil supplies for all those crude oil cronies, the uproar to end this war would be deafening.

Malthus Was Only Postponed

2008-06-18T06:14:00.000-07:00

Here's a letter I sent to the Boston Globe in response to an opinion piece stating that a global decline in birth rates will lead to woe for future generations. I think we're in for a world of trouble, but too few people is not at the top of my list of concerns. It was published in the June 21, 2008 Boston Globe.

Jeff Jacoby refers to a Malthusian fallacy (The coming population bust, Boston Globe, June 18) and suggests that the world is not overpopulated by humans. The crises of starvation, disease and a destroyed environment that Malthus predicted have not been canceled but merely postponed by the unforeseen discovery of fossil fuel. By using oil and natural gas to power machines, pump water and manufacture fertilizer, we have expanded food production way beyond what we could produce by organic, muscle-powered agriculture alone. When the oil runs out - as it inevitably must - we may well discover that there are, indeed, too many people on this small globe.

Praise For ZBA

2008-06-02T17:45:00.000-07:00

Here's a letter I wrote to our little town newspaper about a proposed shopping mall in town that will destroy many acres of mature forest adjacent to a cranberry bog. I just e-mailed it in and, just as letters to my local representatives go unanswered, I suspect this will go unprinted, so I put it here:

I applaud the ZBA for sticking to its guns on requiring the developer of Sharon Commons to provide an irrevocable letter of credit before denuding many acres of forest in Sharon. We only have to look at a recent project on North Main Street to see what we are left with after the bulldozers scrape away thousands of years of natural and human history for yet another ill-conceived project.

Look around. Walpole Mall is expanding. Patriot Place in Foxboro is building a moonscape of asphalt and big-box stores. A new mall just opened in Mansfield. There are plans for a mega-development in Westwood. Store after store have just opened in Stoughton and Avon. Who on Earth is going to patronize all these malls? The chances of another mall in Sharon thriving are slim indeed.

The age of happy motoring to the mall is OVER. Gas just hit four bucks a gallon and the price of all energy has nowhere to go but up. We need developers with a new vision for a new century. We need communities where people can live, work and shop without constantly hopping into the car. We need architecture that lifts the spirit and is built for the ages, not just more flat-topped boxes with fake stucco exteriors and high fossil fuel inputs. We need community-based businesses, not just more giant corporate parasites who suck wealth from our home town by selling more of the same imported junk.

Sweeping changes to the "non-negotiable" American lifestyle are being negotiated right now by forces largely beyond our control. We'd better take a place at the table before it's too late.

Unfettered Polygamy

2008-05-12T18:54:00.000-07:00

I walked by a TV today and a story about the recent raid on a polygamist community in Texas was on. It made me think how in the Long Emergency, after gasoline has become very scarce, there will likely be lots of communities doing odd things out in the boondocks. Law enforcement authorities will no longer have the resources to patrol and investigate out in the vast backcountry of places like West Texas and Utah. Charismatic leaders of all kinds will be able to establish compounds and communities and no one will bother them. Lets hope there is more good than evil among these leaders.

Glowing in the Dark

2008-05-10T04:31:00.000-07:00

Signs of the impending Long Emergency are everywhere I look. In the Boston Globe this morning, two articles caught my eye.

In one story it was reported that mining claims for uranium have increased exponentially in the past few years as the price of uranium has skyrocketed. Most claims are in the western U.S., particularly around the Grand Canyon National Park. Needless to say, environmentalists are concerned, but as threats to the American Lifestyle increase quaint notions like environmental protection will be brushed aside. (Watch as they authorize drilling in ANWR in the next few years.) As the oil runs out, our reliance on nuclear power can only increase.

In another piece, we learn that Amish salvage stores are doing a booming business. These little shops in Amish communities in places like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana sell items such as packaged food and medicines that have been discarded by big stores because of damage or expired use-by dates. Americans from all walks of life are looking for ways to tighten their belts as energy prices go up and home values fall. Heaven knows, we throw away enough stuff in this society and I like to think that some of it is getting used by somebody. It has also occurred to me that cultures such as the Amish and Mennonites may have a lot to teach the rest of us about how to survive and thrive in a world without fossil fuel. Come to think of it, when the stuff really hits the fan, it might not be a bad idea to settle near some of these folks and watch how they tie their shoes.

They're Baaaack!

2008-05-06T17:46:00.000-07:00

The chimney swifts have returned to the skies over my house. Every year, they arrive on about May 1st and can be seen every day swooping and zooming in formation, happily chattering all the while. They were a little late this year, and I wonder if they were delayed by bad weather this past weekend. All summer, they are the background music on my backyard soundtrack and then, just as suddenly as they arrived, the disappear on about September 1st. I worry that all the chimney caps that are getting installed around here these days may reduce the number of potential nesting sites, but so far, I can almost set my calendar by their comings and goings.

Check out ChineySwifts.Org to see an interactive map of the swifts' northward migration. Submit the date of your first swift sighting . Be sure to look for the mark in eastern Massachusetts!

I stole an hour to have breakfast on Moose Hill this morning. It was a perfect clear, warm, calm May morning and I wanted to see and hear some new arrivals. I heard my first ovenbird and saw catbirds, tree swallows, a pair of blackburnian warblers and a black and white warbler. A couple of other birders with the same idea were kind enough to help me spot and identify some of the tiny creatures so high up in tall trees. The orioles are back, too. I saw my first one yesterday and heard and saw a few more today.

More Pandering

2008-05-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, John McCain proposed a gas-tax holiday for the summer driving (read voting) season. It didn't take long for the desperate Hillary Clinton to jump on the bandwagon to prove just how in touch with the common people she is. Barack Obama had the political courage to to call the proposal a "gimmick."

Meanwhile, back at the White House, George Bush proudly proclaimed that he's always been an "ethanol man." What a surprise. Of course a scheme that won't work (All the energy inputs to produce ethanol would be nearly as great as - or greater than - the energy produced.) and that has all kinds of nasty unintended consequences (Like escalating food prices.) would be favored by this twisted man as long as it makes him look tough and decisive and it provides big tax subsidies for his big-corporation buddies. Gee, that sounds a lot like the Iraq war.

We are in deeps weeds, people. The oil is running out and there are no technological fixes on the horizon. Extreme conservation is the only measure within our grasp that will lessen the blow. The American people will not see the wisdom and necessity of this on their own and very few public figures will have the spine to provide the needed leadership. Rather than a tax holiday, we need HIGHER gas taxes to stimulate price-driven conservation efforts with the revenue committed to developing alternative energy systems and further conservation.

Blink And Miss It

2008-05-02T19:24:00.000-07:00

We returned from our annual trip to Arizona on Monday. I was gone most of the last half of April and was not happy about missing the transition into full-blown Spring. I returned to find flowers in bloom and leaves busting their buds. Work and weather have conspired to keep me from spending any significant time on Moose Hill, but I did get to drive over a couple of times, taking the scenic route while running errands. This morning, I parked in the visitor center lot long enough to take a short walk down the Vernal Pool Trail beyond the old home site, through the old wall and into the white pine forest. The weather was cool and drizmy and the light was bad, but I wanted to see just one bird of the forest.

I was a little surprised at how quiet the forest was on the second of May and I heard and saw little for the first five minutes. Finally a blue jay broke the ice and a hairy woodpecker joined in with a healthy tapping high in the trees. Then, off through the oaks, a movement near the forest floor caught my eye and a hermit thrush, complete with rufous tail, was moving through the undergrowth. The bird was silent but I hope to hear its song soon so I can contrast it with the well-known wood thrush ee-o-lay flute-like call. Seeing a hermit thrush after only a few minutes in the woods was enough to brighten even a dreary morning so I headed back to the car.

Back at the little field by the parking lot I got a good look at a few chipping sparrows. It looks like it may be a good year for them. I've been seeing and hearing them everywhere since I've been home.

Democracy Is Dead

2008-04-16T17:45:00.000-07:00

Democracy is dead. In the past few weeks, I've written e-mails to some of my reps. I don't expect detailed replies, but I don't get any kind of acknowledgment, even from my local state senator or representative. As individual voters, all we can hope for is ridiculous, simple-minded pandering, but without big bucks to buy politicians our voices will never be heard. The revolution will come, but too late.

Pathetic Pandering

2008-04-16T16:03:00.000-07:00

So, John McCain wants to give us a gas tax holiday from Memorial Day to Labor day, the so-called 'driving season.' Brilliant. It will cost $10 billion to a budget that is already putting us into debt for the rest of our lives and will encourage even more squandering of irreplaceable fossil fuel; fuel that could ease the lives of our children and grandchildren. I'm inclined to believe that gas prices need to be higher, not lower.

Oil imports fund or worst enemies (How come no one ever talks about the fact that most of the 9-11 hijackers were Saudi?). We need to get real about fossil fuel. It is running out, probably sooner than we imagine, and we need to use it as wisely as possible. That means no more SUVs, no more 100-mile commutes and no more NASCAR. Only higher prices will get clueless Americans to conserve. A higher gas tax will raise the price and the proceeds should be used to develop further energy conservation and alternatives.

First Thrush

2008-04-16T15:59:00.000-07:00

I saw my first thrush of the year today. I went for a morning jog up Moose Hill with a friend. I've found that jogging on trails is easier on the old joints, so we took the Vernal Pool Trail to the old Everett Street and ran along the power line. Soon after we ducted into the woods I spotted a thrush, possibly a hermit thrush. I look forward to hearing thier sweet melodies in the forest soon.

But, Why?

2008-04-16T15:49:00.000-07:00

What the heck is this? Another blog? Well, no, not exactly.

My main blog is the Moose Hill Journal, but I thought it would be fun and helpful to have a place where I can record brief notes, observations, thoughts and even rants that don't really fit the format that has evolved at the Journal. In part, this will serve as a notebook where I can post items I want to remember or let marinate until I can assemble a full-fledged Journal post.

I anticipate that posts here will tend to be short and more frequent than in the Journal. Some of the items or thoughts here may well work their way into Journal posts, but many will not. Many of these posts will be observations about nature, others will be ruminations on news items, politics or social trends. As always, comments and e-mails are welcome.