Measure and cut

Daughter nails it down

The barn leaked a bit more this last winter than ever, so I bought a few rolls of 90 lb. roll roofing, in a light color, for more reflectivity, than last time around.

This was partly an experiment to see how much of my strength I've retained into my old age: answer, not much. Once upon a time I was able to walk up a ladder with one of these things thrown over my shoulder, but no more. Now it's measure and cut, with most of the pieces under 25 feet long, which is plenty hard enough to deal with as it is.

Daughter elected to pitch in, and we got the entire barn done in one evening after work. She suggested we go get a brew afterwards, but I declined, on the grounds that at my age it takes many more "Miller killers" to erase a beer's influence than it does at hers.

The moon rose full,while we were roofing, so afterwards I sat in the front yard with a pair of binoculars, watching the scarred, silvery behemoth climb into a darkening sky. I believe our summer has begun.

When money's tight

Airing out the ducklings

Granddaughter has been here for a lovely three day visit. I read her a book in Spanish, which was a risk, since all my rusty Romance Languages training is in French and Italian.

I asked her how she liked it and she said, "I think you better learn Spanish."

Sigh...

We read a lot of old Richard Scarry books, on which we we had raised her dad, but which were new to her, and a good deal of time was spent watching Pokemon and Ranma 1/2 DVDs or playing with puppets or painting with tempera. And hours were spent tending the new family members.

There are now almost a dozen Barred Rocks, half a dozen Araucanas, eight or so Khaki Campbell ducklings, and three goslings -- I think White Chinas, though I forgot to ask -- they're yellow right now. Basically the chickens and ducks all remember being wild somehow, but the geese are sweet and trusting and regard Beloved as their mom.

Some drainpipes somewhere in our 18" crawl space have plugged up, so I'm putting in a temporary greywater system by setting a used bathtub underneath the washing machine's drain pipe, which I've opened at one of the unions, and am feeding trees from there by means of a quickly constructed yoke with 4 gallon buckets These one fills halfway (to avoid staggering around sloshing eight gallons of water) and, shrugging into the yoke, one walks with a kind of drunken, measured rhythm, which is dictated by the buckets, to wherever one wishes to go.

It's pleasant to rediscover sensations that have mostly been read about, or that have been disappearing from knowledge, in our rather out-of-touch civilization. The yoke, like the wheelbarrow, easily negotiates tight squeezes and gets quite a lot of water to wherever it's wanted, with a minimum of fuss.

Last Son has also been here, as well as Daughter and her young man, so there has been bread baking and veggie-burrito making and beer-tasting and general bedlam.

In the midst of all this activity, as there are no sheep at present, I have been mowing, an activity Beloved detests and about which I'm ambivalent, as we are still relying on gasoline to get it done. But I console myself by using a mower with a bagger, and windrowing the clippings to make hay. After the hay dries, we gather it into the "barn" (poultry house really) or pile it round all the trees, shrubs, and especially the garden.

We have lots of lettuce, peppers, eggplant, squash of various kinds, and tomato starts ready to go in the ground, but it's Beloved's garden this year (we tend to take turns) and, as she's taking Granddaughter back to the Big City to the North right now, there's a pause in activity on the premises.

After the other two ladies drove off, I napped a little bit, then drove to the Big Box to get five rolls of ninety-pound roofing felt, in light grey, to re-roof the barn and the playhouse after the day cools some. Grey is a compromise. White would have better reflectivity, which we're going to need, but black goes better with our general color scheme. Hence the light grey. Much, much better would be a solar membrane, but one has to do one thing at a time when money's tight.

And why, one may well ask, is the money tight?

It's thus: We're both twenty minutes away from our jobs with no bus route nearby, requiring us to have two vehicles for now. We have have 40 mpg/hwy Saturns, but filling them now takes 35 dollars. Our tanks are lasting two weeks. So that's $150/month for gas (petrol to some of you) or $1800/year just for the work commute. And Beloved has just had to spend $700 on maintenance on her ride, and I expect to do the same for mine within a month (it has 190,000 miles on it).

We're what used to be called middle class, but that seems to be going away now, thanks to peak oil, global warming, globalization, and the policies now in place that won't allow the once vaunted American ingenuity to tackle these problems in time to do any good.

That's fair that it's happening to us at Stony Run; we've had a good turn; but aside from the question of what's going to happen in Granddaughter's time, think about the effect of these things on those who haven't had the margin for economic security that we've had.

Minimum wage here right now is a whopping (to Republicans) $7.50 an hour. If that's you, and your ride is a 12 miles/gallon used Plymouth, the transportation range of $7.50, hereabouts in 2001, was 66 miles. Currently it's 26 miles and dropping. Under these conditions there is no route from here to the American dream for many more Americans than has been true for a very long time.

And that's nothing like the trouble that's brewing elsewhere...

I have always loved the National Geographic, and of late they have been doing even more splendid -- and brave -- work than ever.

In their article on Darwin, they noted that more than 40% of Americans believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old. As this is the same 40% that is largely the "base" for current policy, it's a thing to worry about. Other recent articles have noted the continued automobile-dependent paving, urbanization, and suburbanization of more and more land; the fading of oil supplies; destruction to the arms and legs and brains of tens of thousands of good kids sent by the Bush administration's policies to wrest other people's oil from them; the dreadful conditions in Darfur and the specter of genocide; the destruction of most of the fish in the seas; the theft of Nigeria's oil by large corporations and conniving politicians and the desperate resistance of the local people (who are then labeled "terrorists"); the rapid disappearance of millions of acres of carbon-sequestering forests; the intensification of typhoons, tornadoes and hurricanes; and the fading away of glaciers and icecaps at twice the rate predicted by those scientists who have escaped the administration's censorship.

It's a wonder the Geographic hasn't been lobotomized on these topics the way most television networks and newspapers have. I know they have been losing some stiff-necked subscribers, and probably some advertisers as well. Hat's off to them.

But about those glaciers.

The article did mention that seas will rise, which most of us will have heard by now, but it also noted that water for irrigation, power, and industrial and domestic use is disappearing along with the glaciers -- often in very poor regions of the world. Setting aside for a moment yet another brilliant Geographic article that documented the worldwide "corporatization" of ownership (and bottling and sale) of indigenous people'sown water to them--

-- When the lands beneath the peoples of the world's arid and mountainous areas dry up, who do you think they're ultimately going to come after?

And we think we have an immigration problem?

Guest post by Beloved

"I have just finished regrouping baby chickies for day and night lodging.

"It has only been in the last few years that I have recovered from CHICKEN TRAUMA experienced in Gold Hill 1972. I was caretaking an 80 acre kinda farm that had recently changed hands. The place was run by 50+ white leghorn bitches and sundry killer roosters all at large. Everyday I made the rounds feeding American saddle bred horse, jersey milk cow (dry, thank goodness), various dogs and cats. The Flock of Terror followed me everywhere. I stood over each feeder, broom in hand standing guard as animals hastily choked down what they could. No place was safe. The cabin I stayed in had no window coverings. I ate breakfast swatting intruders. My early morning visits to the outhouse took courage only a full bladder can produce as countless beady eyes escorted me.

"About seven years ago we took a motley crew of runaway chickens that had taken refuge at a friend’s place. Sure, why not. We can always eat them (sorry). The raccoons beat us. Although one mama banty did raise a family. Out of five, two reached adulthood. One survived the entire flock. I named her Julia after a character in a movie with Jane Fonda and, I think, Vanessa Redgrave. It was about the Resistance. Every morning I would greet Julia. It’s a good day. If Julia can survive against the Nazi Raccoons I can survive my country’s administration. One day at a time. Over the next several years Julia befriended our turtle and one of our cats. She did not understand why cats got to come inside when she had two legs, same as the Big Folk. She did slip in a time or two skidding about on the linoleum very pleased with her self.

"Julia caused Risa a certain amount of grief over dismantling flower beds. The damage that one small chicken can do! She roosted in a Douglas fir above Gracie’s, beloved cat’s evening napping spot. When Gracie passed on, Julia began roosting on the wood pile by our front door. What a mess! Each morning I fed her. Blue jays and quail figured they were extended family.

"This fall a couple of black labs paid Julia a visit or two. On one occasion Julia crashed into the window. I held her for a couple of hours, put her in a rabbit cage, and kept her inside for a week. She survived though she sustained some neurological damage and was not able to completely hold her head up straight. This spring when I got the baby chicks I moved things around in our tiny barn. Julia was unable to find a place to roost. The poor dear was completely blind. I could see she was using her beak as a cane to tap at her surroundings. What a marvelous adapter. I moved her to an outside rabbit cage and she seemed relaxed to have a predictable environment. She also seemed to enjoy being held and taking walks with me. Julia perked up during daily visits with the baby chicks. Her last day was spent visiting with us on the grass in glorious sunshine. She appears to have died in her sleep and is buried next to Gracie.

"I have learned to love a chicken.

"Next week I will be getting 10 khaki campbell ducklings. I have raised several flocks back in the day. Risa has built a small, but totally netted, poultry run. I can let the chickens and ducks have supervised visits out in a larger area with little plastic baby swimming pools for the ducks to play in. Hopefully, we will stay ahead of the coons and hawks."