Blogging

Local historian, Carol Kammen's article in Saturday's Ithaca Journal Today It's a Blog; Tomorrow It's a Source Document lends an interesting perspective to blogging. Kammen says:

"I regard blogs today as our new version of those old black diaries dating from the 19th century found in historical societies. The difference is that the diary writer's audience was generally him or herself while the blog opens up a conversation with family and friends, and also with general readers."

Carol comments on Simon's Living in Dryden blog:

This blog is kept faithfully and is illustrated; the writer researches his subjects, comments on local activities and has a very keen personal view, which is fun to read.

Of Five Wells she says:

This blog is kept by a woman who has a farm, a horse, cats — much about cats. She is ecologically conscious and attempts to live as independently as possible. She is also active in the community in numerous ways, all reflected in her blog. I respond to her strong, happy female voice; she cheers and inspires me.

And I'm flattered. It's not self-aggrandizement to say that's just what I wanted Five Wells to be: "a strong, happy female voice." Those Victorian diary writers knew they were not special people. They just wanted to write. I started writing three and a half years ago to brush up my writing skills, never expecting anyone to read it. One by one friends and family and others found and enjoyed my stories. My voice and style adjusted to them.

I more or less mastered the "dates of wars and treaties" version of history in high school and college. I never cared much for it and I've forgotten a lot of it. But I love the stories of how people lived and thought in other eras.

19th Century Diaries, at A Victorian Passage, describes historical "rules" for diary keeping (which might well apply to blogs as well.)

1. "One must not attempt too much. A country school-teacher, leading a humdrum life in a little village, does not need a diary large enough to set down the doings of court and king; but she will probably find much pleasure in jotting down a brief record of her daily life."
2. "You don't have to buy a diary. A blank book will work just fine."
3. "Be regular at it for the first year and you should find it a habit to keep up your journal, but only if your entries are brief.
4. "Ask yourself 'What happenings in your life are worth recording?' "

If the blogs you read regularly are losing their luster, take a look at the 2007 Weblog Awards. It's strictly a popularity contest. But you can get a good idea of what other people are reading.

Halloween in Dryden

Last night Dryden was Small Town America at it's best. I had the pleasure of judging the Costume Contest sponsored by the American Legion. It's harder than it sounds! So many kids! So little time!




In addition to the many happy, cute kids, there were some good candidates for America's Next Top Model.

The highlight of the evening was a ride on the fire truck. It seems to have a practical value, too. It's poignant to watch a parent handing his child to a firefighter. But no doubt it helps children become accustomed to help from the firefighters in the scary costumes.

I dressed in the spirit of the evening - sort of a Mary Poppins witch. Watch out, Simon and Kathy. This is my next headshot. And Maggy, I'm sure this will be your desktop wallpaper today.

Frost

Here's how it looks outside this morning. The thermometer on the tree at the left says 30 degrees.









Here's how it looks in the kitchen. The porch plants came in. The cats are confused. Murphy and Jake can't see each other well enough to fight through the glass door.

It's a good thing I won't need to use the kitchen much this week. I imagine it will be a while before the plants each find their way to their places around the house. They all need pruning and fertilizing. Many of them need repotting. Sigh.

Chickens

Remember my baby chicks? Here they are as grown ups. I bought pullet (female) chicks. But I'm always happy when it turns out that one is male. I wonder why they don't sell a package like that. Some of us would be willing to pay extra for it.

This rooster is substantially larger than the wicked old rooster. I'm seriously hoping he throws his weight around. I let my guard down for a second yesterday and the wicked old rooster BIT me! Actually broke the skin!

Planet in Peril

I was surprised last night by the quality of CNN's special Planet in Peril. The segment I watched focused on species loss. It went beyond the usual statement that we're losing species at an alarming rate and explained why it matters. Using wolves in Yellowstone as an example, the narrative and excellent photography showed the effects of the absence of wolves in that ecosystem, the resulting overpopulation of elk, the effect of the elk overgrazing, the loss of habitat for birds and small mammals at so on. Wolves have been successfully reintroduced into Yellowstone park and there is strong evidence of the area's return to balance.

I'm looking forward to seeing the three issues Planet in Peril addresses in addition to species loss: global warming, deforestation and overpopulation. Species loss is deeply affected by global warming and deforestation, both of which are affected by overpopulation. We've seen what happens to other species when overpopulation peaks. The death rate in the overpopulated species rises as a result of food shortage and disease (or increased predator population.) Usually the population declines until balance is restored. But sometimes, the habitat is so damaged by the overpopulation that the species does not recover in that area. Which scenario do we think will apply to human overpopulation? Are we prepared to deal with either one?

Hobbies

In response to my wordcoud, Leendalu asked me what hobbies I enjoy. I realized I don't talk about hobbies enough and readers may have gotten the impression that it's all cats all the time.

My gardens claim most of my hobby time in the summer. Growing flowers is good for my soul and growing vegetables is moving me closer and closer to self-sufficiency. I save seeds and come the apocalypse I fully expect to be able to feed myself. And just myself, so don't ya'all come lookin' for help. Unless you have a cow to share.

Did I mention that I collect coins? I like the look and feel of cold hard cash. I've managed to remain debt free all my life (except for a year after college when I owed my mother $2,000 for my new car. Yep. In those days you could buy a cute little Ford Pinto right off the showroom floor for $2,000. And gas was 29 cents a gallon. Can you believe how old I must be?) Anyway, I'm sure you know that in the event of an economic collapse credit cards, bank accounts, even paper money will be of little value. Those penny jars will be more important than you realize.

I don't have sheep these days, but I have quite a store of wool from the days when I did. I spin yarn on a lovely fairy tale spinning wheel. And weave beautiful blankets and clothing on my handloom. We'll be well-clothed as well as well-fed. We may produce a surplus and I'll consider bartering. Especially if you have sheep... or silkworms... or maybe rayon.

I don't really count handling firewood as a hobby, but as exercise I've got to say, it beats running or weight lifting. Oh, wait. It is weight lifting of a sort. The point is that as oil prices climb, we'll be okay. I have oil lamps and beeswax and plans to build an ice-house so when the powergrid fails we'll be looking for someone to trade with for tallow candles. Or perhaps solar rechargeable batteries will be improved by then.

Lest you think all my hobbies reflect a fear of the future, let me hasten to say I have no fear - just caution. Chance favors the prepared mind. And I replenish my inner strength with artistic hobbies. I paint, embroider and read and sometimes recite poetry for the sheer beauty. I have a book of poetry for two voices that I'd love to share.

I have to say, over-all, it's a good life.

Pop Culture

The Barnes and Noble website has a whole new look including a search term cloud. It's a good reflection of pop culture and I'm happy to see that I have some connection to many of the terms. It's nice to see Al Gore, Alan Greenspan, Bruce Springsteen, Doris Lessing. Seeing Bible, Bob Dylan and Britney Spears on the same line is a bit of a jolt.

I love wordclouds. When I discovered them last year I wrote that they're like brain screenshots.

I'm not surprised at this depiction of Five Wells. This is a personal blog, so what's conspicuously absent is Campaign, Campaign, Campaign, Campaign, Campaign. Did I mention I'm running for Town Supervisor? And it's spilling over into my personal world.

But this blog reflects all the other things that loom large in my life: garden, honey, Maggy, time, zucchini, tomatoes, Charlie, bees. It's harvest time.

Friday Cat Blogging

And I know it's Friday 'cause every morning Murphy makes me clear the top of my desk for him. Yep. There he is, sleeping on my desk calendar. You just know when he wakes up he's gonna stretch and push that little pile behind him off the desk onto the floor.

And Tang... You know how Tang likes boxes and bags. Last week I bought a pair of pants and left them in the shopping bag 'cause they need to be shortened. I left the bag on the counter in the studio next to the sewing machine. Good thing the pants are wrapped in tissue paper.

If this were hide and seek, Murphy would be winning.

Sorrow for the dead...

October 4, 1996 was a beautiful fall Friday, much like yesterday. At the high school, concern grew as administrators, coaches and teammates were unable to contact two cheerleaders who had not arrived on time for school. It sounds trivial in retrospect, but if you don't go to school, you're not eligible to cheer at that night's game. The Dryden community waited in horror as police investigation over the next few days revealed the the grisly attack and murder of these two beautiful girls.

At that time, my daughter was a cheerleader and my son was captain of the football team. Those days had a profound effect on our lives as they did on the entire community. Maggy's in New York now. So she asked me to honor the memory of her friends this year.

It's impossible to describe how vivid the memory of those days is.

I walked up the hill a bit to my parents graves and recalled this essay by Washington Irving.

"The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal- every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open- this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude...

...Ay, go to the grave of buried love, and meditate! Then weave thy chaplet of flowers, and strew the beauties of nature about the grave; console thy broken spirit, if thou canst, with these tender, yet futile tributes of regret; but
take warning by the bitterness of this thy contrite affliction over the dead, and henceforth be more faithful and affectionate in the discharge of thy duties
to the living."

Animal Meme

Like Dan, I often ignore memes. But I found myself clicking to page two of his story about his cat Nicky. Good thing I did 'cause at the end of his story I found I was one of the ten people he tagged. This one sounds like enough fun to take a shot at. The idea is to answer the following questions.

1. An interesting animal I had
2. An interesting animal I ate
3. An interesting animal in the Museum
4. An interesting thing I did with or to an animal
5. An interesting animal in its natural habitat

1. They're all interesting. But first place is a toss-up between the Coturnix japonica who always made me laugh with his sneeze-like crow and the painted turtle who had lost a leg in some earlier tragedy. He thumped around the house and always showed up in the kitchen at suppertime, usually with a dust bunny on his nose, to stare at me like a puppy 'til he got fed.

2. Well, I didn't eat the whole thing, but at the best Chinese restaurant in town I once ordered Duck Webs. Apparently you can put enough sauce and MSG on anything and make it edible. Oh, wait! I just remembered the platter of delicacies my Greek friend ordered on my birthday. After we'd eaten about half of it I asked what it was. She said, "The head of a cow." I thought that might be some sort of mistranslated idiom. But, no. It was every soft part of the head of the cow: tongue, cheek, brains and, my personal favorite, eyeballs.

3. It's been a while since I've been to a museum. But at the Paleontological Research Institute, there's a painting of a Mastodon overlooking Cayuga Lake. My friend Bill painted it when he was a student in the 1950s. He went up to where Ithaca College now stands for a view of the lake. For the painting he raised the water level considerably to reflect how it looked when there were Mastodons here.

4. You know how people ask you to water their plants while they're away? My best friend in grad school asked me to feed her spiders over Christmas vacation. Yeah. Jumping spiders - her lab animals. Dozens, maybe hundreds of Phidipus audax each in its own test tube. The big ones had to get a house fly and the little ones four fruit flies - all alive, of course. I could slow the flies down with a little CO2. But it was tricky to get the test tube opened and drop in the flies before the spider jumped out.

5. Again, they're all interesting. But when I find them on the dill in the garden, I can never resist bringing Swallowtail butterfly larva into the house to watch. All lime green and lemon yellow with black stripes. They're really beautiful.

Now the hard part: to tag other people who will have stories to tell about interesting animals.

1. Wit's End
2. Ellis Hollow
3. Maggy
4. Natural History Artworks

Stupid mistakes

For future reference, it turns out that if you leave your jump drive in your pocket, so it accidentally goes through the laundry, it doesn't seem to matter.

After the laundry incident, I left mine on the desk with the top off for a few days, kind of dreading the inevitable test. I'm happy to report that it seems to be fine with files intact.

Food Policy

Wow! If Cory can keep this up, Food Karma Alert may become the definitive site for food policy. Take a look.

[Hat tip: What's in Rebecca's Pocket.]

Hail!

Okay. Who thought this was going to be a good idea? Hail! The noun, not the verb. It was very noisy on the windows and the roof. The cats were more upset about it than they usually are about thunder.



I once heard someone question why hail is always described as being "the size of..." something else - usually golf balls. This hail was the size of petit pois. I have to say I've never heard it described that way on the news but it fits.

Charlie's Dentist

As if my own recent dental work wasn't enough, I called Dr Jeff LaPoint this week to check Charlie's teeth. This is no small project for a 900 pound client who doesn't sit down. Notice that the drill is a cordless 14v DeWalt. (He's not really using it as a drill. It has a little horizontal spinning disk to file the points on the teeth.) Notice also that Dr LaPoint's hand is entirely inside Charlie's mouth.

Then notice how calm Dr LaPoint is. That's 'cause Charlie's sedated. As Maggy and Dr Ambis well know, sedation is really for the protection of the dentist. The scary looking halter isn't nearly as restrictive as it looks. Charlie's entirely free to bob his head up and down as much as he likes. And he did. Dr LaPoint was remarkably patient, even amused by Charlie's attitude.

The bottom line is that Charlie has "the teeth of an eighteen year old." This is good for a twenty-five year old horse.

And the excessive drooling we had noticed...? Turns out that was probably "Horse Fungal Saliva Syndrome" or "Slobbering Horse Syndrome" (that's a creative name, isn't it?) The articles said it's caused by pasture or hay with white clover. Dr LaPoint says it's likely to occur on newly cut grass. A fungus on white clover produces an alkaloid which causes the drooling but apparently has no lasting ill effects.

Plastic

I'm often reassured by increasing awareness of, for example, the ubiquitous presence of sugar and salt in prepared foods, nutritional advantages of whole grain over white flour, the amount of gas used and pollution generated by transporting food products across the country. But once in a while there's an OMG moment when I do a double take and ask, "You mean people didn't know that?"

Here, from Fake Plastic Fish, is Plastic Is Made From Oil - You Knew That. I simply can't believe that any of my friends are among the 72% of people polled (PDF) who don't know that plastic is made from oil. I'll grant a huge margin of skepticism for the fact that the poll was sponsored by Archer Daniel Midlands in support of their project to make "bioplastics" from - wait for it - corn!

Still I think it's possible that some people don't know where plastic comes from - or goes - or the harm it does in between. Once you get a grip on that, you may want to follow Fake Plastic Fish's investigation of where plastic exists in her life and how to eliminate it.

Leslie's House

It was no surprise to catch Leslie on a ladder yesterday. But I''m really glad I got there in time to record the all-important color samples before she painted over them. I'm sure Leslie will want to remember them and I know my sister will want to study them. Which one would you choose?

Confused? Can't see the difference, you say? Believe me when I tell you, it's not the photo.

Here. I've sampled them and labeled the RGB values. See? No, really. Do not adjust your set. They are, shall we say, very similar.

So similar, in fact, that I think the color the painter suggested was altogether different. It looks great though, doesn't it?

Here's the next great decision she faces. My sister will like this one, too. The porch ceiling color. Visible only, I should point out, when you're sitting on the porch looking up.

Oil Paintings

Last weekend at the Etna community yard sale, I bought these two oil paintings. The "Fall Bouquet" is signed "D Ramsey" and the barn simply "Alexis."

I should have taken a minute to ask people at the yard sale if they knew who had donated them.

I can ask the postmaster, or the people at the fabulous "Soup and Salad Supper." But I'll enjoy the paintings even if I don't find out more about them.


I might mention that I also bought a drill bit, a copy of I Capture the Castle, a towel rack, a Pfalzgraf platter, two lovely glass dishes and a couple of pieces of fly paper. Yes, there was fly paper at the yard sale. And I need some. We really hate to waste anything in this neighborhood.

Later this morning I'll be at the Freeville Festival. I hope they have a rummage sale.

Friday Cat Blogging

Apparently while Maggy and I were at the store, the house cats invited (or at least allowed) Jake to come in through the open window. Jake didn't venture far from the windowsill where he knew he could make a quick escape. Isn't he pretty?

Murphy wasn't happy that we were using the table where he often sleeps. Maggy says, "Remember when the cats weren't allowed on the table?"

In Her Hands...

Warblers are "tunnel fliers." Because they live in the woods, they tend to fly toward a light spot. This one, being new in the neighborhood, was particularly unaware of windows. I can't easily tell you what kind of warbler it is. Bill knew it instantly. The name included "green," "yellow," and "throat." But I can't say in exactly what order. Peterson's Field Guide has a section for "Confusing Fall Warblers." That's close enough for me.

Anyway, B wanted to be sure the cats didn't hurt it. She guarded it for a while, then finally picked it up. It waited long enough for me to get my camera. But when someone suggested getting a box to let it rest in, it took off.

Bees and Honey

I'm not sure what it is in the air that says "late summer." The relaxing drone of the crickets, the rattling of the poplar leaves that sounds like constant rain, the sun a little lower in the sky at midday. But here, above all, it's the scent of honey in the air. Even if I never harvested honey, I'd want to keep bees just for that scent.

A week or so ago I used these pieces and tools to make this new section for my beehive. Frankly, the bees could manage just fine without my help. But if I give them these wax frames, they can spend more of their time making honey instead of wax. And they'll make it in neat rows that make it easier for me to handle. If the weather is good, they'll make more honey than they need for the winter and I can take some.

I've been using the last of the honey I harvested years ago (honey keeps forever) to sweeten the syrup I'm using to can the delicious, locally grown peaches I bought at BB Farms on Route 13 near NYSEG. Goldenrod honey has a stronger flavor than most people are used to. It's a flavor that says, "This is definitely honey, not sugar." To me it says, "Extra special home-canned peaches."

I like "my" honeybees and I'm often disappointed with people's casual references to bees as a nuisance. I'll hear it most often this time of year when yellow jackets are so active. Let's get this straight, friends. Yellow jackets are not bees. In fact, all wasps are "not bees." Stirred Not Shaken has a couple of good pictures - one bee and one "not bee."

You may remember the term "wasp waisted" describing tightly corseted Victorian women. It comes from the fact that wasps' abdomens appear barely connected to their thoraxes (chests) by a very, very thin "waist." (photo credit: Whispers in Nature)


Bees, like me, are pretty substantial around the middle. Once you've got this shape distinction clear, don't forget there are bumble bees, sweat bees, carpenter bees and more in addition to honeybees. (photo credit: State of North Carolina)

Under the "nuisance" heading, I might note that wasps can sting repeatedly. Bees generally die when they sting. So they don't do it casually. In fact, in thirty years of beekeeping, I've only been stung by a honeybee once. I don't believe I've ever been stung by any other kind of bee. But I seem to get wasp stings every year.

In their defense, wasps, like bees, are important pollinators. And unlike bees, they feed insects to their larvae. Anyway, with the general understanding that everybody's just tryin' to make a living, I'll live and let live with wasps.