Astoria Oregon Rust

The Neighborhood

2012-02-13T04:00:00.000-08:00

When I first moved here there were very few neighbors and the ones I had couldn’t be seen through the trees. Life was good them, but with the combination of the over-development of this desirable real estate and the storm of 2007 that took all the trees I can now see close to 20 houses from my place.

Though I am on a first name basis with maybe five of these neighbors, I have no idea who the rest are and I don’t really care to make their acquaintances. Instead I prefer to give them the names they deserve because of what they do. Just like how people who in the past ran a mill became the Miller’s; I have renamed the neighborhood.

I started this tradition when I had neighbors that fought all the time. I called them the Goddamnit’s. They would shout one another’s’ name followed by the word Goddamnit.

There are the Drivers. All day, every day they drive they drive away and return not long after. They have at least five cars and there is rarely a ten minute rest when one of them isn’t going up or down their road.

Then there are four families of Lighthouses. These are folks that love illuminating the outside of their houses and yards to the point where I probably don’t need to turn the lights in my house. The sun-like glow makes it possible for me to see the colors of my walls at night just from the light they share with the neighborhood.

Then there are the Tillers. This family somehow doesn’t like mowing their lawn so every year they bring in a tractor with a tiller and they plow it all under.

Then there are the Burners. This family has a major pit fire every week and I have no idea where they get all the brush to burn. I generate a lot of burning material with brush, scrap wood and old bee boxes but I generally burn once a year. These people burn nearly every weekend and I have to figure they take on the burning material of others.

Finally there are the Outofdoors. This is a family that is outdoors all the time. Day or night no matter what the weather they are out there, adults, kids and pets. I have no idea what they are doing out there, but they are outside making family noises all the time.

Sounds Bad Doesn't It?

2012-02-07T04:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I have to laugh and go eeew when certain archaic terms are used. The other day I heard the term "Sexpot." I don't know if the term is still in common use, but it once described someone one who is super sexy, however if you form a mental picture of what a sex pot might look like the term becomes totally repulsive.

Another of these weird terms is "Sex Kitten." This is wrong on so many levels, yet it is still in common use.

Do you readers have any others?

My Vote

2012-02-01T04:00:00.000-08:00

Being an unaffiliated voter I am the target of both Republicans and Democrats who want to sway me to vote for their candidates. If you are in the party leadership I think you should know that I throw all of your mail away without reading it (as does everyone else) and I keep track of who phoned me most often and every phone call I get on behalf of a candidate makes me less likely to vote for them. Rob Cornilles' campaign bothered me with 7 calls, one of which was a robo call from a former commissioner, who I saw recently and asked if he had lost his mind...

Look, I don't care what your campaign people tell you but a lawn sign has never convinced me to vote for someone. A direct mail campaign has never changed my mind and most of all phone calls make me run in another direction. I find it ironic that a candidate that wants less government intrusion feels free to intrude in my life via the telephone.

Trust me, I know what you stand for and against. I know what you said in your debates. I read the voter pamphlet. If you want to impress me don't waste money on lawn signs, mailings surveys and phone banks. Take your campaign funds and donate them to a food bank or to a non profit clinic or to schools in your district. This would tell voters that your heart is really in the causes you believe in and getting elected will be a benefit of your charity.

The Worst Coffee Ever

2012-01-31T09:27:00.000-08:00

At this minute I am drinking possibly the worst cup of coffee I've ever had. I have no one but me and my laziness to blame. First let me state that I do know the difference between a good cup of coffee and mediocre coffee and bad coffee. My taste in coffee is pedestrian compared to people who spend $10+ dollars a day on their habit. I like to use half and half and sugar. I find it brings out some of the hidden complexity of the better coffees.

I know bad coffee, like the coffee that is offered in hotel rooms and aluminum pot catering hall coffee, most restaurant coffee...however I think I've topped them all.

I did mention that I am lazy about coffee. I rarely ever grind coffee and I normally buy the big bag of Pleasant Hill coffee from Costco. I set it up in our coffee maker and set the timer so the coffee is waiting for me when I wake up at 5AM.

A couple weeks ago my wife cleaned our coffee maker and I think it was submerged. The clock and timer stopped working, so I unplugged it and let it dry. After that point I got the clock working again, and the timer was difficult to set but I was able to wrangle it into submission, but the time was set in stone and I have been unable to change it since.

So last night I set it up as usual, but somehow at midnight the smell of freshly brewed coffee was wafting up-stairs. I thought it was just a dream, but I got up before 5 and found a tepid carafe awaiting me. The timer now turns on to brew randomly. Too lazy to brew a fresh pot; I had bad coffee. For my second cup I realized I ran out of half and half (too lazy to go shopping)so I used my wife's sugar-free french vanilla creamer... Even though I microwaved the coffee it was absolutely bad and chemical in nature. I'm writing off the coffee today. Lets hope for a better tomorrow.

The Three Graces

2012-01-24T04:00:00.000-08:00

Tonight I was the guest of honor of The Three Graces. It was Guy Appreciation Night. I have three women friends. Each of us are close for different reasons and we are all friends with one another. All of our demographics are very different, but we are all oddly tied together somehow is a strong friendship.

In Greek mythology The Three Graces are goddesses of such things as charm, beauty, and creativity. One of the Graces is and artist who I met because of this blog. I am a collector of her art; three pieces is a collection. One Grace is a cowgirl who I've ridden with often and we rely on one another to care for each others horses. The third Grace is a very stylish pillar of the community ; ) She has a strong moral compass. I appreciate her honesty and her quick reaction when someone does something evil. She is the champion of those who have been wronged.

It was an honor to be in the presence of these Three Graces for an hour this evening. It was great that they treated to a wonderful dinner.

Foodie Adjectives

2012-01-11T04:00:00.000-08:00

I find it interesting how the names food items are given over to a use as human condition and general condition descriptions. For example:

Ducky is a snide description of thing being OK on the surface.
Corny is descriptive of something being silly and/or immature.
Nutty is descriptive of being crazy.
Flaky is descriptive of scatter-mindedness.
Seedy is descriptive of a less than honorable person or place.
Fruity is a descriptive slur of a male with feminine characteristics.
Peachy is descriptive of things being OK, and can also be snide.
Crabby is descriptive of a foul mood.
Foul is descriptive of a crabby mood.
Fishy is descriptive of something that is not right.
Cheesy is descriptive of something of poor quality.
Hammy is descriptive of a show-off.
Beefy is descriptive of one who is muscular.
Porky is descriptive of someone who is corpulent.

3D

2012-01-10T04:00:00.000-08:00

Speaking of the woes of the film industry, you can tell that Hollywood has nothing new to offer when they have to resort to gimmicks such as 3D to lure the masses into a smelly dark room for 90 minutes.

A good film is good even if it is shot in grainy 2 dimensional black and white. Color doesn't make it better and 3-D further detracts from any charm.

Look at it this way, plays are in 3-D and that doesn't make them any better. I think a good spoken word or written story is superior to any technical adaptation. This is because with the spoken word or written story, your mind sets the parameters and in the movie theater one is at a total loss of control.

What Is It?

2012-01-09T04:00:00.000-08:00

What is it? Is it my age creeping up that makes me intolerant? Is it a progression of my short attention span? Is it a case of “been there, done that”, or is it that the film industry has totally lost its ability to entertain?

Actually I will accept the blame totally and unabashedly. My most recent attempts with watching movies left me with the feeling of a wasted 90 minutes I’ll never get back. And it’s not like I’d be doing something better if the movie wasn’t on. I’d be watching the stock pile of show on my DVR such as Oddities, or Alton Brown’s Good Eats, or Torchwood.

If I can stand half hour or one hour TV shows that are littered and defiled with commercials, why can’t I stand watching a film for 90 minutes? Why do I find films unreasonable, unnecessary and tedious?

My wife is sensitive to my dislike of movies that she now orders mostly documentaries from Netflix, but there too the documentaries often go on too long. Though the topics are interesting, like to one on the deaf percussionist who feels the music through her body and the one we just saw on the history of the font Helvetica; I find that 90 minutes is a bit more than one should have to endure on any topic.

I guess my point is that is if an episode Dr. Who can open a show with blind optimism, be confronted with a problem, figure it out and save the entire universe in 50 minutes leaving me feeling totally fascinated and fulfilled, why can’t the movie industry edit out all the crap? Have the writers lost the ability to be concise? Sure there are epic stories that can not be told in 90 minutes, such as Moby Dick, but the endless slew of formula movies are no where near epic stories.

Death Pool 2012

2012-01-01T04:00:00.000-08:00

I really suck at this. Here is the Death Pool list from last year. I only got one right, Elizabeth Taylor.

Billy Graham
Elizabeth Taylor
Maya Angelou
Martin Landeau
Ed Asner
June Lockhart
Robert Duvall
Gordon Lightfoot
Andy Grifith
Dr Ruth Westheimer
Roslyn Carter
Larry King
Tim Conway
Jim Neighbors
Sun Myung Moon
Frank Gifford
John Madden
Buck Henry

Here is the Death Pool list for 2012, assuring these folks of long happy lives:

Etta James
Bob Newhart
Lauren Michaels
Penny Marshall
Eydie Gorme
Leonard Cohen
Fidel Castro
James Garner
Dick Cheney
Billy Graham
Dick Clark
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Aretha Franklin

How To Be A Republican Man

2011-12-26T04:00:00.000-08:00

It's not so important that you believe in smaller government while desiring to grow the government to regulate morality. It isn't so important that you believe in someone that was born of a virgin, turned water into wine, walked on water and came back to life after being dead for three days, yet be totally unable to take the leap of faith in believing in a theory, such as evolution...gravity is a theory as well.

What is important is that you have a blond wife. See examples below:

My New Favorite Song

2011-12-21T07:21:00.000-08:00

Normally when I listen to a song I rarely care about the words; it's more of a thing about texture and mood for me, but every once in a while the words break through. Just like the words of the Farmers Hotel by the Silver Jews got me; I've now been gotten to by the Drive-By Truckers song, "The Wig He Made Her Wear." I love this tune. The Wig He Made Her Wear Video

Musical Machine Video

2011-12-20T05:02:00.000-08:00

This incredible machine was built as a collaborative effort between the Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory and the Sharon Wick School of Engineering at the niversity of Iowa . Amazingly, 97% of the machine's components came from John Deere Industries and Irrigation Equipment of Bancroft , Iowa .. Yes, farm equipment!

It took the team a combined 13,029 hours (6.26 years) of set-up, alignment, calibration, and tuning before filming this video but as you can see, it was WELL worth the effort.

It is now on display in the Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall at the University
and is already slated to be donated to the Smithsonian. Musical Machine Video

The Worst Of the Best Of

2011-12-16T04:00:00.000-08:00

No, this isn't going to be an annual review of the things I did and didn't like in the past year. It is more of a comment on just how bad the music was that we used to listen to and now accept it as classic gold.

OK, so I hear this commercial for the Fender sound system in the new VWs and they are playing Elton John's Rocket Man. I haven't heard the song for years and the commercial sound pretty cool. Next I track down a Best of Elton John and give it a good listen and find most songs some what clever, but over produced with sounds that are incongruous to the song and the feeling that is explored within. Here was the soundtrack or if you prefer, background noise of my generation in the 70's and 80's and most of it was really bad.

A few months ago the same thing happened with me and the Monkees. There were some interesting musical concepts and and the occasional interesting sound, but adding 45 years of perspective in the mix it was down-right awful.

You'd think I would have learned my lesson, but no, I had to go back and listen to Bruce Springsteen. There was very little in his collection that will stand up to time. He comes off as another grunting guy form Asbury Park, the Jersey Shore never changes. Maybe things would have been different had he been from Manasquan.

I could go on about the disappointments I've suffered whilst reacquainting myself with the music of my youth, but I will spare you. However dear reader, I do advise you not to revisit the music that you hold sacred. Let it play in your mind and dance with your youthful memories. If you try to pour that stuff through your older ears you will just ruin your memories and you will wonder if you lived in a fantasy world back then or lived a giant lie perpetuated by the radio stations we grew up with. Damn you Dan Ingrham and Cousin Brucie!!! Damn you to Hell!!!

Red Horses

2011-12-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

I know I haven't written since Duke's passing and that isn't because I was too busy mourning. It's sad, but I've moved on. It's time for a new horse.

I've written at length over the years about getting new horses, or as I call it kissing frogs. I'm pretty easy to please and fortunately I get good enough horses that I'm able to work with their faults and they are able to work with mine as a rider.

She just got hers about two months ago and it's the best one she's had in years. And a couple days after Duke was gone an opportunity came my way. Now we both have even tempered red quarter horse geldings. Sure I miss the quirkiness of the last two thoroughbreds (actually appendix quarter horses.) But I really enjoy mellow these days.

OK, here's the funny part. My new horse is named Beaver. There is a better chance that an Oregon horse will be named Beaver because this is the beaver state, and there is some sort of sports team out there that are known as the Beavers...and so on. Regardless, that is his name and that is what he's been called since he was a colt. My wife thought that was a horrible name for a horse because of it being slang for women's genitalia and she insisted that I change it. I said, "OK, how about Snatch?" That didn't go over very well, so I said "What about Puss or Dick?" I came up with name after name related to the female and male anatomy and each sounded worse than Beaver. She suggested Copper, since his coat shines like a new penny, and she suggested other names, but I held fast. His name is Beaver. He has always been Beaver and he knows his name.

Finally after two weeks she seems to accept it. It is no longer a vulgar name, but rather the name of a horse with a good nature and a wonderful addition to our family.

Both of our horses are sorrel, a copper-ish red color. A friend described them as book ends. They get along great together. They both load in the trailer without hesitation. They both side pass, do haunch turns, forehand turns and best of all they have good smooth trots and canters. Best of all they can both walk out. Finally we have a well matched pair. Ride on!

Duke

2011-11-29T04:00:00.000-08:00

Duke was a good horse. It takes about a year before a horse and a rider get to know one another. Within our first year I learned what he didn't like and he learned what I didn't like and we accommodated one another ever since. I trusted him to take his time and familiarize himself with his environment. He trusted me to go where ever I asked; be it into a horse trailer, through a river or over a bridge. On rare occasions he'd look back at me like he wanted to say, "Are you shitting me? Really? You want me to do that?" I'd loosen the reins and let him have his head and tell him it was OK and he would go where ever I asked.

Duke and I had an understanding. He'd come when I called him. I always spent a lot of time talking to him. I chattered to him every time I cleaned his pen and every time I fed him. I talk to him every time I put him out or brought him in for the night.

Sure, he had his faults, like all horses. He didn't like other geldings, he tried to be the alpha horse when he was with other horses, he'd try to bite you if you messed with his mouth or cinched him up too quickly and he test or misbehave with other who tried riding him. However, for me there was trust and I never pushed him further than he should have gone.

Duke was arthritic. He was that way when I got him several years ago. I treated him with an anti-inflammatory before and after rides. He was always willing to go out for another ride. I think he enjoyed getting out into the open. Lately I noticed his head dip when he walked on his left front leg. Then he started no being able to bear weight on that leg when I lifter the opposite foot for cleaning. I know he'd never be able to stand for a hoof cleaning or a trimming again. It was time.

Our vet came out and put him down yesterday. He went quickly and peacefully. If any mythology is true, maybe we'll ride together again one day.

Cool Chicken Shades

2011-11-28T04:00:00.000-08:00

One of the disturbing things about chickens is that they will cannibalize one of their own if they detect that they have a wound. Even if I go out among them and there is a spot of paint on my shoe or pants leg they will peck at the blemish or the noticeably odd thing that is contrasted by a background color. If you have a cut on your hand they are all over it.

Chickens constantly peck at one another for the purpose of enforcing the pecking order, and if you have a lot of birds; that's a lot of pecking and if by chance a peck draws blood it can get really bad for the unfortunate chicken.

Joseph Haas invented these rose colored glasses in 1939 and at the time you could buy 100 of them for $3.00. The rose colored lenses masked the color of blood. These glasses were cool (the type in the photo below) because the glass swiveled allowing them to see with normal light when they pecked at the ground but stayed in place when viewing things with their heads up.

There are newer versions of these being produced today, but they are opaque red plastic and work more as blinders for forward vision.

My Weekend With Gearhead

2011-11-25T04:00:00.000-08:00

Gearhead and I have been friends for the last dozen years. Oddly we only see one another once or twice a year. He lives in the Salem area and I live in the Astoria area. It's a two hour trip and we are too practical to visit on a whim. Besides I get farm envy when ever I visit him. He has a nice spread of land, a great barn and shop and lots of farm equipment.

Anyway, last weekend was our once a year to catch up face to face as we attended an annual conference. I am always fascinated by his mastery of not just having the right tool for the job, but designing and building the right tool for the job. He shared photos of the new fork lift he built that will do 60MPH, and yes it is advantageous for him to have a forklift that will go that fast. It has all the creature comforts such as a hydraulic powered tow bar that he uses to hitch up to his truck without getting off his lift.

We spent some time discussing a joint writing project that we are involved in and he always has ideas for things I should write about in this blog. We spent some time (like 14 year olds)proclaiming who is a douche bag and to what level their douchedom rises to in comparison to douches we have known in the past. We have a douche scale.

Gearhead is an inspiration to be around, though I doubt I'll ever get my shop as clean and organized as his. He makes things happen and he doesn't accept failure as an option. He retired while in his early 40's and went into agriculture full-time. He has a success record that most people could never achieve in a life-time. This is because he knows right from wrong and he possesses a moral compass which makes him incapable of passing on an inferior service on to anyone.

There are few people I consider as a friend, but Gearhead is one of the six people I'd put on that list.

I Found This Interesting

2011-11-15T05:13:00.001-08:00

In reviewing this post I realized that it could be misconstrued as raciest which is why I am going to post the reply as the text of this blog.

A study of Art History shows that the progression of Western art started when primitive art started moving closer to realism and then a religious fervor took hold and Western art rolled back into icon art in the 1300's and then it moved more towards realism in the Renaissance. It wasn't until the 1800's when Western art moved into impressionism where the feeling of what was represented was an "impression" and up for interpretation. However with this traditional Japanese the interpretation cannot be mistaken. It is literal and you know exactly what you are seeing. Western art then moved to the abstract where any meaning can be totally misread. To me it seems the Japanese paintings, though technically simpler reflect reality better than most Western art.

Pi Pie

2011-11-13T04:00:00.000-08:00

For those of you that don't follow me on Google +, here are some things you may have missed.

Occupied

2011-11-12T04:00:00.000-08:00

I fully get the Occupy Wall Street movement. I totally agree that there needs to be more regulation of the financial industry to limit the risk that money managers can impose on their investors. I also feel that the loophole should be removed from the tax code and that everyone should taxed at the same rate.

That said, I understand why one wants their presence felt in the financial district, or in Washington, D.C. However, this "Occupy" movement isn't there. Instead they are occupying parks. Dudes, you are occupying parks! I'd understand if you were protesting squirrels for jumping on trees or protesting the pigeons because they shit on statues. People who run Wall Street don't visit parks, they own parks. They may have caught a glimpse of you on the news, but do you really think your presence will interrupt what they do?

Instead of camping out and making the nicer portions of your cities look like shit, why don't you lobby your representatives. Instead of those awful drum circles, why don't you drum up support and play the game the way the game is played these days. It was a great idea to use the social networks to get people to take their money out of big banks and put it into local banks and credit unions.

I guess what I'm saying is hanging out in parks isn't doing it. If anything, it waters down the fight to end homelessness which is what tent cities should call attention to. It's time to get to work and do something about the problem before you start losing the support of the people.

Oh Deer...

2011-11-11T04:00:00.000-08:00

I noticed years ago how cyclical things are in nature here. Some years you will see a lot of one sort of animal and the next year you won't see them any more but you'll see a lot of a different type of animal.

A few years back I mentioned to an acquaintance that I had been hearing a lot of coyotes at night and he told me that was because the price of beaver pelts had gone down that year. Lower prices equals fewer people trapping beavers which equals to a higher population of beavers and a higher population of coyotes preying on the beavers.

Last year it was raccoons. They were everywhere and this year there are reports of sick raccoons showing up at people's houses and the police come by and dispatch them.

This year I'm predicting an up-coming increase in the cougar population because there seems to be deer everywhere. Day or night, I've been seeing deer on front lawns, in town, on the side of the road and in the road. I am normally a slow driver and there is so much deer activity that I've slowed it down even more. There are stretches of road on the way to my house where I have never seen deer in the past, but they are there now, too.

Driving home the other night I had to stop three different times on a five mile stretch to avoid a collision. I'm expecting a lot of auto body shops will be busy until the cougars can reset the balance of nature around here.

Curmudgeon

2011-11-10T04:00:00.000-08:00

With the recent passing of Andy Rooney I am surprised by how he is often described affectionately as a curmudgeon. I too have been labeled a curmudgeon by many readers here, but I don't agree in my case, nor in Mr. Rooney's case. A curmudgeon by nature is always cranky, always nasty and cynical.

I don't compare myself with Rooney in any other way than having been labeled improperly. If you look over my or Andy Rooney's essays you will find that more often than not there is a joy and a reverence for the objects or situations of which we write.

Sure I've had negative things to say about art, home schooling, dogs, Sunday Market, Seaside, Warrenton and Knappa, neighbors that make noise and leave lights on, fish farms and hatcheries, guns, the organic industry, corporate farms, KMUN, the Daily Astorian, Monsanto and a few other things... However most of the things I write about is the natural beauty of our area. The fresh food that we produce. The wonders of having horses, chickens and honey bees. The wonderful memories of my childhood and my personal experiences with "dumbassary." I write about new music I've found. If you look at the ratio my writings are probably 80% positive if not higher. It would be totally unbalanced if I wrote only about sunshine and lollypops.

Think of all the things you complain about every day. Are you a curmudgeon?

Advice From Astoria Rust

2011-11-09T04:00:00.000-08:00

Having had this blog for over five years now with over 1800 posts; these articles show up in all sorts of web searches which have interested enough people from the outside to email me and ask questions from time. The most often asked item is for advice for someone who is planning to move to the area. Generally my only advice to anyone who moves here is, and I always give this advice:

1. Never buy a house on a slope and try to live where you don't have neighbors close by. Everyone I know who lives in town has a crazy neighbor.

2. Stay out of politics. Though your intentions may be pure, very few in politics here ever end up unscathed. Their reputations are in shambles when they leave office and their names become synonyms with and adjectives for unpleasantness.

3. Never believe anything that is printed in the Daily Astorian. The publisher and editors have their own agenda and have been detrimental to the growth and stability of our region for at least the last ten years with their one-sided, nonobjective reporting and editorializing. Their reporters are unseasoned and are only here long enough to add experience to a resume and they get out as soon as they realize what devils they are employed by.

Murmuration

2011-11-07T04:00:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Tango for posting this video on Google +, click the link Murmuration of Starlings. I am reminded of this natural wonder often happens here as well. I recall a few years ago when I worked near the riverfront in the State Office Building, every evening as the sun went down I'd see this sort of thing take place over the Columbia River at the end of 6th street. I've seen it on other occasions while kayaking by the islands behind Tongue Point and on Youngs Bay.

Chicken Death

2011-11-06T06:13:00.001-08:00

Over the years I've seen a lot of ways that chickens can die. I've seen them go by way of dog predation. I've seen my horse step on one. I've seen a coop of dead chickens lined up by a mink or weasel after killing them all just to partially eat one of them. I've seen an egg bound hen die and I've seen a chicken brutalized by other chickens. However, yesterday I saw a chicken die like never before.

I had just opened the gate to the coop so the chickens could go out and forage. The chickens all wait at the gate to be let out and once the gate is open they dash for the bird feeders to make a meal of the seeds the birds let fall to the ground. Since their gate gets opened at a random time each day they may not all be waiting to be released. Some are in the coop eating or laying. At this point they can come and go as they please.

As all the other chickens are tending the bird feeders I returned to feeding the burn barrel. I noticed a late hen exiting the gate and as soon as she crossed the thresh-hold she fell over on her side, squawked and kicked her legs out a couple times. When I got to her there was liquid coming from her mouth. She was breathing, but within five minutes she was dead.

When something like this happens I can only hope this isn't the beginning of something that is going to spread through the flock. The hen was two years and four months old and maybe it was a heart attack or a stroke. I didn't perform a necropsy since I really wouldn't know what to look for. Are there any chicken people out there that have experienced this before? Any ideas?

Astoria Rust Updates

2011-11-02T08:24:00.001-07:00

I’ve always said that I write things in this blog so I can forget them; make room in my head for new stuff. I get occasional questions from readers wanting to know how something I wrote about turned out, so this post is dedicated to updates on some things I’ve written about since August.

The lone walnut I collected from my walnut tree ended up being a dud. I cracked it open and there was a shriveled piece you yuck inside.

I’m not liking my new phone all that much because when it’s on it automatically locks to prevent pocket dialing and when I unlock it, it will often try to open an apps site for me to buy apps and it takes a while to clear that screen. Another thing is that when you call this phone two rings go by before the phone makes a sound to let me know someone is calling and if I don’t retrieve the phone and push the send button within the next ring the call goes to voice mail. I really should have gotten a pocket watch.

The raspberry bushes produced more than I would have believed. We probably got three gallons of berries which are now frozen to use through the rest of the year.

I harvested all the wheat that was growing randomly around my yard from the straw I’ve used this year. I’m saving all the harvested wheat to plant a crop in a raised bed next year.

The garden is frosted and finished and the chickens are once again allowed to roam and dig at will.

My left eye is still messed up. Though my vision is getting clearer the most noticeable thing is that things look much smaller through my left eye. If I look at what I am writing right now with my right eye the text on the computer looks normal in 11 point type, however if I look at it through my left eye it looks like 6 point type and it looks wavy. It’s all very odd and it messes with my depth perception.

Several chickens are molting, and the shorter days have reduced my egg collection to zero or one egg per day. So, I've added a timer and a lamp to the coop, which goes on at 3AM which increases their light per day to fourteen hours. Hopefully production will increase with the young hens that aren't even nine months old yet. If not I'll bring out the halogen lamps.

Guest Post From Jaysus

2011-10-28T04:00:00.000-07:00

Hey, Y'all. Jaysus here... Some of you may know me and some of you may think you know me and hopefully you have been following my adventures on Facebook over the last two years. Facebook is the brain child of someone who thinks he's god, and in his infinite wisdom he decided to ban me from his site as though there isn't someone on this planet named Jaysus X Christ. The bastard didn't even ask me to prove I am who I claim to be. I could have faxed him my drivers license or my birth certificate, even though I was born before Hawaii was a state...

Anyway, my followers should not weep because I possessed enough soundness of mind to archive all my posts on a blog.
http://jaysus-says.blogspot.com. You can also find me on Google+ as JaysysX Christ. So feel free to drop by for my daily post (except on the Sabbath.) Remember, you too can become a Jaysus Freak!

Cappings

2011-10-22T04:00:00.000-07:00

Since so many of you find the things I do in the world of beekeeping to be fascinating, I'll give you another glimpse into that world. Besides keeping bees and harvesting and bottling their honey there is the side business of the wax. I've written about the wax before and about how I always bring a small bucket with me when I work the bees because they like to build wax structures where they shouldn't. I cut that wax away and render it, but there is another opportunity to garner wax and it happens during the honey rendering process.

Bees store honey in combs and once they get ti dry enough they cap it with wax to keep moisture from getting into the cured honey. It's like how your grandmother put paraffin on the jars to preserve her jams and jelly. This wax gets cut or scrapped away to expose the honey in the comb and then the comb goes into a centrifuge to spin the honey out of the comb. The wax that was uncapped gets to drain and residual honey into a bucket.

Also while the wax comb is in the centrifuge small bits of wax breaks off and gets suspended in the honey. This wax gets filtered out before the honey goes into settling tanks or buckets.

The photo above is much smaller scale than what I work on. After letting the residual honey get filtered out there is still a little honey left that is stuck to the bits of wax. This is when I take the wax outside and let the bees clean it up. In the end I end up with about four pounds of wax flakes that looks like dry oatmeal.

This wax is pretty clean at this point, however there are foreign things mixed in that need to be filtered out such as bee parts. Next I stuff this wax into used stockings and melt it. The wax melts through the mesh and the nasty stuff is left inside the stocking which gets thrown away. This is when I pour the wax into forms and let it cool and harden.

Sick Day XXVIII

2011-10-17T04:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't done a Sick Day post in ages and I know they are supposed to run on the first Monday of the month, but lately I've been breaking all my blog rules. Anyway, what is going on with all the Rat Bastard Douche Bags on the roads these days who refuse to use their blinkers, or if you prefer, their directionals. I know one should never trust an on-coming car with their blinkers on, but I miss the courtesy, and the forethought of intent when someone uses their directionals.

I find the worse offenders can be found at the intersection of Marlin and Business HWY 101 by Les Schwab, drivers coming toward Astoria over the Old Youngs Bay Bridge where they can choose to go to Onley Ave or towards the high school. The round-about is another unused blinker zone. 16th and Jerome is another hotspot. I mean, wake up douche bags! It only takes a flick of the wrist and it turns itself off.

While I'm on this subject, I think it's time people to check their head lights. It seems one out of every five cars have a head light out.

The Taste of Honey

2011-10-13T04:00:00.000-07:00

Darev asked if there is a difference in the differing varieties of honey. Yes, there is. Though my some of the differences are subtle in most multi-floral varieties, the differences really stand out when when you get into the mono-cultural varieties.

Here on the coast the honey gets darker as the season progresses. Maple honey is very clear with a very crisp taste. Blackberry honey is golden and more robust and when you get to late season nectars such as knotweed and aster the color can be a darker red with a very rich taste. Oddly the taste of knotweed honey is unpredictable from year to year. Sometimes it is tasty and sometimes it is not.

In the valley there is a seed crop called meadowfoam, and the the honey from that is an acquired taste. Most people don't like it so beekeepers will often add vanilla to make it taste better. I'm not big on the idea of flavor enhancement, but I've tasted this honey with and without flavoring and the flavored version is much more palatable.

Most beekeepers that collect honey from areas where either carrots or queen-Ann's-lace grows try to get the honey off the hive before these plants bloom. The taste of this variety is absolutely disgusting.

There are a few really dark /rich honeys such as buckwheat. There are honeys that are rich and milky white like manuka honey. I have several people ask me every year where they can find poison oak honey.

One thing I've noticed is difference that is present from year to year, especially if I have a sample from a dry year in comparison with a wet year. We had a particularly dry year two years ago. No rain means less nectar, so the bees were taking nectar from anywhere they could find it, meaning plants they find difficult to work. Plumb flowers have a very thick nectar and the bees have a hard time drinking it up. It's like drinking water through a straw in comparison with drinking a thick shake through a straw. Bees are all about efficiency and easy is more efficient. When they can gather more with less effort, that's the way they like it.

Anyway, the dry year we had two years ago produced a very tasty honey. It was richer than most years because the bees worked plants they would normally pass up. This year I notice since we had a very rainy early summer most of out plants were two weeks late and the honey is a little darker. The taste is good and much more robust that clover honey.

Honey's In

2011-10-10T04:00:00.000-07:00

I extracted honey yesterday. It's a job Ive come to dread and I've been putting it off, but every week I have several people ask me when the honey will be ready.

Extracting honey involves a hand crank centrifuge. I'd love to have a motorized one, but I can't justify the expense in my small scale operation.

Extracting honey involves everything getting sticky. As careful as one might be, and even taking the precaution of laying down a tarp, the floors along the path to the sink get sticky. Mopping the floor helps but what it really does is thins out the stickiness. I need to mop the floor every day for a couple days to remove it all.

When it is all over my shoulder is aching from turning the crank. My lower back is aching from carrying empty boxes of frames. My clothing and skin is sticky, but I have several buckets of honey settling, waiting to be bottled.

For me this year the yield was far less than years past; about 40 gallons less. This year was considered to be a poor year by most beekeepers in the Pacific Northwest I will be able to supply. All the rain we had in June and July had the bees socked in. Rather than gathering nectar, they were eating their nectar because it was too wet to fly. Add to that I kept fewer colonies this year.

Next I have to bottle the honey and then label and sell it. Then I can call it a season. I hope I'll break even this year.

Why I Won't Eat Salmon

2011-10-04T04:00:00.000-07:00

I've touched upon this topic many times over the last few years, but my last post here got me thinking more on the subject.

1. A lot of salmon that is sold is farm salmon. This is where they keep salmon in large net pens and feed them pellets that are chocked with antibiotics and color additives so as to alter the color of the fish from the anemic paleness that farm fish have by their nature to an artificial health pink color of the wild variety.

2. Fish living in net pens have a lot of waste that goes to the floor beneath their net pens and the tides will move and stir their waste which the fish will often re-consume either through their mouths or their gills.

3. Hatcheries are ruining the wild stock. Just because a salmon is fortunate enough to make it past the predators and the gill nets and can slither into the weirs of the hatchery doesn't make it a superior fish. Hatcheries are not at the head waters of a stream. They interrupt the journey sometimes by miles. They capture female fish and squeeze out their eggs into buckets and then they squeeze the males and their sperm goes into fertilize the eggs. There is no regard for natural selection where a female can accept or reject a mate. Fish know the desirable traits for a mate; just like how humans qualify an appropriate mate. All these sperm and eggs are mixed together like a genetic lottery and a weaker fish can be produced from this random pairing. Rather than nature adding strength, humans are breading the fish for random results.

4. Salmon are call an androgynous fish, not because they have hermaphroditic sexual assignments, but rather because they live in fresh and salt water. The problem is that when when salmon return to fresh water to mate and end their lives they stop eating and their flesh goes through changes as their purpose becomes totally dedicated to reproduction. This change alters the flavor of the fish. Ocean caught salmon have a different taste that they do when they return to the fresh water. I can only describe it as (to me) unpleasant and "perfumy", but anglers think that if the fish is still bright in color that it's as good as ocean caught; it's not. As soon as the salinity in the salmons environment drops so does its flavor. It is beginning to decompose for death.

5. A salmon returning to spawn does not eat. The only reason they seem to bite on a lure is because it is in their space and pissing them off which is hardly a noble way to catch a fish.

In conclusion, I don't think most humans want to save the salmon because they are an integral part of the health of our environment, but rather because they are a natural resource up for mass consumption. Why must there always be a hidden agenda when something needs to be protected or preserved? It is usually more about stopping things than it is about altering our behavior to save something that is endangered. It is like the animals we want to protect are only poster children and marketing tools for people that claim to be environmentalist.

Fish in a Barrell

2011-10-01T06:08:00.000-07:00

We went to Youngs River Falls on Friday for my wife's photo assignment. Now that I am no longer a tourist here I normally don't visit this sort of spot very often. We once rode our horses from our house to the falls by riding on logging roads over the hills east of the Lewis and Clark Valley.

On this trip we were surprised to see lots of salmon trying to jump up the falls. These falls are probably 40 feet high and there is no way for a salmon to ever ascend to the stream above. The pool below the falls was teaming with fish and where there are fish there are people fishing them.

Back when I used to fish there was a thing known as a dead line which was usually a cable stretched above a river which was the line where you were not allowed to fish. It usually was by a fish ladder where fish congregated in mass. Though there is no fish ladder at these falls it seemed a bit unsportsmanlike-like to be fishing in this spot. The fish could go no farther and they couldn't retreat back down the river. It seemed most fish were being foul-hooked and from where I was I couldn't tell if they were releasing those fish or not. It just didn't seem fair. Itg was like fishing in a hatchery.

I Love My Drunk Kitchen

2011-09-29T04:00:00.000-07:00

If you haven't yet been privy to a semi-viral Internet sensation Hannah Hart and her show My Drunk Kitchen, let me be the first to show you the way.

It all started ten episodes ago on March 16, 2011. Using the camera on he lap-top Hannah created a show after having a few glasses of wine. A grilled cheese sandwich was in the making, but unfortunately she didn't have any cheese. Her shows are a culinary disaster in the making. Her humor is sharp and young and her editing is perfect for those of us with short attention spans.

You can check out all of her episodes at the link below. Newbies should scroll down to the first one first, but if you are Canadian you can start with episode #10 which covers her recent trip to Canada.
http://hartoandco.com/my-drunk-kitchen/

Google +

2011-09-26T04:00:00.000-07:00

As some of the more dedicated followers of this blog know that I am migrating my Astoria-Rust, Guy Who Writes This presence from Facebook to Google+. I know that Facebook is trying to make the leap into the Big Brother Future offering all sorts of rewards, but I see the risks. Also, having to relearn everything every couple months and having to spend lots of time searching for the nice features that used to be there just isn't worth my time.

Sure, there is a certain learning curve with Google + but I'm looking for the stability and lack of monthly surprises.

If you are on Google+ you can circle me by name of Guy WhoWroteThis. If you think Google+ will never replace Facebook, think of all the people who thought Facebook would never out do My Space. Do you know anyone on My Space anymore?

Also, if any of you are friends with my alter ego, he has a Google+ account as well.

Nuts

2011-09-21T04:00:00.000-07:00

Over twenty years ago I planted two walnut trees. Walnut being a hard wood is a real slow grower. After all these years the one surviving tree is probably twenty feet tall.

Being the sister tree died years ago this tree doesn't have a good local pollinator near by so it has never bore any fruit. Yes, nuts are fruit.

The tree is in one of our pastures and it provides some shade for the horses. I noticed some tansy in the pasture so I went in to pull it and right near the plant was a golf ball sized green orb on the ground. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was the only nut I'd ever gotten from this tree. There was a little husk fly damage to the husk, but I got it in time. How a husk fly found this one nut is beyond me.

I took the nut inside and carefully curt off the husk. Beneath was a beautiful walnut shell that darkened as it dried. I'm going to leave it dry for a few days and then I'll see what is inside. Somehow I doubt it will be as good as I hope, but I'll give the tree credit for a good try regardless of the outcome.

New Phone

2011-09-19T04:00:00.000-07:00

I finally got a new phone. This is the third phone I've had since we got our first cell phones in 1999. I had my last phone for nine years. I used it as more of a watch then a phone. It had features I never used and the new phone has even more features I'll never use.

It has a slide-out key board, though I never text. I don't even check my voice mails. It has a camera which I wouldn't normally use on most phones because in order to use the photos you have to send them somewhere first, where this phone has an SD card that I can remove and put into my tablet or laptop; very cool.

My former phone hung from my belt where I would glance at it when I needed to know what time it was. It was rare that I ever got a call. I can't recall the last time I used my phone as a phone. Perhaps I should have a pocket watch instead.

Wilfred, A Show You Should Be Watching

2011-09-17T04:00:00.000-07:00

Wilfred was originally an Australian TV show that was created by Jason Gann and Randall Einhorn. Jason Gann plays Wilfred, who happens to be a real dog to all but one person in his life who sees a humanized version with which he can communicate, drink and smoke pot with.

This show has an American version that started airing in June 2011 on FX, though they do play the IFC imported Aussie version every once in a while.

Aside from there being two versions of the show with the American version a more annoying because it is American, the Wilfred character is a total dog. Wilfred pretty much does what he wants when he wants and when questioned why he does things, he'll provide a perfectly natural explanation. Like when asked why he urinated on a drunken bum, he explains that the guy is part of the landscape and that he was marking his territory to include him.

Wilfred is a dog and like all dogs he enjoys the finer points in the things humans find disgusting, such as the smell of excrement, humping stuffed animals, knocking the postman off his bicycle.

This show is dark yet funny and is the best new thing I've seen in years. Here is a clip Wilfred Clip

Summer's Almost Gone

2011-09-15T04:00:00.000-07:00

Summer went by quickly this year. We didn't go horse camping all that often. We only went twice; once in June and once in July.

We bought a used pop-up tent trailer last year and each time we use it we find things we want to do to improve it. So far I've replaced the top vent, taken apart and cleaned the plumbing. I had the bearings replaced.

Last week I replaced all the clasps on the cabinets. They were so tight it was hard to open any of them so I replaced them with magnetic clasps. We found that the furnace wouldn't start this year so that is something that needs to be looked into before we go out next year.

I took the bed and seat cushions and brought them into the house so they won't get moldy this winter.

Now it's time to put the trailer out back and tarp it up for the winter. Though it closes up pretty tight with all the wind and rain we get here even a tarp isn't always enough to keep the moisture out.

I'm looking forward to opening it up next spring.

Tansey Ragwort

2011-09-14T04:00:00.000-07:00

Tansy ragwort is a noxious weed that is hated and feared nearly as much as scotch broom. Tansy ragwort is toxic when ingested causing irreversible liver damage. It is a danger to cattle, horses, and other grazing animals.

It used to be I only saw this weed when riding horseback on old logging roads, but lately I'm seeing it on roadsides everywhere I go. I guess the county stopped spraying. There was a plant growing on the roadside in front of my house last year and I pulled it up. This year I've already pulled up ten of them in front of my house and across the road. I drove by the north end of the property on my way to town this morning and I saw several more that have popped up. I hope this isn't a sign that this is going to get worse next year.

Just Like Riding a Bike???

2011-09-13T04:00:00.000-07:00

A while back I decided it was time to take a break from all leadership positions I was holding with several organizations. In one organization I held the position of Web Master. I think I performed this duty for seven or eight years and I was happy to turn the duty over to someone else.

To make a long story short, this person took over the site and did a wonderful job. He totally revamped the site and took the site to the next level. About a month ago this fellow got in a huff about something and he flat out quit so the organization asked me to take the site over again.

Last night I got an email from a member and he wanted me to add several event photos to the site. I figured it could wait until the morning so I went to bed, but I woke up at 3:30 AM in a bit of a panic. This is rare because it is rare that I ever panic about anything. I got up and headed down stairs to turn on the computer. I fired up the HTML editor, Dreamweaver and looked at the site. Suddenly it occurred to me that not only was the web architecture foreign to me, it was a totally revamped site, but I had also forgotten nearly everything I knew about Dreamweaver. Panic was setting in, so rather than obsess on it I closed off the session.

This is how I process difficult situations, I walk away. I went and watered in the greenhouse, then I started another session. I advanced a little then hit another wall, so I hung some laundry out on the line. I came back in and made a little more progress then hit another wall. I put the horses out on the pasture and collected some eggs and then took another crack at it. I finally figured out everything I needed to get it all loaded, linked and added to a drop-down menu after I vacuumed and dusted the house.

I felt I was a little over optimistic when I took the site over again, but I think I'll be able to handle it now. It's like getting on a bike, right?

Amber Fields

2011-09-12T04:00:00.000-07:00

If you've driven to Portland on Hwy 26 recently you may have noticed the amber fields on both sides of the road when you hit the valley. It appears that fields that are usually planted in corn or grass hay were planted in wheat this year.

I find it interesting how a mono-culture farmer can decide that there will be more money in a certain crop and plan and accept the risk for a year in advance when they put their plan in motion. The retooling alone is daunting. Harvesting wheat is very different than harvesting corn or hay.

The some of the fields I looked over last week had been harvested and some were yet to be harvested. The harvested fields were in straw which the farmers will harvest and bale like hay.

I usually keep a bale of straw around here. I use it in the chicken yard during the rainy season. The chickens do roam free most of the day, but they spend a lot of time milling around in their pen where they scratch the wet soil and turn it into mud. I lay dawn a couple flakes of straw and the chickens love scratching around in it looking for the occasional stray grain of wheat mixed in.

I have a couple stalks of wheat growing where stray grain fell on the way to the chicken pen or where I've put down straw as weed control. It's so cool that I want to grow a bed of wheat next year. I'll take the harvest and run it through a coffee grinder an have some home-made flour.

Hot Hot Hot

2011-09-11T04:00:00.000-07:00

I think that living in Oregon has ruined my ability to adapt to climates. I moved here from New Jersey 22 years ago. Back east we just lived with extremes and never though much about it unless you didn't have air-conditioning in your bedroom at night.

I recall coming home from work and it being 95 degrees with +90% humidity. I just hop on my bicycle and go for a 30 mile ride. Every thing after that felt a lot cooler.

The other day it was really hot here, uncomfortably so for me. I got into my truck and looked at the thermometer and it said 70 degrees. Those of you reading in other parts of the country must think I'm insane, but 70 is too hot for me. I like it cool enough so I can wear a flannel shirt all day.

I'm ready for this summer to be over.

My New Favorite

2011-09-10T04:00:00.000-07:00

My new favorite Indy Group is the Silver Jews, and my favorite song from them is The Farmer's Hotel from their Tanglewood Numbers release. Click here for the still life video

Full Of Beans

2011-09-09T04:00:00.001-07:00

Back during the Summer of Woodstock I was working on a farm. There were fields of corn, cabbage, tomatoes, squash and peppers. These crops were easy to harvest because one could detect the ripeness by the size and color. The corn was planted ten rows every week so that we could harvest through out the summer. Every week ten more rows were ready to be picked. If the first ear was ready, they were all ready in that ten row plot.

A difficult plant to harvest were the green beans. First the color of the beans was the same color as the leafs and stems of the plant. To make it even worse the farmer planted a bush variety and it was sometimes hard finding the fruit from above.

I was harvesting our pole beans yesterday and I wondered why the farmer planted bush beans. Pole beans are much more efficient. By giving them something to grow on the plants easily produce 10 times what the bush varieties produce. The only problem with ours is that we grow them on three sticks fastened together like a teepee so it is a very three dimensional entity. You can pick and pick and just when you think you've picked it clean, you look at it from another direction and there are a whole bunch you've missed. Keep picking...keep picking...

Raspberries, Finally

2011-09-08T04:00:00.000-07:00

Our hopes for an early raspberry crop was dashed by a couple local deer that jumped the garden fence. Even the electric fence wire didn't keep them from their six-foot vault. We put in the water squirting care crow and that is keeping them out. The raspberries have recovered sending out new shoots and flowers that have finally turned into ripe berries.

It's funny how the birds will rob every ripe blueberry if given the chance, but they seem to leave the raspberries alone; to my benefit.

At What Cost?

2011-09-07T04:00:00.000-07:00

I guess we should count ourselves as fortunate that we have a lot of rain most of the year. It encourages us to have gardens filled with non-native plants. Though we pile on tons of compost to keep the soil fertile and hold in moisture; August is a dry month that sucks any hint of moisture from a garden. Evidence of this is the increase of our water bill. Usually we pay about $30 per month for water, but I was shocked to see my August bill was nearly $90.

We used to use rain barrels, but we only could store 150 gallons and that wouldn't last long and was totally useless in August.

This is a high price for the joy of having fresh food. I'm thinking of sinking a well.

After and Before

2011-09-06T04:00:00.000-07:00

August was the month for painting. I painted the chicken coop and I also painted the horse trailer. The trailer looks great (from a distance.) I've learned for next time to only tackle one portion of the trailer at a time and never prep and paint the entire box in one swoop. Better yet I learned that next time I'll buy an aluminum trailer.

Angry Bees

2011-09-05T04:00:00.000-07:00

Two of the seven hives I worked today were absolutely awful. I've worked hot hives before, but these two hives were relentless. They got really stirred up. I expect this reaction to a lesser extent when I'm pulling honey off the hives. I work as quickly and as gently as possible. The other hives were fine, but these two had bees that just boiled out and hundreds of bees were bumping me and stinging my bee suit. A couple were even able to sting me through the bee suit.

I now have 50 frames of honey stowed away. I left another 50 frames on the hives because they weren't ready to be harvested yet. I am not looking forward to addressing those two hives again. Maybe I pull that honey at night when the bees don't fly.

Transfer Station

2011-09-03T04:00:00.000-07:00

I take pride in all that we reuse and recycle. It was a funny little joke when we boasted about going to CARTM in Manzanita for our anniversary trip this year. Some people go on exotic trips or out for dinner, but we drove down the coast to recycle things that aren't accepted locally.

For all our efforts the reward is that we have very little garbage that actually goes to the landfill. I did a post here a few years back comparing the statistics of the volume of trash Western Oregon Waste takes to the landfill with the population. The stats showed that each person in the county generates around one ton of trash every year.

We could have trash service where we live but we generate so little that it isn't worth the expense. I have a container where we place all our trash and when it is full it is time to go to the transfer station. This is one of the things I do every August. Last year my load was 500 pounds. This year we were down to 400 pounds. I was surprised by that because that tells me we generate 17.5 ounces of trash a day. For the life of me I can't imagine how we generate that much, but now I have a goal to reduce that by half for next years dump run.

Hood to Coast 2011

2011-08-28T05:04:00.000-07:00

Due to the sorting yard is being used again to process logs, the Hood to Coast Relay has been rerouted to go past our house this year. They did this one year a long time ago and it wasn't a pleasant experience at all. I was expecting an onslaught of vans with shouting passengers and horns a blaze, but fortunately all traffic was diverted in another direction and all we had was the sounds of heavy breathing and foot falls.

It was amazing that there were people running by at 6:30 in the morning while I was tending the horses, and there were still people running by at 6:30PM.

Not seeing any vehicle traffic, I was lulled into thinking it was safe to drive into town and once I got to a relay point at the grange I saw the Hood to Coast traffic jam with grotesquely and garishly decorated support vans. It appeared that all 1250 vans were stacked on Lewis and Clark Road.

By the way the entry fee is $1320 per team of runners and $888 for walkers.

This made me wonder about creating a new event where we forget about the runners and charge people to grotesquely and garishly decorated their vehicles and drive really slowly for two days. Instead of going from Mt Hood, let's make it Astoria to Brookings where we can totally clog Hwy 101 with gas guzzling vans with rude drivers and passengers that shout, race their engines, honk their horns and urinate on the side of the road. It will be a 362 mile parade of the best Oregon has to offer.

Over Run

2011-08-24T04:00:00.000-07:00

One thing that separates a small hobby farm from a real farm is equipment. Every day I wish for a Bobcat or an old tractor with a loader. Having two horses presents endless piles of manure, which is pretty manageable during the summer when you can add grass clippings to cook the pile down, however the composting slows down in the winter. It would speed up greatly if I had a machine to turn the pile every week or so, but for now it is turned by me and a pitch fork.

The problem is the manure under the shed gets piled high and I have to start piling it outside, then the pile inside cooks down and then I have to move the outside stuff inside and then it piles up again on the outside. It gets bad unless a lot of it can be totally removed from time to time. I can use a couple yards of it in our garden a couple times a year, but the horses and chickens are producing well over eight times what I can use.

Fortunately I have some neighbors that are really getting into gardening and he has a front loader, so I count on them taking several loads a year to reduce my inventory and keep me from being totally overrun. Today we loaded and hauled out four half/ton trucks and one 3/4 ton. There is now light at the end of the manure tunnel, however we could easily haul off another four loads.

Zucchini Bread 2011

2011-08-23T04:00:00.000-07:00

Every year I post about making zucchini bread. I had a marathon session yesterday turning out 12 loaves. This year We got a new food processor since the shredding blade broke on my 20+ year old La Machine and the cost of a new one was nearly as much as a new machine. Also we got a new mixer earlier this year which is better than the hand held mixer I've used in years past. Good equipment makes the task much easier.

Later this week I'll bake another 12 loaves and I'll be set for another year.

For those of you who are playing along at home; here again is the recipe I use.

Zucchini Bread

3 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 cups grated zucchini
2 cups flour
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking powder
1 cup walnuts or pecans
1/2 cup chocolate chips (Added after five to 8 minutes in the oven)

Beat eggs until frothy. Add next three ingredients. Beat until thick and lemon colored. Add remaining ingredients and mix completely. Bake in 2 oiled and floured loaf pans or a bunt pan for 1 hour at 350 degrees. Let cool for 10 minutes before inverting onto a rack.

The Extended Coop

2011-08-22T04:00:00.000-07:00

You may recall the chicken coop I built two years ago. I built it and there it sat unpainted and unsided. Though it was an 8 foot by 8 foot structure I divided the inside to store a bale of straw and feed which gave the chickens a five by eight area for their housing. Inside their portion was six laying boxes and three dowel perches and it was nearly impossible to clean the coop, get alone gather eggs without stepping over the perches. With 18 chickens I felt like they needed more room, as did I for their maintenance so I added on a four foot by eight foot extension.

Then I scored some used cedar siding and used all but about 10 feet of the siding. Now all I need is some paint.

My Eye

2011-08-20T04:00:00.000-07:00

It's happening again. About a month ago I started having trouble with my left eye again. Things look blurry and blue which makes which makes it difficult to read and track line by line. Depth perception is difficult to the point where it is often easier to see if I close my left eye.

The condition is called Central Serous Retinopathy, which has no known cause though the suspected cause is stress. Oddly it is rare that I stress over anything.

There is a laser treatment, but it offers a 10% chance of complications. I am going to see if it resolves itself rather than risk surgery at this time. Last time it too about six months to get better on its own, which was two years ago.

So to my friends, If you see me and I don't see you, I'm not being a douche, I just don't see you.

Conserving Cartons

2011-08-19T04:00:00.000-07:00

I’ve written before about how the egg carton is to me one of the greatest ideas ever. Eggs are real fragile and as a container the egg carton is a perfectly engineered for the task of protecting eggs in transit and in storage.

Sadly, most egg cartons are used only once and then are thrown away, or recycled. Some people save them up for people with chickens and I used to gladly accept such donations, but then I realized I’d be better off not using cartons from other commercial brands. My eggs needed their own brand and identity. A while back I started buying blank egg cartons and I made a label and an insert which I paste on the outer and inner carton. The outer label simply describes the eggs and the brand and the inner label tells about the eggs, the chickens, our agricultural philosophy and the other products we have.

My egg customers are real good about returning the used cartons to me for reuse. I estimate I reuse them at least ten times before they get recycled. Sometimes the whole carton it trashed by then, sometimes only the labels need to be replaced. Every time I reuse a carton it ends up costing me less. A single use carton would cost me 50 cents and if I reuse that carton ten times it brings my packaging cost down to 5 cents per dozen. This fits in perfectly with out marketing and agricultural philosophy.

Hard Time Hens

2011-08-18T04:00:00.000-07:00

My chickens are in jail doing hard time over their criminal offenses in our garden. We have a four foot fence around our garden and it wasn’t enough to keep them out. The younger hens haven’t put on enough” henny” weight to keep them from flying and we’d find a couple of them ripping up stuff in the raised beds. Now they are locked in the Super Max until the garden is finished for the year.

Their enclosed yard has ample room to keep them occupied, and they get a daily dose of entertainment, be it table scraps, flakes of straw, weeds, bags of lawn clippings. Their diet isn’t suffering and the quality of the eggs is still as good as ever.

There is no way to reform a chicken. If we let them out today they would offend again by this evening. So it's the Hoosegow until the frost reclaims the garden.

Blue Berries, Finally

2011-08-17T04:00:00.000-07:00

It seems that every year the birds find a way to rob us of our blue berry crop. Years ago I enclosed the blue berries inside a wooden fence to keep the deer out and we got blueberries. The next year I was looking at the crop one evening and I planned to go out to pick them the first thing the next morning, but when I got out there a flock of robins had stripped every branch of every berry. The next year I draped bird netting over the fence, but the birds found any gap in the junction of the cloth and got in and wiped us out again.

This year I got more bird netting and closed up every possible hole where even a humming bird could get in and finally we have the problem licked. We actually have a crop and are now freezing berries to use the rest of the year. So far we've put up over a gallon of them with more to come.

Next will be the black berry crop.

Predation

2011-08-16T04:00:00.000-07:00

Other than the chickens invading the garden we were finding evidence that deer were hopping the garden fence so I strung electric fence tape two feet above the fence and hooked it to a charger. This was good for about two weeks but then the deer learned to jump over the six foot high tape. Raspberries, lettuce and peas were drastically pruned.

We found a solution and it was probably the best $70 we’ve spent (though you can get it for nearly half that price on-line). It is a motion detecting device that sprays a noisy jet of water all around to frighten off any deer that even comes close to the garden. We’ve had it set up for three weeks now and we have seen no sign of deer in the garden since.

Going To Need A Better Fastener

2011-08-15T04:00:00.000-07:00

Recently I went out for my morning chores and I saw some of our chickens out and about. This is odd because I normally do a head count when I put them away in the Super-Max for the evening. How these four hens were overlooked was beyond me. I later released all the other chickens to go about their day and life was normal.

That evening when it was time to put them away I noticed something was wonky. Some of the hardware cloth on their Super-Max enclosure was missing. On inspection the hardware cloth was pealed back away from the wooden frame. This was major. I used one-inch quarter, crown staples to fasten the hardware cloth to the wooden frame. It had been ripped back by a brute force I had never seen before. I seriously doubt I could have unfastened it with tools.

Here is my summation, though strong animals I doubt a raccoon could have done this. They would have worked at unfastening it from ground level. I suspect ti was a beat or a cougar because it was at the three foot level. The screening had large holes punctured in the mesh like a large claw had done the job. Also no chickens were harmed. The entrance into the coop is too small for a bear or a cougar to get in so the chickens were safe.

I've now fastened the hardware cloth back with roofing nails, though I'm sure this would be quick work for a bear or a cougar to get through.

Picture Yourself on a Boat on a River...

2011-08-14T04:00:00.000-07:00

Like everyone, I spent hours as a lad laying in a hay field looking up at the clouds trying bring order to the abstract images in the sky above. At my present age I don’t intentionally spend much time on the ground. Instead of making sense of abstract images I now see thing that are real and turn them into something imaginary. My most recent piece of brain art came when I drove by a field where the hay had been baled in round bales and bagged in white plastic Ag-Bags. My mind turned the image into a field of giant marshmallows.

Missed It

2011-08-13T04:00:00.000-07:00

This is the first year of the last twenty-two that I was unable to attend the County Fair.

Instead of seeing all the kids who labored all year to produce a fine market animal or champion performance animal; I was driving in traffic with six lanes and traffic lights every block. Instead of seeing the joy of people eating Fair food, I saw robotic people in eating from fast food drive-through windows. Instead of seeing vendor tents I saw miles of roads laced of big box stores. Instead of seeing horses competing in an arena, I saw drivers competing for parking spaces in acres of lined asphalt. Instead of hearing the sounds of roosters, geese and cows; I heard sirens and accelerating engines and freeway sounds. Instead of returning home tired and filled with the sights, sounds and smells of the joys of summer; I returned to a hotel room that was identical to millions of other hotel rooms around the country with a sack of human feed. I’m glad that is over.

Give and Take

2011-08-12T04:00:00.000-07:00

When you have horses you are often presented with new ideas and ways of solving problems. Often they are problems you didn’t even know you were having until a solution came about.

I recall attending a clinic for the Strasser Barefoot concept. A lot of it made sense, but the more one finds out about the Strasser Cult horses the more you hear about abscesses and foot and joint problems that don’t go away. It seems Dr Strasser studied wild horses and tries to trim the domestic horse hooves at the same angle. We have since gone barefoot with our horses, but we don’t do the Strasser Trim. It supposed to be better for their circulation as the movement of their hooves pumps more blood around the leg.

Well the newest thing to come down the pike is a diet where we soak alfalfa, and pour off all the nastiness before placing it in their hay racks. We also soak their pelleted grain into a mush and add other oils and nutrients. Normally I avoided ever feeding alfalfa to horses that weren’t being worked hard, but now there are indications that alfalfa is good for all horses.

The transition to alfalfa was sad for me. It removed me from the ritual of driving to Birkenfeld to get a trailer load of hay every few months. It was sad seeing the usual two bales of hay in the hay room that was normally filled to the rafters at this time of year.

Sadly, yet happily there came a break. The price of alfalfa went from $15 to $20 in one week. New diet be damned, they are getting $3.50 a bale Birkenfeld hay again. I still feed them soaked alfalfa but only once a day. Now a bale will last me over a week and I won’t go broke in the process.

In a perfect world I wouldn’t have to make this sort of a compromise, but then where does one turn when you need a 9-volt battery in a hurry? That’s right, one of the smoke detectors. Horses can survive eating grass. It isn’t optimal, and neither is reducing one floor of our house from four to three smoke detectors. They will still get some alfalfa, and I will replace that battery.

Old Friends

2011-08-11T04:00:00.000-07:00

Five years ago when I started the blog I became friends with Syd and a number of her fans. We were all exploring this blog thing together in the virtual blogosphere. Over the years many bloggers have traveled to Astoria, probably because of the colorful images I’ve written about over the years.

Lori Hahn (Hahn at Home) visited me and former blogger, Auntie. We spent an evening having dinner and drinks.

Matt Stansberry (Upstream in Oregon) and his beautiful bride met me for lunch at the Blue Scorcher one afternoon.

Trop (Greetings From East Jesus)and her lovely bride came over to Oregon on a business trip and she took the time to rent a car, drive to the coast and spend a night at our house.

Last week I saw on Facebook that another legendary blogger and photographer, Lachlin (My So Called Blog) that I’ve been following for five years was headed to Astoria. I imposed myself upon her hoping to meet for a beer, lunch or coffee, and she welcomed the meeting. We had a beer on her first night in town and lunch the following day. It was a visit with unexpected twists and turns around every corner such as a lost wallet, a wallet found and bar fight that we weren’t involved in.

I have enjoyed every encounter I’ve had with every blogger I’ve met. These people are bright and interesting and I wish the geographical distance between us was less. I’m not a hanging out type of person, but I could easily hang with these people if they lived closer.

Sadly, most of the bloggers in our old circle no longer blog. Syd posted twice in the last month, but less than monthly in the last year or so. I can’t recall the last time Trop or Weese (Weese just posted yesterday, first time in forever) or Laurie posted. Matt has been posting again, but his topic has been distracted for his fishing excursions to being a father and a newly discovered talent for art.

Lachlin and I discussed the demise of blogs, and we both promised to give it another go and how we would try to convince our old friends to pick up their pens again. I know you can never return to the way it was when times were good, but here is my effort to do my part. Anyone care to join in on the fun?

Peek-A-Boo

2011-08-10T04:00:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s been three months since my last post. I’ve gotten a lot of emails asking if I missed blogging. My reply was often, “not enough, yet.”

I’m still not sure if I’ve had enough time off. It’s a luxury to abandon a discipline, kind of like retiring in a way. I remember when I left a ten year career with the Postal Service. It was such a relief to know that I would never have to work for and with so many assholes. I could let their images and voices that got into my head fade into a mist of retirement. I am in contact with one employee who is still there. We get in touch once a year or so. She tells me who retired or died. Somehow I can no longer put faces with the names and I’m OK with that. That was a long time ago. Occasionally I will have a dream (nightmare) that I’m back there again, but fortunately I forget my dreams quickly.

So why should I start the blog again? I had a clean break, why not just let it be? It’s hard to say. I still think in terms of a blog. I’ll see something and think I can use that in a post, or I’ll run across a photo on the web and think it would make a good illustration for a post.

It’s funny how the blog is still getting a lot of traffic. I’m still getting a lot of e-mail and comments on posts. I occasionally visit friends who were the recipients of the very limited edition Astoria-Rust coffee mugs and they are actually using them.

OK, so I’m back. I may not post as often, but I’ll be posting when I feel inspiration and the need.

May 10

2011-05-10T04:00:00.000-07:00

Today is the 5 year anniversary of Astoria Rust. It is at this point where I'm taking some inventory on the 1887 articles I've posted here over the last half decade. So many things have changed over the last five years. I like to think I've matured, though I'm sure we all like to think that.

I wrote this post about a month ago and at that time I had the full intention of ending the blog today. The point is I have already written my best stories. I got them out there and I no longer have to keep them confined to my mind.

Yokio Mishima believed that it is better for him to enter his heaven as a young, strong good looking man where he believed he would retain his good looks forever. I feel this way about this blog.

It's just like flipping through the TV channels and seeing that Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives is still in production. You have to ask yourself "what's up with that?" These shows should have ended years ago.

I'd rather be like a show that left with some dignity like Twin Peaks, The Sopranos and Battlestar Galactica. We could have used some more content but we can now imagine how things would go on.

I spent the day Saturday at a beekeeping workshop, and like always a few thoughts came to mind that told me that this or that situation could be turned into a blog post. Oddly the ideas are still coming; though much slower.

I've decided that I am going to retire this blog eventually, but as of today I'm going into semi retirement. I'll write only when I feel like it.

What do I plan to do with all my spare time? Live, listen to Sufjan Stevens, write other things elsewhere, spend less time on the computer.

Thanks for reading and for all the comments in the past. Special thanks to all those who have been with me from the start.

There, I've almost run out of things to say. Lovies!

Cleaning Out

2011-05-09T04:00:00.000-07:00

I spent the better part of Sunday cleaning out a room that housed many things I no longer need. I found my first tax return from 1971. I found hundreds of cassette tapes. I found old photos that I had long forgotten about. There were photos all through out my life. Photos back when I had a full head of dark hair.

I gathered two boxes of books to donate and another box of other items I haven't used in years. I can't see myself ever using tennis rackets again.

There is a certain joy in purging things from the past. Between the things I sorted to trash, burn or donate, I have a good feeling of accomplishment. It adds more value to the items I decided to keep.

Now it it time to reflect on things and then I'll move to another room; probably my shop and clean that out.

Douche

2011-05-08T04:00:00.000-07:00

Maybe it's because I'm from New Jersey, but there are people out there where every time I see them I say, "Douche Bag!" to myself under my breath. After I do that I laugh to my self because the idea of calling someone a douche is still funny to me.

I have to wonder how the object became associated with people of certain behavioral traits. It's a perfect term. It isn't as abrasive as calling someone an asshole, but it is just as gratifying and seems to have the same implications.

I think there should be a National Douche Bag Day and it should be on the Tuesday following the first Monday in November.

Some Horses Are Just Weird

2011-05-07T04:00:00.000-07:00

I've met a lot of strange horses over the years. Each horse I've ever encountered had it own distinct personality, or should I call it a horsenality...

Thoroughbreds are thin skinned and don't like being touched; though some loved being rubbed between their neck and front shoulders. Brush them too vigorously and they won't stand for it.

I met another horse that didn't like dry hay. This one would always empty all the hay from his hay rack into his water bucket. He'd wait an appropriate time and then when soaked long enough he'd eat it as though they were noodles.

We recently had a horse that would only pee in his stall. He could be in the pasture all day and as soon as we brought him in he'd dash for his stall and pee.

We had another horse that would pee as soon as we let her out in the pasture. It was the first order of business for her. Most horses when put out will roll on the ground, run around a bit and then tuck into the grass, but this one would always pee first.

We had another horse that could tell time. I try to feed the horses on a strict schedule. This horse would get very vocal if I was ever late with his feeding.

We will be getting another new horse soon and I wonder how long it will take before she displays he particular quirk.

Refer Madness

2011-05-06T04:00:00.000-07:00

Being tall and having the need like all people have to clutter up some space I've found the top of the refrigerator to be an excellent spot. There are several reasons this is a great space. First because most people can't see up there, second because is is an undisturbed flat space and third because no one will mess or move the stuff I put up there. Finally it is my sub-conscience; a place where I put things I wish to forget.

We are expecting a lot of house guests over the next several weeks and it was time for me to take everything off for a cleaning. I am somewhat embarrassed about all the stuff I found up there and carted a bag of stuff like hardware out to my (also cluttered) shop. Other things were filed and most of the stuff was deemed expired and irrelevant and were placed in the trash or the burn pile.

I hosed down the top with Windex and I'm off to a clean start again. I wonder how soon it will be before I place the first item up there to start a new collection.

A Kid's Wish List

2011-05-05T04:00:00.000-07:00

I recall that while growing up in the pre-technology era of the 60s the wish list of kids I knew all shared three items that were commonly advertised in the magazines we would read. These items were: A Sunfish sailboat, a motorized go cart and a mini bike.

Most desires at 12 years of age aren't at all realistic simply as most kids did not live on a lake and at 12 years old we didn't drive and would have no way of getting a sail boat to a lake. Go carts required a track since they weren't street legal and how many laps could one take on their own driveway before realizing their limits to fun.

However the mini bike was totally practical and attainable. You could buy one for around a hundred dollars and there were enough fields and dirt lots to cruse. The only obstacles were saving up $100 and one's parents objection.

Now that I think of it I probably only had two friends that overcame those obstacles. My brother was somewhat caught up in the fever and one day I came home to find he got a Cushman motor scooter. It looked like the photo below but was as I recall cream colored.

I think it had two gears and it drove like a two wheeled golf cart or perhaps like a two wheeled refrigerator. I rode it once through the field across the street and the bottom kept getting high centered on the grass. It did drive better on the dirt road. It certainly wasn't a mini bike.

The look of the Cushman was kind of douchey back in those days, but I bet a lot of folks would love to have one today. I have no idea what happened to that scooter but I do remember it well.

I thought of this over the weekend as it seemed like there were hundreds of motorcycles on the road on the first sunny day in a considerable amount of time. Most of the riders were my age and I'm sure once had a mini bike on their wish list, and it has taken a mid life crisis for them to make their larger adult dreams come true.

Sad Yet Ironic

2011-05-04T04:00:00.000-07:00

Back in 2008 I posted an article about scary movies and in it I mentioned the Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. In the post I said, "Even Attack of the 50 Foot Woman was scary, but fortunately she was pretty hot and personal fantasies overpowered any fears that one might have."

Oddly the woman, Yvette Vickers who played a floozy in this movie kept the monster concept going over the last year.

According to the Los Angeles Times:
The mummified body of Yvette Vickers, a B-movie actress beloved by fans as “the 50-Foot Woman” (and an early Playboy playmate) was discovered at her Benedict Canyon home in Los Angeles. According to police, Vickers had not been seen for some time. A neighbor became suspicious and decided to investigate on April 27th. The state of decomposition may indicate the body was there for close to a year.

Candy For Kids

2011-05-03T04:00:00.000-07:00

When I stumbled upon this photo I was taken back to my childhood. When I was a kid candy mattered. Candy was an affordable constant that most kids with some pocket change could afford. Most adults look forward to going to going to a pub or out for a meal, but for kids look forward to their next candy bar.

Some candy didn't survive from my generation to the present though some are being offered in retro shops as limited editions such as Bonomo's Turkish Taffy, Chunky and Clark Bars.

Personally I find it odd that 3 Musketeers survived. It is probably the most boring of all candy bars, followed by Mounds. It's strange how placing an almond on top really makes a difference and turns mounds to Almond Joy and makes it not so boring.

It's funny, though I'm diabetic and have changed my diet drastically over the last few years I can't resist the occasional bite size versions of some of these treats when I find them available.

Obligation for Another Year

2011-05-02T04:00:00.000-07:00

This morning I mailed off my hive registration to the Oregon Department of Agriculture and I sent in my annual dues to the Beekeeping Association. I'm scheduled to be an instructor at a beekeeping workshop next weekend. So, I guess I'll be keeping bees for another year.

The Weeping Angles

2011-05-01T04:00:00.000-07:00

Doctor Who fans out there will feel a chill run up their spine when they view the photo above. Of all the monsters that that have been featured in this show since 1963,(yes, it's been on for 48 years now)the Weeping Angels may be the most frightening.

These angels are statues that are perfectly still as long as you are looking at them, but blink and they move very quickly. Blink twice and they will snap your neck.

It seems that a few years ago people started going angel crazy. They collected all sorts of angel imagery, most being visions of chubby little toddlers with wings but when you read up on what are considered the ten phylum of angels one will come away fearing them like the weeping angels rather than loving them like we see them in religious fiction. The fact they are described as "phylum" is interesting on its own.

The Guardians are the first phylum. They assist us with our fears and phobias. The color of their wing tips is silver.

The Archangels are the second phylum. There are 4 of them. Their primary purpose is healing and they're also messengers of hope. Archangels have white wings with blue tips.

The third and fourth level of angels are the Cherubim and Seraphim. These are singing angels and they hang out constantly singing the words "Holy, holy, holy" They have white wings with rose colored tips.

The fifth phylum of angels are The Powers. The Powers use their energy to heal. The electrical force that comes from them enters your body and heals you cell by cell. They're quite large in size.Their wings are white with greenish white tips.

The sixth phylum of angels are The Carrions also known as Blood Angels. Their primary purpose is to escort away dark entities when they die. Their sole mission is to stand back until a dark entity passes into death. No mention of wing color.

The seventh phylum of angels are The Virtues. They help to guide us before we begin our journeys here on earth. They have white wings with pale blue tips and a silvery blue luminescence.

The eighth phylum of angels are The Dominions. They watch over us and permanently record our actions and good deeds in the Akaschic Records (look that one up, it's worth it). They have white wings with maroon tips.

The ninth and tenth phylum are The Thrones and Principalities and are considered the highest phylum of angels. They represent Mother and Father God's armies.

The Thrones and Principalities come to us when we're in any type of danger. The Thrones are Mother God's army and The Principalities are Father God's army.

In conclusion, though the Doctor Who Weeping Angels are scary, the theosophical accepted phylum of angels are every bit as scary.

As Ricky Gervais said, "I thank God I'm and Atheist."

Big Frogs and Small Ponds

2011-04-30T04:00:00.000-07:00

I saw the term, "Big Frog in a Small Pond" recently. This was a term my mother used often to describe locals in our town that were too big for their britches or for bullies. I understood the term the first time she said it to me when I was very young.

There is a lot of that big frog thing happening here in the County.

One of my father's associate was a big fish who dinned on big frogs, though you wouldn't know it by his demeanor. He was a quiet man who seemed to get things done without being boastful. He was smart enough to have others do his bidding for him ans he sat below the surface. His philosophy was, "If you don't have pull, you have to push."

To this day I find it interesting how both he and my mother had contempt for the big frogs from different angles. I don't have much more to say on this topic other than how I enjoy the imagery in my mind,

This Bud's For You

2011-04-29T04:00:00.000-07:00

There are quite a few things that have been peculiar this year. It's been colder, rainier and windier than normal. It seems that is catching up with everything. One thing I could always count on was that the flowering cherry tree in my yard would be in full bloom on April 15th of every year. It is now two weeks later and the tree still looks like this. Not a flower on it.

It's pretty drastic when nature is held back for 1/24th of a year. Now don't get up on the soap box about global warming unless you have stopped using fossil fuels, and electricity all together. The climate is changing which is something we will all need to adapt to, or not. I'm just finding it all very interesting how the planet is reacting to conditions be they natural or man made. There is always an equalization taking place. Nature abhors a vacuum and nature will move things around seeking an equilibrium and we get to see it happen before our eyes.

Less

2011-04-28T04:00:00.000-07:00

I am finding that with every passing year, month, week and day I'm having less and less to say. I think it may be a good thing.

It's not that I don't have opinions on things brought before me, I do, but it's just that I have finally learned to temper my reactive nature. Maybe I'm trying to be more dignified. Maybe I've come to the realization that nothing I say will change anything, or make any difference in a hundred years.

I was recently engaged in a one sided conversation with someone recently and I was starting to feel like I was trapped in a coyote moment where I wanted to gnaw off a leg so I could escape. I was wishing that someone would call my cell or that someone would start a fire, but she went on and on.

It seems that some people get talkative when they get older. I've been to a few memorial services in the past few months where there were scheduled speakers, but eventually they opened the mic to allow anyone to comment. Two particularly verbose retirees were at these memorials. When each started talking the phrase, "Even freight trains come to a stop from time to time" ran through my head.

I am reminded of a thing that happened in one of the old Our Gang Comedy shows. There was an obese child whose mother hung a sign on him that said "Do Not Feed Me." I would like to get a sign for some people that says, "Do Not Give Me A Microphone." Or perhaps design a microphone that turns itself off after three minutes.

Here's an example

The Fire

2011-04-27T04:00:00.001-07:00

The Great Storm of 2007 leveled a stand of trees between my house and a neighbors house. Since then we have a spot where we pile all our yard waste and scrap wood to be burned around a big snag of a stump. Every year we spend the day keeping watch over the fire.

I've been wanting to start this fire since December, but every weekend was either too wet or windy, but finally Saturday morning was perfect. I got the fire going shortly after 8am knowing the winds would kick up after 10am. Most of the bulk would be burned down by then and it was.

We made a little progress on burning the stump away. This stump is wet and dense and will take probably another ten years to burn. However the bulk of branches and old bee boxes are now a pile of ashes and we'll start working on the burn pile for next year.

One benefit other than the clean-up is that I now smell like I've been around a camp fire. It's making me look forward to going camping with the horses in the months to come. With every fire there is a renewal.

Queen Of The Sun Review

2011-04-26T04:00:00.001-07:00

We went to see Queen of the Sun on Friday, and I have to say that it was a rather well done documentary. It was very close to what I teach when I do a class on honey bees. There were some parts that were very uncomfortably WoWo for me where those being interviewed anthropomorphized the bees beyond recognition. There was a shirtless yogi who brushed the bees with his mustache. When I saw this I realized his colonies were not wild bees at all and I'd love to see him come to my place and try that act with one hot wild colony I have.

It was refreshing to hear Michael Pollan's comments on agricultural monoculture and how our food supply is aiming recklessly towards self destruction and doom.

I often get questions about the disappearance of honey bees and people seem to have a sincere concern over it, though many people may not have a clue about the global implications if this trend continues.

The only turn-offs of this film for me is the graphic they used of a young woman dancing while covered in bees. It was the opening shot of the film and had no real relevance to the content other than people are pretty silly wasting bees time performing such stunts. The other turnoff was the name, Queen of the Sun which only significance was a song that was played as the credits rolled at the end of the film. Honey bee queens pretty much live their lives in the darkness of the hive. They only ever see the sun while on their mating flights early in their lives, when they eventually swarm when they get old or when a beekeeper exposes them to light on hive inspections. It seems the double punch of that name and the woman covered in bees was an attempt to draw the well intentioned WoWo crowd that doesn't know any better. But all in all these were minor annoyances with a documentary of this magnitude.

The film encourages people to do what they can to help save the bees and encourages people to become beekeepers. As I left the theater I had a snicker of concern over the flack I'm probably going to get next month with the publishing of my article on why people shouldn't become beekeepers.

The Smell of a Meal

2011-04-25T04:00:00.000-07:00

One of the joys of eating is the smell of the prepared food. This is often made better by coming from the outdoors into the smell of something that has been roasting in the oven. Even doing some early chores and coming into the smell of breakfast that you've already eaten can make one hungry all over again.

Sometimes food smells can even attack you outdoors. Sometimes it will be the waft of air coming from an exhaust fan, but more often it is someone near by doing some outdoor grilling.

The weirdest thing was that I once lived a couple miles from a factory that made dog biscuits and every once in a while the north wind would deliver the scent of baking. It actually smelled pretty good. It made you want to visit a bakery.

Sadly lunch doesn't usually have much of a smell because that meal is often made of cold sandwiches. However a really good lunch will be able to be smelled. Even cold, some meats and dressings can lure you in like a cooked meal, but there's nothing like heat to spread the smell in amazing ways.

It's amazing that people who have lost their sense of smell can ever enjoy a meal. The scent of food cooking is inspiring.

The Dock

2011-04-24T04:00:00.000-07:00

I've written several times about the lake in Canada where I used to summer in my youth. For some reason I've been thinking about the dock where we tied up the boat when we were finished being on the water for the day.

Every dock is different, but this one was in rather shallow water. They built it by placing several logs in the water on the sandy bottom and spanning planks across them and then running planks length-wise. The water was just deep enough to pull up to the dock. You couldn't have the motor down or it would drag on the bottom.

Once up to the dock there was no tie down hard ware on the dock. There were well worn two inch holes in various places in the planks where you could tie a rope through the hole to the gunnel to secure the boat.

This dock could host four boats. Any other boats that came around would have to be beached.

This dock was were we launched every morning and returned for meals. We would jump off this dock when we swam. We would clean fish on this dock and drop the guts right off the dock and watch the cray fish scramble and tuck into a good meal. Some times I would lie on the dock and watch the minnows swimming from under the dock out into the open. I'd watch the cray fish. I'd look into the shimmering of the pyrite in the sand and wondered if any of it was actually gold. There was so much to look at beneath the surface of the water I could spend hours there and come away feeling content.

I think I need to find a dock somewhere in clear water and I'll spend some time there and reconnect with my youth.

I Heard It Perfectly

2011-04-23T04:00:00.000-07:00

Every family has their own jokes or traditions. These seem to develop from circumstances that can only occur in the family unit. While writing about the Forbidden Door yesterday I was reminded of another family joke or tradition.

My wife’s youngest son was always a serious/earnest type. When he was about eight years old he had some trouble communicating. Either that or I just had trouble understanding him. One day I was mowing the lawn and I caught him in the corner of my eye approaching me with a look of concern on his face. I stopped, turned off the mower and removed my ear protection. He looked me right in the eye and said, “bla mnm mnm mnnm, mnmn mnmn,… Ma Said!”

I ponder what he may have said, but summing it up by saying “Ma Said!” granted him instant permission. All I could say was,”Sure, if Ma said, it’s OK by me.” He walked away and I continued mowing the lawn. To this day I have no idea what he asked, but I guess it all worked out. I know the phrase “Ma Said” is the trump card in any situation and resistance is futile.

The Forbidden Door

2011-04-22T04:00:00.000-07:00

My house originally had two exterior doors. One, the main door opened to the living room and the other into a utility room. After building the second addition we now had a new entrance and the door to the living room was renamed, “The Forbidden Door” where no one was to enter. It made sense because we still had kids living at home and I’m sure the carpet would have been trashed in months had we not rerouted the traffic to the new door.

The funny thing is that we still call it the Forbidden Door and I still get a twinge of guilt when letting the cats in or out through that door, but not guilty enough that I’ll actually walk through the house to make them use the other door.

Queen of the Sun

2011-04-21T04:00:00.000-07:00

If you cant get enough of bees by reading my posts, then come see the movie. Queen of the Sun will be showing here in Astoria on Friday April 22- 7:00 pm and Saturday April 23- 3:00 pm at the Columbian Theater

Queen of the Sun Trailer

Green Trolls

2011-04-20T04:00:00.000-07:00

I’m really getting sick of the disingenuous people with proclaimed their green intentions. I know in the past I changed my position on LNG because those opposed to it were still driving their fossil fueled billboards to every anti-LNG meeting there was while leaving their porch lights burning brightly through the night.

Recently Facebook opened a new facility in Prineville. All the greenies are coming out of the wood work complaining that the probably most energy efficient building ever built still uses some power from Pacific Powers coal fired plant. Unless the greenies are totally off the grid they should shut the fuck up.

Next, I was watching the PBS show ART-21 the other day. One of the featured artists was Robert Adams, a photographer who I think lacks any skills in printing or composition. (There is a reason they make filters for poly-contrast papers. Learn to use them with that gray carp you are printing.) He was going on and on about this clear cut and how ugly it was, yet he was totally unapologetic about all his wood working projects and all the paper he burns through while making is books and prints. Does he think the wood products come from a magical forest that never dies? He is using more than his share, so he should shut the fuck up as well.

Happy Earth Day!

Oh, The Irony

2011-04-19T05:18:00.000-07:00

Dr Who will begin the new season on BBC America this weekend. This time the Doctor is in America. Any Dr. Who fans out there?

Finally

2011-04-18T04:00:00.000-07:00

This is the last of the Faux Kinkades.

A Sea Change

2011-04-17T05:36:00.001-07:00

Abby Lane

2011-04-16T04:00:00.000-07:00

Phoning It In

2011-04-15T04:00:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't been writing much lately. I haven't been doing anything all that exciting. I haven't been having any interesting conversations with anyone (that I can speak about). I haven't gone anywhere. I've pretty much been a weather related shut-in.

I keep a lot of pictures in reserve for uninspired occasions such as this. So please continuing bearing with me as share some of my favorites.

Today we start a Faux Kinkade illustration series. This being Tax Day, I find todays illustration appropriate.

Palindrome

2011-04-14T04:27:00.000-07:00

In Case You Didn't Know

2011-04-13T04:51:00.000-07:00

Let's Keep A Good Thing Going

2011-04-12T04:00:00.000-07:00

Nothing Written

2011-04-11T04:00:00.000-07:00

I didn't write anything for today so I will entertain you only with the photo above.

Can this be real?

2011-04-10T04:00:00.000-07:00

Driver New Single-Seat Volkswagen
Comment: testing for reality. Please let it be!

You can go to Shanghai for a vacation, buy two or more of these cars, one for your wife and one for yourself, and one for each of your kids, have them shipped here, and still spend less money than if you bought a car in locally.

This is not a toy, not a concept car. It is a newly developed single seat car in highly aerodynamic tear-shape road-proven real car. It is ready to be launched as a single-seater for sale in Shanghai in 2010 for a mere RMB 4,000 (US$600)

Interested? Wait till you learn that it will cruise at 60-70 mph with an unbelievable 258 miles/gallon!!

Impressed? Totally, after you have read all the details below about the hi-tech and space-age material input into this car!!! It will be on sale next year!

• Better than Electric Car - 258 miles/gallon: IPO 2010 in Shanghai
• This is a single seated car.
• From conception to production: 3 years and the company is headquartered in Hamburg , Germany , Germany .
• Will be selling for 4000 yuan, equivalent to US$600.
• Gas tank capacity = 1.7 gallons
• Max speed = 74.6 Miles/hour
• Fuel efficiency = 258 miles/gallon
• Travel distance with a full tank = 404 mile(2+gallons).

MIMI

2011-04-09T04:00:00.000-07:00

I know it may be hard to believe today, but in the early 60s the photo above was sexy and provocative. This was MIMI and she was featured in every edition of Mechanix Illustrated. No, her name wasn't really MIMI, but her name was derived from the initials of the magazine, MI.

MIMI wasn't just one person. There was a new MIMI every year. Her outfit was always like in the photo above, stripped bib overalls, high heels and a conductors' hat, which was later dropped (the hat, that is). MIMI would always be fiddling with a new featured gadget of the month.

I wonder if Adults were as fond of her image as 9 year old boys were at that time.

The Kill

2011-04-08T04:00:00.000-07:00

I keep running across stupid photos such as the one above where some asshole hunter is posing with the corpse of an animal while wearing a shit eating grin. It seems that high powered weaponry and long range scopes has totally removed any negative emotion from the kill. I don't think they should be smiling. It wasn't like the hunter was ever in any danger and they are smiling because they faced death and came out victorious. No, they squatted in the brush and when they saw movement hundreds of feet away they pointed a metal stick in the direction and pulled a trigger.

I think that a segment of all hunter safety courses should be that the student has to spend one day working at a slaughter house. Animal killing of any sort should be a solemn event that calls for reverence and respect for the life that is taken. I've culled and have been present for culling of several animals and it is something that is pretty unpleasant. I always ask myself what gives me the right to do this sort of thing to another creature.

So if you are a hunter, please show some respect. Don't have photos taken with the animal you just killed, but if you have to have a photo at least wipe the shit eating grin off your face. You just ended a life.

Where To Go?

2011-04-07T04:00:00.000-07:00

This winter has been hard on a lot of us here on the Oregon Coast this year. It’s been nothing but rain and wind since October. I always tell people I moved here for the gloom, but this winter was more that I ever bargained for. This was the first time we’ve actually considered moving somewhere a bit less gloomy.

Aside from me I’ve been hearing from others who are contemplating a move as well. We are mostly people with horses. One couple plans to move to Eastern Oregon in four years. Another person just wants out. I’ve been emailing another friend that has been sending me horse property listings from Kentucky and West Virginia, but if you’ve ever lived through a summer there this isn’t something that should ever be considered.

My wife would like to move somewhere in the Willamette Valley but not Eugene because of the way I pronounce the name of that town ( Ewe-Gene). I’d enjoy something more desolate like the Blue Mountains or Montana.

No matter where one wants to go there is always a draw-back and that is usually the climate. It’s either too wet, or cold, or hot, or humid. The only place I’ve ever been where the climate was perfect all year was the area of the Parker Ranch on the Big Island of Hawaii. One could move there, but then you’d have to contend with Rock Fever. When I first considered moving there 24 years ago, every one I talked with warned me of Rock Fever and how it has driven many people mad over the years. This is a condition where you realize you are living on a big volcanic rock in the middle of the Pacific and you’ll do anything to get away.

Anyway, a move is seriously being considered. Aside from the over-abundance of gloom, I will not miss the growth and sprawl of this area. I will not miss the local media, which I don’t miss now since I no longer read local publications or listen to local radio. Most of all I won’t miss local politics, past and present. They are all big frogs in a small pond, a very small pond. I wonder how they sleep at night.

The Chicks Are Growing Up

2011-04-06T04:00:00.000-07:00

The six new chicks are nearly two months old now. They lived in a cage inside the house for the first couple of weeks and then I moved the cage out to the coop for another couple of weeks. Eventually we go to the point where we let the adult chickens out for the day and let the chicks have run of the coop and the supermax. They were afraid of the adult hens, with good reason, so we put up a cabbage crate out in their yard. The slats at either end are large enough for them to get in but too small for a hen to chase after them.

Last week we let the chicks, who are half the size of the adults out in the fenced garden area to get them used to the world out side and finally this weekend we let them out into the whole world with the hens. The new chicks stayed to themselves and the adult chickens didn't even regard them. They are all getting along just fine.

It's nice getting to this point of integration. Wait until they get their next rude awakening of what it is that roosters do.