That’s a Big 10-4
I’m sitting in St. Paul, Minnesota as I write this, visiting my son and daughter. It’s not the first time I’ve made the 900-mile drive between the Twin Cities and Ripley by myself and it’s always an adventure.
I left Ripley at the crack of 9:30 a.m. on Thursday last week and made it as far as Peach Street in Erie for a rest stop. Leaving home always makes me nervous. At 10:30 I was back on the road, nerves under control and the radio blaring.
I have a CB radio in my car and I usually have it turned on when I’m going a distance. There isn’t as much chatter on the radio as I remember in years past. Mostly it’s just drivers giving directions or shouting a hello to other drivers they know. But then, you also have the drivers who give the profession a bad name; you know the ones, lots of cussing and swearing, lots of smut talk. Quite often they’re sitting in truck stops, bored, and trying to get a rise out of anyone listening.
Until I met my husband, who drove truck for 40+ years before retiring, I assumed most truckers were stereotypical beer- swilling, cigar smoking, foul-mouthed louts. It just ain’t so. Most of the men and women out there are just hard working folks, trying to get from Point A to Point B in the fastest time possible in order to make a living. Many truck drivers resent the “four-wheelers” on the road and roundly abuse their stupidity. I have to agree. You’d be amazed at the stupid things people do when they’re on the open road; like pulling out in front of 18-wheelers because “trucks have airbrakes, they can stop on a dime.” A 40-ton truck and trailer, airbrakes or not, is not going to stop quickly, and cutting a truck off is tantamount to a death wish.
CBers have a language all their own. Everybody knows 10-4, an answer in the affirmative. A “bear in the middle shootin’ east bounders,” is a highway patrolman sitting in the median, using radar aimed at east bound traffic. A “county mountie” is a county sheriff. “Bear bait” are vehicles travelling at a high rate of speed, bound to attract the attention of the highway patrol, thereby allowing the trucks to “hammer down” undisturbed. Listening in on the CB is a great way to find out where all the speed traps are, not that I would ever speed…. It also alerts you to traffic backups and construction work.
Sadly, accidents occur and the truckers let each other know when there has been one, such as the one I passed just west of Cleveland. In graphic detail, I could hear them relaying the fatality that occurred in the multi-car crash on I-90. Having seen the vehicle in question for myself, there was no doubt in my mind that the driver had gone on to a better place. It shook me up for a lot of miles, making me more alert and cautious.
Any vehicle can be an instrument of death, but an 80,000 pound diesel and trailer deserve some respect. To all the professional drivers out there, you have mine. Be safe out there.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Sunday, August 1, 2010
How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!
Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside.
Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown,
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down.
I wanted a swing in the large maple tree out back. I've always romanticized about a garden swing; gliding through the air in a lovely old fashioned gauzy dress, billowing out around me. I finally have the swing. The dress will have to wait awhile longer.
I wanted a swing in the large maple tree out back. I've always romanticized about a garden swing; gliding through the air in a lovely old fashioned gauzy dress, billowing out around me. I finally have the swing. The dress will have to wait awhile longer.
We found a sturdy piece of wood in the garage, which I painted blue and rubbed, making it look rather antique. Then I painted the flowers on it. Bob varnished it and drilled the holes. I'm not particularly thrilled with the knots holding the rope on, but the important thing is, I have a swing! It's quite lovely, and drifting back and forth in the garden, watching the birds and sky, is very therapeutic.
A closer view: 
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
The Virtues of Home Canning
This is the first in a series of articles about an “alternative” lifestyle. Life in the late 1800s and early 1900s was radically different from that of today. In many ways, our modern lifestyle is preferable, but in several other very important ways, we would be wise to take a page from our parents and grandparents. The economy is bad. Jobs are scarce. Money is tight. I offer you some food for thought and maybe a few memories.
I’ve been on a quest for canning jars. So far I’ve accumulated about 300 of them, but the goal is 1,000 jars. Why, you ask? Because that is how many jars of food it takes to sustain a family of eleven until the next harvest season.
Perhaps you’ve heard me mention from time to time that I have a sister who has nine children, home schools them all, sews their clothes, raises their own animals for meat and by-products, and grows and cans their own fruits and vegetables. She is not super-woman, but she is hard working, frugal and creative. She has chosen to live a lifestyle closer to that of the late 1800s than of the 21st century. Part of that lifestyle is to provide for her family in the most economical way possible, which includes 1,000 jars of canned food.
A lot of people I know can; I’ve done it myself a time or two. For what little I can, it’s not worth the effort or expense. However, my sister was sharing her food philosophy recently when someone piped up and stated that” home canning is a nice hobby, but you’re never going to save money doing it.” He went on to say he bought his canned goods by the case load from Save-A-Lot and $.40 per can was cheaper than any home canned goods could ever be.
Here is her reply: A typical 600 square foot garden will yield, on average, one pound of vegetables per square foot. If you take a cost of approximately $60 for seeds, plants, fertilizer and tools (hand tools that is, no mechanized tillers or tractors) and spread it over 5 years, that brings the cost of raising vegetables to about 10 cents a pound. If you buy direct from growers or at pick-your-own farms, the price is somewhat higher.
Canning jars purchased new cost about $8 per dozen, amortized over 20 years, brings their cost to 3 cents per jar per year. Add the cost of lids, which need to be replaced with each canning; the cost for jar, band and lid is 20 cents. Figuring two pounds of vegetables in each quart jar brings the grand total to 40 cents per jar.
So if you can buy caseloads of vegetables from the discount stores for the same price, why not do it? In one word – quality.
Home grown foods lack the preservatives, dyes and coatings added by mass producers. They haven’t gobbled up fossil fuels by flying 2000 miles across the country so they’re “fresh” from California, or worse, Mexico or Argentina. If homegrown items contain salmonella or E.coli, it’s your own quality control at issue, not Russian roulette from some field hundreds or thousands of miles away over which you have no control. In addition, the food you eat fresh or canned was, in all probability, picked just hours before it was eaten or processed.
I’m not a convert to home canning, yet. But it certainly makes me think twice about where my food comes from. It’s too late for a garden this year, but with local produce so reasonably priced, I think I’ll make it until next spring when I can plant a few of my own home-grown foods. Who knows, I may even drag out the old canner.
This is the first in a series of articles about an “alternative” lifestyle. Life in the late 1800s and early 1900s was radically different from that of today. In many ways, our modern lifestyle is preferable, but in several other very important ways, we would be wise to take a page from our parents and grandparents. The economy is bad. Jobs are scarce. Money is tight. I offer you some food for thought and maybe a few memories.
I’ve been on a quest for canning jars. So far I’ve accumulated about 300 of them, but the goal is 1,000 jars. Why, you ask? Because that is how many jars of food it takes to sustain a family of eleven until the next harvest season.
Perhaps you’ve heard me mention from time to time that I have a sister who has nine children, home schools them all, sews their clothes, raises their own animals for meat and by-products, and grows and cans their own fruits and vegetables. She is not super-woman, but she is hard working, frugal and creative. She has chosen to live a lifestyle closer to that of the late 1800s than of the 21st century. Part of that lifestyle is to provide for her family in the most economical way possible, which includes 1,000 jars of canned food.
A lot of people I know can; I’ve done it myself a time or two. For what little I can, it’s not worth the effort or expense. However, my sister was sharing her food philosophy recently when someone piped up and stated that” home canning is a nice hobby, but you’re never going to save money doing it.” He went on to say he bought his canned goods by the case load from Save-A-Lot and $.40 per can was cheaper than any home canned goods could ever be.
Here is her reply: A typical 600 square foot garden will yield, on average, one pound of vegetables per square foot. If you take a cost of approximately $60 for seeds, plants, fertilizer and tools (hand tools that is, no mechanized tillers or tractors) and spread it over 5 years, that brings the cost of raising vegetables to about 10 cents a pound. If you buy direct from growers or at pick-your-own farms, the price is somewhat higher.
Canning jars purchased new cost about $8 per dozen, amortized over 20 years, brings their cost to 3 cents per jar per year. Add the cost of lids, which need to be replaced with each canning; the cost for jar, band and lid is 20 cents. Figuring two pounds of vegetables in each quart jar brings the grand total to 40 cents per jar.
So if you can buy caseloads of vegetables from the discount stores for the same price, why not do it? In one word – quality.
Home grown foods lack the preservatives, dyes and coatings added by mass producers. They haven’t gobbled up fossil fuels by flying 2000 miles across the country so they’re “fresh” from California, or worse, Mexico or Argentina. If homegrown items contain salmonella or E.coli, it’s your own quality control at issue, not Russian roulette from some field hundreds or thousands of miles away over which you have no control. In addition, the food you eat fresh or canned was, in all probability, picked just hours before it was eaten or processed.
I’m not a convert to home canning, yet. But it certainly makes me think twice about where my food comes from. It’s too late for a garden this year, but with local produce so reasonably priced, I think I’ll make it until next spring when I can plant a few of my own home-grown foods. Who knows, I may even drag out the old canner.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
It’s Not Easy Being Green
Do you ever wonder if Mother Earth is trying to get rid of us, kind of like a dog shaking fleas? With all the natural and man-made disasters in the world today, makes me wonder.
Man has used and abused this planet ever since his appearance several millennia ago. It may have finally caught up with us. Until the Industrial Revolution, humans caused relatively little damage to their environment; but with the advent of the machine and its inherent pollution and waste, the earth was doomed. We have polluted the skies with our carbon emissions to the point of destroying the ozone layer that protects us from the sun. We have polluted the earth with our land-fills full of plastic that will be there thousands of years from now. We have polluted virtually every body of water on earth with waste, chemicals, and now oil. What exactly will it take to wake us up that we are destroying our home?
I’m no expert, but sometimes I wonder if the earth has had enough of us. The number and severity of tornadoes in the Midwest have increased; hurricanes seem to come more often with more devastating results to the nations they hit; earthquakes are more prevalent and tidal waves more catastrophic. Add to all this the rampaging oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and I wonder that more of the world’s animal and plant species have not gone extinct.
The world is going “green.” You can’t help but read about it, or see it on television. It’s a relatively new term, dating back to the 1970s. It hadn’t really caught on worldwide until just a few years ago. But environmentalists have been around since ancient Greece and Rome, complaining even back then about air, water and noise pollution.
Individually most of us are aware that we need to “clean up our act.” We recycle plastic, glass, cans and papers. We conserve energy by turning off lights, use air conditioning less, and combine errands making one trip instead of several. The encouraging thing is that if we ALL did our part, it would have an effect on world pollution. The sad thing is, most of us don’t.
I don’t know if global warming is a fact or not. I suspect it is. But I do know my environment is changing and not for the better. One person cannot do much to reverse the effects of thousands of years of abuse of our planet, but collectively we can make a difference. Our children are learning the new 3 r’s: “reduce, reuse, recycle.” Sometimes it takes us older folk a bit longer to jump on the bandwagon. It’s not easy being green, as Kermit says, but we can be taught – hopefully before it’s too late.
Do you ever wonder if Mother Earth is trying to get rid of us, kind of like a dog shaking fleas? With all the natural and man-made disasters in the world today, makes me wonder.
Man has used and abused this planet ever since his appearance several millennia ago. It may have finally caught up with us. Until the Industrial Revolution, humans caused relatively little damage to their environment; but with the advent of the machine and its inherent pollution and waste, the earth was doomed. We have polluted the skies with our carbon emissions to the point of destroying the ozone layer that protects us from the sun. We have polluted the earth with our land-fills full of plastic that will be there thousands of years from now. We have polluted virtually every body of water on earth with waste, chemicals, and now oil. What exactly will it take to wake us up that we are destroying our home?
I’m no expert, but sometimes I wonder if the earth has had enough of us. The number and severity of tornadoes in the Midwest have increased; hurricanes seem to come more often with more devastating results to the nations they hit; earthquakes are more prevalent and tidal waves more catastrophic. Add to all this the rampaging oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and I wonder that more of the world’s animal and plant species have not gone extinct.
The world is going “green.” You can’t help but read about it, or see it on television. It’s a relatively new term, dating back to the 1970s. It hadn’t really caught on worldwide until just a few years ago. But environmentalists have been around since ancient Greece and Rome, complaining even back then about air, water and noise pollution.
Individually most of us are aware that we need to “clean up our act.” We recycle plastic, glass, cans and papers. We conserve energy by turning off lights, use air conditioning less, and combine errands making one trip instead of several. The encouraging thing is that if we ALL did our part, it would have an effect on world pollution. The sad thing is, most of us don’t.
I don’t know if global warming is a fact or not. I suspect it is. But I do know my environment is changing and not for the better. One person cannot do much to reverse the effects of thousands of years of abuse of our planet, but collectively we can make a difference. Our children are learning the new 3 r’s: “reduce, reuse, recycle.” Sometimes it takes us older folk a bit longer to jump on the bandwagon. It’s not easy being green, as Kermit says, but we can be taught – hopefully before it’s too late.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
Lazy, Hazy Daze
Roll ‘em out, those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer. I’m not a big fan of summer. It’s hot and sticky and it drains me of energy. It’s the old stand-by: it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity. That’s true I guess. I’ve been to Mexico in 110 degree heat and it didn’t affect me nearly as much as 80 and humid here.
But I’m not so old that I can’t remember when I enjoyed summer. It was before the days of air-conditioning, when you got a tall glass of Kool-Aid with ice and sat under the nearest tree to cool off. I usually had a book in hand. My mind’s eye sees me sitting there; balancing the glass of Kool-Aid in a tuft of grass, and feeling a slight breeze ruffle the pages of my book. It was a lazy time, when the cares of the world had yet to descend.
I can remember looking up, through the leaves, watching them sway and being fascinated by the patterns they made against the deep blue sky. I remember the sky being a darker blue when I was a kid. I don’t think that’s my imagination; I think there is a constant haze of pollution we’re looking through now, even on the clearest days. When you lay on the grass back then, looking straight up, the sky seemed almost black it was so intensely blue. I miss those days.
Cloud sculptures were a popular pastime when I was younger. Remember looking up at the cumulus clouds (the big puffy kind) and seeing dragons, rabbits and faces in them? Then right before your eyes they would morph into something completely different. Why don’t we take time to fanaticize with the clouds anymore?
The lake was always a welcome relief to the summer heat. That was back in the days when you could actually, legally, get down to Ripley Beach. What did we know of sandy beaches and clear waters when we were kids? The beach was mostly shale rock, like it is today. Finding a spot to build a sand castle was a real treat. The lake was occasionally clear, allowing us to see the rocks below; but more often than not, it was a murky brown, hiding it’s booby-traps of boulders to stumble on and mucky, slimy patches of seaweed to step into. The lake also had a goodly supply of dead fish floating around, back in the days when industrial waste and sewers were freely dumped in the Great Lakes. We wouldn’t dream of entering such waters now, with E. coli and such; but back then, we simple splashed the dead fish out of the way and continued on. “Them was the good ol’ days.”
I don’t care much about swimming in the lake these days, and I’m more apt to sit in the air-conditioned house with my book than under a tree. But I haven’t given up on summer entirely. My goal now is to have an old fashioned swing hung from an accommodating tree branch, so I can leisurely sway with the breeze, watching the clouds go by.
Roll ‘em out, those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer. I’m not a big fan of summer. It’s hot and sticky and it drains me of energy. It’s the old stand-by: it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity. That’s true I guess. I’ve been to Mexico in 110 degree heat and it didn’t affect me nearly as much as 80 and humid here.
But I’m not so old that I can’t remember when I enjoyed summer. It was before the days of air-conditioning, when you got a tall glass of Kool-Aid with ice and sat under the nearest tree to cool off. I usually had a book in hand. My mind’s eye sees me sitting there; balancing the glass of Kool-Aid in a tuft of grass, and feeling a slight breeze ruffle the pages of my book. It was a lazy time, when the cares of the world had yet to descend.
I can remember looking up, through the leaves, watching them sway and being fascinated by the patterns they made against the deep blue sky. I remember the sky being a darker blue when I was a kid. I don’t think that’s my imagination; I think there is a constant haze of pollution we’re looking through now, even on the clearest days. When you lay on the grass back then, looking straight up, the sky seemed almost black it was so intensely blue. I miss those days.
Cloud sculptures were a popular pastime when I was younger. Remember looking up at the cumulus clouds (the big puffy kind) and seeing dragons, rabbits and faces in them? Then right before your eyes they would morph into something completely different. Why don’t we take time to fanaticize with the clouds anymore?
The lake was always a welcome relief to the summer heat. That was back in the days when you could actually, legally, get down to Ripley Beach. What did we know of sandy beaches and clear waters when we were kids? The beach was mostly shale rock, like it is today. Finding a spot to build a sand castle was a real treat. The lake was occasionally clear, allowing us to see the rocks below; but more often than not, it was a murky brown, hiding it’s booby-traps of boulders to stumble on and mucky, slimy patches of seaweed to step into. The lake also had a goodly supply of dead fish floating around, back in the days when industrial waste and sewers were freely dumped in the Great Lakes. We wouldn’t dream of entering such waters now, with E. coli and such; but back then, we simple splashed the dead fish out of the way and continued on. “Them was the good ol’ days.”
I don’t care much about swimming in the lake these days, and I’m more apt to sit in the air-conditioned house with my book than under a tree. But I haven’t given up on summer entirely. My goal now is to have an old fashioned swing hung from an accommodating tree branch, so I can leisurely sway with the breeze, watching the clouds go by.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
The Community Block Party was a success - although I had my doubts for the first three hours. Not nearly as many people came as I had hoped, but enough that we made a good bit of change for our efforts.
I'm exhausted, my feet are screaming, my back is aching and my legs are throbbing. On my feet on a cement floor for 10 hours is not a good thing. I'm gonna go have a long soak in the tub, drink a long cold something and do absolutely nothing for the rest of the night.
Night' all
Oh, by the way, Happy 4th of July!
I'm exhausted, my feet are screaming, my back is aching and my legs are throbbing. On my feet on a cement floor for 10 hours is not a good thing. I'm gonna go have a long soak in the tub, drink a long cold something and do absolutely nothing for the rest of the night.
Night' all
Oh, by the way, Happy 4th of July!
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