Day 365: The Year 2010

Still bitterly cold here. I enjoy this whole business of going out to the woodpile and transporting in a few logs for our new stove. We huddle around the fire and watch the friendly flames. We feel the warmth. What's missing? Maybe a cup of hot chocolate. Or a dram of single malt during the evening.

Thinking about this last year, I'm happy with it. A new job (albeit much too far away from home). Three backpacking trips last year provided memories and enough adventure to wet my taste for more. The Addition makes progress--and someday might even be finished. The girls are doing well in school and seem happy with their frontier lifestyle and their friends who spend much of their time outside.

We've had a few special visitors this year. I like it when friends and family show up, spending a week or more with us. Ben Franklin was wrong about visitors, fish and three days (that both stink).

I spend time with the girls watching all those "pre-teen" and "teen" shows. Not much exposure to the natural world there. The only thing that happens outside in any of these shows are the segments of Hannah Montana (shot on an indoor set) at the beach. iCarly is urban and mostly hi tech. The Wizards of Waverly Place is urban. Not much exposure to nature on kid's television. Kids who spend time outside are becoming extinct; extirpated to the mall, Taco Bell (Taco Smell?) only to grow up, live in the burbs and maybe make a dash to Starbucks (if you are rich). Nature (for many American children) is having a deck with a smallish backyard that is fenced off from other neighbors much like a calf waiting to become veal.

So I'm thankful for the everyday contact with the wild within this "off the grid" home. Nothing excites me more than to see a bald eagle fly overhead or to run across a bit of bear scat thirty yards from our home. No monetary value can be assessed to such experiences, yet, in Mastercard terms, they are priceless.

And I have free time. Working part-time (and being able to support a family by doing this) is unusual and a blessing. It makes me feel like I'm "earning to live"--rather than-- "living to earn" (to borrow from Ed Abbey). That's a good idea. Guys like me need lots of leisure time to read a book or just enjoy a beverage, observing the goings on of the forest.

Frankly, I had a successful year. I got outside. I spent several weeks on the trail. I read many books. I wrote some. I got to spend time with loved ones. I learned much. We also spent much of the year being incredibly broke. That too, has its own blessings.

Tomorrow we shall plop out some goals for the next year. Join me?

Day 364: Warmth...

We had a hard freeze last night. Inside our Addition, the temperature was 40 degrees Fahrenheit this morning. Kylie took me outside to admire all the ice. We made sure all the water lines weren't frozen. Outside, the temperature got into the lower 20's. Too cold for this ex-Minnesotan.

So when the kindly Wood Stove installers showed up this morning (as promised), I was more than happy to greet them with a big smile and a check. A couple hours of work and we now have a fully functioning Wood Stove. A Lennox. It has space shuttle technology within; low emissions and we get a $1,500 tax write-off for installing it.

We are burning some oak from a fallen tree even as I type this in this newly toasty warm house. Oh modernity!

And the rain has stopped for a day. The dogs and I took a walk, watching the small bit of smoke arising form the shiny new stove pipe from the top of the house. Last night Joni and I had mortared in place the Three Rivers Slate that (I have to admit) Joni has been gathering when she takes the dogs for a walk. I wish I could load a photo or two, but the Gateway is still broken. We'll have photos when our computer dilemma is solved. Trust me, the Wood Stove and the Slate looks great.

And it is warm inside. We are getting downright civilized here in this house made of mud and straw.

Days 362 and 363: A Wii and a Wood Stove

Another winter storm marooned me in the Napa Valley last night. More rain. Of course. We are at 62 percent of normal rain fall for the rainy season---and the traditional rainy months are January and February. At this rate, we could see well over 100 inches of rain for the season.

So, in order to retain some semblance of sanity during these rainy months, we have two large Christmas presents: A Wii for the girls and a wood stove for all of us.

I'm not too happy about this Wii sell out. Worthless electronic contraption. Yet, Jazzy and Kylie really wanted one---and they are happily playing with the thing right now; their sibling rivalry war at a truce for the moment.

The wood stove should be installed tomorrow, just in time to take advantage of a $1,500 tax credit for this low emission, high BTU more worthwhile contraption. Joni (after having had very little heat for two and a half years) states she is going to stoke up the stove and wear nothing but a bikini for a month. Good bye wool hat and socks. Hello constant summer.

Ah, civilization...

Days 358 to 361: Working on Christmas...

Christmas was spent at work. Today it is slightly sunny, after days and days of rain. A walk this morning through a vineyard. The mustard is blooming---get a few more sunny days and it will be even more beautiful.

I hope your Christmas was merry----and that you took sometime to get outside...

Days 356-357: Merry Christmas

Back home for a couple of days before returning to Napa for five. A couple long walks with the dogs. Abbey, the new puppy, samples water from every puddle we come across (as it has been raining for what seems like years). Dogs don't need potable water. Hell, dogs can eat and drink most anything. Joni thinks this near love affair with puddle water is a natural way to get minerals into the doggy diet.

The girls are gone for a week, so Joni and I have the place to ourselves. My how quiet this place is without the wrangling, skirmishes, and general may-hem which constitutes sibling rivalry.

I may not have a chance to plunk away at a keyboard over the next few days---so Merry Christmas! I will be at the hospital doing the Nursey thing...

Days 352-355: The Deluge

Lots and lots of rain. I'm here in the Napa Valley--doing the work thing. Called Joni last night who said that we had had 6 1/2 inches of rain over the last day and a half.

The Sierra has had up to THIRTEEN FEET of snow in places. Rainfall totals from this current series of storms could be around 18 inches of rain.

I've been reading a History of Butte County. Volume One encompasses from the 1840's up to 1920 or so. A line caught my attention, talking about some floods in the 1870's: " A storm dropped six inches of rain". This was seen as an abnormally high 24 hour total.

This is routine at our household today. This year we've already had one storm that dropped ten inches of rain; this current storm should match that. And every year, over the last three that we've lived up at the Ridge, we have seen storms that drop ten inches or more of rain.

Evidence of climate change? I think so. For our part of the Foothills, the models predict stronger and wetter storms. We've certainly seen that. Generational climate change lulls one into a slumber that believes things have always been a certain way. We lose track of trends. You have to read an obscure history book, or talk to someone who is 90 years old, to see that, perhaps, things are a bit different now.

So I will drive home tonight. Through more rain. Dodging the trees that inevitably fall because they were burned from the "freak" lightening storm that burned up thousands of acres of Butte County. A freak storm (because of the thousands of lightening strikes) that is yet another argument for climate change.

The backlash against climate science is in full regalia in America. My own 3rd district Assemblyman is a climate change denier. Dan Logue led the efforts to dismantle California's carbon emission laws through Prop. 23. He lost. Does the guy ever go outside?

Day 351: Frugality

More rain again. Cold. We bundle up and head out in the rain to enjoy these short, short days. Congress is upset about possibly having to work over the Christmas holiday. I will be working 9 of the next 11 days. Yeah, I know--most folks work a whole lot more than I do. I'm lucky to be able to support a family on a part time job.

I finished Scott Nearing's autobiography last night: "The Making of a Radical". Talk about being frugal. His approach to money was blessed by the frugality apparent within my own Grandparents' generation. Nearing was smart enough to save money when young, so that he could do his Homestead thing when he got to be my age (of course he also was unable to work or get published due to his socialism).

I wish I had read this book when I was a twenty something. It is a primer on how to live an independent intellectual life.

Days 349 and 350: Public Safety

The old Gateway seems to have met a near certain death. So I'm typing this on an even older laptop that has the annoying habit of deciding to put text where ever it damned well pleases. No photos for a bit too, until we decide either to buy a new computer, or get the old Geezer resurrected one more time.

I'm back in Concow. I took a long, long walk with the dogs. Thoughts of the events of yesterday weighing on my mind. You see, I had to testify in court yesterday. I can write in a closeted fashion about it, because now that I've been in court, well, things are public.

The day after that gun crazed man took on a school board in Florida, I was in criminal court testifying in a case in order to prevent such an event from occurring. Unusual to be in such a position. The Defense Attorney was quite rough on me. Even the Judge was a bit rough on me (told me that I needed to have "thicker skin"). I held my own. In the end, Public Safety won the day.

A victory for the safety of Nurses.

Days 347 and 348: Duck Hunters

I drove across the Sacramento Valley yesterday. Duck hunters everywhere. They dress in camouflage, and to save them from a walk, many had matching camouflaged ATV's with dog kennels riding on a back platform.

We owe a debt to these duck hunters. It was through a coalition of duck hunters and ranchers that has preserved a small bit of the Sacramento Valley. Before deep ecology came on the scene, as far back as the 20's, ranchers and duck hunters fought the agriculturalists to preserve some semblance of wetlands in the Sacramento Valley. Not near enough land was saved; enough to preserve some habitat for the Pacific Flyway.

In a couple of the tiny towns along the way, the duck plucker businesses were open. Family ventures that earn a little cash from suburban duck hunters who don't want to take the time to pluck their own ducks.

And my foot? Not broken. Dropped into the ER before work yesterday to have the kindly doctor take a look at it. We took an X-ray; not broken. However, there was evidence of "mild degenerative disease" on the the large bone on the bottom of my right foot. What does that mean? It means I'm turning fifty. It also means buying better shoes, getting some inserts and taking along Ibuprofen on twenty mile hikes.

The foot is swollen and bruised. Painful. No extra walks for a bit: doing 10,000 steps at work is enough to leave the foot engorged, black and blue and throbbing this morning.

Note to self: Get lots of hikes in this decade; the writing is on the wall.

Day 346: Plywood...

A nice day. I decided to do some work around the house. Then I dropped a large sheet of plywood on my right foot. Big old scary, swollen welt across my foot (I'll spare you the photos!). I hope it ain't broken. Time for ice and rest. Maybe an x-ray tomorrow if things aren't any better.