Two Interesting Winter Reads

Just finished reading The American Chestnut: the Life, Death and Rebirth of A Perfect Tree by Susan Freinkel. An interesting read that tells the historical story of the American Chestnut tree and the on going decades effort to restore this tree, that was long gone by my birthday. For a review, click on the link below.

http://www.susanfreinkel.com/books_American_Chestnut.html

The other evening while watching the PBS News Hour I heard Karl Pillemer, Ph.D., (researching gerontologist/Cornell University) give a  review of his new book 30 Lessons for Living - Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans. You can listen to the interview by clicking on the link below.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june12/lifelessons_01-05.html

Both of these books are available in our local Pioneer Library System at: http://www.owwl.org/

...check them out. They are good winter reads!

2011 Notables on the Home Front

Yesterday, I took a little time to review some of 2011's accomplishments.
Here are ten in no particular order -

1. Walked 1,541 local miles ...average = 4.2 miles/day & collected $69.70 for roadside deposit cans...primarily beer cans. ...so why are Gatorade, Vitamin drinks , Brisk Tea, and chocolate milk product bottles NOT returnable? Got to look into this one.
2. We drove 1000 miles less this year than last year...let's see @ $.40/mile that is a savings to say nothing of the into town errands saved by walking instead.
3. $8.36 - the amount of loose change found along side of the roads while walking ...I also found over a dozen, unopened cans of beer ...??? Yes, I know your next question.
4. The Photo Voltaic system generated 8033 kilowatt hours of electricity or over 100% of our electric power needs for 2011 ... enough energy to light 803, 100 watt incandescent bulbs for an hour...right? Oh, incandescent bulbs will soon be history. 
5. Turned and screened 6 cubic yards of finished compost that was used in our garden & flower beds ... that is roughly 6000 calories figuring 300 Calories/hour x 20 hours of turning, screening and loading/spreading.  
6. Collected conservatively 10+ tons of field stone from roadsides, hedges, and the work areas at local cemeteries (NO! not head stones!! ...lets see now ...80 wheel barrow loads @ 250 lbs/load...) used to build a pond and free standing stone walls.
7. By recycling & composting, we are averaging 0.4 lbs/person of solid landfill waste/day. (...the national average is 4 lbs/person of solid landfill waste/day.)
8. Volunteered 383 hours over the past year ...or 7.4 hours/week.
9. We have not purchased any vegetables, salad greens, jams or honey in 2011 ...thinking globally, but acting locally.
10. I've read 25 books from the local library system. (...mostly non-fiction, many from the NYT bestseller list.)

...It is on to the New Year!

Think I will go for a three hour walk before the rains come today.

The Toy Chest

Early last fall I promised my son and his wife that I would make a toy chest for our grandsons. Delivery would be on Christmas day.

....Well last week I could no longer procrastinate on my promise; so work began using the few, crude hand held tools that I had in my unheated log barn. After about '45 thousand cuts (... and recuts)' I put together the 'toy chest barn' pictured below.

Despite cold feet and fingers, it is fun to see the mental image transform into a physical stucture which I hope the boys will enjoy.

Dimensions:

Barn - 48" long x 24"wide x 30" at the barn peak.

Silo - 36" high (top of staves) x 6.5" wide. to the top of the staves.

Storage:

Lift the roof panel off on the facing side and back lean-to section of the barn. I decided against hinges, thinking that little fingers could be pinched.

The barn doors can be slid open or closed.

The silo cap can be lifted off and the top 12" can hold some more 'stuff'. The bottom 24" contain two structural support disks.

How Sweet It Is!

Yesterday I extracted and bottled 30+ pounds of honey. Since I don't have a honey extractor that removes honey from the comb by a centrifuge action, I followed the suggestion by a fellow hobbist beekeeper. I purchased two 5 gallon plastic buckets. Drilled 20 plus 3/8th inch holes in the bottom of the top bucket lined with a nylon, 5 gallon paint screen. This bucket was then placed ontop of the bottom bucket, with a large hole in it's lid. The bottom bucket served as the collecting bucket. A faucet from my scrap plumbing pile was added and wha-laa!

... let the honey extraction begin

The plastic frames loaded with comb honey are scrapped into a collecting pan.

The scappings are added to the top bucket to begin a 24 hour gravitational separation of honey from the wax. The honey drips into the bottom collecting bucket.

While the jars filled, I designed a label.

Occupy ?

With the recent removal of 'Occupy Wall Street' in New York City parks, I wondered how much of the materials removed will occupy our local landfills?

Timely Reads

Just finished two interesting books that are available in our local library system.

Because I Love You -The Silent Shadow of Child Sexual Abuse by Joyce Allan is a memoir documenting the authors' search to understand her own sexual abuse by her father and his extensive abuse of so many others, including her own children years later. Her journey to restore some sense of normalacy to her life involved decades of interviews with family members, employers, and follow up leads suggested by others in the search to uncover and understand the extent of child sexual abuse by her father.

The other book currently on the NY Times Best Seller list is A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard. In 1991 when Jaycee was just eleven years old she was abducted on her way to school and for the next eighteen years she describes how she copped with the physical/mental control by her abductors. Jaycee endured sexual abuse, isolation, boredom, pregnancy and the loss of those milestone events in our lives from elementary school through adulthood.

Both books are excellent reads, especially as the events at Penn State currently unfold.

... another 'trinity'?

Yesterday, I took a break from raking and stacking my leaves to rake and stack my parent's leaves. I tarped, stacked, soaked and tramped down 16 piles of yard leaves into a compact 6x6x6 foot pile of leaves that will rot down into finished compost, which can be used to amend their garden soil.

Of course with the repetitive raking and leaf stacking process I had time to reflect on the three piles that were generated.

I think the captions will illustrate where my thinking wandered off to this time.

...click on the photo and you will obtain a full screen view which may be easier to read.