Ice Fishing-----Revolution Watch

UPDATE AS OF WEDNESDAY 2/1/12

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY!

Is the Lake-Link Ice Fishing Jamboree event cancelled?
THE EVENT ITSELF IS NOT CANCELLED. Due to the warm weather and ice conditions THE ONLY PORTION WE ARE NOT HAVING IS THE FISHING CONTEST PORTION. If you want to fish you can fish Lake Delavan or any other area body of water at your own discretion.

Let's see, Feb. 2nd and there is inappropriate ice to go ice fishing----in Wisconsin. Yes this is in southern Wisco but just to day the DNR advised folks to get there fishing shacks off some places in the Wausaw area, certainly on the Wisconsin River.

Today on my usual inquiry at the hardware store about the fish bite, I learned that very few lakes were allowing cars on the ice due to bad ice. It has been above freezing almost every day for a week and the fish are not biting anywhere---even they are pissed off.

So how does this tie into the Revolution watch? Well, the revolution is the sustainable revolution, the movement to a more sustainable society away from the one that is presently not sustainable. As I have noted, as this process moves along, hopefully slowly, we will have to make adjustments in our life styles. Not only do the adjustments have to be toward using less energy and material goods but also to changing weather patterns.

So rather than me sitting out in a very comfy auto while the wind howls, I may have to choose just sitting on a bucket, maybe with a life preserver on or better yet, with a small boat in tow. It is getting tougher all the time. Can you imagine not being able to be in a warm shack or in my well heated car. It is unthinkable.

The Grain Mill

I have often wonder what it would be like to produce your own bread from scratch, and I don't mean go to the store, buy flour and then toss the stuff together, make dough and bake it up. I mean grow some grain, clean it, grind it and then make bread, or at least a grain product. Ya, ya, I still had to buy the yeast or baking powder.

The reason I became interested is bread is the staff of life, so to speak, and if we really had to make it from home grown plants how hard would that be? I did a little looking around to see if I could find flour made in Wisconsin but only found one small gentrified, crafty, trendy, yuppified mill that had flour, and it was not cheap----particularly after having it shipped. I was in a nice bag fir for display.

It turns out most flour is apparently produced along ways away, like in Omaha or Minneapolis. I don't really know but it was hundreds of miles. That is not very local, and I want to be local. The first thing I did was round up a grain mill on Ebay for a herbal-kerbal hefty price. I didn't want to grind it with mortar and pestle. I wanted a mongo motor that could be run off my photovoltaics. Power form the sun and lots of it. Its a monster and if I could run it off that old gas engine , I would really think I was the cat's ass.

I then managed to by some local hard, red wheat, the type commonly used in making bread. I dumped the stuff on the stones in the grinder and bingo, I got this flour, but it is not flour like the store has. It is not white nor really fine, it is brown, maybe a little course, but still floury, maybe like what would have been typical at the time of Christ. I also ground some multicolored Indian corn I had grown in the garden. It is not genetically modified unless the Mandans did it. I ended up with a bag of each and was noticeably proud of myself----puffed up like a toad if you will.

I decided to go for corn bread using baking powder. I tossed in some salt, local butter, local milk, eggs form our chickens and some olive oil (virgin but not from around here). I probably should have used shortening from hogs but I am well-meaning but not pure.

I cooked it up and there it was, a nice corn bread almost local in nature. It was a course item but consumable and probably Michelle Obama healthy. Interestingly, not totally easy nor quick to make. This local stuff is not a picnic, me thinks. Not even Christ like.

The Running of the 1923 M International

I have been idled by the plague---and the fact Ann was away. Now that I am recovered and in good spirits, I wanted to get down to something serious. This would be the running of the Model M International single cylinder 3 hp engine.

We have had this beauty for some time and it has run on occasion, but it has been sporadic and there was that fire at the engine show. It has all been fun, and entertaining but it is now time to make it for real, make it so that it can do work.

We are not sure just what that work is just yet but we have plans, maybe for the revolution where it could be used to imitate the firing of a machine gun, or just to scare crows off the corn crop. So here it is.

Now I know that readers are going to find this immensely exciting and they should know there is a larger presentation. For now I will be lucky if it shows here. It may come to pass I'll have to do a YouTube link. Lets do it. You may want to sit down.

Sharing the Planet with Others---That Would be all Others

Every now and then I run across a spectacular photo that pulls at your heart stings because they demonstrate some hapless animal being victimized by man. We look at them and get all upset and then go right about doing what we always do, which includes fouling our own nest and frequently everybody Else's.

I am not totally sure why we do this but out there lies a feeling the earth was put here for us to dominate and allow us to grow our numbers to the point where there is nothing left on the earth but us.

It is not that I am Innocent because I drive my diesel VW all over higher and yon just because it gets 50 miles per gal. But I do think I am making gains at times as I walk or bike down to the hardware store. In China most people walk. When I think about it, the shear trampling of human feet, all 1.3 billion of them probably is just as bad.


I can't resist putting these photos on because these beasts really need to have space too. The squirrel is an urban critter, obviously this one has to good life. I noticed him last year in my daughters yard and this year as well. Reminds me of Ben Franklin with his rotund demeanor, rather regal as he surveys his holdings. His only concerns are the cars that roar by. If he can stay clear of the asphalt, he will stay like this forever (squirrel time). I guess the car is the same to him a syphilis was to Ben, just not self induced.


The two flicker were posturing on a farm in Colorado. Most elegant, and youthful, almost dressed in a formal tone. Note the tie, Puff Flicker, Snoop Bird. I'll make room for them.

Revolution Watch---Air Travel

As the Sustainable Revolution/Reset rolls along, there are a number of events that take place which mark the stages of this change. Fortunately to date, most of the changes have arrived slowly and, while they have been disruptive, have not really rattled our cages to any degree. Life still goes on up here in the Midwest As I have previously noted, from around here, jobs have been lost, houses are selling in the $20K range, insurance policies cut, medical costs have gone up and food prices have climbed. Still we fish, canoe, fiddle, ski and generally do our laughing.

Nationally, we have all the unemployment, savings looted, banksters going free, politicians talking of austerity and conservatives sucking up to Ayn Rand while giving breaks to the 1% who they claim to be job creators, but no jobs have been created------here. Sure, cattle are dying in Texas (over a million in Northern Mexico)and California has lost 80 medical facilities in the last couple of years due to no revenues from patients, many too poor to pay.

Globally, it is a mess with the Arab Spring turned into multi seasonal event, Europe is about to collapses due to the selling of blank paper by the big banks. Just remembered the Road Warrior Days down in Mexico, 48,000 dead. Not surprisingly, oil has stayed over $100 a barrel



But around here, there are smaller things on the watch list and the above article in the local paper lays one out. It seems air travel is down. Must be the cost of fuel, thus the cost of the tickets. It has always been said that one of the luxuries that will lead the revolution will be the disappearance of air travel. It will be an early victim of peak oil. Eventually there will just not be enough of the black gold. It will be too expensive or if it is cheap, it will mean we are in a depression and then we will be in peak money.

The sad part is the same owners of this air port only a few years ago were demanding more public money to expand the facility.. Couldn't see it coming. Just don't want to. It is tough.

Family History---Ann's Past

I suppose this is not all that unusual but I find it, at least, entertaining, in part because of the distance, in part because of odd bit of chance, and touch because of nostalgia.

My charming wife as a child lived in Vienna. It was just after the Big War and just before the cold war and her father being a German speaker, was involved in the occupation of "intelligence" gathering. They lived in a small home that had been previously occupied by an entertainer who was in great favor of the Fuhrer. As a result, the home held a very elegant Steinway piano. The past "schauspieler", the Hitler crony, still lived in a hovel in the back yard but was in no position to regain his vaulted position in 1950.

Ann was fortunate to have piano lessons on this Steinway, the same Steinway the Hitlers entertainer used. Ann's family lived under a false name as her father was incognito and not distinguishable from the local populous. This was, again, in 1950-53 while she was just 5-8 year as of age.

While this is all very cool, in a historical way, the event of note, or of the moment is different. A few weeks ago Dave and Denise visited Vienna and paid the address a stop-in, took a few pictures and sent them to Ann. At the same time, Ann was looking through old photographs taken in Vienna and the very house visited by our friends. While the recent shots were taken from the front of the home and the older ones were in the yard in the back, our eyes caught an interesting feature.

Behind Dave some 50 yards is a yard urn or pedestaled pot. In looking through the old photos there sits the same ornament right next to my future wife. Sixty two years and it is still there.

A letter is going to go out soon to see, if by a remote chance, the Steinway still sits in the main room. Maybe she could go back for a few lessons.

Pileated Woodpeckers---In Town

In all the time I spend sitting in the forest looking for food----that would mostly be deer but then turkeys are also on the list, I seldom see Pileated Woodpeckers. They are out there and I do hear them bickering and occasionally one will flash by.

The trees they consume are everywhere, those would be the ones that are literally ripped apart by the Pileated's huge dagger bills. There are large chunks of wood scattered hither and yon after these big guys get done looking for fat grubs. Still, I seldom really get a good look at one of these beauties. They are, I always thought, illusive birds of the forest.

But today, here in the front yard of my neighbor, here in urban Amherst, two of them frolicked on the side of Sugar Maple tree, acting like a couple of citified birds not much different than Crows. As I approached with my camera, they initially held to the back side of the tree. They seemed to be playing, or courting, even though it is early January---but it was 45 degrees. Had global warming confused them?

After a bit of waiting, they moved around the tree posturing and occasionally displaying their large wing span. Their red heads stood out like fire in the gray day. Round and round they went, jumping to the ground, scampering up the trunk, prying off chunks of bark as if to demonstrate strength rather than looking for bugs. It was a very live tree which they must have known. It was all a game of some sort, but very much to my enjoyment. Never have I watched a Piliated for 20 minutes.

To top it off, a gray squirrel scampered down the trunk and appeared to be interested in joining the event. He was a urban critter and possibly he too was surprised by the non urban intruders. The squirrel jerked back and forth either trying to intimidate the birds or simply wanting to test the waters, maybe see if they were terrorist, out of towners. The birds appear as warriors I suppose, warriors with war bonnets and big knives for mouths. One jab to the squirrel and it might be an tragic death there in the frontyard of America. He kept his distance from the birds as they refused to give ground.

In time a diminutive, cotton-topped grandma drifted by, walking down the road never seeing the event. The party of three disappeared across the street. Made my day to say the least. Urbanized Pileateds, I can take it.