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Sunday, January 29, 2012

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.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

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.

Monday, January 16, 2012

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.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

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.



















Friday, January 6, 2012

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.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

To Build A Fire




I don't know if it is just this kid or what, but he loves to build a fire. What we just learned is that it really makes little difference as to the setting, if there is a fire to be had, he is engulfed. One has to wonder if there is some sort of inherent behavior in this activity.


In part, I say this is because I also enjoy the pleasure of the fire, not only to cook things as is being doing here in the snow, but for the warmth and interestingly, the aesthetics of it all.



At this very moment I sit next to a hundred year old pot bellied stove enslaved by it's warmth. We have a high efficiency furnace that heats the entire house to a very comfortable level and it is relatively reasonable to operate with gas being unimaginably cheap. We choose the the old stove for almost all of our heat.


The old stove is messy, ashes float in the air as I feed the oak to it, the floor is littered with chips, bugs, splinters and discarded bark. The room always has a slight waft of smoke floating, this is the odor of a fire on the frozen lakes of Wisconsin when we were kids skating by Goat Island. The warmth is radiant and tends to make me drift into afternoon naps so comfortable it can not be described except to note that the dreams of 3:30 are always pleasant and euphorically haunting--a dream of dreams.


I also enjoy the smell of split wood as I bring it in----along with all the other residue found in the shed, the residue that has to be cleaned. The cherry wood is almost fruit like, the oak strong and nutty, the maple smells cold, and the occasional pine smells of Christmas and forests, and needles under foot. On some occasions, I throw a piece of bark on the kitchen stove just for the smell, the birch of canoes and the north, the juniper and cedar of romance and blanket chests. The cottonwood of years of our living in a tepees out there in the west, the Bijou Basin, the Crazies of Montana, Jackson's Hole, The Yellowstone, the nights at Bent's Fort. Fires and smoke, warmth.


No wonder the kid loves the fire. He sits for hours just playing with little twigs aglow. He burns a few holes in his cloths and drops the hot dog in the fire only to be recovered and consumed. It is primal, it is in our genes, it probably has to do with survival, food, warmth. Life. He is a happy child.

2011 An Interesting Year--A Bit Beat Up

It was a year all right. Now, from my point of view ( that would be for the two of us) things seem fair enough. We get by, we have a life, covered in part because of Medicare and part because we live close to the ground, no debts, no fancy toys, no bad habits (beer/wine are part of the food chain and essential), and most importantly we have family and friends.


But out there in the real world the Sustainable Revolution, The Great Reset, The Big Adjustment, the Long Emergency is going on and it has become disruptive and discomforting. Here is why the chicken is beat up, and admittedly it has a some American arrogance involved.


The sovereign and personal debt issue is a monster that is and will plague all nations because we are connected. There is no way Greece can pay back it's debt, nor can others and that may well include California. There will be defaults and anybody or nation sitting on that debt will be taking a dandy hair cut. The currency issues will bite.

China has huge cities unoccupied (Above), all over built and rotting amid the drifting pollution. Their economy makes no sense and will falter as energy resources constrict. Over population is so profound that every landslide or high wave kills hundreds if not thousands. Someone local just returning from China and said no matter where they travelled it seemed as though a large stadium had just let out as the masses poured through the streets---except that it went on all day. Sustainable? Oh, this is the country that is bringing 1-2 coal fired generating plant on line every week--and we are worried about global warming!


Worst part of the beat up chicken is the part I hear every day, the part from friends who tell me their recent college graduate kids can not find a job, or the 60 year old who lost a job of thirty years, or the person down the street that had to take a cut in pay and then sent their home keys to the bank and walked away. Another asked, "Why send the kid to college when lawyers can't get jobs?"
Then to, oil is a food of a sort, it feeds us. We import 12 million barrels a day but the amount of oil available on the export market has been shrinking for 5 years or better. What about poor countries competing for oil? Banks aren't loaning money because there are no "bankable projects", nothing in this country can compete with 50 cent labor abroad. Labor arbitrage, wow. Globalization has to be one of the most ill-conceived ideas the jack-ass economist ever came up with (ya, that is a preposition).



Of course, the Middle East and North Africa are REAL stable. I just remembered, there is that oil there. Someone said they want freedom and democracy but the minute they get an election they elect religious fundamentalist. That chicken is cooked---and the grill they are using holds 80% of known oil reserves.


Interestingly, there was the 130 temperature in Pakistan and droughts in Texas and Mexico where millions of cattle have perished (not in the news though, as GW is off limits). I need to stop thinking and reading because the chicken is really getting pounded even though the GOP slate of buffoons is promising huge amounts of business as usual. The word delusional comes to mind.


The list goes on, but the chicken is still up and walking---just having a bad day? I don't know what the hell the chicken will be doing if he has a cold night or even another bad year.