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Monday, June 23, 2014

The Dead Bumble Bee


Yesterday I saw a Bumble Bee face into a daisy.  It would seem that the bee was doing what all bees do and that was either gathering pollen or harvesting nature’s nectar. An hour later I passed the same flower only to see the Bumble Bee was still there. On close observation, it was obvious the colorful, fuzzy bee was dead.  She had succumbed while at work probably not even knowing her life was in danger. More than likely, it was a case of simple exhaustion.

This reminded me of being a beekeeper some years ago when I spent considerable time watching the behavior of these insects. I always liked to talk to them and referred to the swarm as the girls, as they were, for the most part, females---and admittedly the few drones, the males, were nigh onto worthless as far as work went. I don’t believe I will carry that analogy any farther.

When the honey flow was on, the effort of the girls was profound as they would forage out into the fields in search of pollen and nectar. The individual bees would come in all loaded down with their prize, stumble into the hive and unload their goods and immediately, maybe after a little dance and antennae rub, head back out for another load. Many times I would see heavily laden individuals come in and uncontrollably crash against the side of the hive, then drop to the entrance and crawl in, their wings worn, and legs partially dysfunctional, to deposit the payload. They were like crippled planes coming in from war. Other times I would see them struggle against the breeze, just hold off the runway idling, then fall short of the hive and simply die there in the grass, worn out from the many trips they had made in their short lives. It was sad because they had worked so hard for the hive and were not able to make it home that last time.

The ground around the hive was littered with wrecked miniature planes, some half dead but most tipped over in quiet repose, others, poised in death, still clinging to leaves of grass.

Like the Bumble Bee in my backyard, I would also see them in the field attached to flowers unable to lift off. It is just the way it was in their world. They had no time for Gameboys or smart phones. It was all work for the community. Still, it was a good life, organized and productive. So good that it gave us the golden treasure of honey. I learned respect for their being.

It has been easy to notice in the last few years there are fewer honey bees to be seen, but at the same time there seemed more native bees, the Bumble Bee. The honey bee is not a native but came over from Europe with the first settlers and has been used to pollinate many plants brought over and grown by those same settlers. To this day the European honey bee is used to do much of the pollinating of our huge fields and commercial trees. The local bees simply could not keep up, particularly if most of the natural environment was gone, which it is.

Recently, European Honey bees have suffered losses due to one malady or another, probably including the introduction of GMO crops that now have genes that make chemicals harmful to insects. It is just a constant struggle to remain in some sort of a balance while trying to stay on top of what some call a Progress Trap---an invention to improve one thing only to cause another crisis. 

However, it seems local bees, the various Bumble Bees, the indigenous bees are doing fairly well for my raspberries are filled with them. Like the honey bee, they gather pollen for the protein and nectar made of sucrose, to feed themselves and their larva. Their colonies are much smaller, maybe fewer than 50 individuals and live in a variety of places, including my garage where there are maybe six nests. Unlike some of the honey bees I used to own, who were very aggressive and continually wanted to have a piece of me, the Bumble Bee is very docile and has almost no interest in humans as they cruise about.  They don’t even mind long hair which infuriates the honey bee.

Just today I learned that the noble Bumble Bee creates static electricity and when entering a flower that electricity draws pollen to the hairs on the bee thus making it a fluffy ball of pollination power.

Now, it is no secrete there are many insects that pollinate, as can be observed in the evening light as it passes through the raspberries. There are flies of all sorts, big Hawk Moths, wasps, bees of many colors, and the delicate Hummingbirds.

What really got my attention today, other than the beautiful dead Bumble Bee lying in state there on the Daisy, was what I found when I googled Bumble Bee. In the first number of entries there on the pages was a list of ways and methods to kill bees, how to get rid of them, how to eliminate them from our presence. Sadly, most of them involved chemicals. These are the same chemicals that kill those other pollinators as well. We are saddened because the vast majority of the dead insects are harmless, and in truth a link, a connection, to all the other life around us.  






Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Pork Chops and Apple Wood---The Savage Way

I love the barbie and I don't mean those stainless things that cost big bucks and look all shiny on the back porch. Ya, they are controllable and use fossil fuel, which is all well and good because that stuff needs to be used up before someone else gets it. 

What I like is cooking over a fire in the backyard just like my relatives did in the caves of Europe, you know, the Neanderthals, maybe the Cro-Magnons---Homo Erectus----not Piltdown Man. Now, it is not that they had a choice because the Fleet-Farm multi-burner, nuc powered items were not on the market yet, not even the Webers were out. They just rounded up a nice piece of meat from something they killed or found and plopped it on the fire and hoped for the best---not a whole lot different than what I do. For those hairy dudes, it was probably best to cook it in order to kill off the feasting bacteria and wiggling maggots that were also plying their trade on the nice side of mammoth. I don't do mammoth and I do watch out for blown meat.



But the truth is, the cooking did make the meat easier to digest, did part of the digesting actually, and it probably did taste better but still not completely like today's fairly sterile, brick-lined, open-pit barbecue.

So I start out with a fire. This may consist of burning up some of the sticks in the yard and other bits of bark found around the splitting area, maybe a few smaller oak pieces. The thing is to get a pile of nice coals that has some carrying power. On to of that I place selected, clean-grained apple wood splinters and slowly let them work down to some coals but also retain some flames.


Once perfect (subjective, yes, but my Neanderthal back ground gives me an edge) I toss on the meat choice, in this case Pork Chops of 3/4 inch thick. We cover with a barbecue sauce of one's choice, sometimes commercial, other times featuring our's made of tomato catsup, mustard, soy sauce and maple syrup. There are of course, other spices but if I told you I would have to kill you at a later time for disclosing the secrete.

Cook each side for 6-8 minutes under a diminishing heat, maybe adding a few more apple wood slivers, and when the juices just run, that puppy is ready. It is the savage way. Venison, beef, wild turkey, salmon all in the rough. What a way to go.

Saturday, June 7, 2014

Hit and Miss Engines Running Three at a Time

Attractive Older Dudes Start Three Vintage Engines at One Time

Today the center of international news was on Plainfield Wisconsin, home of Ed Gein, where the annual engine show took place. This has turned into a premier outing for anyone with any sense of history and the love of gasoline fumes. Yahoos from far and wide bring in their old iron engines, fiddle fart with them, and if lucky fire those suckers up.

Most engines are prewar, that would be the last real war that made any sense being WWII, and as a result many are made of cast iron and weigh about one hundred pounds per horse power, maybe 200Lbs as my 3 horse weighs in at some 600Lbs. These jewels provided power on the many farms that used to exist around the American hinterland. Most of the farms now grow soy and corn in rotation and are managed by dudes in distant lands or on Wall Street. As a result old farmers and other deranged individuals ( remember the book Wisconsin Death Trip) get together throughout the summer and run old farm things while trying to remember when we used to touch the land.

While there are some great old farm machinery, like the Rumley and the Cockshutt tractors, and of course the 2 cylinder John Deeres, there are also small singled cylindered stationary engines. These are our attraction and why we go to these fantastic outings.

 Probably, most importantly, we go to meet other wackos who are also attracted to such nonsense---Ed Gein was not there, but there were many great characters(non from Wall Street) which provided us with knowledge and character sketches for my next novel. Mostly, we play with motors.

This is where the two attractive dudes come in, that would be Jeff, my brother, and me. Today the high point was the event of us actually getting all three of our motors going at one time with no fires and no uncontrolled explosions.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDPw7G4djJE&feature=em-upload_owner

 While it is true the Little Jumbo is a pile of shit and rust, it did run and when we removed a 20 thousandth from the rod bearing, it quit rattling uncontrollably. The Paige is our pride and joy because nobody else has one. It runs for 10 minutes and then quits for no reason other than to piss me off.

The Associated, Chore Boy, or is it a Hired Man, did well after I realized I was missing an ignition wire, but it does have a spring wire that likes to come off. In the end, all ran at one time and left us very full of ourselves and much the admiration of almost no one even though Ann thought we were real cool. Sorry no one we know made it as the event rivals any lame-ass trip to New York or Rosholt---best outfit there was from Rosholt, actually. It was a fantastic fire engine that would scare the piss out of any arson and rattled and spit fire as well as shake the ground for hundreds of yards.

Low point was no beer and the stinking, smoking, two stroke Maytag wash machine engines as seen above. Great greasyy fries though. 

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Woman Finds Giant Mushroom---Feeds Five

Local woman finds giant morel that is thought to be able to feed two mycologist and three hippies. 


Just today, while in the backyard garden, this fine woman found this huge Morel mushroom. This species is very edible and being widely collected locally, but to date, after seeing many Facebook postings, this appears to be the largest by far. While it is true many of the toadstoolers have presented nice mushroom of various sizes, none seem to stand to the size of this beauty. Nate. Jeremy, and Jane have all made elegant finds on their property but this over-shadows their meager efforts.

While it appears to be a touch stem heavy, it is not GMO and not injected with cocaine or other stimulants that some less unscrupulous individuals use. No quantitative easing or other manipulative systems have been used to generate a false sense of size. Ann is 6'4" and 235 lbs just to give scale.

When the mainstream media picked this story up they were so excited, they ran it ahead of the important news dealing with the Kardasians and the NASCAR results. They were particularly impressed with this delectable example because it appeared to be not just be Morchella esculenta but a subspecies, erectus giaganticus. Because of the coverage internationally, Valdimir Putin contacted Ms. Ann wanting to make a purchase. Now this individual, Vladimir, is from a long line of Impalers and Inhalers (or was that Bill?), as in Valdimir the Impaler.

Initially, there was great excitement but having only one, she and her delightful husband decided to have it with a nice Buffalo steak. After consumption it was found that the fungi was a rather potent aphrodisiac. Instantly, they realized why Putin wanted the find as he wanted to be another impaler. This issue also made us wonder if the initial Impaler of the 14th century was a different type of impaler than thought. Maybe Impaler was an euphemism.

Still very excited by the find, and exhausted by the affects of eating it, it has been thought marketing these toadstools might actually be a cure for poaching Rhinos. This clearly would be an opportunity to grow a natural produce, make some bitcoins, and at the same time save the Rhinos from extinction. The Morchella esculenta erectus giganticus could be ground into a powder and sold where horn is now king. The aphrodisiac affects would replace the low quality of the horn. I just love it when my brain is working.


Sunday, June 1, 2014

Looking at the Bottleneck---Missionary's Position

 On rainy days, I drift through my collected pictures and graphs looking for things I might have learned by reading and perusing. One of those things is that liquid fuels are one day going to decline, if they are not already. As a result, life here, that would be the world, will change like it has not changed before, or as someone said, maybe Richard Dawkins, when asked what the twenty first century would look like. "Just like the 20th century---but in reverse."

I would appear we have to change, that is go through a massive change that was labelled a bottleneck by William Canton. This would be a squeezing point where major adjustments must be encountered. Interestingly, anthropologist note we went through a bottleneck before some 70,000 years ago. Humans dropped to 1500 breeding pairs. That ain't no pretty picture. 

It is hard to get a grasp on the changes, but, like always there WILL BE changes and one would suspect they will not all be to the material betterment. The thing that is uncomfortable to me is the fact there are so many of us that it would seem difficult to make everyone happy with the changes---if anyone, really. I suspect things will get uncomfortable . The graph above and many others like it, lay the ground work for those shifts but do show a gradual down slope.

 While many thinkers believe the changes will be gradual (Greer) others (Foss) think that as the energy declines, or call it liquid fuels, the economy will falter and the drop off will be aggressive. It would seem,  if it goes quickly, say back to the energy levels of the 30s the pictures below will personify that change.


Others rant about finding sustainability but at the same time mention that the only time we will live sustainability is when a man walks to the the potato field where he has a job weeding potatoes----by hand. Nothing else seems to them to be sustainable in the long run---none of it. I suspect that some of the industrial world can be dragged along for a while, salvaged if you will. Some even refer to it as the Era of Salvage as it will impossible to keep producing our highly energy-intensive products----particularly when we realize the worlds is gaining 225,000 more people every DAY---people that simply have to be fed. .

 However, there are innovators out there, some who think we might, if cleaver, if not enlightened, slip quietly into a new way of living, one that is truly sustainable. I listen, and I listen and I do see efforts, some not too differently than how I live now, that might make the change gradual and comfortably. But how the hell 7 billion can make that movement through the bottleneck is beyond my imagination. Here and their pockets,yes, but the idea of convincing folks now living in total poverty there is no future for them, a future they see on their silly smart phones, will be hard medicine. Hunger breeds revolution. I see hunger.

 It is a rainy day and I can not get in the garden, but I did play the fiddle and read. I don't like bottlenecks.

Gathering Wild Asparagus---and more Stuff

When the Lilacs bloom the White Bass bite on the Wolf, the asparagus shows up and the spring is on. It is also the time to get the garden all planted and make summer plans. So today while on the road to pick up my forest wood, there on the side of the road, right where it always is, was this nice handful of spears. I'm not saying just where, of course.


What this means is a couple of things but for me, it is Ann's asparagus soup all made from cream and bacon bits. A person can't freeze the stuff, so it is one of those times where we natives have to eat it as fast as we can. It is after all, one of the first vegetables to show up in the spring, even though I do have a few Walking Onions that can be bagged and tossed over the asparagus.

Most interestingly, when the Lilacs  bloom, the fish are moving and this year rather than going to the Wolf for a little combat fishing, I decided to sneak off to a local lake of no repute, a lake where my non-fishing brother had said he had seen fish. Now, I know most of what he had seen were suckers, but they were big suckers and I figured where the suckers are big, maybe there would be other big fish like Bluegills.

So, I blew up my float boat and headed out to this smallish lake, a lake where I only had to walk a quarter of a mile, plop the craft in and plop my ass in it and off I go. It wasn't pretty but no one was killed--I ultimately did get a very wet lower butt end as the wadders were not made to be in a float boat. . Well, it wasn't all pleasantries because the mosquitoes were having a banner year and they welcomed me with much acclaim. However, once in the water they headed for the brush. I was left along to my own devices there on the this pristine pond, a crystal clear pond without a single fisherman and not a single cabin. It was like Canada.
The evening was warm and largely still with only the sounds of birds drifting into my new hearing aids. Wow, those aids do bring out the sounds and the resident geese gave me a good thrashing before they lifted off only to return once I was situated on the pond. To my delight, but after a number of smallish Gills the big boys showed up and left me proud of my choice. I used an old Fenwick glass fly rod that for some reason I had not changed the leader since '1961, or so it seemed. As a result, a couple of big Gills grabbed my flies and headed for the depths. Broke the line. Jerks.



It was truly a "Lake Runs Through It" evening as I drifted about the shoreline messing with the fish. In the end, I took home 4 giant Bluegills, let go numerous others, including three bass of marginal size, say 14 inch max. Filled with myself, I lifted out of the evening lake as the mosquitoes, and all their relatives chewed on my proverbial ass. Not too good a year for them but a good year for me. Well, from their point of view it might be a good year but they are not fun. Screw 'em. They keep out the riff-raff.