a learning experience

These are parsnips. A yummy, white root vegetable very similar to carrots. They are from my garden. But they are in my compost bin. So what happened??? Well, last summer was terrible for growing. Nothing in my garden grew well last year. Well, we were happy to see our parsnips growing this spring, and were hoping that they would finally get to harvestable size....

NO! I was reading the other night in "The Backyard Homestead" by Marjorie Page, and came across a section regarding wintering vegetables over in the garden. I was reading with interest, and it said, regarding parsnips, "be sure to harvest before second growth begins, as they become poisonous at that time." Whoa! This was total news to me. So we promptly pulled all the parsnips up and put them in the compost pile.

This was sort of a learning experience for me. I am not an experienced vegetable gardener. I am just sort of going along, learning, seeing what works. I knew things like rhubarb leaves are toxic, and if potatoes are left in the sun, they become inedible. But I had no idea about this. And these sorts of things are IMPORTANT. This was something I really needed to know before feeding them to my family. I shudder to think what could have happened if I hadn't happened to pick this book up at Barnes and Noble last week.

I guess my point is that it is important when you are embarking on a new project, to learn what you can from other sources, and not do it all by personal experience. Otherwise, you are in for some personal experiences that are less than pleasant.

Happy Birthday Steven!

I know this is a little late, but on Wednesday, Steven turned six. And on Saturday, we had a party for him. We celebrated with a family that we hang out with a lot, and had cake, ice cream, presents, etc. I think he had a good time. My youngest is not a baby anymore. He's getting all grown up on me...

Disgusted...

Well, GM fell today, sortof. I hate to say this, but it needed to. I personally think this huge bailout of banks, investment and insurance companies, automakers, etc. is ridiculous, and should never have happened. To put the icing on the cake, GM declares bankruptcy today, and gets another $30 billion in bailout money. What a way to reward failure! And then it turns around and grabs it's retiree's pension plans. Is that legal? I don't think so.....

Two really good blog posts on the subject:
On a Tightrope Without a Net by Sharon Astyk, and
June 1 2009 2: The Rule of Law Revisited by Ilargi at the Automatic Earth

The second blog post includes Ilargi's comments, as well as the text and links to, many financial news articles. I encourage you to read these excellent posts. When you read this, you may find that those "green shoots" are a little less healthy than the mainstream media depicts.

Not good news...

New article about global warming:

"The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth's climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago - and could be even worse than that."

Twice as severe as previously thought. And what was previously thought was pretty damn bad. And if you read the article, it doesn't even account for "possible" methane releases as permafrost melts, as is happening already.

So, you know, the climate change thing is NOT going to be pretty. If we are lucky, we will not have committed mass suicide. We can only wait and see. And do everything we can to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions as much as we can, as fast as we can.

But how likely is that to happen, really? When we are in the middle of an economic crisis? People are thinking about how bad things are NOW, not how bad things will be later. So, in the long run, we are likely in pretty bad shape.

Spring has sprung...

Well, it's been over a month since I posted here. My apologies, everyone. Life has just been incredibly busy between work and family. However, I have good news.... it is spring in Alaska.

I have noticed before that season change happens suddenly in Alaska. Two weeks ago, it was still winter, and there was still snow on the ground. I was feeling like it would NEVER be spring again. And here it is. Last summer was terrible. It was cloudy and chilly all summer long. But we have had more sunny, warm days so far this spring than we had all summer last year. It is looking good so far....

eruption

(Photo courtesy of Trisha Sadler and the Alaska Volcano Observatory). Mt. Redoubt erupted four or five times yesterday, sending ash all over the place. Since I am in Fairbanks until Tuesday, I am sort of waiting to see if it continues. If there is ashfall in the area I need to drive through, I will have to delay coming home. I heard from my family that there was some ashfall at our place yesterday, but I wasn't there to see it.

acclimation

I grew up in Maryland, the southernmost Northern state. In climate, it's pretty much a southern state. We did get snow occassionally, but it never lasted long. Big snow falls were the stuff of legends. I still remember the huge snowfall the winter of 1976, when the Chesapeake Bay froze. But when I learned to drive, I never really had to drive in the snow, except maybe once or twice a year. And when I did, it was just a matter of crossing my fingers.

Then I moved to Colorado, and later Utah. It snowed a little more often, but generally melted off the road within a day or two, usually helped by vast quantities of salt. The other consideration is that even in winter, the sun shone for many hours a day, and was still relatively direct and strong. I hated driving in snow, and did the slow, white knuckle, creepy-crawl every time I had to drive in it. The idea of going down even a small hill would make me nervous.

But in 2004, I moved to Alaska. I specifically decided to move Labor Day weekend because I thought we would be less likely to encounter snow in the Yukon early in September. We did get snowed on, but nothing major, and none while we were in the mountains, for which I was grateful, as I was pulling a heavy trailer with my truck.

So, we got to Alaska just in time for winter. Imagine my shock when I discovered that the snow didn't melt. It started snowing in October, and that first winter, the roads never cleared until March. Because the sunlight is not direct enough, strong enough, or long enough to melt anything, and it stayed cold, the snow on the roads simply compacted down into ice. Everything was covered in ice, several inches thick. And to compound the issue, I got a job in January requiring lots of driving all over town. To make a long story short, I learned to drive on ice and snow. By the end of the winter, I wasn't as frightened of driving on it. By the end of my second winter, I had slid off the road twice, and I learned from it. Fast forward to now, and I find myself today driving 300 miles to Fairbanks on roads like you see above in about five and a half hours, including a couple of potty breaks. Note that the trip from where I live to Fairbanks involves a fair amount of hilly terrain. No major mountain passes, but lots of hills and winding around the bases of mountains. Before living in Alaska, I would have said, NO WAY. But today, it was a nice drive, with no white knuckle moments. I will head home on Tuesday, assuming that Mt. Redoubt doesn't spew ash all over the place, making driving truly hazardous (It's very slippery, and it ruins your engine).

I guess my point is, people acclimate. When they have to, or choose to, people can adapt relatively well to changing circumstances. And circumstances are changing. Resource depletion, global warming, etc. will all affect us, and change our lives. There are plenty of predictions of chaos and collapse. But, if we are careful, we can adapt as things change. Hopefully, we will.

Monster

This is Monster. He is joining our family tonight. He is a 3 or 4 year old Alaskan Malamute, who is retiring from mushing. This dog is HUGE. I pet him without bending over at all and his paws are as big as saucers. This is an interesting addition for us. Monster is an outside dog; his current owner says he has never lived inside. He has lived in the dog house you sort of see next to him, on a 4 foot lead when not pulling a sled, with about 30 other dogs in close proximity, as is quite typical with sled dogs. Doesn't seem like ideal conditions, but he is a happy, cheerful, exuberant dog.

We will be keeping him in somewhat different conditions, but we will have to keep him chained when not leashed, at least at first, until we are certain he will not run away. Gypsy, our current dog, is never chained or leashed, unless we are somewhere in a crowd where she has to stay with us, such as a playground. She runs around the neighborhood, but never goes far, so we don't have to worry about keeping her chained up. We only have one neighbor close enough for her to bother, and they seem to like her visiting. She is good with other dogs, and Monster is certainly used to other dogs, so we are hoping they will get along ok. We will continue to keep him an outside dog... sled dogs don't do well indoors, as they are conditioned to the cold.

We have thought about putting him to work... we have a huge pile of cut firewood that needs to be hauled to the wood shed for next winter, that is a ways away. We can hook a sled to his harness and fill it with wood, then have him pull it to the house. In addition, he will need lots of exercise, and at least until he can be let loose on his own, that means that one of us will have to get lots of exercise too, LOL. Guess I won't need to do the elliptical machine at the gym anymore. He is a big strong dog, and I hope I can keep him from pulling me all over creation. At least that would give James entertainment :).

I hope he likes it at our house.

a step in the right direction

First lady, Michelle Obama, is planting a victory garden on the White House lawn.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29787424/

This is great news! Before this, sales of vegetable seeds for home growing had already drastically increased, as people started taking more food production into their own hands, which is a great thing. I am hoping that seeing the fashionable First Lady working with children to grow food on the White House lawn will encourage more people to start growing vegetables. I will post later about the importance of bringing back the victory garden, but for now, I just wanted to highlight this event.

Thank you, Michelle Obama.

Holy cow!

Could this be the answer? We don't have cows, but with 5 people, we do produce some humanure. Check it out...

http://practicalaction.org/?id=biogas_expertise

Actually, I am guessing that even with 5 people, we probably don't produce enough to be useful as a power source, but it's a thought..... LOL.