My Secchi Disk

West Virginia, Spring '09

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 02:32:52 -0600

I'm in Hinton, West Virginia this March, visiting Amy on my way home to Mpls from Philly. I was here once before, in summer 2003 when Amy was interning at Enchanter's Garden. She now lives and works here. As luck would have it, as I'm heading home to Mpls to hopefully buy a house as part of a network of housing cooperatives (CAHN), the land she lives on was once a commune. Now it's just her and Tony, Pete and Andy, and lots of birds.

Amy and Tony live in a log cabin built by a union soldier after the civil war. It's divided into two parts, each with a wood stove and a second storey. The right half of the house in the second photo is the newer addition.

I got here on March 13th, and just caught the tail end of the snow, which was followed by 3 straight days of rain.

Ornamental quince bush above. But it was cozy inside by the stove, even though we are almost out of (dry) wood. I've been baking, as usual. I made my first loaf of beer bread, and my first buttermilk biscuits. I had a nasty cold, which Amy seems to have cured with her boneset syrup in camomile tea.

Note the composting toilet in the outhouse...

... although we prefer to pee right here.

I missed my down vest! Rescued from Austin by Amy. The horses are Ivan and Nellie. They sure tear up the yard.

Other critters include chickens, turkeys, guinea hens, peacocks, and Mocha and Butterball (dogs).

The only other people living on the 250 acres are Pete and Andy, just next door. Pete runs the native plant nursery.

On Saturday, Tony got us invited to their friend Robert's place to play some music with him and Virgil, who runs a campground. I recorded a some of the living room jam session, with Robert on banjo, Virgil on mandolin, Tony on cello, Amy on manjo (mini banjo strung like a mandolin), banjo, and flute, and me occasionally giving manjo a shot. My favorite I think is Wagonwheel because it has the chatting and chord-finding inherent in this kind of music. Robert sings on Wagonwheel and Crossfire, which was written by Virgil. There's also a short clip highlighting Robert's banjo skill.

And I've almost concluded my three months of couchsurfing!

On my fourth day here, the sun finally came out, and it truly felt like spring. These are the same crocuses as the photo above.

This old Airstream trailer was Amy's first home here, back when she was interning in 2003. I came and stayed with her for a week then.

We took advantage of the sun and went for a walk in the woods, after checking out the salamander population in the pools they use for aquatic plants.

They collect the seeds for the native plants they sell (often via mail to folks in surrounding states) all around their land, and they work hard to remove invasive species that threaten to overcome the native ones. Here Amy finds one of plants I just saw being grown in the green house.

Check out how thick that moss is! Moss isn't always a good thing, as it chokes out grass, and the horses eat grass, not moss. Here's one of the many streams that are flowing into the hollow, and a rare patch of rhododendrons. On the way home I found a nice vine for swinging.

With 250 acres to choose from, I searched high and low for the perfect spot to pitch my tent, and finally found it...

As we're trying to conserve wood, sleeping in a tent indoors raises the air temperature by 5-10 degrees. I've used this strategy to save on heating costs in Philly and Mpls as well.

Still baking, made some vegan peach muffins with walnut oil. Tasty. This Mpls-sized shack is currently unoccupied, if anyone's looking for rural home. Needs a bit of foundation work...

I've been practicing my tarot skills while I'm here, doing readings for Amy and Tony, and Amy did one for me as well. I'm predicted to have a "peaceful hiatus in an otherwise discordant situation".

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:11:58 -0600

Haven't been writing on the blog for a while now, but I'm hoping to get back into it soon... To prove it, I have photos and audio up from the end of my three months of travel (Mpls-Milwaukee-The Colony(TX)-Frisco(TX)-Austin-Tucson-Philly-West Virginia).

And here's a brief explanation of what else you can find on this site so far... The Musings on Education and Musings on Organizing sections are self-explanatory. These are two lines of thought which are prominent for me. Add to that Vanitas Still Life, which is where I'll write about existentialism, though there's not much there yet. Music reflects and defines my mood, and therefore Album/Song of the Week is a way for me to catalog and remember where I've been emotionally over time. I just wish I'd started it earlier. Economic Impact is simply a listing of all the money I spent over a year or so, not including rent and utilities. I'm pretty weird about money, and worry a lot about spending it. I was interested to see if making my spending public changed my spending habits in any way, and it did. Finally, Witless wanderings of nibbling sheep is a section for posting quotes I like from stuff I'm reading, watching, and listening to, and it may eventually contain commentary as well.

I'd really like to get input from others, and I don't have any sort of a counter to see how many people are reading this, so please comment on something while you're here. (To reduce spam, I need to approve comments from new posters, so it may take a bit for your comment to appear.)

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:05:01 -0600

"Rave On" by Buddy Holly

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 15:44:32 -0600

Ok, so I'm through with writing down every penny I spend and posting it on the internet, but I think it was a good idea and am going to leave what I have posted up here. I still am careful about where I spend my money, who it's going to and in what neighborhood. For a really good 20-minute film on the impact of our spending, check out The Story of Stuff.

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 15:42:52 -0600

"Deranged Magpie" by The Mongeese

Gentrification

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 23:54:20 -0600

I've been neglecting this blog for about a year now, but recently have been doing a bit of online thought at a different site, the gentrifiwiki I'm building with other people for an EXCO class we created. Check it out.

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:52:26 -0600

"Lone Star" by Mirah

Barbara Ehrenreich on white collar work

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 21:04:10 -0600

Just some quotes from Barbara Ehrenreich's Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream, on job-hunting in the white collar corporate world.

One of the things that has always made me most uncomfortable about doing white collar work is the dress code. I don't have much of a style and don't pay a lot of attention to what I wear, but I simply can't feel like myself in formal clothes. "Business casual" qualifies as formal for me as well. I never understood why you had to conform to someone else's standard of propriety to be considered worth listening to. Ehrenreich puts it quite well:

"Robert Jackall's book impressed on me that corporate dress serves a far more important function than mere body covering. 'Proper management of one's external appearances,' he writes, 'simply signals to one's superiors that one is prepared to undertake other kinds of self-adaptation.' By dressing correctly, right down to the accessories, you let it be known that you are willing to conform in other ways too - that you can follow orders, for example, and blend in with the prevailing 'culture.'"

She has this to say on the process of getting made over for job interviews:

"This should be the fun part --playing with paints and little swatches of fabric-- but I am suddenly gripped by queasiness. I understand that to make myself into a 'product' that I can market, I must first become a commodity, a thing."

And finally, on the corporate aesthetic that permeates our physical surroundings:

"Back at the Homestead Suites that night, a stripped-down, generic sort of place near Dulles Airport, I was struck by how much my motel resembled the church. Not literally, but in the sense of some underlying aesthetic - the same economy of line, neutral colors, cheap indestructible furniture, extremely short-haired carpet for easy cleaning... In my exhausted state, it seemed to me that this aesthetic permeates all aspects of the world I have entered: narrative-free resumes dominated by bullets; sensuality-suppressing wardrobes; precise instruction sheets; numerous slides."

"It works, more or less, this realm of perfect instrumentality; it makes things happen: deadlines are met; reservations are made; orders delivered on time; carpets kept reliably speck-free. But something has also been lost. Weber described the modern condition as one of 'disenchantment,' meaning 'robbed of the gods,' or lacking in any dimension of strangeness and mystery. As Jackson Lears once put it, premodern people looked up and saw heaven; modern, rational people see only the sky. To which we might add that minions of today's grimly focused business culture tend not to look up at all."

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:01:55 -0600

"Junk Bones" by Dark Dark Dark

("All that wind that blows through you hair, it makes things new.")

Dumpstering reaches academia

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 21:03:18 -0600

Tonight I had that wonderful experience where you discover that someone has already produced the idea/article that you have been passively planning on creating for some time. I found an "academic" article on aspects of anarchism which I have been mulling over how to discuss with different audiences. The link to the entire article is below.

"In many ways, here in the U.S., recycling presently serves both materially and rhetorically as an alibi for the continuing, accepted and acceptable absence of sustainability, not as a harbinger of change. Recycling is presented as a cornerstone of the environmental project, as an alternative to waste, even to consumerism itself. But its actual operation is something rather different, a way for corporations and governments to present a marketable "earth-friendly" face to consumers and citizens, without changing the impact their actions have on the ecosystems in which we live."

"The project that the Garbage Liberation Front (GLF) and Trash Worship embody can be thought of as the normalization of thorough use and re-use as opposed to recycling's separation of these "resources" from everyday life. It is an admittedly parasitic approach, but one that carries the potential for an escape or transformation, since it reduces dependence on consumption even as it feeds on others' excess."

"The rejection of garbage, of trash, of refuse as a valid concept, which lies beneath this approach, has an affirmative side as well. It involves a deep-seated belief that everything, no matter how battered or rejected, is useful—to someone, for something. This runs parallel to the anti-hierarchical core of anarchism, which insists on the validity of all voices, on the necessity for every voice to be heard and taken into account directly, not through an allegedly "representative" mouthpiece. Both insist that anything cast aside is a loss not only to itself but to those around it, to the entire community."

-Daniel Lang, 'Give Us the Dumpsters -Or - Give Us Life': Res Derilictae and the Trash of Free Trade

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:25:39 -0600

F# A# Infinity by Godspeed You Black Emperor (for Chicago of course)

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 15:14:55 -0600

Ride the Skies by Lightning Bolt

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 15:13:22 -0600

"Gave Up" by NIN

Wyoming Road Trip '07

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 16:56:25 -0600

So I had planned to start my summer by picking another western state to explore and going on a solo bike tour there. But I chickened out. I'd never been on a bike tour before and had never been to Wyoming before, so I decided to wait on the biking for Amy's and my trip and to take a road trip to Wyoming with my mom instead. She drove down from the lake in the Volvo to pick me up and our last stop in the cities (becoming a trend) was the Hub Bike Co-op, where I decided not to worry about any of my bike's varied problems, but Claire did manage to sell me my first set of bike gloves because Jason had told me a horror story about some girl who had ruined her circulation on a long bike tour.

I had my bike along because the plan was to get a ride out to New Hampshire with Amy and Tony in their van as they were moving from Portland, Oregon to Hinton, West Virginia via NH by way of Canada. So I planned to meet up with them somewhere from Wyoming.

David Markel at Hard Times goes to Wyoming all the time and had recommended that we take route 212 out across northern South Dakota, which we did. Having left quite late in the day, we only made it to the edge of Minnesota the first night, Ortonville, in fact, my dad's home town.

Here's what a typical Schaefer-Davis packed Volvo looks like. Food box with plenty of Frappucino for mom in the morning. And my travel space in the passenger seat.

Unfortunately all of this junk got shifted about a bit during the night when I decided I wanted to sleep in the car. No sooner had we settled down in the tent but we heard a loud "moo"ing noise getting closer and closer to the tent. Deciding that a cow in a state park was unlikely, the only other logical conclusion was that it was a black bear. Hence, the decision to sleep in the car. My bike braved the night outdoors.

The next morning a foresty guy doing the mowing told me that raccoons can make all sorts of sounds, including loud lowing-type ones. Oh well. Now I know. I keep meaning to study animal calls and scat, would save me a lot of woods anxiety.

We then headed into the plains of South Dakota.

All pretty flat until the Missouri River. We stopped for some wading and surprisingly both made friends with a dog that was hanging out there.

We made it to the Wyoming Black Hills and camped in the state forest there. I love the Black Hills, either side of the state line.

We actually decided to head out to Devil's Tower that night so we could see it under the stars. We had a solitary picnic at the base on a really clear night. The next morning back at our campsite I had to climb through a barbed wire fence to investigate what appeared to be the mysterious remains of a mountain goat. They weren't, but I'm still not sure what they were.

We went back to the Devil's Tower and explored a bit. Not nearly as nice with so many people around.

Leaving the Black Hills, it flattened out again until the Big Horns. We were headed to a campsite at West Tensleep Lake, recommended by David.

We were lucky to find a site, arriving pretty late in the day. The campground is at about 9,000 feet (most of Wyoming is a 5,000 foot plateau). Still plenty of mosquitoes, although it got cold at night. We met a really nice math teacher from Casper named Pete. He lent us a warm sleeping bag and some comfy chairs so we could camp in style.

The next day, despite reports of a mother and baby moose in the area, we headed off on one of the hikes David had recommended. Actually we were told that the moose didn't like it at the higher altitude where we were headed... moose only went down from Tensleep, not up. When we asked the camp host what to do if we did see a mother and baby moose, he said, "Well, there's not much you can do. Except get a tree between you and that moose, fast." In any case, off we went. The views were beautiful.

We heard this guy chittering at us from a tree next to the trail. He was making a whole bunch of noise. Pretty sure he's a pine marten. Really cute.

Needless to say, guess who's footprint that is? I titled this photo: Moose Tracks, not just for dessert anymore. So we kept going after we saw the print, as I'd used my expert tracking skills to determine that it was "not fresh". Were hiking along through some pretty dense woods with mom in front, when I spot the baby moose, about 7 feet from her, looking at her a bit confused. I start whispering harshly for her to stop and come slowly back towards me. She never even got a look at the moose. I immediately led us off the trail into the woods, looking to get some trees between us and the moose, ala advice from camp host. While trees lower down on the trail would have been great climbers, suddenly no trees were climbable. I was freaking out, imagining this raging mother moose coming after us any second. It never did, we never even saw the mom, but we did decide to cut our hike short at that point. Yes, I'm afraid of moose. I just don't think my mama would have been any match for it's mama.

The next day we continued on west out of the Bighorns on Highway 16 towards Worland, where we stopped and chatted with some cyclists. They were teenagers cycling across country and were doing 90 miles/day, including the Bighorn Mountains!

We then headed south to Thermopolis. Home of a big hot spring and freaky resort.

This begins my favorite part of the trip, landscape-wise. Taking 20 south from Thermopolis, we drove through the Wind River Canyon, through the Owl Creek Mountains. I'm definitely coming back here!

The canyon spilled us out at the reservoir, and then we hit the dusty town of Shoshoni, truly a relic out of another era, but it made me want to meet people there and learn its history... which I haven't done yet, of course. I'll post it here when I do. Or maybe I'll just go back there. So many of the restaurants in Wyoming and the Dakotas were built for a different era, when they needed multiple rooms to house community meetings... when their communities were a lot bigger then they are now. So you head off from your table in the front room to find the bathroom, and you end up wandering through this maze of a building. I really liked it. The Yellowstone Drugstore was one of these places.

This made me homesick for the Grease Pit.

From Shoshoni, we swung down through Riverton and then headed west on 26 through the Wind River Reservation towards the west entrance of Grand Teton National Park. This was more of my favorite scenery from Wyoming.

Coming out of the reservation, there were badlands near Dubois, and then we headed into the Tetons at dusk. I'd wanted to camp at a spot called Brooks Lake, but someone at a gas station told us that there had been two grizzly attacks there recently, so I changed my mind.

We spent the night at a fancy lodge on the outskirts of the park, where mom thinks she accidentally left her absolutely best pair of black polyester pants. We ended up doing all of the Tetons and Yellowstone National Park in one day, which is in my opinion how it should be done. In the past, I'd always skipped Yellowstone on my trips west and then felt guilty about it. It's so famous, there must be something worth seeing there, right? The hot springs and a couple canyons are pretty neat, but really overall the rest of Wyoming was much more beautiful. The government just decided to market Yellowstone and it worked... happily for us quieter tourists because it keeps the majority of the tourists well contained and out of the rest of Wyoming. I don't know how this is for Wyoming's economy, but that's another question entirely. ANYway...

We got an early start and got into the park. When we found this place with the "Bear Danger" sign, we thought it would be a perfect spot for a picnic breakfast. Notice we were on the correct side of the sign.

We were soon in Yellowstone Park, for free, thanks to my mom's Golden Age Pass. We drove all day to see as much as possible, and totally wore ourselves out. Ah, the difficult life of a tourist! We made the requisite stop at Old Faithful, where there was a veritable shopping mall of shit to buy. I did enjoy getting my bike out of the car and riding around the smaller geysers... and scowling at the rest of the tourists.

Mom kept up her wildflower photography, and we were intrigued by the way in which we somehow happened to see each type of wildlife native to Yellowstone exactly once, and right next to the road.

This made it necessary for a different and much more amusing kind of fauna to emerge and direct traffic.

I had images of these guys loading tame bears and elk into their little hybrid vehicles and unloading them at strategic points along the road to keep the tourists happy.

This is where we finally saw a small family of grizzlies loping along in the coming rain.

On our way out of the park to the north, the landscape became much more stark.

At the north end of the park is the "town" of Mammoth Hot Springs. It was quite pretty.

We spent the night in Livingston, Montana, which I also liked a lot... mostly because our hotel was right next to the railroad tracks and I could hear trains moving about all night. We found a good homey coffee shop for breakfast and upon finding a flyer I almost insisted we stop by a guy's house to look a bike parts, until I realized they were for that gas-powered type of bike.

We drove all day across Montana, having some great conversations about how to fix the world, and spent our last night in Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. We had been there on our 2004 road trip. I looked around carefully for a campsite without bison tracks going through it, but there were none, so we just settled in and hoped for the best. You could hear them around (the ranger described the sound they make as being like a lion's roar, and it was a bit), but none came though our site.

The next morning, our binging Volvo problem came to a head. More and more of the electronics in the car had been making a binging noise as the week had progressed. That noise it makes when you open the door with the key in or the lights on. It had spread to opening the glove compartment or vanity mirror while driving, and finally on our last day, with a good 10 hours of driving to go, the binging simply would not stop. Mom was pretty upset, I first just put in my earplugs, but they didn't keep the binging out, so I got to work and discovered the blown fuse and impressed my mom with my amazing mechanical skills.

Coming home through North Dakota on 94 we were trying to eat only at small locally owned places, and this led us to the Medina Cafe, in Medina, ND. The lunch rush was already past by the time we got there, but we met some really nice people and had great food. I asked what the soup of the day was and was quickly told "knepfle" by the owner, and then she moved on to other things. I asked her to repeat it again... and again, at which point it occurred to her that I had never heard of knepfle soup. It was a local specialty of German origin, with dumplings and delicious.

We got back to the lake a few hours before Amy and Tony pulled in on their move from Portland. The next day we loaded up and took off for New Hampshire...

Most-feared large mammals

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:11:15 -0600

1. Grizzly bear

2. Moose

3. Bison

4. Cougar

5. Black bear

(The moose was elevated during my recent trip to Wyoming. I hadn't realized they were so ornery. I have yet to run into a black bear on foot, but I'm molified by the stories I hear of how unornery they are. Bison are up there I think because of the horns, like moose.)