making rainbows when the sun is shining!

Making Rainbows When the Sun Shines. 

 a double to the camera but a triple to the naked eye of Amsterdam New York , i took one day while visiting.

       A misnomer at best, a contradiction in terms or is it? One is totally dependent on the other, yet at same time sends connotations of another meaning. Well I have been in the creation of the rainbow maker and it was something one would never forget. Partly because of where I was and with who I was with.

     There seemed to be only one person growing up who truly seemed to have my best interest at heart and would take the time try and impress upon me his values, thoughts, and a general self-worth of working all day long, without complaining. This sometimes is something I hardly ever achieve but do strive to make happen on occasion. I take on many tasks and freely do my own bidding, but not without reservation and not without a verbal utterance of a negative way about the task at hand.

    I guess I am back at the BFF (best friend forever), in my life who isn’t here anymore except in my thoughts and feelings. Bff meaning my Grandfather, Doubt if Grandpa ever realized he was a BFF considering the term had never been coined till a few years ago in the time line of my life. Well after Grandpa defined all the different variables that went into the meaning. He was mentor,  friend, dad (true one- though a replacement for the real) , protector, provider , and anything and all of what a 4-5 year old boy would want in the years before going to school. Most kids would have rarely been part of what I experienced at such a early stage in my life. I was born and raised on a farm and understood quite a bit more than most as well as social interactions among people and what happens when it goes terribly wrong in front of young children and where those children turn to hang on to normalcy.

      My Grandpa and Grandma had bought the other farm where when I was young I had lived, and had installed a trailer beside our old 2 story house that had been moved to its present location. It was convenient for me to walk across the yard and within seconds be in the trailer and having breakfast with Grandpa and Grandma and all of this sometimes well before any time mom would roll out of bed and feed me. This should have easily been the ideal living arrangement for a young child. But it didn’t stop there, as Grandpa also worked for the Forestry Department for the U.S. Government. This he did on the adjacent property of 160 acres that the forestry department owned next to us at our other farm in Tuscarawas County.  Grandpa was supervisor , a working one as he had to be, as he was also teacher –mentor –leader to a group of summer college students doing intern work with the government as well as project designer, and whatever other handle one could coin for a person such as he.

      A lane would wander through our farm that was the lifeline to the various projects the forestry department would be experimenting with at a given time. This lane was where I would head to learn and be out of the world I was most accustomed to. There were studies on how water would percolate through various types of soil and how fast the water would be absorbed and that that wasn’t would run off to streams and cause flooding problems. This information alone is critical to good designing of a housing development or various other civil projects, where the impact of construction could cause downhill water problems of flooding and loss of soil due to rapid deterioration of conditions as sometimes happens when these projects exist. This information was used all over the United States, as a basis of designing and creating a working plan for a housing development. As far as I know some or all of this information is still as important as it was then, although brought up to date by computers.

    The basic test back then was to dig a pit in the hillside on a slope and try to disturb as little as possible. This pit would be10 x 20 feet , hand dug by a crew of college kids and my Grandpa, and then one wall on the uphill side would have a lattice work of pipes installed on the face of it from top to bottom to a depth of about 6 ft. deep in some cases, then pea gravel would be poured all over the face up to the level of the ground on the uphill side. . Different levels at about 6 inches difference would have a pipe associated with that elevation , and would represent the water flow at that level so the top level would represent what ran off due to lack of absorption. Now why am I telling you all of this is because this it is  the reason for the rainbows as I attempt to draw all I have said before into one nice tidy little story regarding the title,  impressive if it works.

      Well, as now my life had become intertwined with Grandpa and his crew as I became more and more accepted into the realm of working. The workers would explain to me a young child just what all was going on and I was learning exactly what was meant by all of this work they were doing. So there my Grandpa would be giving orders to workers about the day’s work duties and tools were issued from the tool shed, and out they would go into the woods following scripted paths to avoid natural features or something that needed protected from the trampling of feet to  hole with a tarp that would be stretched over a hole , and here they would work performing tests for 8 hrs. and then that was their day. Lunch was taken under the tarp in the shade or possibly on a fallen log and it was at these times and others these young interns would tell me what they were doing, as if explaining to me helped them justify their own excitement about the tasks they were performing were of more importance than mere labor.  And why as well my Grandpa would fill in the blanks when I offered up a question, never talking to me like I was a  kid,  instead as one of them, an adult with a purpose . This allowed me to be in  a better place than most children my age, and it has been with me all my life. Although this information may not be used constantly, but it is like it has been used intermittently, the knowledge of  the purpose of why we were doing,  is important to me when considering thoughts about similar things in life. My family life without my real Dad and being as close to my Grandpa as I was at that age was a priceless , and to be able to go to his work freely and tag around ,  and share that part of his life was a one in a million chance for a young child to have. I didn’t and still don’t think I am exceptional , more that I have had exceptional things happen to me of which had such influence to change or alter my thoughts about life. This may make me seem different , eccentric , or just plain crazy, still it is part of just who I am  

        Back to the task at hand of making rainbows when the sun shined, as  the day would begin with the sound of gas powered water pumps that would sit on the dike of a dam across two hills breaching the valley and damming the water to be used up hill and being pushed by those same water pumps through fire water hoses to a labyrinth of pipes as it snaked its way up the hillside to a the uphill side of the pit and then would be run up three lengths of pipe and sprayed up above the ground into the air 10 – 15 ft. in the air and atomizing and then falling in waves back to the soft earth below it saturating the ground. It was a an artificial rain they were creating and this was usually done when it was sunny because that way they knew they could control the amount of water on the plot they were checking. This plot would be approximately 50 x 100 ft. long with three sets of sprayers heading up hillside along with water lines. An hour and a half of pumping would achieve results of a typical controlled rain. This allows one to have useful information that applies to the typical soil involved.

        To understand how much water was contained in the soil versus what had ran off . They would use a measuring device called a tensionometer to determine the surface tension of the water knowing that at a certain tension the water will spill over into runoff. This information was used to determine when to shut off the pumps as well as the lateral flow of wter through the soil. So in essence when someone would don a rain suit and go out and read the tensionometers on a regular basis then they would know that the experiment had reached a critical point and this also was part of my job as kid, that I undertook when I was showed how to do it . Not really knowing exactly all I was doing, I still had a good grasp of my numbers and how to read these devices and was relied on to make correct measurement. Not a bad feat for a five year old boy who probably should have never been where I was. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

       Long before I knew I had any artistic talent , I can remember standing in the middle of this experimental plot usually with another worker, or it could have been my Grandpa and I would have this rain coat on they had gave me that was way too big for anything but my ego. And I would have a hat on also and would walk gently on boards laid on the ground to avoid disturbing the plot and I would head out to the tensionometers and get down and read the numbers while the person that was with me would write and check those numbers . I can remember as I was close to the ground, the rain would be coming down cooling that section of forest floor and the sound of dripping everywhere was ever present, while at the same time the sun shown bright through the dense overhead forest, with white light bouncing off leaves and falling from the canopy sending shafts of light down and creating rainbows when the sun shined and interacted with the mist of the artificial rainfall breaking the white light into rainbows of light. 

 

pic of my green room 

 

        I could look up almost anywhere I go to see the rainbows as they would follow me no matter where I went, with the scene of light playing tricks with my mind and I being amazed by this. As an artist I never forgot these visions and now as an adult I find myself making rainbows where the sun shines again. In the greenhouse I am working on my green room , the pseudonym I have created for the privacy fence I created with green potted plants in my greenhouse as a way to show folks how easy it is to create a living wall of privacy to prevent those pesky neighbors from interfering in your private life. I stand up there and daily spray water from a garden hose up on to the arbor casting it to the sky and watching the rainbows appear.  If I was a leprechaun (fat chance of that , did I say literal?) it would be no problem to do my life’s duty as a keeper of the gold . I could just imagine creating pots of gold and making all so happy, as if wealth is what make your happiness so critical. To me it’s not the wealth but instead the view , and with this view you have memories that are worth more than any old pot of gold .

      Then and now I have received so much more from those memories and draw upon them often. It may not make me a better person. Still I would always like to try and think it may be the cause I might end up that way, a positive sign of happiness that resides if nowhere else but inside me. We all need that.

going to see the wizard of hot air!!!

My Trump Rally Experience

       To say it was boring wasn’t really the reality of it. In fact from the time I arrived I was surrounded by people making remarks and wondering why I would come and take the chance. Freedom of speech will make you a target whether you want to be one or not. I parked by what I thought would be a safe spot, l after I thought I was getting there early for a 7: 30pm speech that actually started at 6:30 pm and I felt I was late at a little after 5 as parking was already becoming hectic. Some were gawkers looking to see what kind of people would be following Trump. This is something I wanted to know also and was part of the reason I went and protested. I doubt if I swayed any Republican votes but I wanted those folks who were on the other side to know our intentions were going to be represented.

     My first conversation with the young millennial lady was about parking for the rally, and then we turned to what we were actually doing there. I had drove around the block and figured the college parking lot would be my safest bet for parking and it was. We discussed the safety of that and how hectic it was, and quickly I informed her that I was here to protest and not really see Don the con as I saw one lady described him later and chuckled at her interpretation of why he should go to jail. . Anyhow upon finding out that I was protesting, the first thing the lady asked if I was a professional protester, saying  the Democratic party was paying people to protest and get their heads beat in at Trump rally’s to make him look mean.  I laughed only wishing I was paid or even reimbursed for the time I spent making the sign and buying supplies let alone getting my head beat in for free when I could have made a buck or two at it.  No I did this all on my own I told her. And she asked why. I told her I couldn’t think of a better guy to protest against that night and left the prick part of it out.

    She said good luck as I left the parking lot and I told her to enjoy. A nice misguided lady I thought.  I started walking to the front of the Civic Center about a block away and on a side street I noticed one guy giving me the thumbs up for the sign while another yelled at me. “What are you going to do up there to  cause trouble?”  I yelled back “express my first amendment rights, if there is trouble no doubt someone else will have to start it .”   then the guy yells back” go on ahead, go up there and see what you get.” I thought to myself, exactly what I had planned on doing. It was kind of strange as the closer I got the more Trumpers I encountered and the looks and sneers were getting more prevalent all the time.

      I finally made it past a couple of vendors one who was sympathetic to my cause but seemed content selling Trump paraphernalia to the Trumpers walking in and explained to me it was only a job. Finally I was at the main opening and the sign for the Civic Center on north Cleveland ave. I encountered a cheery group of Hilary supporters who like myself had come out to support anyone but Trump. There was one Democrat protester lady who would at times yell obscenities at drivers passing by, who were honking horns and waving flags and spewing their own form of hate back at her. People would come and take pictures of my sign and me including news crews, and some would ask me my opinion. At first I was a little nervous with all that was going on. I looked back at the line of vendors hawking everything from General Lee confederate flags to National Retard Association (NRA)  buttons making it all seem like a fair where the side show would have been a snake eating woman, and the fire eating man was Trump as he spewed his hate mongering to a wanting crowd. 

 

       I was impressed by the crowd size and I estimate that there had to be at least a couple thousand outside waiting to get in and for what I still ask?  There seemed to be someone yelling all the time reminding me of being in the lockup at Washington County jail,( another story for another time), where we had a detainee who did nothing but Yell all night long with never a minutes pause. To me this was very annoying and if there was someone I wanted to punch it had to be that guy. The voice yelling there always seemed to be the same one. Just one of those guys selling his Trump crap I assume.

     A couple of gay guys came holding hands across a busy Cleveland ave. wanting to get in line to see the wizard Trump, as if he was going to take them with him to Kansas. We laughed and egged them on. We didn’t actually egg them instead encouraged and laughed as they lip locked each other in front of everyone. And of course my camera was in my pocket. I never found out how successful they were at trying to get in. Another guy came up to me and quietly said he had a pillowcase and he was planning to go inside to see Trump and stand up and protest. He didn’t need the pillowcase and was afraid they would find it on him and so he wanted to give it to me and I could give it to someone else if they needed a protest sign. My thought was now great I have something else to carry. 

In this one you can see the size of the crowd as they stretched from the doors on the right to underneath the parking deck and back . these were the lucky or unlucky people who never were able to get in before they closed the doors.

      At one point it was picture taking time and so I and this one lady exchanged taking pictures of each other. Mine was shot in the wrong place and there seemed to be no one around.  But that wasn’t the case. We were actually in the thick of things. I was pretty much quiet till someone would ask me a question whereas some of the protesters were quite vocal at yelling insults, and we all laughed at the getting paid remark the one lady had asked me when I first got out of the pickup. I was also told my Trump sign I had carved into the hillside on our farm that said Trump sucks was seen on channel 5 at the local Cleveland station. It is huge about 2 football fields big. It took me an hour and half of joyous labor to make it right and be able to be seen by the planes flying overhead.  I never found out if this was true.

      Well it seemed to be all over as it was just getting started well.  I moved to the main sign and directly along Cleveland ave and sat on the sign ledge and held my sign pointing to cars passing on the road. A British broadcasting television crew stopped by and asked me a few question and went on, then came back for a more in depth interview. It was hard expressing myself unlike when I write. I was a bit tongue tied and maybe missed a chance to really spell things out. But then again maybe I did. Couldn’t tell you. Then again it may end up floating in cyber space never to be seen. My three minutes of fame slipped by me again. I swear I would never use lol on my blog but have to use it here as it accurately describes my feelings at losing my 3 minutes of fame. Again lol.

    We heard word that they were starting to shut the doors to people coming in and there seemed to be a lot of people passing us by with hated looks on their face as if their favorite dog  wouldn’t even come for a bone and that all they had to show for their 2 hours of standing in line to see the wizard was this damn t-shirt made in china that they had paid twice the price for that will shrink to half its size that has Trumps face plastered all over it as he tries to make America great again one redneck at a time. The insults and heckles became more numerous as they shuffled out of the Civic Center.  We had hoped to see the motorcade; instead we heard the mumbles and grumblings of hate directed our way as we were the first in line coming out of the place. The cops were plenty and seemed to have a handle on things and nothing ever started.

      One guy came over and sat down beside me and started talking saying I must have some big kahunas to sit out there and protest, just as a load full of haters were coming down the road yelling with a confederate flag in the back of their four wheeler calling me a communist for protesting which I found ironic with Trumps alleged ties to Putin and his death squad. I told him I never thought about anything but coming down and standing up for the other side. Expressing my first amendment rights which I feel are far more important than my second amendment rights that are antiquated as well the constitution and the Supreme Court in its interpretation of our constitutional rights concerning the second amendment. We had one shot muskets, not AK -47” in 1776. The most shots you could get off were one a minute max. You would have to ask the guy you missed to stand there so you could shoot at him again. You can empty a 30 round clip in about 7 sec from an AK-47. Automatic is the military version and semi-automatic is the public version still at 30 shots per minute a very more deadly gun designed for war not shooting up elementary schools like Newtown Massachuchets. What is the answer I don’t know but feel this election is about solidifying the gun lobby and enacting or eliminating more laws restricting gun use. They still think President Obama is coming for their guns.

     I would almost guarantee half the people there had never voted in an election before. There has to be a motivating factor to get them out in force like they were to see the wizard who has a lot of promises but nothing but hot air to fill the balloon to get them back to Kansas to make America great again. All they have to do is click their ak-47”s trigger 3 times to get them there. It was an opportunity to protest I would never pass up again if the conditions warranted it like this time.

can we say pineapple?

Tomato (toe-may-toe) or tomato (toe -ma -toe)?

neither , this is a pineapple i have been growing for over 3 years 

      Or should I just call it spaghetti sauce. It is kind of an Italian sauce without any meat, totally vegetarian and organic without any herbicides or pesticides, as well it is grown in my compost I have made out of totally organic sources. The tomatoes were grown in my tomato towers which are metal cages where one is placed on the inside of another over a pile of compost and the center wire cage is filled with compost.

 tomato tower- 3 tomato plants around interior compost cage. you water inner cage.

 

      The idea is to water the compost in the middle and it will not only help keep moisture to surrounding tomato plants in outside concentric circle , but it will also help provide the nutrients needed to produce tomatoes . I dug up the soil directly underneath the tomato tower and added about a foot of compost on top of that area. Outside and in between the tomato towers I just let the grass grow eliminating weeding which can now be done for the most part by a weed eater. Directly around the base of the tomato towers I just added straw to conserve moisture and also for weed prevention .  The only problem I had was my natural insect control system, called free ranging chickens who would go hog wild and crazy scratching away the straw and laid bare the soil leading to over drying. . With the drought we experienced and after talking to others I feel I am fortunate to have tomatoes at all.

as they look now. notice straw is all kicked out. but tomatoes have been coming on good. 

   

       I purchased a pressure canner, even though i just needed a water bath procedure to seal jars and lids and have just about used up my supply of pint jars just making spaghetti sauce. I would like to try some other things yet but will see how it goes. Maybe some apple sauce, or green beans. I have also purchased a new freezer and I am looking forward to filling it with green peppers for the winter as well as purchase in bulk some meat products to fill my need here and reduce costs associated with feeding myself.

 

finished canned spaghetti sauce - still need to wipe down jars. 

 

      The four Rhode Island reds have been doing a great job at providing not only I but Mom and Sherry with enough fresh eggs to meet our needs. At 3 dollars a dozen it doesn’t take long to realize a savings from that alone. Not to mention the added benefits of pest control, yard fertilization, and just the entertainment factor is enough for me to justify keeping the chickens around. They are a little hard on the landscaping at times but apparently there is something there or they wouldn’t dig so much.

        The other project I am working on is wine making for my first time. I was blessed with some grapes from some vines I purchased at a sale on landscaping supplies. I planted them around my ladder arbor and along with an old vine I was able to yield about 2 gallons of grapes. I stemmed and picked out the good fruit and ran it through a food processor and then squeezed the resulting juice through cheese cloth and ended up with 2 quarts of a nice rose looking juice. Light red in color and having a really nice sweet taste. I went to the Wine Shop on North Cleveland Ave. and purchased a gallon glass jug and a fermentation lock as ell the proper yeast necessary for wine production and combined my juice along with some more pure grape juice to make a full gallon of wine. The cost was relatively cheap to this point and ten dollars should cover it all. They have a full range of wine making supplies and seem really knowledgeable and helpful to giving you exactly what you need to get started.

     this is the wine jug with the vapor lock installed and actually working.

         Well the wine is working off in a cool dark place and should be ready in thirty days from what they say. It can be drank at this point or combined with another teaspoon of sugar and recharged to be bottled in traditional wine bottles and allowed a suitable time to work off again . By bottling into smaller bottles it will allow you to strain out sediment and achieve similar results to medium priced wines you normally purchase at stores. The sugar level will be a determining factor in the taste. The more sugar added will allow more alcohol to be produced .  I am still learning on this and will try and update you as I go along. But this looks a project I want to pursue.

      The main reason is that with the berries and grapes as well as apples produced her on the farm it allows for 100 per cent usage of all produce. There I no waste an the berries and wine have anti-oxidant properties necessary to fight cancer. It also allows fruit that is less than desirable to eat , or that is in excess to be utilized to avoid wasting . even the skin and by products of the juicing process is thrown to the chickens and they heartily pick through it and still glean something out of it.so the whole process of wine making is in some ways a cheap way to preserve naturally without refrigeration a product that would otherwise have a limited season, allowing you to enjoy the benefits of it when the snow flies. This is not all bad and some apple wine is in order also.

this is a security wall i constructed in my greenhouse to show how easy it is to plant a privacy fence and how quick you can fill it in so you can have relief from your neighbors prying eyes. i will go into more detail tomorrow as to what was involved and pictures from when i started and plans of where i am going with this.

Negligent Activity def. (not much better than nothing at all- still thinking about not thinking about it)

i can carve a mean dead floating fish. makes you wonder what environmental tragedy befell this poor painted beast carved out of an old snaggy piece of wood. 

Negligent Attitude

      Self-deprecation day is in order here to fully understand why I haven’t been writing much. To say I am storing up for a burst of new stories fresh withy insight may be true but for the most part it is because I am self-absorbed in the Facebook phenomenon of social media. I have a feeling like if I don’t moderate the flow of material flowing through the cyber mazes and spewing itself vomit fashion on to the puter screen. you have seen them pages upon pages of Trump negativity . if I can interject a heroin overdose picture or possibly copy a link to my favorite song on u-tube or whatever else but Trump . I feel that this lately has become a full time job as well I am reading voraciously online and need to change the tides and send some information out to that great sea of controversy we call the internet.

      Where I fit in in this scenario is kind of bewildering to me at times. But I am still being read so this alone gives me  moment of peace . It is knowing my time is not wasted that proves all of this valuable to me alone. Again thank you and I value your patience and hope you enjoy the selected pics I have to share in kind of a new format. 

My sunflowers 2016

Hydrangeas i believe? Correct me if you like. It is pretty and so must be included in pics. 

A double swamp lily ? these are all flowers from here on the farm . they have probably bloomed and are out of season now.

     I will take a minute and update you on my potato tower experiment for 2016. If you remember I had a potato tower in 2015 and with 5 lbs. of seed potatoes I ended up with over 50 lbs. of potatoes of which I used for myself till I was down to perhaps my original 5 lbs. or maybe less of smaller gravel potatoes and some thick sliced buds I managed to save from other potatoes and anyhow without spending anymore I had enough to plant the tower again in 2016 to show everyone how easy it is to grow potatoes, how cheap it can be, and also how small a space you can do it in. The area is approximately 3 x 3 feet and is about 2 foot tall. The bad part is it requires new soil every year. Potatoes like tomatoes carry blights and wilts and re-using the same soil increases the chance that diseases carry over from year to year. So what I do is expect to replace the soil with new soil, and then I use the old soil for trees or shrubs I am planting or repotting.  You can easily absorb the quantity of soil equal to maybe 20 large pots , required to grow potatoes yearly by just rejuvenating and re-potting plants. 

      Not sure what the production will be off the tower this year. It will be at least another month or two before vines die and i start to break down pyramid. the wood  I  will reuse again next year and I can begin re-potting for next season after i dig potatoes.  

      

     I have accomplished some this summer but I have been hampered by my back and I am still having trouble with my back and I am now relying on Mr. Stick much more often.  I am trying to keep on moving on the house and I have other projects I have been working on. My raspberries are now starting to grow new vines and they are spreading. I need to transfer some to the greenhouse as I experiment more with their propagation.  The grapes I planted and the ladder arbor is doing pretty good. I imagine soon enough I will have to expand the arbor. I am thinking about extending across road and go from there in a continuous line from where I originally started. Maybe I can do a maze around the farm. That would be awesome, and a lot of grapes. I am going to do cuttings and expand my plantings as it is about time to get serious about the raspberries and grapes.

     Another project I started yesterday was wine making and intend to get more into this also as a possible end use of berries not sold, or grapes produced here on the farm. I will write and tell you what I found out about wine making so far and keep you informed. . I guess after writing here I have only scratched the surface of what I need to write about.Thank you for your patience. -kevin