let take some simple steps to energy conservation

Can we turn off the lights?

most efficient carbon dioxide storage device on earth, locking up centuries of carbon dioxide only to be perishing presently in California redwood forests due to climate change= hypocrisy at its finest courtesy of man 

     Recently I read a report about the U.S.  effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from various sources on an overall basis according to government EPA guidelines. The article praises President Obama’s efforts while at the same time it mentions that the effort will further paralyze the state of Kentucky’s economy while slowing coal use on an overall basis throughout the nation, as we leave the dirty technology of yesteryear, with its belching smokestacks behind. We are no entering an era of hybrid technology where we employ wind, solar, and other technologies to produce electricity in a more renewable green way.

      My discussion today will center on conservation of any electricity delivered to our home, and how we can more efficiently use it and other technologies to improve our security in our homes. At the top of the list of home improvement and electricity waste reducers would be motion sensitive sensors hooked up in a circuit with your household lights. Those same motion sensitive lights that come one when you approach a house at night could also be used inside your house to turn off the lights in a room when it is not being used. When walking from room to room lights would light up and turn off after a few minutes of your passing through to save electricity and will ease your effort at conservation of electricity.

      Employed outside at the perimeter of your property or in locations where you feel  you may vulnerable to a trespasser a solar security light with battery backup could be available for as cheap as 25 dollars , and would serve you well to inform you of an unwanted visitor at night. Lights flashing or possibly an audible alarm could sound alerting you to the presence of an intruder.  These could be motion sensitive or infra-red sensitive and alerting after a warm blooded animal is in the proximity of the detector.

     How about the new battery pack from tesla available for home use that can be recharged with power from your local utility on off peak hours , or from a variety of sources , including hydropower , solar, and wind , or whatever power generation source you want to use as a primary source of recharging? For power generation companies this would seem to me to be a no brainer. As you could generate power in off peak hours to charge these batteries to be used by the homeowner when the power generation needs are the greatest. This would help to eliminate power plants from adding on another dirty coal unit to meet high demand of power generation, and in the end this will result in a reduction of CO2 levels across the nation.

     Now if on your own  you had solar cells or say a wind generator to supplement the charging capacity of the battery pack you would further save , and by being conservative with our use of electricity, by turning off anything we don’t use that is plugged into electrical outlet when not in use.  For you see we have ourselves hooked up to a multitude of things in any electrical outlets we are using and are draining electricity off when we are not using them. The charger for your I-pad, the coffee pot, the alarm clock , your computer , all and more contribute to a loss of electricity at any given time during the day.

    Have you ever been sleeping and had the power go off and when it comes back on listen to all the stuff rebooting and coming back on. Well this is all the stuff you have on at a given time. I refer to it as the refrigerator light syndrome. You don’t know if the light is on or off when you close the door. You assume it is off, but do you know for sure, and really does it affect your worry capacity in the long run. Not hardly, in the end you still go about your day whether the light is on and off. If you knew it was on inside your refrigerator it would kind of  bug you because you know anytime you have a hold of a light bulb that is  being used it is hot and impossible to hold. Now really, when you are trying to cool down your refrigerator, do you really want a heat source? It would bug you if you knew it, but since you don’t, you ignore it. It is the same with all the stuff you have hooked up.

    It would be nice to have a central switch you could turn on and off as needed, and again you may be able to use a motion switch for this purpose to kill all power outlets in a room when not in use for more than a minute. Your computer if shut down requires you to log in again. As well some other things like a coffee pot would shut off if you are not in the room for any period of time. Maybe a touch sensor you could tap somewhat like the clapper that would allow certain individual appliances to remain on for a specified time. a simple touch to a pad would indicate ten minutes two touches would equal 20 minutes of time. Specific outlets could be wired for continuous use like those needed for an alarm clock.

      Still you would think they could come up with a reliable alarm clock that would charge all day and at night switch over to a battery backup assuring that even with a loss of power you will still receive your alarm to arise and not be alarmed in the AM when you wake up from oversleeping. An alarm clock is plugged in 24 hrs. day and doesn’t use much electric , still when you multiply the amount they do use times millions and billions you see something that by itself is responsible for a major portion of trees since the 1800’s and along with it loss of habitat for several species , and is directly responsible an increase in co 2 levels in our environment. How about a hybrid alarm with a combination of solar and electric where the electric is only used to finish charging batteries, at which point it completely shuts off and runs on battery.

      I believe in the future as energy costs rise, we see more technologies put to use in our household requiring little or no energy or in fact renewable type energies. Even air conditioning during this summer weather will also see a re-thinking of how we can achieve a level of comfort we need or desire without using costly electric from a power supplier. Again the Tesla home energy battery could help here, as cooling during the daytime contributes to causing peak energy usage at our power generating facilities. If we could store electric at off peak hours and use it during peak hours, we would be able to soften the impact for power generation. Solar and wind would help offset those cooling costs more.

     We could still have the entire feature of electricity usage today with more reliability and at a greener rate than we have had previously. I am sorry for the coal industry, but they have not kept pace with technology, and have contributed to the global warming and change of weather patterns we observe today. This will only get worse if we do nothing, and unfortunately it has taken years for humans to get to this point of global warming. And now the sad part is, if we never created anymore carbon dioxide, it will take just as long to go back to pre-1800 levels of carbon dioxide, and longer if we keep burning fuels we know are causing it. So we are talking 100 – 150 years or more of global warming changes we have no clue how to reverse except try to change Earth back to the way it was. All the while our population is increasing, trees are being destroyed daily at rates higher than what they are being planted. I think coal has had its day much like the steamboats on the Mississippi river, as well other businesses that have had to change with the rising tide of technology. There are cleaner sources of fuel, and we as a people need to start utilizing them.

Now who left the light's on again? 

     We need to start with turning the lights off, not just in our home but also in the cities, streetlights in particular.  If we just look at a NASA photo showing the east coast of the United States and you could clearly pick out all the urban areas of major metropolitan centers as they glowed white as seen from space photos. Do we need all those lights out there? When you go to sleep at night how many lights do you see? How many street lights existed before the 1800’s?

       Very few if any existed and if they did it was only in large cities. And if you are asleep you have this phenomenon known as refrigerator light syndrome, you don’t know if the lights are on or off, as the door to reality is closed. So why is it necessary to have security lights and the countryside lit up like it is daytime. Because we feel more secure that way? We really don’t know the difference if we are asleep. A light doesn’t guarantee security. Oh yeah, it may help keep the monsters under the bed but not out of your mailbox as monthly your power company will send you a bill and with this  you get a notice to pay for that lights electrical usage lights or they will unleash terror on you by turning off your electric.  Guess what you would be going green and that isn’t all bad.  A little inconvenient, I am sure, still not the end of the world. The end of the world will come when it is too hot outside and no one cares about anything, including having the power on, or wanting to eat, or living for that matter.

     We believe electricity to be a necessity for life and so we allow nuclear power plants, that we have no idea where we are going to safely store waste, or coal plants that produce enormous amounts of greenhouse gas that is building up in our atmosphere and ash ponds with millions of gallons of waste that are just sitting close to power plants, looking for a purpose, when there is none due to the high accumulation of toxic metals. Or natural gas electrical generating plants touted as new technology plants that depend on enormous amounts of fracing fluid to efficiently produce the gas that is used and that still is contributing to the greenhouse gas problem while depleting our fresh water reserves. Still even solar has its drawbacks as it depends on metals mined in huge open pit mines generating their own special mix of dangerous chemicals to purify and manufacture the elements needed to create solar panels.  Solar does have a reuse cycle that is more repetitive and less costly to the environment than other one time limited use methods of generating electricity.

     Power companies and our safety services would like you to believe that lighting is necessary element in reducing crime, but for the power companies who are always willing to let you leave the light on their motive is purely profit.  Actually I think crime would go down if the criminals couldn’t see what they are getting into. Tripping over a tricycle in an unlit backyard and breaking a leg, or if they were suddenly surprised by a motion detector streaming a white light into their light deprived eyes virtually blinding them in pitch dark scenarios. Also when a light would come on you would know someone was out snooping around. Now if a light comes on at night no one pays attention because we have so many lights on. One more would not make a difference.

     Our safety services like police and fire could have technology that would turn on and off a local array of streetlights as necessary to provide services to those affected by their need. We could use the same technology we use to turn lights green and red when fire trucks or ambulances are travelling on roads now. A radio frequency would light up one area after another to pursue criminals or to help with fire protection. We have a multitude of lighting devices that are portable and could be used in emergencies. Perhaps a drone equipped with light would flood an area where concentration, teamed up with a camera would be far more efficient than present technology in hot pursuit chases. As well most emergency vehicles have lights. Street lights after 10 pm would be turned off. Allowing people time to return home for a restful night of relaxing in the comfort of their home without light pollution from outside streaming through their windows affecting their chances to get to sleep. We have no need to make this world a 24 hr. business center without affecting our climate problems. We have to generate power to make this happen and most of night time power is wasted by streetlights that are not used or never seen by anyone. Even motion technology could be used on city streetlights turning lights on and off as needed as we drive up a street. Still we have headlights on a car that are more than sufficient in the country but suddenly upon entering a city have to be subsidized with street lighting. It makes no sense. And I think studies need to be done to justify all these lights we have out there at night and if they are necessary.

     Again we if we are talking security and fear of third world countries launching an attack. If they can’t tell the difference of the White House from Joe’s Bar , then what effect will that have on terror when it comes to raids on public facilities at night. During World War 2 it was against the law to let light be seen for fear someone could distinguish from the air where certain landmarks were.

      And another national treasure we have is the flag we proudly wave at night on many of our municipal and governmental offices. A requirement that says if a flag is flown at night it has to be lit with a light sufficient to display the flag in its revelry. But what does that cost us? Maybe a requirement to lower the flag or just leave it flying at night regardless may be better. There are a multitude of things we can do at home and in our everyday life that would go a long way to conserving energy. As a leader of nations we need to also be a leader in conservation and not a major contributor to our global warming problems. 

     Agreeably I have used four electrical devices to bring this article to you. Two were energy efficient light bulbs utilizing 25 watts of electric, along with my lap top plus the screen would add another 400 watts of electric usage. Still what I am coming to is that despite you may be reading this on a computer, I hope I have planted some thought as to how we can change our personal life and still save a few dollars on an electric bill in the future. A savings of electric usage relates to conservation and also to reduced carbon dioxide levels or at least raise our awareness and allow us to come up with solutions that will reduce our dependence on electricity as well all carbon producing instruments of earth terror we may utilize in the name of a rational society we claim to exist in.  Even if you walked round the house unplugging appliances you are not using, this will all help. And of course if you are the last one out of a room turn off that light till you get that motion sensor hooked up.

mr. coon and me had a moment the other night.

Update on farm status

8-06-2015

 Mr. Coon Likes Chickens Better Than I Do

 whitey and old red showing off some of their survival skills -debating why to cross the road.

      Only Mr. Coon likes to eat my chickens, having dwindled my population of 8 chickens down to 3 and requiring other options to protect the remaining chickens, Mr.  Coon has found himself in the position of having the upper hand for now. But I am working on other options to protect the 3 that is left, including adding more wire. I couldn’t believe a coon could carry a chicken up over the side of a chicken wire fence after having apparently killed it in the pen. Never leaving anything more than a pile of feathers, it almost had me believing, someone was coming into the pen and stealing them.

     One by one, Mr. Coon would take his bounty and carry them off without even a sign of where they have went. I did find one of my female ducks with her neck thrashed and lying dead by the my rotting hay bales where Mama Duck and her daughter had set up shop, setting on separate piles of eggs in nests nestled in the hay, and standing watch day in and day out until apparently Mr. Coon came happenstance on their nests, and the younger female duck who no doubt tried to protect her nest came to an end, only to be treated as a dinner treat. Mama Duck I believe had a little more instinct about her as her nest was overrun by Mr. Coon obliterating the eggs, only Mama Duck may have also protested, but only long enough to save herself  because she knew she could have another nest and she did eventually.

     In fact it was Mama Duck who showed her other daughter a safe place by my door where she could have a nest, while herself  sought out another spot to be only consumed by Mr.Coon I suppose eventually, as I never was able to find anything of her either. It is kind of sad and frustrating to watch animals go one by one, but this is as nature predicts it should be. Coons need to eat, but why so damn much? Anyhow it did give me cause to reflect on what steps I could take to improve the safety of my chickens at least. The ducks are a hearty breed and one could hardly train or protect them better than they can themselves.

     The ducks have taken to swimming in the pond all night, constantly staying out of reach of Mr. Coon hopefully. Their main vulnerable time is when they are sitting on their nest. The main reason I know it is a coon doing all the damage is that I have seen him. I don’t own a gun but would have shot the asshole as he perched himself above my head 40 feet in the air on a dark night a few nights ago,  after hearing a commotion on the pond and after seeking the tree limbs out with a flashlight , finally caught sight of him in the tree tops. Knowing he can climb quite well it was evident that my chicken house had flaws. He was scared and for good reason he has been found out and his presence has required me to take other steps to prevent any more drain from my livestock quantity.

      Still don’t know what to do about the ducks, they won’t stay in a house, and you can’t corral them at night as they don’t really roost. But the chickens I took preventative action with. Old Whitey I have had for quite a while and she is battle hardened, knowing and seeing some of her own kind being dispatched with before, she knew the best places to roost and when Mr. Coon came a calling before she left the roost and decided to hang around in the Magnolia tree right outside my front living room. This protected her in the middle of winter despite being cold as heck till the threat passed.

    She had shown resolve to be able to survive, so I thought it was best to move the last three chickens to the garage and for a couple of nights.  I would wait till they roosted, and I gathered them up and moved them to the garage to try and protect them by letting Whitey show them the ropes. With Whitey I still have 4 chickens and just the other day I found a blue egg which is Whitey’s trademark. I had heard cackling and thought it was one of my new chickens starting to lay, instead I believe it was Whitey who at her advanced age , still tries her best to produce.

     Anyhow I am revamping and coon proofing my security at the chicken house so I can get these guys into production. It always seems to be a struggle to try and figure out what to do about a pest problem in an advanced non –killing way. Knowing that nature has to have balance, but although the coon eats my chickens , I have no desire for coon meat , so I instead must devise ways to prevent Mr. Coon or deter him from coming around in the first place. I have left Babe, my dog out the last couple of nights by her own choice, and last night I could hear her barking all night long it seemed, and at times out by the chicken house . Hopefully she was able to protect the ducks and chickens, but I have yet to make it outside to check for sure. Still I had heard the ducks earlier, and so I know for sure some of them are all right.

mama duck on left , mr gooser , two of mama ducks boys. only one is left now thanks to mr. coon

     If coon proofing and Babe doesn’t work, I am going to buy a have –a-hart trap and try and bait the coon to the trap, and if that doesn’t work, will see if I can find someone to do some coon hunting against my will. But when it comes down to a wild animal taking the food out of my mouth and wasting my labor , I feel it is justified to take drastic steps to prevent Mr. Coon from sitting around licking his little chicken soaked fingers.

     Yesterday while starting the coon proofing I found that my chicken house is also a safe harbor for a collection of bats numbering at least four or more. To me this is a good thing and reason to build bat houses and hang them around the chicken house as I would rather have the bats there, than setting up residence in Mom or my house. Bats are part of an insect control solution at times devouring up to twice their body weight in bugs nightly. This would mean thousands of bugs. I have seen numerous bats at darkness flying around and not knowing where exactly they are coming from, this find gives me a better idea as to where they are staying. Bat houses would encourage them to stay outside the chicken house instead of within.  Beneficial aspects of nature are the how checks and balances, seem to exist in almost every corner of our world. Bees help pollinate. Bats seek out insect populations and control them. Almost everything has a purpose as I suppose the grasshopper has in life. We are a long way from understanding how Mr. Coon affects the whole scheme of life.  At this point I could hardly care.

don't care how it runs, just that it does.

Update on farm 8-5-2015

Or

Shoot Happens

i would have to say i did an amazing job of carving out mr. or ms. gooser(?) wouldnt you say? 

he loves to hop up on things for photo ops. strange goose.

      Well this week started off much the same as two weeks ago with my fair share of tractor problems.  I had just bought 2 new front steering tires at a cost of 400 for the 2 an had one mounted up after blowing one out , undoubtedly on a stick or tree stubble that had penetrated the boot I had in the tire from the first time of having a flat or puncture. That puncture was a result of mowing to close to an old fence line down the lane. The posts are rotting off and before you know it, if you crowd too close to the fence you will run up over top the iron fence post and push right through the tire, thus leaving a fairly large hole.

     It took me a couple of flat repairs and some searching to determine what was going on as it always happened at the same spot. This unfortunately is the way to learn things farming. A lot of it is by trial and error. And steel fence posts contribute a lot to the demise of tires if not made sure they are picked up after using them. I have most of mine picked up as well on the electric fence but still have some to go. But this tire puncture most assuredly came from a stubble from a young tree being cut off and the tires are getting old as the rubber is getting brittle and is not nearly as resilient as it used to be.

     So after finally hooking back up to haybine and dropping a pretty good size swath of hay of first cutting I couldn’t touch all of June, i was finally able to get back into the swing of things with minimal trouble. I switched to the rake and started raking the hay into huge windrows I could push up with the bucket and mulch the hay out for compost I need for raspberries. I was doing great with tractor but darkness forced me to come back to the house and parked the tractor outside the house, instead of the garage as the weather looked great and figured I would finish in the morning.  I really didn’t think I needed to barn the tractor.

      Guess what not so quick, I am still waiting to finish as I went out the next morning to start the tractor and it wouldn’t turn over. I checked the battery cables and connections and by chance popped the dipstick out to see oily fuel come spurting out the dipstick hole and this shouldn’t be. Doing some checking and talking to my brother in law Mike for supporting advice, it was determined the fuel pump diaphragm had a hole in it and it drained the contents of the fuel tank into the crankcase of the tractor polluting the oil in the crankcase as well requiring replacement of the oil filter and the oil in crankcase and replacement of fuel pump. This fuel pump is only four months old and has barely more than 40 hrs. on it.

this is what happens when i move my feet around here, i lose my seat. 

still have 6 available crazy cat lady starter kits available. 

      Well trouble doesn’t stop there. The last time I bought the fuel pump I bought it from tractor joe’s and was impressed I had it here in 2 days but it only lasted 4 months. So  I thought I would seek another supplier, and tried another tractor company , not realizing they were sending orders to Korea  where the tractor is produced and then they drop ship the order to the parts dealer and then to me . I am supposed to get it by Friday. I still have a couple of days to wait. In the meantime I have acquired all the other necessary items I need to replace the engine oil and have everything ready to slap the new fuel pump back into the tractor and be able to get it going again. So it will be over 500 dollars in the last month not counting loss of new oil and fuel that happened as a result of the fuel pump and tires problem with the tractor. Money I assuredly could have spent elsewhere to a greater benefit.

     Well I added a fuel conditioner to the fuel in the quantity it suggested, I don’t know if that is the reason for the premature demise of the diaphragm of the pump. It was said that the new fuel manufacturing requirements from the refineries are creating a fuel that strips the rubber parts and seals in the tractor as they try to meet EPA regulated levels of sulfur output. So adding the fuel conditioner was supposed to maintain the integrity of the fuel pump not destroy it. Still don’t know if this is part of the problem but since it happened directly after adding the conditioner I will make sure I I don’t add anymore to the new pump when it arrives.  

      But in researching a new supplier, for the fuel pump , I noticed they discontinued one fuel pump part number and wanted everyone to purchase a new part number to replace that fuel pump. This suggests to me a problem in the design of the fuel pump. Also I wonder how long or what part Tractor Joe sent to me and if it wasn’t the old stock, and how long it had been sitting on a shelf waiting on me to buy it. These are things you never know and buying it locally may make it easier to get but you pay a hefty price for the same part.

      Whether it is a Kioti dk45 tractor or a zero turn mower , or a car, or truck, parts manufacturers have you by the nads anytime you have a part that needs replaced. Aftermarket parts are a better choice and better engineered sometimes than original equipment parts and are more easily obtainable If you can get them for the vehicle you need the parts for. Or like me, sometimes you have to wait. It will be two weeks on Friday and I could have had the part expedited for another 30 dollars more and had it in a week. That is like adding insult to injury, and rubbing salt in the wounds.

    The hay was going to rot anyhow and is of no use for baling. I have other uses for the tractor but they also will have to wait. In the meantime I am moving raspberry plants outside my door and getting ready to rip out the rest of the flower bed I put in a couple of years ago, to prepare for building my addition . It has also given me time to catch up on greenhouse duties. Trying to take advantage of the downtime and still keep moving on with my plans. Just making do the best I can.

the way isn't always clear!

Pause to Reflect

     The last couple of days have given me some reason to sit back and ask what all of this is for. Why should I try and devote all my resources to pursue what? Not asking for sympathy or even an understanding on your part as I hardly understand myself. Instead I take one obstacle after the next, and fight one fire after another, and just plug along like an old horse on a dusty trail to nowhere. The trail does lead somewhere, its end isn’t exactly clear but it is up ahead where I truly want to be, and where destiny will finally show me the way to.

     To begin with it all started a month or so ago with all this rain on the cycle it was on where, I couldn’t tie more two days of sunshine together to be able to dry it enough to make hay. This was ok I guess, as I always have other things to do and was able to keep busy. But even before that I had waterline problems and that set me back for the year with a lot of projects I had planned for the summer season, but the hay was rotting in the field waiting for the rain to stop. . This wasn’t all bad as in the end this gave rise to a new solution to my compost problem and actually eased the amount of work I have to do to get the compost I need.

      One rainy day I was watching a video of a hill girl in her bare feet pushing hay along the ground and gathering it to throw on a wagon , and realized I could do the same with the rake and windrow the hay and then take the bucket of the tractor and pile it up in loose piles , while all the time I was wondering why I was baling it, habit I guess . Loose big piles will allow the water to be absorbed as it lies in the field hastening the rotting process allowing it to compost much quicker than it ever will in a bale. In fact I have to tear all these old bales apart to increase their rotting as I am going to need lots of compost. Can use it on bare spots on the farm and it grows things big.

     My next project is to move the raspberries I had planted beside my house and transplant them into a regular row in a field where I can mow on both sides and between two wires to hold the canes up. Hopefully within a couple of years I will be able to start a pick your own of raspberries , red and black, black berries , and dew berries, which all grow here on the farm and are readily available for transplant. I was able to grow raspberries of the black variety up to a quarter size in compost, as well I have had the same happen from the red raspberries but lately they are overcrowded an need to be reset and composted again. This is all good, as I have compost on the hill and an area alongside the lane that will work for my initial start of the grow your own berries.

 

      3 months ago the tractor had a problem with dying out as I drove it around and I finally determined that it was the fuel pump and replaced it. Yesterday after raking hay that had been rained on, I brought the tractor to the house, and let it sit overnight, and when I climbed on it yesterday and tried to start it, it wouldn’t turn over, it had a hole in the fuel pump and drained the fuel tank into the crank case and the pistons had no place to go because they couldn’t push against the oil and fuel oil in the crankcase. I pulled the dipstick and oil shot out of the dipstick hole. We drained the crankcase and pulled the fuel pump and could visibly see the hole in the diaphragm of the pump. Anyhow we were able to turn the tractor over, the diesel shouldn’t hurt the crankcase and at most may cause a little oil use as it will clean the seals a little too well.

     Before that last week, it was tires as I had front tire blow as they are getting old. The tractor is ten years old but I only have 1600 hrs. on it, which isn’t that much, but instead just broke in good. The tires still had a lot of tread but because I had accidentally drove over some obstacles that required me to put boots over the holes in the tires weakening them. Eventually they required tubes and then the tires weakened to the point I was going to have a major blowout as I did, so I decided to replace the front tires and bought 2 new ones as part of a renewal process. Hoping the rear tires go one at a time as they are 600 apiece. Front tires were 200 apiece. Not bad if you are loaded with money. Not really the case for me. Now then another 68 dollars for a fuel pump and 30 dollars for oil just to keep the tractor going.

     On top of that I have had a coon problem and it managed to take 3 of my chickens right out of the chicken house forcing me to tighten up their security and for extra effort I left Babe out all night, as I don’t only have chickens but baby ducks as well and we started out with 8 and are down to 7 on one duck. The other duck beside my house hasn’t finished setting on her nest and from the smell of things, I think her nest may be rotten but she still sits on them. One egg I saw in the nest looked like it was developing so who knows maybe she will still produce some babies. Hope it is soon, really 

stinks.

       So no hay or plenty of hay as is actually the case and no way of picking it up or doping anything with it for a few days. Good thing I was going to let it rot anyhow, because that is what it is doing. My chickens are dwindling just when they are about laying size, ducks are doing ok and the sun is now baking everything in the greenhouse making me watch the water more carefully. There are times when you want to give up, but then what would I do. Sit around and obsess about small stuff, and slowly work myself into early Alzheimer’s. If keeping the mind active to avoid Alzheimer’s and early onset senility is any way to do it then surely farming is the way for me. But then again I have to be crazy to worry about all this when others are sitting around watching TV in their underwear, doing nothing. 

is there intelligent life out there?

Review of News Today 7-24-15

       I will start out on a positive note and give us all some hope, apparently our new satellite telescope has found another planet in a distant galaxy supposedly older and capable of sustaining life. Now you may ask how this news is going to affect you. Probably never, but it may affect your kids in their lifetime. It seems humans could if possible devote all their energy to a project from its infancy and be able to produce the likes of an atom bomb. But it seems like we move at a much slower pace when it comes to saving mankind.

     Why even search for another world? Well we are killing the life processes of this one hastening extinction of species as opposed to creating species as undoubtedly our planet did at one time. I can name a handful of animals officially extinct in my lifetime at the hands of man, yet even when I dig deep can find none that has been created in our lifetime. And on top of that we are killing mankind also, wars are being raged, terror is at everyone’s door step and now we all need a gun to protect what we have as it is necessary because the other 7 billion of you don’t know how to behave and get along with others.

     With terror comes fear and global doom, as the population increases and technology allows, fear comes at a quicker response. Where were you on 9-11, is a prime example.  Within minutes everyone knew what had happened. I was working running a push Cat d-9 dozer loading pans on a construction site south of the Conesville plant in central Ohio, virtually in the middle of nowhere leveling a huge hilltop while working for Beaver Excavating. Within an hour and half after the first plane hit the tower in New York City, out in the middle of nowhere I heard about what happened when others eating lunch started spreading rumors we were at war.  And where has that lead us to since then, more security , more loss of personal freedom , more of our income to support fear, while at the same time creating environmental nightmares as we bomb oilfields, and continue  searching for WMD’s in the name of security. This is why we need another planet,

    A sarcastic but very true poster I saw on Facebook from lady y or something like that which said the USA has went 0 days without a mass shooting, sad but true. We the people are screwing this one up, real bad at times.  Last night we had another mass shooting in Louisiana where a gunman sat in the audience for 20 minutes before standing up and opening fire on the audience. Now if everyone had a gun that was sitting in the audience, would this have stopped the idiot from standing up and starting shooting? Wouldn’t it make you a little nervous if your daughter Sarah a whole 11 years old whips out her Glock and empties it into the fool as soon as he stood up in a menacing way. How would you feel after she finished unloading the clip into him being careful to centralize the bullets around the heart , the head , and a few into his privates for the fun of it, and afterwards blowing the smoke off the barrel of her gun and smiling that sweet Sarah smile you thought you knew so well, wouldn’t this upset you a little or would you be proud of the fact she eliminated the fear for everyone else in the theatre as you all can  sit down and finish watching the movie before calling 911.

      Fear is what sells guns as people are intimidated by the fact that terror is at their doorstep. It is kind of like Donald Trump going to Laredo, Texas, and talking about the threat of Mexican illegals coming across the border. Well they say that Laredo, Texas has a lower crime rate than New York City where Donald Trump is from, give us a break Donald. So what has shown us? But what fear can do. At first it makes you think Laredo must be a bad ass place to be. Laredo isn’t the problem, our image of fear is, because we believe everything we are told and this is why we need another world. We are in fear of screwing this one up so bad that we need another to make it right from the beginning. A place where we what have no guns, no religion , no wars, no profit, where peace and prosperity follows all and we all get along with each other , and we have respect for nature. I am an idealistic person and believe that would be the perfect model, but in reality would be dependent on man to populate and start anew.

     But wait, if this civilization is older, could it not be more evolved than us. What if a species had developed itself as much as we have or even more, and had known about earth years ago and had even visited our blue marble and decided that although it is pretty, it has a species that could virtually kill their planet as they know it and had so far avoided detection till now? Fear had never been part of their daily regimen, but now it has to be, as it seems the people of the planet Earth have tired of killing their own and now has set their sight on their world. It may take us 100 years to develop the technology, but assuredly we are going to go, it is in our nature to wonder, we have to.  And it will take a lot less time if something tragic happens here on our planet, then we will soon be heading there as soon as we can develop the technology to do it, whether they want us to or not.

     Now then who is going to determine what the rules are concerning the new planet, we as humans? We aren’t capable, look at us we cannot go a day without violence and how do you expect everyone to be in agreement to say we have a chance for a do-over there.  Personally I think we should send everyone with over 20000 dollars to their name to the new planet and maybe this one won’t be so bad. But sadly as soon as you send those Wall Street brokers to a distant planet, others would climb up from the bowels of humanity to take their place. How about if we eliminated greed?  Anyone who is suspected of greed for things more than money is the first to go. Now that could be greedy for intelligence, wanting to be the smartest person ever. Or say for instance greedy for stuff. You know everyone has it stuff in the closet things you don’t use but keep forever, constantly spending effort to make sure your stuff is the best and you have a lot of it. Well that is greed and you need to go. Oh yeah, don’t forget your stuff.

     Maybe you like guns and maybe you need an arsenal although you can only fire one at a time you still want to have all the guns in the world and then you won’t live in fear anymore, you definitely need to go and take the guns with you. That is greed. Of course wanting money and never having to worry because you have so much that even if someone tried to take it away you would still have enough. You would never have to worry. Of course that is the greed we are most familiar with, where you can buy freedom, guns, security, and surround yourself with others that think because of their association with you, they too are never going to be in fear, an umbrella of safety to cover all your associates and shield them from fear helping to protect you in the process. Of course these are the people who are going to profit from such an adventure as starting life on a distant planet. Maybe they deserve to go first; after all they are paying for it.

       Well nothing is going to happen overnight and if there is intelligent world out there, hopefully the new planet is a cardboard cutout the real intelligent civilization left there to purposely avoid our gaze of their real world.  And since we will expend all our energy getting there to view the fake world, it will be that much longer before they are ever detected. I hope so for their sake. It is just that I am disappointed in man. We as humans can do amazing things, and at the same time do some of the most unimaginable things ever thought of. Build bombs to kill millions, allow starvation, and war to profit someone’s pocket, but at times can barely get along. I think we need to clean up our own house and act civilized before we go visiting someone else. If nothing else for fear they may be worse and looking for a world like ours to call home. At least if we have conquered our fears and learn to get along with what we have and everyone is happy, and the environment is at equilibrium with all species and is healthy. Then maybe we don’t really don’t need anyone else or another planet. I know dream on.

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back to carving

Update on Farm – July 18^th, 2015

    It is starting out the day a muggy one, after another muggy one yesterday. Tried to finish a bear I was working on yesterday but the heat and humidity beat me down big time. I was able to finish another carving I had been reluctantly putting off a rising phoenix sculpture where I just couldn’t just get the feathering right, or at least to what I thought it should be. Today I plan on delivering the carving an ending the nightmare that has plagued me personally. I feel I have produced the best carving I can. Was it all I wanted it to be? Not necessarily. But then when you are carving in wood, do overs are rare, to come out with anything close to what I had envisioned is great, it is only my interpretation of the project that pulls me down, as if I was perfect.

    There are ways of fixing wood carvings too. You can glue another piece on and cut it back off to what you thought in the first place. When you sculpt in clay, you have the ability to make it right the first time, before casting in bronze or plaster, but with wood it is harder to make it right or exact he first time through. Duplicating matching pieces or building furniture can have the same harrowing results when attempting repetitive projects, say scrolls etc. . Deformities in the wood, knots, and cracks, etc. cause their own special problems to be dealt with as you go along.

      As a chainsaw carver I am not that particular about which way the grain runs, or how it will affect the overall carving. Instead it is all about proportion and making it work. Trying to fit what you have in your mind into the piece of wood in front of you. You can’t worry about all the other stuff if the project you are working on doesn’t fit in the piece of wood or if you cut to deep. what are the ramifications of that? Every bear or carving has its own special circumstances you have to deal with as you go along.

    Well rain has played a significant role in my plans this summer, in some cases setting me back in my plans. I had planned on having started the foundation for my new addition, but I am still making hay. I also hoped to be able to saw out timbers I need for my house to set them to drying for next spring, for when I start erecting the rest of the structure. Another problem I have had is the duck setting on her nest just outside my door. Yesterday I pulled back the side of the teepee tent to reveal her to some potential customers, my white chicken was also there sitting alongside the duck, who is still sitting on her nest incubating the eggs below her. Hopefully she will be off the nest with some young’uns within the week.

    I had thought about just carving enough carvings to buy me a band sawmill, but at 6000 for a cheap band saw mill , this isn’t going to happen either. Instead I will carve to buy parts I still need for the mill I still yet have to build. Don’t know how this is going to all play out in the coming months to see if I am able to stay on schedule for finishing my addition on the house.

     The potato tower and tomato tower are doing well and the vertical wall around the pool is doing well also as it is starting to fill in. I will need to start thinking about adding solar water heating to pool to continue to use it into wintertime. Still have plenty of work to do, and I am again taking orders for carvings as well will be carving out some different ideas I want to pursue and will share with you as I go along. I guess as long as I have plans I will always have something to do to keep me busy. Really don’t know what it would be like to not have anything to do or be bored. 

gotta love them

Those Damn Ducks!!!

mama ducks daughter nesting now.

      My old Mama duck has disappeared. I would like to hope she is out there somewhere sitting on a nest, much the same as she has done at this time of year before. Most of the time to no avail as something would come in and clean the nest out eating the eggs, and destroying her hard work, that of her sitting for endless hours on her nest brooding and incubating the eggs so the new ducklings have a chance to live. Even if they do make it out of the shell alive, she has lost whole flocks to predators. It is amazing that she was able to raise a flock and carry on the original ducks I received from my sister’s friend.

       She was the last of 6 ducks I had that over the years that have tried to perpetuate the line. I picked up Greenie after Mama Duck lost her mate, and then this spring Greenie disappeared with no trace what so ever as is usually the case. I have only fond one carcass of one of my Mama Duck’s babies from last year, where it appeared as though a coon, from what I have read, took its life. Usually they are carried off. I like to think they flew off to duck heaven. Ducks are strange animals as they don’t take to well to domestication as they don’t seem to follow any rules and make the rules up as they go.

    I had to chase Mama Duck down in the snow in order to get her in shelter due to losing her mate and being the only duck left in sub-freezing weather where she only had a little two foot hole to paddle around in as the rest of the pond was frozen. I could just imagine her being carried off as it would be easy to grab her also, or just being frozen in that hole, so I intervened and chased her through knee deep snow till I was finally able to grab her and carry her to the greenhouse. So every day for a couple months after that I would carry a five gallon bucket of water, morning and night to the greenhouse as the water was turned off up there due to the cold, and I would pour this water into a large tub and Mama Duck would jump in the water and splash around happier than anything, till the water was dirty, and then she would hop out and eat her grain. It was a riot watching her go through this ritual daily. I added Greenie and he joined in with her and soon the two of them were frolicking together.

mama duck in greenhouse 

    I had to kick them out of the greenhouse eventually, they were reluctant to leave , but spring had returned and the ponds were clear of ice an soon she took to nesting and lost her first batch of eggs to whatever and so for the second batch she decided to set up camp by my door. She built a nest right beside my entrance door, under a work table I had there at the time. She was so close that when I would walk in I would hear her hiss at me as if I was going to destroy her nest. For almost a month she sat on that nest and eventually she was able to hatch them all out. I think initially there was 6 , again something has come in and attacked them till there is only the goose , one brother of the one I have sitting on a nest outside my door now, an a white male  duck I acquired from the sale of a bale of hay. I had 3 females and 3 males when this season started and now I am down to one female and 2 males and one goose. The goose is another story altogether.

greenie and mama duck in greenhouse 

    Well Mama Duck after she lost her nest earlier, was going around with her daughter looking for new nesting areas, and she was at my back door showing her where she had her nest before. Since then I have replaced the table with a teepee for Babe my dog so that she would have some place to stay in, in the winter when she wants to just stay outside. She hasn’t been in it since spring and so Mama duck and her daughter were checking it out one day when I was exiting the house and the next thing I know Mama duck’s daughter set up, and is nesting on a batch of eggs outside my door again in Babe’s teepee, not more than 6 inches from my door. Although I can’t see the duck I can look inside the teepee and view here and took some pics of her. I will; also include some pics of Mama Duck also. I will miss Mama Duck and Greenie and all of them I have lost before them as ducks are a strange animals , quite animated and funny to watch and have been a great source of entertainment for me.

     Anyhow I hope this new Mama Duck can finally hatch out her brood and be able to carry on the line with the addition of more females to keep things going. We will see.