I once posted one of those step-by-step discussions of how we build a piece of furniture; the more interesting discussions from our In The Shop blog become permanent articles in the library section of our custom furniture web site. In this episode I discovered a mistake had been made in the piece of furniture and discussed my remedy for the error. Shortly after having posted the chapter I was hailed by a constant reader and frequent critic to ask, “Why in the world did you admit to having made a mistake? Doesn’t that undermine peoples’ confidence in your work?”
Category: Prattlings
Good Mountain Morning
The fragrance of wood smoke scents the crisp December air. The rosy glow of dawn creeps across clouds over the mountain top, raked by the bare branches of winterized hardwood trees. I grab another armload of firewood to carry it inside the workshop and lay it on the warming rack above the woodstove that heats the workshop. A bright fire is blazing inside the stove. It’s a good start; that will soon take the edge off the chill in the shop.
I pause to look out across my “front yard” which slopes down the face of Piney Mountain. The town of Newport TN, a collection of specks of light from here, occupies the valley floor. On the other side, English Mountain looms; shaped like a great sperm whale swimming lazily through the grey morning mists.
Silly Sun Puppies
The sun is shining again today, as it did yesterday, but not for a long time before that. Blondie and Cochise are making the most of it: or trying to.
The sun has not yet swung around far enough to admit much of the sunbeam through the window, just a strip in front of the sofa. They’re not allowed ON the sofa and they know it. So I put the snuggle-bed over in the sunshine for Cochise when they came in from their last exercise time and he was shivering. It’s cold out. The cold doesn’t bother Blondie, she has a heavier coat.
Cochise curled into the bed, felt the warmth of the sunshine and moaned with pleasure. Blondie stood nearby and looked at him enviously. She poked at him with her nose. He yawned at her (which in dog-speak does not mean he’s tired – in this case it was “go away you’re bothering me”).
Artificial Gravity? Ask the Big Dog
As scientists the world over ponder the problems that must be surmounted so mankind can thrive in outer space, the debilitating effects of weightlessness is high up on the list of priorities. However, I submit that if they want to find the secret to generating a field of artificial gravity, they need look no farther than the nearest large dog. It never ceases to amaze me how a 90 pound Bulldog can suddenly increase his or her weight to around 200 pounds at the mere sight of a bath tub.
If scientists can figure out how a dog can increase their gravitational attraction at will, they should have the secret to creating artificial gravity in spaceships.
Life in the Mountains: Wildfires
Originally published Nov. 7, 2013 by Grit Magazine
It’s raining here today. That’s a very good thing. Not only do we need the moisture, but it does wonders for the air quality in our neighborhood right now.
A wildfire started early yesterday on Stone Mountain: just over a mile from where I sit. The smoke in the air was noticeable here by mid-morning and got steadily worse. By early afternoon an easterly wind moved in and blew the smoke the other side of Piney Mountain down through Bat Harbor. When the wind died down yesterday evening, the smoke moved back in, in force. It was nasty.
The photo is a shot of the fire taken Wednesday at dusk from the Lowe’s parking lot in Newport – probably about 8 miles away as the crow flies. Unless it’s a drunken crow; then that would be hard to judge. It shows the smoke plume that is drifting along Piney Mountain: our home place.
We sealed our house windows yesterday to keep the smoke out. The gentle drizzly rain started around 4 a.m. and has dropped 4/10th inch so far – at 8 a.m. – which has done wonders toward dragging the smoke particles out of the air and making it far more breathable. It should help some in the firefighting efforts as well.
We are in no danger from this fire except for the annoyance of the smoke. The biggest danger presented – other than to a few homes in that area – is to a spot at the crest of Stone Mountain called Hall’s Top, which is the location of a major communications antenna array. If this gets taken out by the fire, it would put a major crimp in wireless communications – cell phones, internet, business and emergency vehicle radios, etc. – in this county.
In the photo at the top of the page Hall’s Top is the high point just to the right of the fire. Since the winds are blowing the fire away from Hall’s Top, I expect it too will be OK.
Stone Mountain sits at 90 degrees just off the southern end of Piney Mountain. They are separated by a creek and a paved roadway. Just to the east of Stone Mountain is Hogback Mountain: it burned last year. Just north and east of Piney Mountain is Rocky Top (yes: THAT Rocky Top), which burned a few years ago. In between those times was a fire along the Foothills Parkway, which is more distant but visible from our front porch.
Wildfires are always a concern here because battling fires on the steep, heavily wooded, often unimproved (meaning few, if any, roads) faces of these mountains is a difficult task even for the experienced personnel of the Forestry Department. It is not at all like battling a fire in a city or even in a rural area of the flat-lands. Equipment cannot be driven in, the only water available would be any streams or creeks (often too small to be of any real use), and there is no quick way to get injured men out of a fire area. Even bringing in a bulldozer to create a fire break can be hazardous because of the danger of rolling it over on the steep, soft terrain. So most mountain firefighting is done on foot with chainsaws and shovels by men and women who must climb through the undergrowth up the steep slopes to the fire from the nearest road or pathway.
As residents of (or visitors to) these mountains, we need to be very careful with open fires, especially in the fall when the leaves are dry and highly flammable. Being caught in the middle of a wildfire will ruin your whole day.
Scrambling Time
Today I was scrambling. I’m not talking about eggs either – although I did scramble up some eggs and fried some turkey bacon for breakfast this morning. The scrambling I’m referring to is the dashing-frantically-around-to-get-something-done sort of scrambling.
It rarely gets cold-cold here in Tennessee before December. If we get snow at all it’s in February. On the rare occasion we’ll get a snowfall around Christmas, but that’s very rare. On that basis I was not in a big hurry to get my garden boxes covered in plastic for protection from winter weather, since winter weather was months away yet. Except it’s not.
The weather guessers have been saying that we can expect overnight low temperatures around 29 degrees over the next couple of days. That’s cold enough to do some serious damage to my squash. Rain is expected as well – although it’s not clear if the rain will be first then cold or the other way around. They’re not talking about snow, so I suspect it will be cold overnight and rain during the day after it warms. If that’s the case, my lettuce and Brussels sprouts should be OK, they just need protection from the cold winds.
A couple of weeks ago I bought my annual roll of 6 mil semi-transparent plastic which I use to cover the boxes. It’s been sitting here, ready to go to work ever since. That 29-degree forecast is for tonight/tomorrow morning, so today is the last day I have to get this done.
My garden is done all in raised beds, because we live on the side of a mountain and this is the only way I can garden that doesn’t just wash away every time it rains. I have fence boxes made from PVC pipe and poultry mesh to keep the rabbits out of my crops. In the winter I can add the plastic sheeting to provide better protection from the elements. How much protection is needed depends on what is inside.
The Next Big Thing in Microchips
There has been a considerable amount of talk, speculation and fear-mongering going on about the next big leap in personal information and records keeping, namely: microchipping.
Recently I’ve read articles, watched clips of talk shows and seen many YouTube videos on the subject of placing microchips in people. Some say it’s a great idea, some have concerns over privacy, and some are yelling “Mark of the Beast” and quoting scripture.[1]
Microchips in Pets
As a pet owner I have been, and continue to be, a proponent of having pets chipped: this vastly improves the chances or your pet being returned to you if they somehow get away from you and lose their collar or tags.
These chips store a 12 to 16 character alpha-numeric code. That’s all. When a scanner triggers the microchip, it transmits its code and the signal can be read for a distance of up to 10 centimeters (about 4 inches). The veterinarian or animal shelter then uses the code shown on the scanner to query a database[2] over the internet which returns the name, address and phone number of the animal’s registered owner. But why chip people?
Thou Shalt Not Whine: The Eleventh Commandment?
If God had inscribed an 11th commandment, it might well have been, “Thou shalt not whine.“
Two Kinds of People
Motivational author Keith Cameron Smith says that there are two kinds of people: winners and whiners and they are easy to tell apart: winners brighten a room when they enter it, whiners brighten a room when they leave it. Continue reading “Thou Shalt Not Whine: The Eleventh Commandment?”
Just Small Potatoes
I’ve spent the past few days working at pulling out the summer crop and setting up my garden boxes for the winter crop – or for laying fallow for the winter. While working with these boxes, I’ve come across a few surprises.
One was a fair number of tiny garlic plants. Some were just poking their heads up through the dirt; some were still curled up underground. All had small, onion-like bulbs and a few inches of green leaf making its way sunward. I’ve tossed these into the salad making supplies in the fridge. I have a plentiful supply of garlic cloves on hand already so I feel no need to try to nurture these to maturity.
Another surprise was a fair number of small potatoes. Some were not too much of a shock: I had potatoes in those boxes earlier in the year and must have missed a few very small potatoes when I harvested the box. These had now grown to 1½-by-3-inch spuds. BONUS! A few had rotted – blech!
The shocker was when I pulled out a box of pole beans. I raked the dead leaves and vine debris off the top of the dirt for composting and as I scratched the surface of the soft soil I rolled up a couple of small spuds. These were an inch or so long and were sitting just under the surface, buried by dead leaves. I grabbed my cultivator and began carefully pulling up the rich, dark humus and turning it over.
Working carefully I discovered another dozen or so taterlets, each between ¾ inches and 1½ inches in diameter. What was amazing to me about this is that there have not been potatoes planted in this box since LAST summer!
Green Tomato Relish
Over the weekend I pulled out my tomato plants. The big ones; the cherry tomatoes are still producing and are in a bed that will lie fallow for the winter, so I’ll let those go a while longer.
The tomato plants I pulled yielded a quarter-basket of golf-ball sized green tomatoes; too small to batter and fry (I do like fried green tomatoes!) but too many to just toss in the compost. I decided to make some green tomato relish. I also have an abundance of sweet peppers right now; I could put those in there as well. And of course some onion… and maybe some jalapeno to give it some zing.
To save time, I ran the whole lot of them through a food processor with a grater blade installed. I get better results – more consistent pieces – if I cut it all by hand, but that is very time consuming and I have other things that must get accomplished today. I still had to pick out some large chunks and dice them by hand, but not too many. Continue reading “Green Tomato Relish”