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Brad's Blog
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April 3
April 5
April 08
We've been busy with company. My wife's been busier,
as they're more her friends, but I've tried to hold up my end of the social
engagement as well. Being off the beaten path, we get fewer guests
than someone who lives along the interstate, but they're always interesting.
They run a logging company, and just came from a logging convention so
were pepped up on logging issues. I'm ambivalent about logging.
I like the woods a lot, and I also like woodworking. So I guess I
support selective environmentally aware logging. From what I can
tell, that's what these friends do. I don't like the spin that gets
put on the politics of logging, such as arguing that in order to protect
the forests we must log them, even though it's true that the underbrush
and small trees have run rampant from fire suppression policies of the
last hundred years, resulting in increased fire danger. Forestry
is just one more area, like fishing and agriculture, that needs to be managed
since we've made such deep inroads into the natural processes.
Just as a farmed field won't revert to natural prairie just by leaving
it fallow, a clear cut forest won't regenerate into a normal healthy forest
without intervention, at least not for a long time...
April 10
I wouldn't have guessed two weeks ago I could be back
at work after breaking 3 ribs, but I started today, loading and firing
a bisque kiln.
Things are slower, and a bit painful, but it gets boring
doing nothing but reading and goofing off. I'm still putting off
the harder work of mixing clay and throwing for a week or so...
April 11
Another day of regaining competency in the workforce--
unloading a kiln, glazing, and loading a glaze kiln. In the afternoon
I trimmed a bunch of raspberry plants and bicycled down to see the water
pouring over the dam at the end of the lake--first time it's made it in
about 10 years... We went for a walk on the ridge and saw the
grass
widow flowers were coming on strong, just in time for Easter...
April 13
The next flower of Spring I've seen is the yellow
bell, which I noticed on an undeveloped lot in Rathdrum while
driving through town yesterday. The most significant development
from yesterday was that Sam, one of Musicians Anonymous, finally decided
he couldn't play for our performance this weekend at the Bluegrass Thang.
He's fighting cancer and a lot of associated pain, not to mention the treatments...
Both he and I are sleeping in our easy chairs-- being the most comfortable,
given our respective conditions...
April 14
I had to take one of our cars to Coeur D'Alene for service,
so I walked around Tubbs Hill. On the most isolated point, I saw
an osprey nest, and as I was leaving one of the pair returned with a mossy
branch for the nest. The day was rainy and grey, which made for the
blue-gray background. The photo was shot through the dead branches
of a pine tree (with a burl), contributing an eery background...
The only other comment for the day is that I took the
car in because the check engine light was on (although the car was running
well). That cost $350. I noticed it was running a little rough
at idle. That cost $250, and when it was done he admitted it was
still running a little rough at idle (misdiagnosis?). So after $600,
the car seems the same as before...
April 15
April 19
Sorry for the hiatus--I've been traveling to Whistler
B.C. with a son and two of his friends. They skied and I walked and
photographed.
Whistler village is sort of a combination of Las Vegas
and Disneyland--at least the Matterhorn part... Both Las Vegas and
Whistler are paved with money. My son and his friends might have
come out ahead on their part--both days they won free Ipods worth about
twice the cost of their lift tickets...
There were also free concerts outside, which I sort of
enjoyed, and trick bike riding demos on high parallel bars that I won't
try at home...
Here's my son (middle) and friends, waiting for the first
ride up in the morning):
April 21
There's nothing like absence to make the heart grow fonder.
In this case I'm referring to making pots on the wheel. When my wife
was in seminary I would go for 9 months without making pottery. But
currently, the absence of ability due to my rib injury made it seem the
end of the rainbow. So, just a day shy of 4 weeks since I fell, I
started throwing pots again. It was actually easier than the hoeing
I've been trying to do in the garden.
To restart the studio, I had to start with clay recycling--my
wheel had a number of dry scraps inside it, and the pans I dry them in
on the kiln were full. Clay recycling is sort of the pulse of a functioning
studio--it's part of its life, and if production stops, the clay recycling
must be suspended as well, or it will dry up in useless lumps. Like
a pulse, the drying pots and drying recycled clay must be monitored, which
insures daily visits to the studio.
Professional potters, like professional writers, can
face a psychological block to working. I did a lot of garden putzing
before jumping in to the studio again. But I'd rather have a psychological
hurdle than this physical one to contend with.
April 22
Today I sprayed our fruit trees with a dormant oil spray.
The oil smothers the eggs that are laid in the bark that grow into bugs
which nibble the trees that yield the fruit that we like to eat, by the
house that Jack built. Ok, I don't know who built the house...
Anyway dormant oil is one of the few ways acceptably organic to control
pests on fruit trees. I'd never done it before, but we inherited
several sprayers and the oil from some relatives, so I took the plunge
and sprayed the trees. It wasn't hard, just tedious. The main
pests we have trouble with are codling moths, cherry maggots, and aphids.
With luck the oil will help with the aphids.
April 24
A rant.
I don't spend much time ranting, but it's one of life's
major irritations that, although theoretically our technology is amazing
and wonderful, in actuality a lot of it is cheesy and disfunctional.
My wife got a laptop for Christmas that started one day last week with
a message that it needed a file that was missing. Fortunately having
two sons with lots of computer experience got her rolling again in a few
days. Otherwise we would have been stuck in that special level of
purgatory called "phone tech support".
I've got two boombox type CD/MP3 players, less than two
years old. One of them only works with one half of the stereo, the
other one only works with the remote, and then squawks at odd moments.
The car we got recently has a very impressive name brand after market CD
player which has all its front buttons totally confused, so that only the
remote control for it makes it work halfway decently.
And everything that used to have a couple knobs now has
mysterious unlabeled buttons and a complicated instructional manual.
Some of the instructions are arcane. To keep our van from locking
itself everytime you drive it, the instructions are to turn the car on
and off 4 times in a short time (mystic chanting optional). And most gadgets
require a special charger which looks quite a bit like every other charger
you own, but is not identified in any way to tie it to the device that
needs it, AND IS GUARANTEED TO FRY WHATEVER WRONG DEVICE THAT CONVENIENTLY
FITS INTO IT.
April 25
I was back to full pottery production today, working
on pots all morning, and gardening in the afternoon. Most pottery
work is less hard than gardening. My son is helping spread manure.
Some years I till the gardens by hand with a spade fork. This year
I'll just till where the row will be planted. Gardens, like life,
expand to the amount of time and energy you want to put into them.
They don't have to be weed-free, only slowing the weeds enough to give
the vegetables a headstart... Currently in the greenhouse the little
cabbages and tomatoes are awaiting their first true leaves. Also
a large deep bed of peas and spinach is coming along quickly.
The greenhouse spinach is racing the volunteer spinach in the garden which
came up earlier, but is growing slower as well, due to colder temperatures
and less fertility...
I've also added a new page of pictures I took yesterday
of Downtown Spokane.
April 26
In the mountainous west, some people plant by when the
snow level on the surrounding hills is down to a certain place. To me this
is a better indicator of the snow pack than the right time to plant, although
if the snow is gone that's a good sign either way (the snow's still on
the nearby ridges).
I planted peas, carrots, spinach, green beans, and corn
today in the smaller of our two gardens. Nearly all the seed planted
came from seed we've saved, of which we have a lot, so even if a frost
were to hit after the plants come up it's just a wee gamble gone awry.
Actually only the corn and green beans are susceptible to light frost,
so I'm optimistic.
In recent years corn has been a reliable crop here.
20 years ago we would get frosts around the 4th of July that would do in
the tomatoes and squash. In spite of global warming, the vagaries
of weather mean it could happen again, but we'll pretend it won't.
April 27
Sales have been slow the last couple weeks. As
much as Americans try to be oblivious to gas usage, I do think the current
prices are making people think twice about pleasure trips... I also
think if prices stabilize, they soon adjust to the new reality as "normal."
So just when we got used to $2.50/gallon gas, now we've got to adjust to
$3.00 gas. Western U.S. people drive a lot farther on average than
a lot of others--it's 30 miles or more to our nearest bank branch, for
instance... Gas, taxes, and health care seem to take about
equal chunks of our budget. Like many others, that leaves us with
less discretionary spending.
Usually sales are a bit slow until the end of May, so
it's easy to tie two events occurring simultaneously together, whether
there's a firm linkage or not. So I'm not overly concerned, but it's
hard to ignore the price of the core commodity of our civilization...
April 28
I've never been a big proponent of lawn mowing, but our
new house has a large yard, and as the saying (that I just made up)
goes, it grows, ergo I mow.
This was the first mowing today, very early by my lawn
mowing standards. I've not accumulated statistics, since it's not
(to my knowledge) a competitive sport, but it seems ominously early--part
of the global warming which we of the north country greet with mixed feelings...
On average, up here, a little warmth is a good thing... Of course
it's rendering our climate hospitable to Californians, which is, again,
a mixed blessing... Today was sunny and nearly 70, which is good
enough for anybody. The tulips and daffodils are opening, as are
the windows. Everything is atwitter. The red red robin is bob
bob etc. You get the picture.
April 29
From my web statistics, I know that this blog is visited
3 times as much as my cartoon page (If you are viewing either,
you are Special People and members of an elite club numbering no more than
15 average per day in the entire world...) . I like the cartoon,
but can't draw it to anyone's satisfaction, and may eventually run out
of daily cartoons to post. But in a curious blend of fiction meeting
reality, I hit on a storyline of having the cartoon characters visit Whistler
ski area several months before my wife suggested my son and I actually
do so... This is not Twilight Zone weird--my wife and sons visited
there several years ago, and my wife always thought I'd enjoy seeing it,
so I knew it might happen. But only after I drew the cartoon series
did she actually propose my taking my son (and his friends) for his 21st
birthday.
The coincidences don't stop there. Although I mostly
regard Ipods as annoying ads during TV football games, I pictured one of
the characters using his Ipod to find out if the lifts were open (not realizing
they don't include a radio, which seems to me an oversight--what's a few
more transistors...) No one in our family has an Ipod--make that
HAD an Ipod. My son won two Ipods in free giveaways on the lifts
at Whistler (his friends won several as well). (Play Twilight Zone
music here...)
When I created the storyline several months ago, I used
some pictures from the local ski area for the cartoon backgrounds.
But when I actually got to go there, I took photos with an eye to incorporating
them into the cartoon. So the series starting this week ("Lawyers
are wonderful") starts off with my prescient predictions, and eventually
includes a bit of actual Whistler footage...
April 30
Today I played banjo and sang a couple old hymns with
a gospel music group in both morning church and at a spring concert tonight.
While in church today, possibly because:
A. My sinful nature causes my mind to wander during the
sermon, or
B. The service is dreadfully boring,
I was thinking of the old finger-play, "This is the church,
this is the steeple," where you make a steeple with your index fingers,
and when you open the thumbs door, there are all your fingers hanging from
the rafters like bats, supposedly being the parishioners...
Now what I was thinking, was that if you start with your
hands laced together in prayer, when you open the door, the inside is empty.
This is not intended as a commentary on the negative effects of prayer on congregational growth ;-).
But the concert tonight was the last sanctified event
in an 101 year old Methodist church in Rathdrum before it faces an uncertain
future in private hands. Although the building has some structural
problems (could use a new foundation, for instance), I think the dwindling
congregation was the real reason for its demise, in keeping with national
trends in all the mainline churches. Our church in Spirit Lake probably
has an average age of over 60 in its membership (though new retirees move
into the area often enough to keep the numbers stable).
In my history, I've spent a year or more associated with
each of : the Society of Friends, UCC Congregrational, Lutheran, Methodist,
Mennonite, and Presbyterian churches. Most of these are in the declining
category. The church I've spent the most time with, the Lutherans,
has done a lot of things intended to stop the outflow, but probably were
as likely to increase it. This includes trying to update the liturgy
frequently, resulting in losing the older members without capturing the
hearts of the younger. My wife is captivated by the Eastern Orthodox
liturgy, which has remained mostly unchanged for 1500 years. I'm
not sure how their repetitive liturgy has affected their church attendance,
but if you go, at least you know how the service goes...
On the other hand, once or twice I've gone to the large
gymnasium churches (churches that hold worship in their own gymnasiums)
that offer a law oriented but "light" service with coffee break in the
middle instead of communion. These churches are growing rapidly in
our area, offering plenty of family services.
At the church tonight a lifelong member of the church
described Sunday Schools with 100 kids in them in his youth, and mentioned
the 5 kids he grew up with in church satyed with it until high school,
when they dropped out...
Like him, I also have memories of well run youth programs
and a functional church. Also I'm inclined towards liturgy and sacraments
from my Lutheran background, and gospel over law as an understanding of
our relationship to God, so I'm not inclined to join a gymnasium type church.
Mostly I'm waiting for my wife to get a church call again, but that's a
slow and complicated process...
