Oregon Farmer

Socialization across species? A brief encounter

2011-05-27T06:51:00.001-07:00

The bee flew past my head. I heard it go by, recognized the honey bee sound and for a brief part of a second, thought that I saw it in the air flying. It was definitely heading north, up the hill and away from me and our farm. it was May, 2011 and the day was warming up. I so wanted to fly with that bee right then and even briefly thought about flapping my arms, just in case the outcome was different now that I was in my 60's. It had been a while since I had tried flying by flapping my arms and you never really know what is going to change next.
As you probably guessed, I did not fly. In fact, I totally lost track of the bee except within my mind. I stood and felt frustrated. It was so hard to understand why I couldn't cross the border between my species and the bees. I wanted to, I had a reason, there was time; surely this problem was not so hard. I actually wanted to be the bee's friend and enjoy their enjoyments, anguish with them in their frustrations and marvel at their abilities, loves and beauty. I wanted a bee friend and I wanted to be a friend to that bee. If you see a lonely bee and they appear to welcome human companions, send him our way please.
It was not hard to imagine the flight the bee was on. They must have passed right through the hazelnut orchard to the north of us, without even pausing. This orchard is barren of flowers, food, nectar, pollens and other bees enticements in May. The ground had been mowed clear of all life, the hazelnut blooms had dried up in March and the hazelnut fruit was just beginning to wake up and form into a seed. There was nothing here for a bee that I could think of, except maybe some place to land and take a break. Bees take breaks, right?
Perhaps the bee paused among the Dome's 200 year old Oregon white oaks, just a little north of the orchard. There were plenty of flowers that would welcome a bee under these giants. The blackberries were not blooming yet but there were usually some wild flowers there in the spring. Yea, I could see my bee buddy stopping in there to see what was happening.
Or perhaps the bee was on a long distance run to the Bonnet's blueberry patches. There were many acres of blueberries packed together and they were in full bloom. There was always room for another bee. Yes, I bet that was where my new bee buddy and pal was going. He was flying pretty darn fast for going a short distance. I wonder how long before the bee returns to his friends.
Oh, there goes another one.

Phone lost, damn it; wait, we have "find my iphone". Phone found

2011-02-26T13:14:00.000-08:00

Recently I was in a very uncomfortable situation. You can skip down a few paragraphs to read about how the phone was found or read on for a short story on hole digging and how it related to phone finding.

I left the house around 8am on a February, 2011 morning in the pouring rain and snow mix, temperature about 33 degrees, wind blowing, miserable, etc. It appeared I had every piece of rain and cold weather gear I owned in my pickup, based on the pile of clothes, boots, coats and gloves taking up the double cab pickup. My job was to either run a backhoe, or help the backhoe operator, and dig 25 holes at the Polk County Fairgrounds for some donated large trees. The backhoe was being provided at no cost by Rickreall Farm Supply. Thank you, Farm Supply people!

Once we found the tractor and learned how to operate it, Joe Bourson arrived and volunteered to drive the 1/4 mile to the fairgrounds and dig the first hole. He had owned a backhoe and was my volunteer expert. Once we got to the fairgrounds, I added a layer of clothes and boots and gloves and proceded to point and get wet. Joe's first hole was awesome, my first hole was a catastrophe and took forever and we almost lost Joe due to my widely swinging boom. He decided the quickest way to get this job done was for him to dig the holes and me to do anything else that needed doing.

Away we went, like a herd of turtles. Turns out this type of tractor was not designed for digging, moving and digging more. Each time we finished a hole, Joe had to get out of the seat, lift it up, spin it around and then sit back down, drive forward, get off, lift up the seat, spin it around, climb back up and start digging again. Sigh. My insulated coveralls, two pairs of gloves, jeans, undershirt, flannel shirt, hooded sweat shirt, rain hat and rain jacket kept me tolerable but I just got wetter as the morning rolled on. Somewhere around 10am, Joe had to change jackets (he was mainly under a canopy of sorts) and I dug another hole. Since I had been watching his every move, I didn't do so bad this time but nowhere near as good as Joe. Perhaps I could be a backhoe operator when I grow up? Joe got back in the seat and began to dig another hole. We 'sped' through the remaining holes and then returned to our pickups.

It was 11am when we ran out of holes to dig and we agreed I would drive the backhoe tractor back to the dealer. Joe ferried me to leave my pickup at the dealers and we said goodbye as he dropped me by the tractor, back at the fairgrounds. Thanks Joe, for all the volunteer help!

It was on the trip back to the fairgrounds that I reached for my phone to tell Karen we were done. Ooops, no phone. Joe called my number from his phone, thinking it could well be stuck between the many layers of clothing I was wearing. It could be in one of my boots and I might not have sensed it, due to the numbness of my body. No sounds came. I then called Karen on Joe's phone to tell her my phone was lost, but no answer. Shoot! I got on the tractor and drove it back to the dealer, fretting about my lost iphone and how this was not a good time to loose it (is it ever?) and how was I ever going to find it amongst the holes, piles of dirt, snow, deep puddles and mud. The 25 holes were 23 feet apart and spanned the length of the fairgrounds. A lot of space to cover looking for a 2x4" black thing. I was so upset by the lost phone, I failed to ask about washing the backhoe and the dealer was kind enough not to mention it. Sorry Rickreall Farm Supply! And yes, the weather had not stopped raining or snowing since before 8am.

Returning home, I remembered we had registered this phone with Apple's MobileMe services and I could use Karen's phone to locate it through the GPS signal. Yea, perhaps a solution was at hand! Now to wait for Karen, change my clothes and hope for feeling to return to my outer limbs. Karen returned home before noon and we turned on the 'find my iphone' service and in a few minutes, there my phone was, beaconing from the fairgrounds. It looked to be about 30 feet from where I had parked the pickup and possibly could be visible from the surface, based on where it appeared to be. Once again, Yea!

We headed back the five miles to the fairgrounds with her phone still getting the signal. We parked a little ways from where the signal was emanating, not wanting to run over the poor thing. The rain had stopped and the sun was peaking through the flying clouds. We walked towards where the signal was coming from and Karen reached down and picked up my phone. I must have walked by it a dozen times. It was not dry by any means (nothing was that day) but it was still working and still in its case and I still had my $200.00 in my pocket that would have been used to buy the replacement phone. The wonderful 'find my iphone' service is free now. Life was great again and as we drove home through the sunshine and the melting snow and the ditches running full of runoff, we felt strongly that something had just happened that did not seem even possible.

So next time you find yourself at the fairgrounds in Polk County Oregon, wander over to the south boundary where the tractor pulls and lawn tractor races are held. Gaze upon the 25 Scanlon Maples lining the south boundary and know that these were donated trees, all labor was volunteer to get them in the ground and there might have been an iphone buried amongst them.

Putting aside Food in 2010 (pt 1 of 2)

2010-09-23T00:19:00.000-07:00

It has been a few years since we started, oh say maybe 35, but sometimes it feels like we are still beginning to understand how to put food by and how to have enough fresh food for year around meals from the garden. So this post is to remind us what we did in 2010.

[Note: if you are viewing this on Facebook, please consider scrolling to the bottom of the page and clicking "View Original Post" - it looks better]

We have a freezer, a canning pot, a pressure canner, canning tools, an apple peeler/corer/slicer, knives, chopping blocks, a mandolin slicer, a pressure cooker, jars of various sizes including wide-mouth quart jars and sealing lids, a kitchen stove, a barbecue, a dehydrator, a pantry, dry, dark, cool drawers, a compost pile, sealable plastic sacks and a vacuum packaging device. All of these things have been used this summer to put food away. The mention of the barbecue reminds me of the amusing sign we found in a Gold Beach motel patio.

We don't have an outdoor kitchen (yet), we still need more understanding about pressure canners and one day we will have a root cellar. We do have lots of food growing around us and find it has become a daily opportunity to either plant, tend, harvest or put food by. So what foods have been put away this summer and in what form? Time to make a list, perhaps in no particular order but organized by food family.

Fruit and Berries:

Strawberries were made into jam that we had leftover from last year in the freezer. They were ready for the last steps in the jam making process. The sack of frozen strawberries, already partially processed, were like found gold, they were so valuable.
Raspberries were made into jam from the bushes out back. We ate most of the berries fresh or in our summer breakfasts, so only a tiny amount got into jam this year.
Blueberries were found in the neighborhood, picked, washed, sorted and frozen on trays and then placed in quart bags in the freezer. They are so good for breakfast and snacks and we put up 40# but I don't know if they will last! Blueberries were also dried in the food dehydrator and seemed to have lost their flavor. Freezing is better for us this year.
Peaches were purchased from a neighbor and once fully ripened, pits came out, skins off and cut into quarters to be canned in the pressure canner without the pressure gauge. These 21 quarts will be appreciated over the next 11 months.
Pears were picked from our tree and individually wrapped in paper and stored in a dry, dark box in the pantry.
Apples were harvested from our trees, peeled, cored and sliced and cooked down into applesauce and frozen in jars. We still need more apples and perhaps some apple butter. We still have some jars of dried apples from last year in the cupboard.
Our Asian pears are still not quite ripe and we still wonder what is the best thing to do with them. Last year we gave them all away but recently we learned that they can make a good sauce. Hmmm.
Our table grapes are ripening fast and last year we froze some and they are enjoyable over the winter. More will be washed, frozen on trays and then placed in quart bags next month, once they get their sugars up.

Vegetables

Zucchini seemed to never end this summer and it started early. Almost every day we picked zucchini and once we had enough for processing, we began. Sometimes we sliced them the long way, oiled and salted them, put on barbecue for 10 minutes, placed them individually on trays in the freezer and then in quart bags in the freezer once frozen. Other times we filled the dehydrator and ran it for hours in the sun and then put the almost paper dry chips into jars. We usually choose to suck the air out of the jars after putting the dried zucchini inside. Sometimes we put them in plastic sacks and vacuumed the air out. Sometimes we just eat them... heheheh.
Eggplants came this year with a vengeance. Thanks to our new ColdFrame (which is more of a hotframe in the summer) we got Asian Eggplant to set fruit in early September. We treated it just like the zucchini.
Tomatoes are going mainly for sauces this year and how the sauces are made depends on the variety of tomato and how we want to work in the kitchen. To me, the tomatoes take a lot of work and they, as with most of this work, have been Karen's speciality.
Peppers are still ripening and I expect we will harvest them, cut out the centers, cut into strips, dip in olive oil and barbecue them before freezing. This worked great last year.
Squashes are still ripening but we have a dry, dark drawer (or two) waiting for their harvest in October. We have butternut, acorn and delicato for sure (maybe others?)
Cauliflower was harvested, washed, cut up and dried in the dehydrator and also it was blanched, placed on trays in the freezer to freeze separately and then put into quart bags in the freezer.
Broccoli was harvested, cut up and blanched, frozen on trays and put into quart bags in freezer.

Root Crops

Onions are drying in the shed and some are still in the ground. I am not sure how we are going to process them - perhaps dry them separately, and then store in porous sacks somewhere dry, away from mice.
Shallots are still in the ground and probably will go into dry storage after we dry them and wipe off the dirt.
Leeks are still in the ground and will go the route of shallots and onions I believe.
Potatoes have been dug and eaten all summer. New, fresh, baby potatoes are so awesome with the translucent skins and creamy taste. Butter just confuses the lushness of these powerhouses. The rest of the crop will be dug in October and put into dry storage. We had trouble last year keeping them from sprouting and gave away a fair amount of our harvest. We need to start digging on the root celler any day now! Oh yes, we also sliced potatoes with the mandolin, placed on cookie sheets to freeze and then bagged them last year, no cooking. These slices made great potato dishes with lots of fresh flavor and I bet we do something that again in mid-winter as they start to sprout again.. sigh.

Next post will cover leafy greens, herbs, nuts, meats and other things left out above. This posting may be edited because I need Karen to check it to see if it is accurate. Now that the list is on the screen, it is easy to see why we are so busy putting aside food in 2010.

The passing of a very old friend

2010-05-21T08:59:00.000-07:00

He was just a foam dinosaur really.

The orange/red dinosaur clock that came into our kitchen, back when Emily was very young, died last week and I miss it. It really never had a name. It sat smiling like an apostle above the north facing windows in our kitchen for so long, and even though every appliance seems to have a clock in it, and so do the computers, the cameras and the phones, the Dinosaur set the time in my life. It ran on a standard AA battery and was immune to our occasional rural interruption in electricity. The hands and face were big enough to be read from anywhere in the room, once you got used to it. This thing worked; it kept great time and I wanted it to live at least as long as I did.

Amazingly, it was in horrible shape. Look at it, the bottom is all scruffed up, the foam is falling apart. This is more than strange, considering it only came down from the hanger twice a year to be moved forward or backward an hour and get it's battery renewed. The face of the clock was dirty and fly specked. The hands were slightly bent and the whole thing was ready to fall apart. Occasionally the battery came undone. Gravity? Moisture? Earthquakes? Who knows. The foam is pitted and falling out in tiny pieces, such tiny pieces we didn't notice it. Now that it sits on the counter with pennies over its eyes, all the hands pointed at 12, we see it has gone over the hill. About 12 inches from tail to snout, the creature just fit into our decor. Nothing like a wild colored children's toy, soft, foam, cutout dinosaur shaped clock for that modern (or classical!) interior design statement! I suppose if we bury this clock (being a dinosaur and all) and wait a few millennia, it will turn into some kind of sludge that we can use for energy.

It will be years before I stop looking up there for the clock. Maybe someone has a replacement to suggest, something that brings the same ambiance to the country kitchen we spend so much time in. Something that keeps good time and won't give up after just 30 years.

Christmas is only 6 months away!

Building our cold Frame - spring 2010

2010-05-01T21:36:00.000-07:00

Even before we started the project, we decided to capture the major parts in photos and on film. There was a lot about our cold frame construction and design that did not make it into my video.
However, to get an idea of what it looks like, try this link uTube Video - 5 minutes of cold frame info. This brief write-up should help fill in any gaps.

We started raised bed gardening years ago after turning the soil each spring and battling the same weeds all summer and fall. In fact, things are so prolific here in the Willamette valley of Oregon that we found weeds quite difficult to control. Combine this with Karen's desire not to work in a bent over position, we built some nice and tall raised beds in about 2000. These beds are about 22" tall and have done well for ten years. We turn the soil annually with a spading fork and have very few weeds. We covered the bottom with landscape cloth and hardware cloth to keep the thistles and gophers out of the beds. We filled the beds with compost provided by a local recycler and found we need to add more each year due to settling and some soil leaving with the plants.

All was well until this winter when we visited our neighbors and found them eating fresh lettuce from their greenhouse. Damn, that looked good in January and February! After pricing a new or even used green house and thinking we wanted to build it ourselves, we settled on a constructing a large cold frame instead. When you think about it, they are a much more efficient use of materials as you have no human space to maintain - just plant space. We researched the cold frame market and watched tons of videos on the web from other souls like us and determined, as is often the case, that the things we need are close at hand. This video from a couple of growers in Washington pretty much tipped it for us - we needed to use Solexx. It seemed like a good product and we will know a heck of a lot more about it over the next few years.

In Brooks, next to I-5, a small company has a display of a variety of greenhouses and cold frames and they sell kits as well as manufacture a greenhouse covering called Solexx. None of their kits fit our existing raised beds, so we visited them in March of 2010. They were quite friendly and both of the owners sat down with us to discuss our problems and brainstorm solutions based on their experience, our needs and our budget. They kindly sold us metal fittings to make a complete structure. They said this was not usual. They usually sell kits and rolls of Solexx to cover the structure. We bought the parts and 22' of Solexx. It all came to around 280$, kind of spendy for our budget but awesome for rigidity, length of life, ease of construction and quality of light for plants.
I had some 3/4" PVC schedule 40 pipe on hand already from installing our farm's plumbing system and used this for framing. I also got special screws and a tube of GE Silicon to complete the materials list.

The video shows the construction and it was not too difficult. Measure well and be sure to cut long to start. The fittings are not all equal (some allow the pipe to go further into the fitting that others) and trial and error helped. Once the frame was built and covered and the ends were sealed with silicone, we put it on the raised bed. There it was easy to add the hinges, the small chains to keep it from tipping too far and, best of all, the automatic opener. These auto-opener devices are magical. I am still not sure how such a small cylinder can lift the 25# cold frame at such a precise temperature. Since we setup the auto-opener, the inside the cold frame has never got above 80 degrees. Some mornings it reaches 80 when it is still in the 50's outside. As the video shows, we have a remote thermometer inside the cold frame.

The vegies are loving it so much. We think we will have the best peppers and eggplant ever this year and look forward to growing our own food all year long. Almost every inch of the 32 sq foot bed can be used for growing plants up to 3' tall. Now it's up to us, not the weather, to get good food onto the table for ourselves, our family and our friends. And we still are growing a summer garden in other raised beds, including one 8'x18' dedicated to just squash varieties this year.

Feel free to leave a message on Utube about the video, the garden or something else that you are working on and we will do what we can to help.

Eidetic Fugue - Part four

2010-01-15T18:04:00.001-08:00

When we returned from San Francisco, it was almost Thanksgiving. We decided we would open the shop on Monday, after the Thanksgiving weekend. We had no clue that the day after Thanksgiving was a big shopping day; well, it really wasn't quite as huge back in 1966. I'm sure stores were busy but it wasn't the monster thing with weird opening hours and people having breakfast shopping parties like in 2009.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, we put the final touches on the shop. We put up a sample of each poster, including a few in the back room with a black light. In the windows were the fine albums we had purchased in the city - no one else in town had them but some knew of their existence. We brought back the first edition of a large alternative newspaper called Rolling Stone and it was full of news of the musicians we admired and listened to each day. We got the money box ready and got change from the bank on Friday. The stereo was all set up, the headphones were sitting in the rocking chair by the counter and we were ready for people. We even had a mostly empty display case, waiting for Salem people to bring in their home-made treasures to sell

Monday was exciting - at least for me. My parents were suffering through this part of my life but continued to support me in any way they could. I don't think they really knew what we were doing in the shop besides "opening a store" but I'm sure they had doubts about our success. Events in the coming weeks might allay some of the fear of our financial ruin and probably bring other new fears to light, like the legality of our merchandise. Mom stepped forward to help me with my clothing choices that first day and suggested that I wear a sports jacket on my first day as a businessman. It was a Harris Tweed that had been made to order in London for a ridiculously low price. I still have the one that was made for father and wear it when I want to keep warm, no matter what. I looked kind of sharp I guess, probably much squarer than I wanted. My hair was not long but I had some fuzzy muttonchops that were my claim to the new age.

We opened the door at noon, as per the posted hours on the door and our business cards. A few times as we were preparing the shop, some shy teenagers lurked around and eyeballed us, but no one stopped to talk until we opened. I guess we were pretty different than any other store in town.

There I was, a man with a store, sitting on a high wooden stool above the desk, eyeing the jail across the street and watching the people walk by. We were OPEN.

One of the first customers was a parent; someone with a teenager who had mentioned the shop. She looked around very uncomfortably and asked which poster was popular. Heck, I didn't know, I hadn't sold any yet, but I recommended the Janis Joplin one. It was a very cool poster to a 19 year old male. Janis was photographed in black and white, standing, smiling, covered with beads, black clothes, hair down to there and if you looked real close, you could see one of her nipples exposed. My first customer passed that poster by for a Greatful Dead concert poster, also very cool but without any exposed nipples. I got a copy of that poster out of the black light/storage room and carefully pulled out just enough plain brown wrapping paper out of slot in the desk, cut it, rolled the poster up in it, put two pieces of scotch tape on the ends and handed it to her. She paid with cash and that first dollar bill went on the wall behind me. We were in business.

Somewhere around 3 or 4, Mike and Bill came in and it was with great pride I pointed to our first dollar. This called for Pepsi's for everyone (free of course!) and the day began. It was that week that the local newspaper discovered us.

What Apple's next device could be like

2009-08-09T11:02:00.000-07:00

Hi all -

I'm sure we are not alone in this vision but I think a lot of these devices (tablets) would sell in 2010.

Basically just make the iphone but bigger
Remove the dialer but keep the wireless
Support syncing, like iphone if wanted
Make it notepad size, 8 x 11.5 with a iphone-like multi-touch screen
Portion (or all) of the screen is see-through capable for scanning, camera, identifying things in the environment, etc
No hard keyboard only soft; all screen except simple buttons
Make it a windowed and allow multiple apps to run at once
Have ALL iphone apps be usable - presto 100,000+ apps
Increase processor speed and RAM capacity accordingly
Hit the $1000 price ceiling and drop to $800 in 12 months
Include character recognition so you can write on it
Bluetooth with the iphone to provide co-joined devices - one device could leverage the other in functionality including phone, processor, RAM and display. Make the two devices extend each other. Build from iphone, not from Mac.
Include following ports: Ethernet, two USB 3.0, cinema display, headphone
Include camera with two lenses - one front, one back
Include microphone and speakers
Not a PC, not a Mac, not an iphone, not a cheap notebook -> convergence

Just an idea.

And others have also had this idea.

Good quotes on leadership

2009-08-08T21:13:00.000-07:00

"It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it… anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job." (Douglas Adams)

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." (John Quincy Adams)

"No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it." (Andrew Carnegie)

"Management works in the system. Leadership works on the system." (Stephen R. Covey)

"A leader is best when people barely know he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worse when they despise him….But of a good leader who talks little when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, "We did it ourselves." (Lao Tzu)

"I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep." (Talleyrand)

"A boss creates fear, a leader confidence. A boss fixes blame, a leader corrects mistakes. A boss knows all, a leader asks questions. A boss makes work drudgery, a leader makes it interesting. A boss is interested in himself or herself, a leader is interested in the group." (Russell H. Ewing)

"Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple, and it is also that difficult." (Warren Bennis)

"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other." (John Fitzgerald Kennedy)

'The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it." (Theodore Roosevelt)

"Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things." (Peter F. Drucker)

"Nothing so conclusively proves a man's ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself." (Thomas Watson)

'Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men — the other 999 follow women." (Groucho Marx)

"You do not lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership." (Dwight D. Eisenhower)

The Eidetic Fugue, part three.

2009-07-19T10:50:00.000-07:00

We stopped twice between Salem and San Francisco. The spirit of young businessmen cloaked beneath our layers of cultural tokens and attitude. We were on a run.
It wasn't like we were running a business yet as the doors to the shop hadn't even opened yet. Since we were building a store, we just knew we needed something to sell if we were going to attract anyone. We kind of knew where we were going in the Bay area, we had some addresses and some company names. We had maps and some place to stay - actually I can't remember who we stayed with that fateful trip - I'm sure it did not involve any payment.

What has puzzled me, and perhaps others, in the 40+ years since the Eidetic Fugue came into existence, are our assumptions about how you stock a store. Family ethics taught me that you didn't buy anything if you didn't have the money, so nothing was bought on credit. This is very weird for a retail store. We also felt we needed a personal relationship with as many sellers as possible, so we visited as many suppliers as we could, to be sure we could work together. And we paid cash and never had a bank account. This was not a common business model, I'm guessing this style of business management is probably even less common now.

We went to some of the largest poster makers in the bay area and purchased band posters, art posters and anything that Bill, Mike and I thought was cool. I wish we had struck up friendships or at least stayed in contact with some of these interesting people. It apparently never crossed my mind - don't know about Mike and Bill. We found a record dealer that would give us 10% discount for volume (like over 20 records! wow!) and we bought several copies of the albums we all wanted and figured would sell. Before we knew it, we had spent most of our funds and were ready to return to Salem. We also must have gone to a concert, played in Golden Gate part, walked the streets of Haight Ashbury and done some other stuff but I can't really recall the details. Funny how that happens sometimes.

Oh yes, we also bought newspapers. "Underground" newspapers, like the Rolling Stone, the Avatar from Boston and several papers from the Bay area. These held the latest news for us about what was going on. These papers did get old quickly, but not for several weeks. The news cycle was a little different then. Aside from word of mouth and rumors, there was no other way of keeping track of events and celebrations. The papers were so young, both in spirit and quality. The newspaper format can be so rich and informing. I'd still rather pick up the printed copy of Salem Monthly and read it than visit the website. There are still a few newspapers in our attic from this trip, getting more faded over time. Maybe alternative newspapers will become a lost tradition, maybe not. I hope not.

And we bought buttons. Buttons were much more popular than any other way of personally stating your point of view. Tattoos were not popular, bumper stickers were stuck in mainline politics and nothing else had the same personal style as a button. A lot of the buttons were about peace, the war, drugs and being different. I suppose we bought a hundred, maybe less. We didn't wear buttons at the time so, using our personal perspective again, we didn't go too deep into buttons.

Back in Salem, we began putting out our newly bought treasures. The records went into a few cardboard boxes and sat on a small table I brought from home. Silly us, we priced them below the local store prices, even thought you couldn't buy the same albums within 50 miles. We put the 'coolest' records on the left side podium by the door to balance out the weird device sitting on the other side. The posters went up on the 30' long, 9' high, south wall and the remaining flat poster stock went into the back room. Some of the posters we had bought were 'black light' posters, so we acquired a cheap light fixture and had it available for viewing the black light posters in the dark back room. The buttons went into the display case. This left the 6'x2' glass and wood display case mostly empty, We decided to open it up to local artists. It seemed fair to give anyone a place to sell their stuff. The store would ask for 10% of the artist's sale price or we would negotiate.

We brought in my Sony reel-to-reel tape deck and put it on the 2nd shelf of the desk. We hooked up a record player and some good sized speakers. Mike opened one of the newly purchased albums, we turned up the volume and all had Pepsi to celebrate. Since there was only one chair, we all sat on the floor and it was good. Surrounding us were posters of places, people and events in a style created by our peers. We had music from our times blasting the walls of this long and narrow downtown business. We were starting a new beginning and lots of things were changing. We were on the cusp of our third decade in life and nothing appeared too hard. We were enveloped by the culture of our emerging generation. We were ready for customers and it was the beginning of Thanksgiving week. Things were about to get busy.

The Eidetic Fugue (pt 2 of ??)

2009-07-17T21:47:00.000-07:00

Note: If you are reading this in Facebook, please go to the bottom and click the "View Original Post" - Facebook just has the words, the blog has pictures and a little pizazz.

Before we went to the Bay area to buy provisions for the shop, we did some local provisioning. Bill M. knew of a device at the local used furniture store that would be great in the window. After he described it, we all had to go see it one sunny afternoon in later October. It was located on Silverton road, somewhere near where Lancaster is today. We entered the establishment. Bill obviously had been here before and led us through a series of rooms to a dark and dingy back corner. Tucked in amongst the lamps, couches and worn out end tables was a 4' tall box on a 3 legged steel stand with lots of fancy writing on it and a power cord coming out the bottom. It was made out of dark metal and pretty heavy. It had pictures of far away places on the sides and had lots of fancy script indicating it had the power to heal. We think it was probably used by traveling eye doctors in some different time and place. When you opened the top of the box (about 2'x2'), you could see a series of colored lens, mounted on a drive and a odd looking light bulb. The funny sized light bulb shined through the lenses as they rotated and the colored light was projected through mirrors and lenses onto the wall. I wish I had a picture of it or at least remembered what it was called. It was way cool though, believe me.

We had to have it.

So we offered half of the marked price, after plugging it in and testing it, carried it out to Mike's VW squareback and hauled it back to the shop. We knew where to put it. On both sides of the shop's front door were raised platforms. The shop opening was in a V shape with glass on all sides. We now had something for the podium on the right side.

We also found a long counter with a small 12"x2" slot in the middle and a wooden front. The back was open and had shelves and a good finish on the top. This ended up being the main desk that held the money, supplies, the stereo and general whatnot. Whoever felt like running the shop would sit behind this counter. In the same used furniture store was a large glass display case. Both pieces were really inexpensive and we bought them. Somehow we got these two pieces back to the shop. We measured the slot and ordered several rolls of paper from a local industrial supply outfit that just fit through the slot. We figured this plain brown paper would be the packaging for any posters, records, buttons, etc that we would eventually get in stock and sell.

We had nothing to sell yet, of course.

Before we opened the store, we needed to advertise. We thought of many ideas - we had lots of thinking capacity - and ended up deciding on a billboard in the freeway. One place for lots of customers. How else to get people to stop in Salem? Bill began drawing designs and was greatly challenged by the scale. How many artists get to put up billboards? We thought it was a gareat idea, but the price was too high for our budget. Maybe TV? No, too high also. How about radio? Sure enough, a repeating 30 second spot could be bought for pretty cheap back then on KBZY. We thought all the kids, especially the girls, listened to KBZY. Bill and Mike went to the studio with some good records and did a great job of recording an ad to introduce the shop. We set the date for the ads to run in late November.

But that was not enough. We needed posters and worked with Panther Press in Salem to print 50 black and white 12x16 posters. They were awesome - I put in image in the previous blog post (pt 1). The only words on the poster were the name of the store and the address - no products, no corporation logo; just the pretty lady, store name and the address. We decided we would put them up at Bob's, in a few downtown windows when the store opened. I remember running around in late November asking confused managers of local drive-ins if we could put this funny looking poster in their window. The ones we asked said "Sure". We ended up giving the rest away, I think. The only remaining Eidetic Fugue poster I know about is in my attic and the words have been cut off. Anyone have one?

And we decided we needed business cards. We had a hundred color ones made and, like the poster, I only know of one copy left. It is a little ragged around the corners. Bill M did the hand lettering and designed it. Notice the hours - noon to 10. This was genius. None of us wanted to get up early and neither did our customers. As we will find out in a later chapter, closing at 10 was not always easy. I had forgotten that we had a payphone installed also, which we used as the official store phone number. Turns out it was free too!

An old cigar box of my grandfathers was chosen to be the cash register and one of us built wooden dividers to separate the bills from the coins. A leather rocking chair was situated next to the stereo, inside the desk and, once we got records in stock, we figured customers would want to sit and listen for a while before buying. We knew we liked listening in the private booths at Meier and Franks to the crappy beach boy and pop music.

We struck a deal with the local beverage company and got them to install a Pepsi machine. We were pretty much hooked on Pepsi and thought it was a coup to have our own machine. And then they gave us the KEY! Can you believe it? I can still feel the excitement in the room when the installation guys laid the keys on the desk and walked out. Even before we opened, people put money in, took out a pepsi. We just opened it and got a cold can. And we got their money too! No one else seemed to understand how incredibly cool this was (especially since everyone seemed to know Pepsi would put a machine anywhere they could sell product).

And we still had nothing to sell, but we had a plan.

Next chapter we hit the road to the bay area in Mike's customized VW squareback to get stock. We knew Mike had connections and we still had some dollars to buy stuff to sell in the store. Besides in early November of 1967, lots was going on in San Fransisco and the rains were starting in Oregon. We needed to get out of town. There weren't any girls hanging around yet but we figured that would all change when the store really opened. We had started with 550$ and even after all of our purchases so far, we still had lots to spend...

The Eidetic Fugue (pt 1 of 3?)

2009-07-16T17:34:00.000-07:00

Long, long ago, in a town called Salem, several young men were longing for female company. Many summer evenings passed as they cogitated over what could be done. Finally an idea took hold - if we build it, they will come kind of thing. We decided that we needed a place, perhaps a store of some kind, downtown would be best, that was attractive for all, threatening only to an older generation and might even make enough money to keep us in pepsi and music.

At that time, (say fall 1967), there was nowhere in this town of many thousands to buy the rock and roll that was being created in San Francisco, Boston, New York and elsewhere. Today it is hard to believe you couldn't buy popular culture items since you can do it so many different ways in 2009, but back 43 years ago, such was the case. And if you couldn't buy 33's from the Cream, Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplan, you certainly couldn't buy posters, stickers, buttons and anything else from the emerging counter-culture. Not in Salem... yet.

I had the money, Bill had the art skills, Mike had the connections and away we went. First to find a location for rent, cheap. We found a store front that was narrow and half a block long and it was on HIGH STREET... what could be better for a place to buy music, posters, incense and other legal items in 1967. The older gentleman that owned the building, met us there and led us through the two rooms. That took about 30 seconds. He showed us the heater, told us he needed two months rent in cash. We all trekked two blocks to the bank and handed him the cash. Now our 500$ booty was down to 400$.

We got brooms, mops, rags and water and cleaned up the place. We didn't bother with paint with one exception - Bill wanted to do a mural on the glass entry door. It looked just like the poster (oops, I got ahead of myself.. how did we get the posters?) So be it we said and proceded to buy dayglow red paints and all cheered Bill on as he worked into the night, painting the lady on the door. We needed a name. I can't remember all the names that were tossed out but I have always had a fondness for the final solution. We wanted a place that you remembered, that put you into a new state of mind and perhaps left a few marks on your mind, too. We wanted to name to be unique and easy to shorten. And we wanted it to be ours.

Eidetic meant, at least to us, was a type of image that left its mark. Today the dictionary says it is "visual imagery vividly experienced and readily reproducible with great accuracy and in great detail". This meant the shop was a poster shop first, and then a bead, music, art, button and whatnot shop second.
Fugue has a musical meaning, referring to a certain type of composition. We meant the psychiatric meaning actually (me being a psychology major) and today's dictionary says it is a state when a "person suffers from loss of memory, often begins a new life, and, upon recovery, remembers nothing of the amnesic phase" .
Put these together and we were trying to create a place where experiencing the images blows you away with their vividness and detail and you are in a new beginning and really can't remember much about the experience except things are different. Everyone called it "the fugue" and basically ignored any intention the name might have had.

Next installment has us off to the Bay area for provisioning and opening the store, a few surprises happen and mostly, things are good.

picnic table finally done

2009-06-30T10:38:00.000-07:00

From a difficult set off online drawings, a batch of cedar boards,
challenges in making 38 degree cuts and fun putting this together ad a
team. we got a picnic table and a set of benches.

It all turned out great!

Finished the kiwi stand/pagola

2009-06-21T12:06:00.000-07:00

After months of discussions and design attempts, we now have a
structure ready for the weight and size of a crop of Kiwis. The
plants, one boy and one girl (for equality of course), go in at the
outside posts. Next August the structure maybe hidden under the vines
and ripening fruit - or not.

Dinner

2009-06-10T19:19:00.000-07:00

Fresh broccolli, fresh spinach, both treated to heat for a few minutes
- yumm

Oregon Capitol & smoke

2009-05-13T12:34:00.000-07:00

On Armed Forces day (5/13/09), the 9 gun salute resulted in a lot of
smoke, just north of the Capitol BLD in Salem.

I took this picture from my desk on the upper floor of a state building.

Waiting for the ferry to come

2009-04-26T09:17:00.001-07:00

On our way to Harstine island and a visit with friends, we are waiting
for the Bremerton Ferry.

Are they really closed?

2009-04-24T14:16:00.001-07:00

This Seattle shop acts like it's customers just don't want to give up.
I especially like the cat update.

This was on 15th in the Capitol Hill area of town. We were in town
for the Leonard Cohen concert. It was very good; he is such a proven
performer and delights in highlighting the talents of his band,
singers and support staff. See it, if it comes near you!

Bakery evil revealed

2009-04-23T11:30:00.000-07:00

This 'cookie' sits silently in the bakery shelves of a prominent
Portland upscale market. What is the sword in his chest for? Perhaps a
zombie or a vampire?

Railroad bridge in Salem now Awesome

2009-04-20T13:57:00.000-07:00

We walked it on Sunday and it was done right! Lots of room, nice
'pullouts' to get out of the way, great guardrails, very solid surface
and very well thought out linkages to other downtown and west Salem
areas of interest. It is now on a lot of peoples commute route. Great
job Salem!

April at Ryans - roundup & spring

2009-04-16T19:34:00.000-07:00

This panorama is brought to us by the ol' trusty iPhone.

Breakfast in cancun

2009-03-28T10:08:00.000-07:00

What to do when - Jan-April in Willamette Valley

2008-12-12T08:21:00.000-08:00

Often we look to our unwritten, unspoken schedule of "what to do when" to decide what can done outside. Sometimes in the winter, I think we should prune the grapes, but that should be done the first two weeks of February. We could cut some black locust for fence posts next fall but we don't have the trees marked yet. We could plant some lettuce for early crop but it is still too cold without a cold frame. Wait a minute, maybe I should write these 'lists' down and see if they make sense to anyone else.

So here are the first four months and what work makes sense to us.

January -

Prune shrubs and pile prunings for burning in April
Order native plants from County for February pickup
Plant year old grapes that were started last February
Renew any grape arbor stakes, wires, posts, hardware that need work
Discourage any gopher activity with propane. They have mated and are staying underground to raise their young
Plan, plan, plan - by drawing pictures, talking about ideas and most of all, walking the ground to see how everything did last growing season. Made something easier to take care of for this coming growing season. Look and think beyond the current landscape and plantings and buildings into the future for 5, 10, 20 and 50 years if not more. Make big and little plans, short range and long range plans and keep notes of the good ideas

February -

Prune grapes and put grape cuttings into pots for next year's planting
Finish pruning all fruit and nut trees and pile brush for burning after it dries out
Plant perennials and trees
Plant native plants in fencerows and on property
Plant first lettuce towards end of month
Mow at least once if dry enough
Use sulphur and propane on any gopher activity. Better to do it now before the March gopher babies are born. Watch for the deep soil "chimneys" that come up above their larders.

March -

Finish planting all trees - next month is too late.
Plant perennials and shrubs; water in the plants
Weed like crazy and mulch beds right behind, prior to April flush of new growth
Mow grass, taking off no more than an inch per mowing if possible
Plant 2nd lettuce and begin planting other cool weather greens

April -

Weed more to try to get ahead of the May rush of growth
Burn fall and winter prunings under blue skies with white clouds going over - do not let pile sit over summer if possible
Finish all perennial plantings and water in each plant as it is planted
Plant more greens - lettuce goes into the ground every four weeks minimum through till October
Mow grass during any dry spell as it will easily get tall now
Test drip irrigation in the grapes and test sprinkler system. Irrigation begins in May.

Next four months coming soon

Kind of hot for Willamette Valley

2008-08-15T19:25:00.000-07:00

Top numbers are outside temp, then inside temp, then Time. Broke 100
today and tomorrow and the house just gets warmer every day. Cats have
turned to silly putty and everything is warm. Relief on Sunday.

Dripping the young table grapes in Rickreall

2008-08-13T14:31:00.000-07:00

Now we are dripping 4 gals per week per plant as we go through the normal late summer drought and the table grape plants want to quit growing. In June and July we were happy with two gallons per plant per week. Some of the plants are over 7 feet tall while others struggle to stay alive at 8".

10 things I want on my iphone & a few I don't care about

2008-08-10T11:53:00.000-07:00

After living for over a year with my first cell phone/pda/mobileWeb/portableGamingDevice/ipod/toy, there are STILL a few things I would like to have changed. Even with all the things this small device can do, I still find time to write about the things it Can't do.
So here goes.

Cut/Copy/Paste - Since there is so many different applications on my phone, a lot of time I want take some info from one thing and put it in another. Like copy a piece of text from a web page and place it in an email or copy something from an email and put it in some notes.
Voice command dialing - This really should be #1 on my list, cause of safety and all. Just say "Iphone Call Karen" and have it respond, even if I have to wake it up first or press a button twice. Even with a microphone, an customizable address book, a fast processor and 1000 apps available for downloading already, no one ..yet.. has a good working voice dialing program. I'm sure it's coming.
Custom icons and Themes - You can get hundreds of themes if you jailbreak your phone and having done that, I miss them in Apple's 2.01 version. Themes is about the only reason I would jailbreak my phone now that the AppStore is available. This feature probably has to come from Apple and I sure hope it comes soon. I miss being able to have different pictures on the icons and different (sometimes WAY different) backgrounds. This stuff is the fun stuff!
Sending appointments between phones - Karen and I both have iphones but for the life of me, we cannot get a reliable way to send the other an appointment. If we bought MobileMe and it worked, then we could (I think). We can't even sync our calendars on our Macs using iCal yet, for some reason, and don't get me started on google calendars or yahoo calendars. The last tools I used to sync them moved everyone's birthday back a day and reproduced appointments up to five times on the wrong day. Sigh.
Searching and/or Syncing notes - I bet someone, somewhere, is probably getting an application ready now to sell in the app store for doing this and I will be glad to buy it. Right now I email my notes to myself to keep them on my computer but there is no way to re-edit them or re-arrange the content for clarity.
Filming Videos - I know software is coming and none too soon. Even with the 2 megapixel lens, we were able to get good videos out of some jailbroken software. Wouldn't it be fun to be able to capture videos and save them/send them ?
View contacts as database - I have entered notes about most of my contacts; things I want to remember about individuals, companies, new friends, sites, forums, etc. Wouldn't it be great to be able to mine that information or at least re-order it. How about an application that at least displays that information on a 'sheet'? Better yet, one that allows me to edit the contact info and re-sync it to the phone.
Camera interface - pressing that tiny little icon to take a picture has caused me lots of heartaches. I love the fact that I have a camera on me all the time and have captured hundreds of shots that would have faded away but that tiny little button has got to be replaced. There is a jailbreak app that used the whole screen as a button and allowed tagging of photos. Now that would be appreciated.
Printing - OK, so it is a phone but with so much content and so much input, is it too much to ask it to send a wifi signal to my printer and put it on paper once in a while?
Info on unlock screen: A jailbreak application showed SMS, emails, RSS feeds, recent calls, etc on the unlock screen. This was awesome and allowed a one-click access to the most dynamic information on the device and I could customize it to what I wanted. It was a little buggy at times but really helped me use the phone.

There are so many truly fine things about my iphone, that I can't begin to list them. Among my favorites are the way the following things work on the phone: maps, texting, music, itunes, app store, photos, podcasts, videos, youtube, web pages as icons, sending calls to vmail, photos for contacts, games, drawing, SHAZAM!, twitter, wifi access, free custom ringtones with GarageBand and using the cell signal to get web content.

Some things I don't care about:

MMS - Never had it, never missed it. If I want to send someone an image or video, I use email. Heck, I can even email to their MMS account if they have one and can afford the message.
Non-removable battery - someday I might care but there will probably be a new 3g in my hands before this battery gives out and needs replacement.
Keyboard -I do fine with the touch keyboard and appreciate the ability to change the keyboard based on the application. If I have a lot of typing to do, I use my computer as it has a nice keyboard.
VOIP client - what the hay? I have spare minutes with all the calling I do, who needs Voice over IP to manage and deal with.
Not be on AT&T - Well, where we live, AT&T is fine. In fact, it beat sprint and a few other providers on previous cell phones. 3g is due here this summer so we might get even faster.
Stereo bluetooth - I haven't gone to bluetooth, much less heard stereo through it. No problem here with a few cables. In fact, I still think people look weird with those things in their ears, especially after decades of the Hearing Aid industry making their devices disappear.
Self facing camera - Huh? Most of the stuff I want pictures of, is in front of me, where I can see them. Why take a picture of behind me? Oh, you mean I want to send a photo of me... don't think so...

That should do it for now.

My Saturday work

2008-08-10T11:34:00.000-07:00

More wood, more work for someone. In this case, I spent a couple hours
cutting 18" oak rounds for a family at work that wanted to buy some
firewood. This is such fine oak firewood - dry, straight, uniform,
cracked, and just right for stoves.

Rev. Melville T Wire - #1

2007-10-05T21:06:00.000-07:00

BORING NOTICE - the following may bore many readers - BEWARE
Today (Oct 5th, 07) begins the first of many blogs on Melville T. Wire. Over the next few months, more postings will appear about this man, his art, his life and why this is important to me. There will be high resolution pictures of the works we have collected and many links to information available online. There will be pictures of Melville and his wife in our home, helping us celebrate family events. There will be references to other people's writings about him. If I am lucky enough, conversations might even begin with others who have even more to contribute.

A quick Google search for Melville T Wire gives only about 130 hits; Yahoo only shows 77 links. The biography at askart.com is quite incomplete, somewhat inaccurate. There is no entry (yet) in Wikipedia. It appears there is a gap. One of the outcomes of this work effort is to improve all sources of information about Melville T Wire.

An article about Melville in the Oregon Historical Society,Winter of 2004, has at least 34 references to other materials about Melville. This excellent article is a great introduction to the life and art of Melville and is one of the best places to begin. The authors, Ginny Allen and Gregory L Nelson, are both engaged in the discovery of Oregon historical art. They were instrumental in ensuring the first major art event honoring Melville Wire was a success. In 2005, the Willamette University Hallie Ford Museum of Art hosted a small exhibition of Melville Wire painting and it gave an excellent presentation of his life. It would be great to have that presentation be available through this blog.

Sometime between 2003 and 2004, Karen and I were browsing through the Portland Museum of Art. As we entered the area reserved for Northwest artists, the very first piece of art we saw- the first thing on the wall as we entered - was an etching by Melville Wire. I was so excited, I couldn't believe it at first. It was so cool! This was the first time I had seen something hung in a museum where I knew the artist and owned some of their works. Also we really value his work, especially the subject matter. It was that event that got us interested in Melville again.

More to come...

Bill's Bee Movie

2007-09-30T20:56:00.001-07:00

The past two summers a neighbor has kept 24 of his hives on our property most of the summer. We have come to enjoy the free honey in the late fall, especially the Meadowfoam honey - that stuff is so good and so different tasting from other honeys we get locally. He comes and goes, checking on the bees each week until one day in the late fall when they leave to go live in California with the Almonds. Too bad Filberts don't need bees.

The bees have water at the hives but apparently not enough. Our large plastic dog bowl is always swarming with thirsty bees, looking for something to drink. They can easily drink a couple gallons a day and luckily for them, the faucet above the drinking bowl leaks. The water causes another problem for the bees though - a lot of them are not good swimmers. So Karen and I carefully place large sticks in the water, strategically so the bees can climb up on the stick from most anywhere in the bowl, dry off and fly away. The sticks kept disappearing though or being found a few feet from the bowl. We kept accusing the other of removing the stick until the night I spied the raccoon drinking from the same bowl. Aha! I'm pretty sure he had to use his paws to drink - they seem to do everything with their paws - and the consensus is that she was the one removing the stick almost every night.

I took a video of the bees and posted it to Google.

iPhone 1.1.1 - seems fine to me

2007-09-30T20:23:00.000-07:00

Upgraded to 1.1.1 and all went fine for me - not so much for a lot of others apparently, especially those who customized their phone by jailbreaking it or siming it. I had done neither although I was about to go enjoy some of the 50 3rd party software out there, especially a task minder that sounded good and customizing the GUI by moving and replacing the buttons.

My 8gig works better than ever. The itunes button is awesome (like in Cool To Use, not like Beautiful) as I am so out of touch with newer music and this allows me to sample a whole boatload of different music styles whereever I can get wifi. It is so quick, even with out slow DSL at home. I click on a song and it IMMEDIATELY plays the first 30 seconds. So fast and so easy. I never really used an ipod much and find podcasts so enjoyable. The range of content is, well, global and the ease of listening will only get better when I get my headphones [Update: RIVET makes good headphones just for the iphone - jack plugs right in -10/11] for christmas (hint hint).

So I still love my iphone and still expect it to keep changing my life in subtle ways I did not expect. We now have all of our friends names and addresses and emails in one place instead of five which should help. It's not like we have hundreds of friends, but it is nice to know the number is bigger than 10.

What is my iphone? It is my watch, my camera, my phone, the home phone, my alarm clock, my light, my instant messager, my email box, my photo library, my movie library(I've watched Calum the Enchanter 15 times), my weather station, my maps, my friend finder, my radio, my link to music of all kinds, probably more that I can't think about. With all this, I find that I don't really want to show it off, as it's social patina is still too bright for a lot of people and it is still too much of a symbol of coolness.

45th and stable but the sun's in our eyes

2007-09-30T14:48:00.000-07:00

If we didn't live on the 45th parallel, I swear these things would never happen. Well, especially in the midwest where the roads run on the compass.

We feel like we live on the 45th parallel even though we know it is at least 10 miles north of us per the sign on I-5. However it is so close that we can be fooled on certain days. Take the Monday morning in mid-September as I headed off to work. On that day, it really seemed like it was the 45th parallel here.

You see, the 4 lane road I sometimes use goes directly East - no, really really directly East. And my day got me to the roadway just as the sun had crossed the horizon, directly in my face.There was only about 2 degrees of difference between the sun and road way.

As I got closer to town and the sun got up a little higher, there really wasn't much to see but Mr. Sol. My assumption was the road had not changed and was still straight, so I watched my review mirror to make sure it was right behind me. Sure enough, it stayed there and I ended up in town.

Had we been on the 4oth or even the 42nd, the sun would have been at an angle and all would have been different. And the same thing happens at sunset on the road - sun directly in your eyes on the equinox, assuming the sky is not covered in clouds, like usual.

Oregon on the equinox - I still love it.

September brings new grandson video

2007-09-01T18:00:00.000-07:00

Here's Calum using his feet as well as his hands - kind of monkey-like.

Click here to see Video on Google

That's it for now.

'nother iPhone Blog - something the world needs now

2007-08-26T21:10:00.000-07:00

I got a cell phone finally. Big deal to me and maybe soon to others. Years have past since the first time I saw someone talking without wires and years since Karen got her cell phone. I was not going to have one. I would remain free of the tethering; free of the conversations with strangers; free of interruptions to conversations with people one can touch.

Of course all along it was a matter of time before some device came out that pegged me with it's ability to do all the things I need - all the things that make me go find a computer. Almost got hooked on the Treo but no, not quite enough. Then it was the whole blackberry family that looked appetizing. But with that one, the screen seemed so small and so were the buttons. It is a fine phone thought with lots and lots of 3rd party stuff.

Then one day, Alan came by and said I should watch the Annual Apple conference and Mr. Jobs demo'd the iphone. I was hooked - I knew it and could do nothing about it. The best resistance I mustered was to wait two weeks after the release before plunking done the dough. In some kind of frugal (and futile too) gesture, we decided to transfer our landline number to the iPhone. That sure had unexpected outcomes - more on that bout of 14 phone calls with Quest later.

Now I spend some of my evenings reading about iphones, playing with getting my contacts into groups, wishing I had some way to hook up the iphone to my Groupwise calendar at work and generally having a hell of a good time. Having the iphone made me discover:

the wonderful world of podcasts
the beauty of a movie on a 3" screen
the awesomeness of having maps interact with the phone and the web
the ability to listen to my old tapes, albums, CD, cassettes, etc at any time, anywhere
watching stock pricess for the first time on a daily basis
realizing that the weather in New Orleans really is horrible in the summer
finding that I have phone numbers of over 200 people
finding that when I put contacts into groups, I have over 34 friends (not so many really)
texting for the first time and lovin it for it's simplicity and ease of use
setting reminders every day to get myself on time
etc, etc, etc

The most wondrous thing about the iphone is really the thing that any phone, even the "10 button just a dial tone phone for old people" has - a way to reach out to more people more often.

Perhaps this too was strange...

2007-05-02T21:02:00.000-07:00

To get to the point of this short tale, you have to come along with me for a while and get a feeling for my day. It won't take long, as I seem to leave most of my stories between my brain and the keyboard, expecting the reader to fill in the missing pieces. Someday I will reread before publishing...

Anyway, the day started with rain and strong winds, making me glad that I had tarped my pickup before going in last night. It was jammed with booty for the dump. Everything from drywall to old shock absorbers to shreds of clothing worn by members of my family no longer living.

You see, there was this place in the family barn where my parents "put stuff". Yesterday was the 2nd stage of cleaning this area in anticipation of rebuilding this part of the barn. This part of the barn is fairly open to the elements but dry enough to stop most rot and allow only a little rust. It is the 2nd floor, kind of a mezzanine sort of affair. Unfortunately this area was also very open to someone tresspassing in our barn, something that a lot of cherry pickers and renters had done over the last few decades. So things got broken, disappeared and were scattered from their original boxes. No one seemed to care. This spring, as we looked through the contents, we only found junk - oh look, a whole album of 331/3 Sachmo records - only to find them all broken into many pieces. There was a very cool suitcase that bees had been living in for many years - it still remains in the barn and should be in a museum.

Anyway, almost all of that stuff got in the truck and today it was going to the Marion County dump. After arriving at the dump, while I was removing my tie downs and straps so I can remove the required tarp, I watched a middle-aged woman attempt to backup her SUV with a trailer full of trimmings. She was so not going to be successful. Oh so many people cannot back up - to me, it is not even nice to watch someone failing to backup, the suffering is so great. Just as I got my tarp off and was about to go offer my services, another gentleman offered assistance. And lordy, I don't think he had backed up anything before...

As I pulled out old stationary bikes, bike frames, broken pottery, shredded clothing and broken glass, there were no surprises (I had loaded it after all...), it was satisfying to throw them in the pit. The dry wall was on the bottom, beneath the 50# mirror that we got from Randall's dad, Lefty, for some reason. I had just got the last piece of drywall in the pit and was picking up pieces and a small picture frame came to my attention. It was about 2"x3" as I turned it over, I found inside a perfectly preserved picture of me, just prior to graduating from high school.. Cool! a find! although I did happen to still have the same picture and in fact still have the high school album that it was taken for but still, it was in good shape and a find. Here it is:

Thinking that was about it, I picked up some broken glass, a few this and thats and then picked up the last piece of paper, turned it over to find another picture of me. This picture shows me sitting in a rocking chair, a chair currently in my living room. It was probably taken when I was 12 or so. I have no memory of this picture and probably have never seen it before but now I have it. Curious.

This was a very nice day

2007-04-22T22:38:00.000-07:00

It started early, somewhere around 6am when I awoke from a pleasing dream. The light was strong outside and the sun was a tryin' to get here. As usual, the three boys were waiting at the bottom of the stairs, talking about their dreams and their excitement in starting a new day too. Of course they get fed first and then I washed up and dressed in the hallway. Good day to wear my new shirt I decided and as I get ready for bed, that was a great choice. It's one of those loggers pullover shirts with the zipper about half way down and heavy fabric and long tails. Leave it out of the jeans cause it is long enough to sit on.

Since I had bacon and eggs yesterday, today seemed like a yogurt, juice and pineapple morning with just a bite or two of that great meatloaf that Roth's makes. Nothing like cold meat loaf to help the day get going. It is good to chow it slowly though. Oh yea, needed a glass of water too.

The paper did not hold much interest for me this morning. I decided to read it later if there was time. The comics did catch my eye though and for once For Better Or Worse pulled my heart strings with thoughts of Karen. In this strip, the father comes into the room, says nothing, gives his wife a big kiss and then says "it is you I love" and leaves. Such a nice moment and in a cheesy comic strip.

Before much else could happen, I was outside looking for stuff to change. I weeded here and there, walked around the place and noticed the dew was leaving the grass and it was going to be a great day. Somewhere around noon, a neighbor's alarm went off and did not stop. Thinking it might be something I could help with, I left to investigate. It was Jensen's - Bill took off on a Sunday drive with Christine and no one knew their number. Talked to Keith and Joanie some - Joanie said it was my day for Aspargas! My first! Keith is doing fine and the visit reminded me of how much we are like them - similar tastes, similar values, similar chioces. Just can't seem to get close to them.

After eating a fine lunch of meatloaf sandwich stuffed with lettuce, it was off on the mower for a few hours only to be driven back to the barn around 4 or so. Gave me a chance to do some barn cleaning and sweeping - no limit to the work that shop can use - and some more pruning on that bird planted apple tree by the shop. Off to Joanie and Smitty's to get the Aspagas - it was all picked and everything. Such a treat. Smitty showed me where the patch was and how to get it in shape. He just bought a fork lift - such a convenient thing. Then the sun broke through again and back on the mower till 7pm. Such great fun although the grass is a little tall. It is so hard to keep up with five acres of mowing this time of year.

Dinner was excellent - best there was since K left. Aspargas cooked just right, a huge salad with mixed greens and carrots and all the stuff that makes a salad good, a little satchel of meatloaf (almost gone now) and a big bowl of tomato soup. Very pleasing dinner and then I watched "The Lake House " - kind of sappy and definitely a chic flick but still worth the hour. The best part of the evening is sitting on the couch with the three boys snoozing around me. They have learned how to get along here without complaining and ever so often have to be bad to get a little attention. Lately the 'badness' has been in emptying pieces of paper out of small waste baskets - something I find amusing and certainly tolerable. I mean, if that is as bad as they need to be, then I can certainly put up with it.

And now to bed.

Lets celebrate - the vineyard is planted

2007-03-18T07:08:00.000-07:00

Well, it is almost all planted. There was quite a tussle when Karen remembered that Emmy Domes wanted tight bunched red grapes and set aside two plants for her. Ryan and I and Jaden thought she should just wait but knew Karen was right. Also you see, the row we were planted needed at least six more plants to get done and removing these two ... well, it just didn't seem right.

And when we were done, we had over 72 new young plants in the ground. What made it so much fun was that Karen was so into it, Ryan and Jaden made sure they were there with their shovels and can-do attitude, I was almost over my cold/flu thing, the day was wondrously beautiful, the ground was ready, it was about the last weekend we could plant without being crazy late with planting and, and, and - everything was a few degrees past fine!

We still have to do a lot of stuff this spring, like get wire and anchors and dig holes and put in the black locust posts we cut (more on that later), prune the old grapes so we have more stock for next spring planting, water in the plants, put straw on the last row, etc.

By taking this piece of ground in hand and changing it in 06-07, we created another set of stories, another family memory, another thing to take care of as much as we want and something for someone in the future to remove and renew or enjoy and maintain.

What were the blue things on his tie?

2007-01-10T21:19:00.000-08:00

All during the "speech to the nation" tonight, I couldn't stop looking at George's blue tie and wondering what the symbols were. Could they be some symbol that only Republicans can understand - that everything is alright really - or some symbol that only terrorists can understand, some hidden message like "bring it on" in terrorist symbols. Or could they be symbols that only millionaires understand, one of the secret symbols of the millionaire club. I may never know.

The yellow plug

2007-01-08T20:55:00.000-08:00

Today was the day and here is why. I got the yellow oil plug for my chainsaw and can return to the profane task of cutting wood - something I find incredibly important and substantial, something that gives me strong feelings of accomplishment, something that makes me feel worthy in a very fundamental way. The chain saw is pretty crude really when you look at it, something devised in the early days of motors and really not improved substantially in design. Perhaps this description of some events in the last few days will help in explanation...

During all the days spent away from the office cutting wood and working on the barn and piling sticks and talking with neighbors, insurance agents and so forth, I had really no problem that couldn't solved within minutes. Everything that was in front of me had alternatives and it was simply a matter of making up my mind, finding out if anyone else cared and moving forward. No documentation, no meetings, no emails, no waiting for approval or discussion and certainly no 'lets wait and see' stuff going on. We just did what needed to be done and moved on. Sometimes I wondered if anyone else cared what decisions we made about our shared property but most every time that happened, we
remembered that everyone else was relying on us to not only decide, but to make it happen. So it just moved forward and things got done.

Then one day, during my away from the office time, I had to sit in on a big meeting, set to decide how one state agency would work with another state agency on a fairly simple matter. For one hour, 10 people sat around a table and discussed what had been under discussion for months and lo and behold, no decision was reached. No one had any thing assigned to them, no one seemed to feel like they were wasting time cause they were representing a lot of interests and were very responsible for the tax payers dollars and wanted to make the right decision... so nothing was done.

What a difference for me to go through the week on my own, moving forward through problem after problem, some very difficult and some simple and then wasting this hour listening to people not decide anything. It was really difficult not to have strong emotions about it all.

Not surprising that self-employment would provide an easier place for decision making than state government - wouldn't have to have too much of an education to figure that one out.

X times Pictures = y times words : solve for z

2006-11-19T09:34:00.000-08:00

The sky - Is it like a blanket or more like a coverlet or perhaps even a quilt? The fall cloud cover in the Willamette Valley in Oregon starts on the first day of November and begins to lift finally sometime in March. None of those weeks of winter are as brillant as the winter days like back East. Sometimes an entire month will go by without seeing the sun or even shadows. Everything seems to have a dullness about it.

So when the sun broke through briefly in November of 'o6, out came the Olympus C740 and this link will take you to the online album. Pictures by Karen!

A couple samples from the album:

Piles burning for you and for me

2006-11-10T23:21:00.001-08:00

When we first moved onto the farm, I couldn't plant enough trees. Fruit trees, nut trees, tall trees, short trees, blue trees, white trees, firewood trees, foreign trees,.. no tree seemed outside the bounds of our small farm. So when this last winter we decided to take out most of our fruit orchard to plant table grapes, a whole lot of stuff needed to be decided but most of all, it was saying goodbye to the trees.

We tagged a tree for removal, and then changed our minds, re-tagged, talked and thought about what piece of ground should be in table grapes and which trees should remain. Was it just productivity and good fruit that kept them or was it memories of animals, family, neighbors and strangers enjoying them. We finally decided; we waited for that day in the spring when the ground was still soft enough for the roots to pull, before the leaves came out but not before the ground was too soft from the massive winter rains. We wanted the tractor to not leave marks or dig holes in the earth as it pulled.

After living here for over 40 years, we guessed within a week as to when that day would arrive in the spring. Out come old Johnnie and the chains and as Karen wrapped the chain around the first 16" trunk of an apple tree, I eased backed on the emotions and slowly let out the clutch and over it came. One after another, the 35 year old fruit trees, little sticks we had planted ourselves, came out and were pulled to the middle.

In October after the first rains, we burned the pile. The flames look like fall leaves. Four trees remain.

Now we are pacing out the rows of table grape plants, visiting neighbor vineyards and sneaking out and measuring the distance between plants and taking pictures of their post and wire setups.

And the trunks of the fruit trees are cut and stacked in the woodlot, under tarps. Next fall they move to the woodshed and become heat for the cold and wet days of next winter.

Damn the speed, full torpedos for everyone!

2006-11-10T14:30:00.000-08:00

Once again, we begin the fun.

Today the leaves needed raking and the nuts were trapped by the grass. With some persistence, they are now in the places I want them, instead of where I don't. The rain was coming down pretty hard but that didn't stop the sweat. In Oregon - in the Northern Willamette Valley - the rains comes in November and leaves in May. In between, we worship the tiny little drops.