The Amish do it, after all. Somehow, wet laundry hung out to dry in below-freezing temperatures still manages to dry.
Often a piece is already stiff before it’s fully pinned to the line.
The clean clothes and linens come in smelling heavenly sweet.
It’s always a fun time
For those of you living in New Hampshire or southern Maine, here’s an invitation to Dover Friends’ annual Arts & Letters event now rescheduled for 2 pm Saturday, March 18.
It’s one way to sample the local Quaker community as members of all ages display their artistic talents, from painting, drawing, weaving, and photography to original music, poetry, and fiction, perhaps even dance or furniture-making.
The mix each year is different. I remember our amazement when we first saw the museum-quality quilts a newly retired English teacher had begun creating as well as the array of Sculpey figures one of the kids produced. The afternoon even includes a potluck, billed as culinary arts.
The historic meetinghouse is at 141 Central Avenue, just south of the downtown.
Cheers!
Deer tracks in fresh snow
They had an active night, as seen from our kitchen window.
What’s off with Microsoft’s log-in algorithm?
You know, the changing photo that keeps appearing when you log in. The calculations have no idea, really, of what I like or don’t. My sensibilities are far more complicated than its simple “mountains” or “seashores” calculus.
In one photo, for instance, a single bright-colored backpack at the bottom of the scene threw off the entire wilderness message. It looked like trash. That sort of thing. I didn’t like the particular photo for that reason, but I loved the bigger landscape.
It’s like living with a painting and one day you finally observe something that becomes a flaw. You loved it up to that point. And then?
It’s a binary switch rather than a scale of one-to-ten.
For now, I’m finding some comfort in that, sensing they still aren’t outsmarting me.
Beware of the snakes
WALDEN POND. IT’S DEEP WINTER, with a good two feet of snow on the ground. My thoughts turn to logistics: getting there from the town, what books and projects I’ll be taking, what food and cooking gear (if any) I should pack.
The prospect is liberating and exciting – an invitation to get down to some Real Work.
I’VE BEEN OFF SOMEWHERE and am returning with a friend as we come over the crest of a hill and look down to a very green meadow. A figure runs across the field. A moose? Or a horse? But a very full tail follows, and then I realize it’s a giant squirrel.
No wonder I awaken!
WAS SOMEHOW VISITING BROWN, a small group somehow in a social setting when we “went out back” to see is latest work. (This is where the dream picks up:) Not at his house and farm in Berwick, but rather beside the sea or a large gray lake. It’s a former industrial site, and he leads us into a large half-shell, somewhat like the Hatch Shell along the Charles except this has large piles of dirt inside, the kind that have been moved about by bulldozers. The shell is surfaced in rough concrete, and this is what he’s been painting on. Another person tells me Brown’s been doing very little of the painting these days but has others, including Mennonites, as apprentices who are doing much of the work he envisions. It’s largely gray, with some red and yellow. Brown tells me he’ll never be finished with this project and has no intention to.
We step back and the structure is no longer open to the air but rather goes back like a large Quonset hut or airplane hangar with office cubicles along the floor. This time, much of the surface is salmon or pinkish. What’s happening overhead is quite incredible, a contemporary Sistine Chapel. I retreat to a far corner to sit down to take it all in. Brown approves of my move with a nod or a wink.
In the final tableau, I’m outside in open ponderosa and see three typewriters in the sagebrush or palmetto. Warily, watching for rattlesnakes, I step out to get one in order to finish some project we’re engaged in. That’s when I notice the IBM Selectric II in a taupe shade. Before I can retrieve it, a stiletto-heeled secretary in black hosiery approaches to say, in effect, keep my hands off. As I retreat, something drops from a tree onto my neck and shoulders. I’m trying to brush the snake off as I awaken.
So here’s the poster
Here’s how the organizers of tomorrow night’s program are touting the event:
I’m so psyched!
Not that I see anyone using theirs
I always wondered about the practicality of outdoor window shutters, which were a staple on old houses, even back in the Midwest.
Now that I’m living along a coast that for months has had small-craft or gale warnings in our forecasts seemingly daily, the appendages make a lot more sense. They’re not just decorative. Objects blow about like projectiles, for sure, but more than that, a layer that breaks the icy wind before it slams up against the glass panes and worms through the sash into the house definitely adds some relief.
Of course, our Cape has only one remaining shutter, and it’s too small for the window beside it. Purely decorative, it’s nailed securely to the siding. Hopefully, it provides some extra insulation there.
Another promising start
We’re in the midst of a quiet but widespread labor strike
The so-called “worker shortage” needs to have a new label, along with a clearer perspective. In too many ways, that “explanation” often comes down to blaming the victim, with its sense that people who are unemployed are lazy.
Not that those bandying the charge would accept the conditions of those “help wanted” positions. You know, the “entry-level” openings that are really no-respect, dead-end drudgery and require “reliable transportation” on late nights and weekends at minimum wage. Sorry, it doesn’t add up.
Or the plight of the long-haul independent truckers who are burdened by the costs of their rigs and the long hours away from their homes and families. As many of them age, they’re hanging it up and nobody’s stepping into the trap. Well, that’s one aspect of the “supply-chain problems” we’re encountering.
And then we should also admit the number of people who are simply unemployable today, sometimes for medical, mental, or emotional conditions.
What we’re seeing is a confluence of long-simmering problems finally erupting in the aftermath of Covid.
The health-care system is a prime example, far more complicated than we dare get into here. But Europe seems to train its doctors at less cost and in less time than we do in the USA, and there are arguments that primary-care physicians are capable of delivering much that we’re turning over to costly specialists. Much of the staff, meanwhile, has minimal health benefits, if any.
Wages adjusted for inflation have been declining for decades.
Breaking the unions has been a factor, along with company expectations of 24/7 availability plus worker loyalty without extending reciprocal security.
Keeping stores open seven days a week, by the way, is a relatively new custom. It does add to the low-pay “help wanted” slots.
At the core, what workers are selling is their time is exchange for something, not all of it money. They’re finding that many jobs aren’t worth the cost to them once child care, transportation, clothing, and the like are factored in.
There’s also the trap of being pitted against lower paid labor elsewhere (not just China) without reaping any of the profits from higher productivity here, which has been ballooning in the wealth of the superrich but definitely not trickling down.
One of the surprises has been the number of workers in their 50s who have been dropping out, especially males. Perhaps they’re working on their own “under the table,” but many have simply “had it” with the drag. Work, from what I’ve too often seen, no longer earns any respect. And the traditional work ethic carries an unwritten requirement of being paid a livable wage in exchange. Again, it’s not adding up.
Has anyone connected crackdowns on undocumented residents and their being deported with the shortages? These were the invisible workforce that was sustaining so much of the economy. As I was saying about respect?
Posts on my Chicken Farmer blog examine work and jobs in much more detail from a personal level.
From that perspective, I’d say we’re encountering a free-market reaction to low pay and unrewarding employment situations. This one-by-one, “disorganized labor” job action will be much more difficult to address than the traditional sitting down at a negotiating table and emerging with a new contract.
Is anybody even talking about the big picture here? I’d like to know.
Not all firewood provides the proper heat
Living in places where firewood is readily available – unlike, say, Manhattan or the Arctic Circle – has made it relatively affordable to heat by a wood-burning stove, at least when we’ve had one. (Let me repeat, it’s high on our renovations and home improvement list.)
OK, my Eagle Scout training left me quite aware that green wood – that is, freshly cut – burns inefficiently, unlike wood that’s had time for the sap and related moisture to dry out. That said, here are some other points.
- Seasoning can take as little as six months, though old-timers prefer at least a full year. Or more, if stacked in a way that allows sufficient circulation to avoid rot and fungus.
- Softwoods – generally conifers like pine, juniper, spruce, and cedar but also including poplars – ignite easily and burn hot, but they don’t blaze long. They also have a lot of creosote, which will need to be cleaned from the chimney as a housefire hazard.
- Hardwoods – maple, oak, hickory, ash, and birch – are denser and burn slower and longer, and while they release less immediate heat, there’s also less smoke and they add up as a layer of radiantly hot coals.
- All firewood has creosote, so annual chimney cleaning is recommended. Some sources say every two cords. Chimney fires are especially vicious.
- In colonial New England, a house typically required 40 cords or more of firewood a year. Imagine cutting, splitting, and stacking all that – even before bringing it indoors.
- Salvaged wood – such as lumber, poles, and fencing – often contain preservatives that release hazardous vapors as they burn.
- Destructive insects and plant diseases can be spread when transporting firewood more than a few miles from its source. That’s why it’s illegal to import firewood into Maine. Now I’m wondering about the guys from Maine who delivered to our house in New Hampshire.
- A cord is a stack 4-by-4-by-8 feet of standard 16-inch wood. Many stoves, though, require a shorter log.
- Do you really get a full cord when it’s delivered? I’ll spare you some old jokes.
- Favorite woods include apple and tamarack/larch, both for their aroma and a clean burn that leaves little ash.
As for air pollution? I really don’t want to go there. It could be a Tendril all its own, once we find the right tech geek to sift through the varied reports.
Jnana's Red Barn 