Living in the Woods

Somewhere along the timeline of my life, I got the idea of living in the North Woods. I don’t know how or why the idea came to me. Perhaps it was some hidden influence from a literature class about Henry David Thoreau and his eloquence in describing his 2-year stint of living in the woods along Walden Pond. 

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.” – Henry D. Thoreau

Maybe it was not Thoreau, but someone much closer to Roscommon like Marguerite Gahagan, a local scribe who ran a newspaper, The North Woods Call. She earned a fair living writing about the woods and environmental issues. She spent her last years in Roscommon living in the woods, writing about her favorite things; little critters from the woods who came to her door in search of handouts that she happily furnished.

Marguerite Mary Gahagan (June 22, 1907 – January 4, 1997) was an award-winning journalist, author, and conservationist. She wrote, edited and published The Northwoods Call, a weekly newspaper that became an influential conservation publication across Michigan. Marguerite took the approach of an investigative journalist, reporting on environmental issues in Michigan. She operated the paper by herself for nearly 16 years, being recognized by Time Magazine, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Association for Women in Communications. This legacy continues in the form of Marguerite Gahagan Nature Preserve, located at Marguerite's former estate in Roscommon, Michigan.

Whatever the reason, I ended up in the woods in Roscommon, drawn to its beauty as typified by its colorful lakes, rivers and woods that dot the county like spots on a leopard. Everywhere in the county we are no more than five miles from a body of water, so says our tourist information.

When I first moved here, I didn’t know too much about living in the woods. I didn’t know about black flies and how these tiny critters make a living out of bedeviling humans. These are the ones who sneak under your socks to suck your blood, leaving behind a poison that causes swelling and terrific itching. After moving to Roscommon, I quickly learned that black flies are just the prelude to the real punishment that begins with the maturation of their friends and neighbors, mosquitoes. Big, black ones who specialize in attacking us unwitting humans who dare set foot in THEIR woods. They are so big that, if you could catch ‘em alive, you could saddle ‘em and charge money for rides. I bet that neither Thoreau nor Marguerite wrote about these flying devils. 

Shortly after bug season gets in full flower, pollen season starts. In my area of the woods, you wake up one morning to find a layer of fine yellow dust on everything you own that sits outdoors. Your beloved outdoor hammock or lounge chair is suddenly coated with dust that becomes slimy when wet and crusty when dry. The porch, window frames, and all other horizontal surfaces become similarly coated. There is not much point in cleaning it up, because you’ll have the same thing again tomorrow. The amount of the yellow dust slowly begins to diminish after a few weeks and becomes only a distant memory providing that the wife cleans everything before company arrives in late spring.

One of the good things about this time of year is the spring equinox – the date that the sun provides the most hours of sunlight during the entire year. Even though the bugs are bad in the spring, on June 21 we get nearly 16 hours of sunlight as the sun rises around 6 AM and sets after 9:30 PM. ‘Course, you can’t go outdoors to see either event cause the bugs are too bad at those times.

Hard upon the last gasps of the yellow pollen snowfall is the coming of late spring snowfall. Not the winter kind – the spring kind where our many cotton-wood trees drop their seeds that float through the air in their cocoons of cotton, landing on every surface that the wife just cleaned of the nasty yellow pollen. Even the tall weeds and recalcitrant flowers in your gardens that have been unattended because of your seasonal allergies get coated with cotton. This year, the cotton was so pervasive that I found myself suddenly wishing for pollen instead of cottonwood snow on everything. A shudder of revulsion is the appropriate response here. One would begin to question my choice of the woods were it not for the birds.

Ahh the birds. All the nastiness of spring is forgiven with the arrival of our migrant birds beginning in early spring and extending until summer begins. In earliest spring we begin to hear the colorful notes of Trumpeter Swans at the river along with the unmistakable gurgle of Sandhill Cranes flying low overhead as they search for a resting place during their migration or settle in one of the close by fields making it a summer habitat for long-legged birds.

Medium-sized and smaller birds also add their color and songs to our neighborhood. My personal favorites are the barred owls who inhabit our swampy woods and place their telephone calls at any time day or night asking the same question over and over, “Who cooks for you?” If you listen carefully, most times you will be rewarded with an answering call from a distant owl. The answer is haunting especially at night as the eerie melodic answer comes floating back on the cool night air. ‘I don’t know,’ “Who cooks for you?” These birds are easy to fool. Many times, they will answer me as I add my shouted rendition about cooking to their monotonous conversations.

Just now our bird feeders are featuring the daily display of an especially colorful neighborhood resident, an Evening Grosbeak and his family. He is large enough to match wits with our equally colorful but more common blue jays who often spar with the grosbeaks for an available spot at the feeders.

And so it is. The hardships of life in the North Woods are balanced against its pleasures. I now realize that neither Thoreau nor Gahagan were influential in my decision in moving here since I am neither able nor willing to construct 100 word sentences as Thoreau did, nor earn a salary of any measurable sort by provocative writing as did our resident and well-known naturalist Marguerite Gagahan. But I can watch the birds and enjoy our magnificent surroundings.  It is quite enough. 

 

What sort of tyrants are these?

What manner of tyrants have we put in charge of our federal government who can rip apart families that are convicted of being illegal aliens? Border agents are separating children from their terrorized parents including those who are seeking asylum from violence at home. Most of these parents come to us as a last resort for their own survival and to improve the lives of their children. If they are captured at the border or found by ICE and convicted of being an illegal alien, their children are incarcerated, and the parents are deported; most expecting that they will never again see their children.

The tape recordings from the prisons that our border patrol agents use to incarcerate alien children give proof of the Gestapo-like practices that are being thrust on those who come to the United States illegally. Most come in the mistaken belief that we still live up to the promise inscribed on our statue of liberty. 

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Our current government leaders have no intention of welcoming immigrants nor of following past practices regards immigration unless the immigrants are wealthy, white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Our President and Attorney General have created a policy they call Zero Tolerance. It is directed at those who look different than them and/or believe in a different religion. Crossing our border illegally is a misdemeanor. Under Zero Tolerance the penalty for this misdemeanor offense is to take their children away from them and then separately deport the parents without providing any information about their children. This penalty may impose a life sentence of suffering on innocent children according to physicians who are familiar with the effects of the psychological stress of separation. Can we stand by as innocent children are put in cages in America? It is a draconian punishment for something they have no control over.

The leaders who have directed this practice at our borders and those who implement this harshest of all penalties, should be ashamed. This practice cannot stand. If our current leaders cannot change this policy, we must change our leaders.  

Some Surprising Things About Electronic Gadgets

Some Surprising Things About Electronic Gadgets . . . (that you should probably learn)

Some of us spend a surprising amount of time using electronic gadgets. Inevitably, after a few years use, we find that the old things just don’t satisfy our needs and we feel obligated to buy new ones. Then comes a decision – figuring out how to dispose of the outdated gadgets. For some – it’s simple, toss it in the garbage bin. For others like me, it’s a big problem. The size of the problem was driven home after I spent the largest part of today helping to recycle the darned things. The occasion of my labor was our county’s twice-yearly Household Hazardous Waste collection program where two other volunteers and I had the job of carrying unwanted electronic gadgets from resident’s cars to a series of collection boxes and pallets for ultimate recycling. We sorted, carried, and then stacked the unwanted things on one of the two dozen pallets and an equal number of large cardboard boxes that had been designated for the collection. The county’s organizers of the event provided the boxes and pallets for stacking the televisions, telephones, computers, printers and a wide assortment of other electronics. They provided space for the things based on the number of devices collected last fall. This year, the number of boxes and pallets provided were too few by half as the number of thrown-away gadgets vastly exceeded last year’s take.

Although the program was slated to begin at 9:00 AM this morning, I found two vehicles waiting in line as I arrived around 8:30 AM. Those first two dropped off a dozen televisions along with several old computers. That was the beginning and it continued most of the day. It seems that we love our electronic gadgets, but only for a limited time as the size of this year’s collection included at least one old radio console, dozens and dozens of vacuum tube televisions, and scores of the more modern flat screen TV’s, computer monitors, and laptops not to mention DVD’s and a wide assortment of printers, modems and other electronics. By day’s end our drive-through garage was full to overflowing.

Our county recycling program collects resident’s unwanted electronic devices for recycling in an ongoing effort to avoid having the unwanted devices end up in our dwindling landfill space. E-waste, as it is sometimes called, is a growing problem across the nation as the electronics industry continues to pack their products with hazardous materials that none of us want in the ground anywhere near where we live. Toxic heavy metals, such as lead, mercury, cadmium and beryllium are common to electronic devices with smaller amounts of copper, silver and even gold found in some devices. The gadgets are a nightmare to recycle. Containing hundreds and sometimes thousands of parts, the materials can be recycled but they are a bugger to get at as they are small and accessible only after complete disassembly with their myriad fastening systems keeping them in place.

Handling unwanted waste is not a new problem. The most egregious example of the problem occurred some years ago as the City of Philadelphia tried to deal with 14,000 tons of ash that was generated after the city incinerated its waste.  They contracted with a shipper who planned to transport the ash by ship and then dump it in the Bahamas. The Bahamian Government refused to allow the ship to enter their port. The ship then tried the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Panama, finally getting permission to dump 4,000 pounds of ‘topsoil fertilizer’ in Haiti. The Haitians got wise to the scheme, but the ship slipped out of the harbor before that part of the ash could be reloaded. The ship next went to Europe to find some other place to dump the remaining 10,000 pounds of ash, changing the ship’s name several times in an effort to hide the cargo identity. Finally, the ship left Europe to return to the United States, illegally dumping the ash into the Indian Ocean while enroute. Ahh, the rigors of handling unwanted waste.

The US followed by China are the world’s largest generators of E-waste. It has been reported that 40 million tons of E-waste was generated in the US in 2011 but something over 90 million tons was generated a mere five years later. Where is all that waste going? Sadly, many consumers pitch old TV’s and computers into the garbage where it ends up in a landfill, silently waiting for our children and grandchildren to deal with it. Estimates vary, but some say 70% of E-waste currently ends up in landfills.

The EPA seems unable to deal effectively with the issue especially with the current administration and its bent towards de-regulation. Individual states have taken up the issue instead. Some 25 state legislatures, including Michigan, have adopted legislation covering E-waste, but even those that have rules seem to have little effect as I see many of my neighbors leaving old TV’s at the curbside for the garbage man to pick up. The obvious solution to today’s E-waste problem is to recycle and I urge everyone to participate. I plan to volunteer again this fall in helping collect the old stuff so that I can enjoy my electronic gadgets without feeling guilty about disposing of them. Maybe I’ll see you there.  

The US followed by China are the world’s largest generators of E-waste. It has been reported that 40 million tons of E-waste was generated in the US in 2011 but something over 90 million tons was generated a mere five years later. Where is all that waste going? Sadly, many consumers pitch old TV’s and computers into the garbage where it ends up in a landfill, silently waiting for our children and grandchildren to deal with it. Estimates vary, but some say 70% of E-waste currently ends up in landfills.

The EPA seems unable to deal effectively with the issue especially with the current administration and its bent towards de-regulation. Individual states have taken up the issue instead. Some 25 state legislatures, including Michigan, have adopted legislation covering E-waste, but even those that have rules seem to have little effect as I see many of my neighbors leaving old TV’s at the curbside for the garbage man to pick up. The obvious solution to today’s E-waste problem is to recycle and I urge everyone to participate. I plan to volunteer again this fall in helping collect the old stuff so that I can enjoy my electronic gadgets without feeling guilty about disposing of them. Maybe I’ll see you there.  

A New Read

A New Read

Just in time for your summer read – a new book from  . . . Me. Available at Roscommon library, me, or Amazon.com.

The book is “Uncle Charley,” the story of a notorious relative from the Tudor clan who sampled life at both ends of the legal spectrum during Prohibition and the Roaring Twenties.

Here is a sampling from the opening chapter.

Uncle Charley

William Tudor

A biographical novel detailing the remarkable story of a man’s struggle to overcome obstacles thrown his way in the first half of the 20^th century. Despite hard times, racist attitudes, and the problems of Prohibition, he persevered and thrived beyond the expectations of his entire family, including those he loved and those who loved him.

Part 1

“Sometimes you’ve got to run away from home to get there”

Stephanie Zacharek, journalist

1

Billy

Thanksgiving at Grandma’s house was a big deal for a kid like me growing up in the small town of Bluffton, Indiana. This year it was especially big – Uncle Charley was visiting, probably the first time in several years. Grandma said a large part of the family would be gathering for this year’s big dinner at her farmhouse. Because of Uncle Charley, I wanted to be at Grandma’s early in the morning, but Mom said no, that I’d just be in the way. “Grandma is working hard in preparing our dinner,” she said, “and besides, Grandma’s sister Goldie and her husband Willard is at Grandma’s house and that is enough what with Charley there.”

I moped around until she finally relented, about 10 AM Thanksgiving morning. But, the bad news was, Mom said I had to take Linda with me. I wasn’t too happy about taking my little snot-nosed sister anywhere, especially since I wanted to spy on Uncle Charley. Alone.

My sister and I walked down the alley and across the street to Grandma’s farmhouse at the edge of town. When we opened the door to the back porch, Grandma was just inside the door wearing her ever-present apron, leaning over her big black-iron fry pan.

“Billy,” she said. “I was hoping you’d come soon.”

It was warm in her back porch even though it was unheated. Her iron skillet was hot and steam was clouding the air from another pan as well. The entire porch smelled like bacon, courtesy of hot lard that sizzled as it escaped the heat of the pan. I could barely make out Grandma’s words over the noise. Aunt Goldie was also in the porch, layering pieces of chicken with a flour and egg mixture that was transformed into a golden-brown crust as my Grandma Nellie turned the meat from side to side in the hot grease.

Grandma Nellie was nothing if not careful about having enough food. She had a pile of chicken beside her but there was still another, even larger pile yet to be fried. She had pulled out all the stops on this important day with green beans, mashed potatoes, home-made noodles, pickled beets, salads, homemade bread and desserts that I hadn’t yet seen. My Grandma liked fried chicken. I thought it was awful how she had to kill one or two of her chickens at every holiday.

“I was hoping you’d be here ‘cause I could use your help.” Grandma said. I puffed up as I knew my sister had heard. “I need you to feed my chickens,” she said. I deflated. She handed me a galvanized bucket of potato peels and other food scraps from her morning’s work. I retraced my steps out the back door and headed toward the large chicken coop and the adjacent pen as my sister disappeared, as usual, leaving the work to me.

Feed the chickens. Double darn. Those nasty birds would be attacking me as soon as I entered their pen. Maybe they would leave me alone this time, I thought. No such luck. The ugly white leghorns must have known I was coming as six or seven attacked my ankles as soon as I let myself in the gate. I hurried, hoping to outrace them. As soon as I could, I lifted the bucket to shoulder height, tipped it forward and then spun in a circle, tossing the scraps in a large arc. With a smug grin, I noticed that I had smacked two or three of the running hens with several flying potato peels. It made the job almost enjoyable. I snuck out as the birds attacked the food bonanza.

Grandma replaced the empty galvanized bucket in its place against the wall in the back porch.

 “Is Uncle Charley about?” I asked.

“No, he and the other men took the truck. They went to see the old farmhouse where Uncle Charley lived when the family first came to Bluffton. I reckon they’ll be back soon enough.”

Grandma must have sensed I didn’t know what to do since there was no one for me to play with or talk to. “Why don’t you go give the calf a handful of corn and then open the gate to the pasture field. You can curry her also, if you want to,” she said, knowing that I liked the latest of their young cows. I nodded my head and left the house for the barn.

By the time I finished with the calf and came back to the farmhouse, Uncle Charley and the other men had returned. The rest of the family were arriving and slowly migrating toward the dining table that was now laden with covered bowls and Grandma’s best plates and stemmed glasses.

The dining room was crowded. Grandma had managed to seat all of us in the dining room around two tables that had been pushed together. I barely got seated before Grandma took charge and announced that Willard would begin the dinner by offering prayer. Willard deserved the honor since he was Grandma’s brother-in-law and the ranking religious man in the family, a Wesleyan Methodist preacher.

Willard stood erect with his long wavy hair carefully combed and spoke with authority for several minutes. We all knew he was running out of steam when he reached the telltale ending that I had heard maybe a thousand times before, “. . . and thank you for this food for the strength of our bodies.” He paused for one moment before his ‘Amen’ came tumbling out. Grandma must have been watching Willard carefully. Unexpectedly, she launched into a second prayer before anyone had a chance to pick up his fork. I put the dish back that I had grabbed for. We all bowed our heads a second time.

Grandma Nellie made a good show of her prayer, even though she prayed aloud rarely and only for important occasions like this one. When I couldn’t detect any sign that Grandma was wearing down, I quietly lifted my head and stole a look at the people sitting opposite me. I was surprised to see Uncle Charley doing the same. He caught my eye and winked. I tried to respond, but all I could manage was to scrunch one side of my face up with both eyes becoming mere slits. Uncle Charley smiled and we both bowed our heads before we were caught. I knew Grandma sometimes watched for slackers during prayer time.

It must have taken an hour or more to make a dent in the food that had been laid out for us. I stole several glances at Uncle Charley, hoping to remember everything about him so I could I repeat it all to my friends. The reason for the intense interest in Uncle Charley was because he was so different than we all were, even though he was family and he had grown up in the area. The main thing was the rumors that Charley had been a member of a criminal gang, that he had earned a lot of money in the formerly illegal trade in alcohol, and that he now called a big city in Michigan his home.

The rumors seemed incredible because of the way Charley looked. He was a normal-looking man with clear skin and he didn’t have that perpetual flushed look from too many hours in the sun that seemed common among the men in my family. Some might have said Charley was handsome. He was certainly different with his pencil thin mustache and he seemed younger than my Grandfather Ora and better dressed than any of the other men around the table. And maybe most important, he had a big, expensive Buick parked in Grandma’s driveway. If he was indeed a gangster, he didn’t fit what I had seen in the movies. He seemed to be quiet, perhaps even shy, and his speech was occasionally peppered with a bit of a stutter. Besides, Charley had winked at me between his smiles.

After dinner the men retired to the adjacent living room while the women moved to the kitchen and began cleaning up. My sister and brothers and I put our coats on and moved to the front porch. There was an argument about who could sit on the swing but I avoided that and sat where I could look in the window to watch what was going on inside. It seemed only minutes before Uncle Charley came to the window and beckoned to me. I jumped up and ran inside.

“Wanna help me pack up, Billy Boy?”

“Yessir,” I yammered. Charley turned on his heel and made for the stairway leading to the upstairs bedrooms. I followed him up the narrow stairway where he turned into the smallest bedroom that overlooked the driveway down below. I followed him in and saw something in the room I had never before seen. A bedroom used by a man for two nights with the bed carefully made up; no clothes thrown about, no papers left lying on a table, nothing out of place. A suitcase was lying in the precise center of the bed. Next to the suitcase was a small leather valise, also zipped closed. Uncle Charley went to the closet and disappeared for an instant only to return wearing a fashionable grey overcoat with a matching fedora.

“Time for me to go,” he said. “You take the valise.” He looked at me as he reached in his pocket and then positioned something on his thumb and forefinger. As I watched, he flipped a shiny coin in the air toward me. I reached out and snatched the coin as he had intended. It was a shiny silver dollar, a rare treat in those days. “For me? I asked. Charley shook his head and smiled as I stuffed it in my pocket. Something to show my friends.

As he bent over to reach for his suitcase, something tumbled from his pocket. It made a loud thump as it hit the floor. He and I looked at the same time, although he must have known what it was. A shiny black pistol was lying on the floor beside him. Charley quickly retrieved it.

“Pretend you didn’t see that,” he said, as he shoved the pistol back in his overcoat pocket. I was too surprised to answer aloud so I nodded my head. Charley gave me another wink and started down the stairway with his suitcase while I grabbed the valise.

I stood in the knot of people who gathered at the driveway to wave goodbye as Charley steered his Buick from the driveway and onto Wayne Street. The car had barely reached the corner before my Grandmother offered her opinion. “I don’t think that boy will come to a good end,” she said, ignoring the fact that he was about the same age as she.

Willard was a little more philosophical, “Maybe the good Lord will make him see the error of his ways.” As we turned back toward the house, my father offered his assessment, “He sure has a nice car, though. I’ll bet he paid a pretty penny for that machine.”

As the party ended, my family gathered for the short walk from Grandma’s to our house just two blocks distant. As we began walking I decided this was my chance to learn more about Uncle Charley. I was full of questions for my father. I decided on trying some innocent questions first and reserving the more important questions about Charley’s gangster background until later. I was going to be careful not to ask anything that might hint that I had seen his gun.

“Where is Uncle Charley living in Michigan? I began, when I really wanted to ask if Charley had ever been found guilty of some really big crime. Linda decided to ask something else at that exact same moment. The result was that my question went unanswered. It was a typical lapse. As usual, nobody told me nothing. They never did. I didn’t even learn that Charley wasn’t my uncle at all until much later.

Stacking Firewood UP

Stacking Firewood

As promised, here is my regurgitation about stacking firewood; a topic of vital importance for us North Woods men, as will become apparent from even a casual perusal of the following.

As you must know, stacking firewood is the last step in a lengthy process in acquiring a supply of that which is a treasured accompaniment to cocktails or wine during winter evenings spent indoors with a good friend. Of course, I’m talking about sitting next to a cheery fire that helps one forget that snow is piling up outdoors.

The process for a dedicated woodsman begins by selecting trees, cutting them down, sawing the logs, splitting the chunks into a size suitable for the wood stove, transporting the wood to the rick and finally, stacking the finished product for drying and subsequent use. It is an up and down process.

The trees are cut DOWN, logs are sawed UP, the sawed pieces are split DOWN to firewood size, gathered UP, sorted and transported, then finally stacked in the rick with the trust that in a year or two the firewood will be ready to burn. A foul UP on any step of the process can ruin the entire effort, resulting in poor quality fires and ruined friendships during winter evenings with beer instead of wine by the fire. A single example of a sorry foul-UP will suffice.

An unnamed North Woods man of my acquaintance decided to acquire his firewood using the process that I described above. He had a large supply of dead and dying trees in his part of the north woods and a suitable wood rick, but little else in the way of qualifications for the project. He went to the store to buy a chainsaw. The salesman had a large inventory of saws. The salesman told my friend that he recommended the top-of-the line saw, saying that the saw would save time and money since he could saw UP ten cords of firewood in one day by using the top-of-the line saw. My friend was convinced. He purchased the top-of-the-line chainsaw. He took the saw home and, anxious to begin his project, began cutting DOWN trees that very afternoon. He worked hard, but by dinner time, he estimated that he had sawed UP only a single cord of firewood.

He decided that he needed to start early the following day to achieve the ten-cord result the salesman promised. He began work the following morning at nine AM sharp. [Like me, he is retired]. He worded steadily all day long until nap time followed by cocktail hour. [Like me, he is retired and approximately my age]. After cocktails, he went outdoors to survey his work results. He was no-where close to the ten-cord result promised by the salesman. He decided to return the chainsaw to the store and ask about his disappointing results thus far.

The following day he left home early and arrived at the chainsaw store about 10AM [like me, he is retired]. The salesman seemed surprised at his inferred complaint about the result of his work. “Let me see the saw,” he asked. My friend handed him the elaborate carrying case that came with the expensive chainsaw. “It looks like new,” the salesman said as he pulled the cord to operate the engine.

“What is that noise?” my friend asked as the engine fired UP.

So, back to stacking firewood.

Rule #1. Stack the firewood so it doesn’t fall down. That means having all the stacked pieces about the same size and laid in such a way that the pieces can nestle together. I can’t describe what this means but you’ll know it when you see it. (See also Rule # 2)

Rule #2. Stack the wood with plenty of air space to allow the wood to dry before use. Make the void around each layer of wood large enough so a mouse can pass thru the stack but small enough so the cat chasing after him is unable

Rule # 3. Don’t stack pieces that are too heavy on the top. (Also see rule #4)

Rule #4 [The most important of all the rules] Don’t stack the firewood higher than the wife can reach. Explain that you’ll pour the wine while she keeps the wood bin filled. Offer to help her with her coat while she treks outdoors to the wood rick.

    

Bill's Wood Rick

For those of you unskilled in the ways of the North Woods, a wood rick is a storage shed for firewood. Ricks are required, of course, for those of us who think sitting in front of a wood stove in the winter is suitable entertainment for weekends while snow builds up to impossible depths in winter. My old rick had become an embarrassment. It was too small, leaning precariously, and most shameful of all, it allowed snow and rain to occasionally contaminate my supply of firewood. And so, it was thus I found myself this spring, with my supply of firewood reduced, and the shameful condition of my old rick, virtually forced to construct a new rick if I wanted to continue calling myself a North Woods Man.

As winter’s snow began to diminish, I began to plan construction of a new rick. But the new rick would be different than my old one. I would build it larger, (big enough to accommodate a year’s supply of firewood), and straighter, (maybe I would even use a level to begin construction). And so, as winter’s snow began to diminish in mid-March, I began building my brand-new rick, [using old lumber that I salvaged from my old rick, of course], but with a plan this time, involving use of a level, concrete blocks and, wonder of wonders, plywood and shingles to keep out snow and rain instead of the more customary blue plastic tarps.

Here I am in the final stages of construction.

Surprisingly, the rick was strong enough to support my weight on the roof. The job of shingling the roof was temporarily interrupted by a snowfall that lasted two weeks into April. As the calendar plodded onward, I finally finished the building the rick and began the job of filling it with a new supply of firewood. Here I am with the rick about 1/3 full of oak firewood for next winter.

Stay tuned for my next blog as I explain about the critical nature of stacking firewood for retrieval next winter.

Saving Snow

So, here’s a quiz to test your knowledge of carbon dioxide emissions. See the answers at the end of this piece.

1.       What is the carbon footprint of the average American?

a.       10,000 pounds per year

b.       25,000 ppy

c.       50,000 ppy

d.       100,000 ppy

2.       By comparision, the footprint of an average world citizen is:

a.       40,000 ppy

b.       36,000 ppy

c.       20,000 ppy

d.       8,000 ppy

3.       Eating one vegetarian meal per week would save an amount of carbon emissions equivalent to driving the following number of miles in your vehicle.

a.       1,160

b.       1,050

c.       870

d.       750

4.       Washing your clothes on the ‘cold’ cycle of your machine can save the following pounds of carbon emissions.

a.       ½ to 5

b.       1 to 14

c.       3 to 18

d.       10 to 20

5.       Many Italians have fewer carbon emissions on wash day by hanging clothing outside to dry. How many Italians own clothes dryers?

a.       50%

b.       25%

c.       5%

d.       1%

Saving Snow

What does any of this have to do with saving snow? Plenty. Scientists around the world are convinced that the piddling amounts of snow that has fallen in recent years results from our practice of using the atmosphere as a colossal junk yard for man-made emissions.

But, you may say, what about the debate on this issue? In fact, there is no debate. Ninety seven percent of scientists who study such matters reported their agreement in a 2013 study of 12,000  papers on climate science published since 1990. The only faint echo of a debate comes from politicians who receive bribes, (make that campaign contributions) from energy industry companies or their lobbyists.

I watched a documentary last night about this topic. The film showed the struggles of American cities located in northern areas where snow is a large part of their economies due to downhill skiing, Nordic skiing and other activities that depend upon on snow. The film reported on the projects undertaken by several U.S. communities that seek to limit hydrocarbon emissions. Most are showing favorable results and many believe they can become energy independent within the next two decades, despite the current political climate. It was an encouraging report provided by the Roscommon Chapter of the Citizens Climate Lobby. Their message seems to be that if we work together, even with small changes like those hinted at by the test, we can make big improvements. It makes sense to me. Write your congressman if you want to see improvements in our air quality.

Test answers: 1.) 50,000 pounds  2.) 8,000 pounds  3.)1,160 miles  4,) 1 to 14 pounds  5.) 5%