Labels. Annoying and Silly Labels.

So, if you're concerned about peak oil, you've got to be a "survivalist."

Energy fears looming, new survivalists prepare

By SAMANTHA GROSS – 2 days ago

BUSKIRK, N.Y. (AP) — A few years ago, Kathleen Breault was just another suburban grandma, driving countless hours every week, stopping for lunch at McDonald's, buying clothes at the mall, watching TV in the evenings.

That was before Breault heard an author talk about the bleak future of the world's oil supply. Now, she's preparing for the world as we know it to disappear.

Breault cut her driving time in half. She switched to a diet of locally grown foods near her upstate New York home and lost 70 pounds. She sliced up her credit cards, banished her television and swore off plane travel. She began relying on a wood-burning stove.

"I was panic-stricken," the 50-year-old recalled, her voice shaking. "Devastated. Depressed. Afraid. Vulnerable. Weak. Alone. Just terrible."

Convinced the planet's oil supply is dwindling and the world's economies are heading for a crash, some people around the country are moving onto homesteads, learning to live off their land, conserving fuel and, in some cases, stocking up on guns they expect to use to defend themselves and their supplies from desperate crowds of people who didn't prepare.

The exact number of people taking such steps is impossible to determine, but anecdotal evidence suggests that the movement has been gaining momentum in the last few years.

These energy survivalists are not leading some sort of green revolution meant to save the planet. Many of them believe it is too late for that, seeing signs in soaring fuel and food prices and a faltering U.S. economy, and are largely focused on saving themselves.

And if you want to grow more of your own food, you must be a "localvore."

Growing the zero-mile diet

With fears of GMOs and widespread carbon guilt, cultivating your own veggies is poised to be the new competitive sport

FIONA MORROW

May 23, 2008

VANCOUVER -- So you've bought into the 100-mile diet. Eco points to you. If you're looking for serious ethical kudos this season, however, you're going to have to dig even deeper - literally.

Serious locavores are working on a zero-mile diet, courtesy of the old-fashioned vegetable garden. As Canadians break ground in many parts of the country this month, concern over the carbon footprint of the global food trade is inspiring them to reach for their spades. And the hunger for a diet free of genetic modifications means the demand for organically grown and heirloom varieties has never been so great.

Dan Jason should know. The owner of Salt Spring Seeds has been promoting an intense local diet for 20 years from his home on British Columbia's Salt Spring Island. After he was interviewed by Vancouverites Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon for their groundbreaking book, The 100-Mile Diet, Mr. Jason was struck with an idea.

"I thought, 'What is this 100-mile diet? We should be aiming for a zero-mile diet.' "

I'm just saying: Whatever happened to people? Yeesh.

Memorial Day Weekend

... a nice, three-day weekend. Lots of sun. Not so much rest. Cleared about 750 square feet of garden by hand, with the amount of potato-sized rocks getting steadily larger. Really didn't even need flat rocks for paths -- just tossed the dug-up rocks into the middle of the garden for a path. Bitch of a job, but I plugged away and listened to Bill McKibben's Wandering Home on the iPod to keep from going insane.

So far, the garden seems to be happy. The chard is going great guns, and the onions are shooting up. Carrots seem to have survived, broccoli, peas and kale are pushing up. Not sure about potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers or melons, since they've just been planted. Next move is to put the Three Sisters -- beans, corn and squash -- into the just-cleared garden. If there's time to clear any more, it looks like we'll throw in some sunflowers and maybe more potatoes. You can never have enough potatoes.

The animals all seem happy. The collies are actually respecting the invisible fence. The tails on the pigs are getting curlier by the day, which I understand means that they're happy. Even the chickens are mellowing a bit.

Weekend was a real washout for a lot of the locals. The market where our eggs are sold was doing OK, not as good as last year, but OK. The rest of the area looked like a ghost town. I guess $4 gas will do that to a tourist economy.

All in all, it just felt like a nice calm day before a really wicked storm.

This is Obscene

You don't have to be Potter Stewart to call this one. Not. In. My. House. No freakin' way. It goes to the pigs, chickens or compost pile.

By ANDREW MARTIN

Published: May 18, 2008

Grocery bills are rising through the roof. Food banks are running short of donations. And food shortages are causing sporadic riots in poor countries through the world.

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Graphic

Food, a Shrinking Burden

You’d never know it if you saw what was ending up in your landfill. As it turns out, Americans waste an astounding amount of food — an estimated 27 percent of the food available for consumption, according to a government study — and it happens at the supermarket, in restaurants and cafeterias and in your very own kitchen. It works out to about a pound of food every day for every American.

Grocery stores discard products because of spoilage or minor cosmetic blemishes. Restaurants throw away what they don’t use. And consumers toss out everything from bananas that have turned brown to last week’s Chinese leftovers. In 1997, in one of the few studies of food waste, the Department of Agriculture estimated that two years before, 96.4 billion pounds of the 356 billion pounds of edible food in the United States was never eaten. Fresh produce, milk, grain products and sweeteners made up two-thirds of the waste. An update is under way.

The study didn’t account for the explosion of ready-to-eat foods now available at supermarkets, from rotisserie chickens to sandwiches and soups. What do you think happens to that potato salad and meatloaf at the end of the day?

A more recent study by the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that Americans generate roughly 30 million tons of food waste each year, which is about 12 percent of the total waste stream. All but about 2 percent of that food waste ends up in landfills; by comparison, 62 percent of yard waste is composted.

The numbers seem all the more staggering now, given the cost of groceries and the emerging food crisis abroad.

Cold, Wet and Rainy

Only been able to plant one of the apple trees. Still waiting to take Lisa's tomato and pepper plants out of flats and put them into the ground. Also need to dig up another 300 to 500 square feet of garden. Here's how it works:

1. Break sod into squares with pitchfork
2. Pull big rocks from ground
3. Get on hands and knees, pull up sod
4. Pull big rocks from ground
5. Turn soil over with pitchfork
6. Pull big rocks from ground

See the pattern? Pre-Columbian gardening, that's us.

The pigs are cracking me up. They sleep late. When I go to look at them in the morning, they've usually burrowed under the hay, and all you can see are little curly pig tails sticking out of the hay. The really good news? They're eating less grain that I'd expected. They've been around a bit more than a week, and haven't gone through an entire bag.

(I expect that'll change).

They eat a ton of leaves off bushes, and they're doing very well with old veggies and fruits from the market. We went to pick up the pig bucket tonight, and were warned that we'll need to start making daily trips very soon, when watermelon and fruit sales pick up.

I'll hope they do, and not just for the piglets' sakes -- I worry that this is going to be a slow summer for folks who depend on tourists. Four dollar gas ain't nothing to sneeze at, and I don't think it's getting better any time soon. Saw a story today where some analysts said oil might get as high as $140 this year. Given that it's at $132 today -- up from $129 yesterday -- um, yeah. I think it might hit $140 at some point this year. Like, before Memorial Day.

Back to the piglets -- I'm wondering if I should introduce them to the collies. I'm not utterly stupid; I know that nothing good can come from this. But I just know that Stink in particular would enjoy playing with pigs.

Maybe it'd be a name thing.

The Good Old Days

Personally, I think $12-$15 per gallon is a bit optimistic, near-term. I've been telling folks that $4 gas is cheap (hey, can you get a gallon of milk for $4? No? Rest my case), and I'd brace for $7 by late 2009.

Here's a transcript snippet of Robert Hirsch on CNBC:

HOST: You know, we've been talking all morning long about energy prices. Watching crude oil prices touch above $127 for the first time overnight leads a lot of people to start wondering about peak oil and the peak oil theory. You've been writing about peak oil for some time, so did you see this coming?

HIRSCH: Yes we did. Not quite the way it's turned out, but this is not a surprise.

HOST: You say, "not quite the way it's turned out". What's happened that's different from what you were predicting?

HIRSCH: Well, I wasn't particularly predicting. I'm a student of this and have focused on what we do about the problem after it really hits. Peak oil--the idea is that it would hit a sharp peak and then production in the world would hit a sharp peak then drop off. And what's happened is that we hit plateau in world oil production, and that plateau has been ongoing since about the middle of 2004.

HOST: Dr. Hirsch, there are a lot of people when we talk about peak oil who say there are going to be technologies that are always developed. There will be new ways to get oil, whether it's from coal, whether it's from the oil shales, and they say that means we will never actually hit peak oil. What do you say to those people?

HIRSCH: They're incorrect, and the reason that they're incorrect is that they don't understand the magnitude of the problem and how long it's going to take to bring substitute liquid fuels on and to introduce energy efficiency on a massive scale. That's something that we analyzed and it takes decades. And the reason, simply, is that the magnitude of the problem is enormous.

[McTeer says we should drill more.]

HOST: Dr. Hirsch, what do you say to that--the idea that we should be drilling in places like ANWR and drilling offshore. Would that solve this problem of a plateau in oil production?

HIRSCH: There's no single thing that's going to solve this problem because it's as massive as one can possibly imagine. And the prices that we're paying at the pump today I think are going to be the good old days because others who watch this very closely forecast that we are going to be hitting $12 and $15 per gallon. And then, after that, when world oil production goes into decline, we're going to talk about rationing. In other words, not only are we going to be paying high prices and have considerable economic problems, in addition to that, we're not going to be able to get the fuel when we want it.

Glad I planted one of my apple trees this morning. A little work on the garden, too, but not much. Too busy with the day job.

I Don't Get Out Nearly Enough.

Duty called. Had to drive to Boston early this morning for the Day Job. Put on my coat and tie, and went out before leaving to check on the pigs. Saw three curly little tails sticking out of the hay and remembered, I needed to get them some corn.

Stopped by the feed store en route to Boston and picked up two bales of hay, two bags of chicken feed, and a bag of corn. Nothing unusual about this, other than throwing hay into the Outback while wearing a coat and tie.

Made it to the city without too much incident. Met up with a coworker who was a bit taken aback by a colleague with hay in the car. He probably doesn't live in Vermont, I thought. Stopped to get some fast-food on the way out of town (hey, I was starving). The guy at the window peered into the back of my car. "You raise cows or something?" he asked, genuinely puzzled. Certainly he doesn't live in Vermont, I thought. Stopped for gas in southern New Hampshire. Came back from grabbing a Coke to find four people standing around my car, wondering if my bike and kayak racks were somehow related to the hay in the back of the car. They confessed; they were tourists from Missouri.

Drove back into Vermont. Stopped for groceries. No one stared. Ran by the market to pick up a pig bucket -- I'm giving the local grocer a break on green eggs in exchange for a bucket of old fruits and veggies every day or two. Again, nothing unusual about a guy in a coat and tie with hay and animal feed in the back of the car (although I'm sure the pig bucket added a certain je ne sans quoi to an establishment owned by a British gentleman). Anyway, nothing to see here, folks, move along.

I guess the moral of the story is, people who don't live in Vermont are strange. Or something like that.

Speaking of people who don't live in Vermont. The blog has been getting a lot of attention from Texas, almost certainly due to the latest triathlon tragedy. One reader was concerned that I was blaming the guy who died. Well ... no. But I'm not hugely crazy about huge events. And I think it's simple math. Bigger the event, bigger the chances for trouble.

Just philosophically, I don't think everyone should be able to enter a triathlon. Or a marathon. I'm not even sure I shouldn't be banned as a menace to others for my swimming/flailing in the water. Not to be elitist, but I think the sport would mean more if there's a minimum bar. Not a hugely high, Boston Marathon-like one, mind you -- but a minimum, so nitwits like myself don't try to enter one when they're woefully out of shape and hurt themselves or others.

This is NOT to say that the Conroe triathlete who died was out of shape, or a danger to anyone. I don't know -- maybe if there hadn't been 1,000 other people in the water, something could have been done. Or not. I don't know. But I do know a lot of these events are just too damn big. That's all. I'm just sayin'.

I'll step off my soapbox now. It's hard to stay on the soapbox anyway, when the Wall Street Journal has this to say about your neighboring town:

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. -- Policeman Robert Perkins received a complaint the other day. A man was standing near the tourist information kiosk in this quaint New England village, in the nude.

Officer Perkins spotted the perp and issued a warning: Keep your clothes on, or risk a $25 ticket. The man "was unaware" that being naked in town was illegal, Officer Perkins says.

1

Shefali Anand/WSJ

On a blackboard in downtown Brattleboro in November, some residents expressed their opinions against the ban on public nudity. NOTE: Some photos in this gallery include nudity.

In fact, until just a few months ago, public nudity was perfectly legal here -- as it still is in many Vermont towns. However, over the past two years, Brattleboro, pop. 12,000, has experienced sporadic outbreaks of naked bicycling, naked hula-hooping, and nakedness in general. That, in turn, triggered a period of civic navel-gazing, both literally and figuratively.

Last month's incident by the tourist kiosk was the first report of public nudity after months of wintry weather. But now that spring is in the air, Officer Perkins says, people are starting to wear less clothing. "We'll see if they take it all off," he says.

Brattleboro's troubles started in August 2006, when three young men went skinny-dipping in a swimming hole outside of town, then decided to see what would happen if they went into town and got naked there.

So the three headed to Harmony Parking Lot -- a popular hangout for kids just off Main Street -- and took off their clothes. "It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing," said Chris Corry, 20 years old and a member of the group.

... Love the Journal to death. Really. But "Brattleboro's troubles?" What the hell, it's Belfast or something? Summer=People take clothes off. Winter=People put them back on. No troubles here.

Chance of snow showers tonight, wind blowing like a damn Banshee out of the north. Damn, will it never end? At least I haven't yet planted the two apple trees or blueberry bushes I got over the weekend.

Sigh.

But a cool site here, the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund. Here's hoping I never need them (and I probably won't, since I'm not selling or even producing raw milk). But knock on wood, anyway. And read Salatin's book, Everything I Want To Do is Illegal.

I'll shut up now.

Coolness.

They're heading our way ...

May 17, 2008

Chasing Utopia, Family Imagines No Possessions

By RALPH BLUMENTHAL and RACHEL MOSTELLER

AUSTIN, Tex. — Like many other young couples, Aimee and Jeff Harris spent the first years of their marriage eagerly accumulating stuff: cars, furniture, clothes, appliances and, after a son and a daughter came along, toys, toys, toys.

Now they are trying to get rid of it all, down to their fancy wedding bands. Chasing a utopian vision of a self-sustaining life on the land as partisans of a movement some call voluntary simplicity, they are donating virtually all their possessions to charity and hitting the road at the end of May.

“It’s amazing the amount of things a family can acquire,” said Mrs. Harris, 28, attributing their good life to “the ridiculous amount of money” her husband earned as a computer network engineer in this early Wi-Fi mecca.

The Harrises now hope to end up as organic homesteaders in Vermont.

“We’re not attached to any outcome,” said Mrs. Harris, a would-be doctor before dropping out of college, who grew up poverty-stricken in a family that traces its lineage back through the Delanos and President Franklin D. Roosevelt to a Mayflower settler, Isaac Allerton.

Mr. Harris, 30, who dropped out of high school and “rode the Internet wave,” agreed, saying they were “letting the universe take us for a ride.”

They are not alone.

Gilt Trip

So, we finally got the three little pigs. One girl, two boys. They're in a pen while we get the grounding rods straightened out -- not enough of a charge to keep them in the fence. We'll have it together tomorrow, Friday at latest. Funny little animals.

Been busy as hell this week. Trying very hard to get the garden put together, but we're interested in farming crops, not rocks. Sigh. There are a lot of them down there. Also been engaged in a ton of Will chaffeur-ing. I had to take him to Rutland for a meeting for his June youth leadership conference in Phoenix, and Lisa and I got him from Rutland again a few days later for another meeting. Fortunately, the weather has been more or less gorgeous.

More on the triathlon death in Houston (maybe a week or two ago). Awfully sad. Sometimes, these things just happen for no good reason. I'll still argue that the swimming leg is the most dangerous part of the sport, with or without heart problems.

The death of a Conroe man who was stricken while swimming in a triathlon last weekend resulted from drowning, but a heart problem also was a factor, according to an autopsy report.

Randolph Wray Parnell, 51, was competing in the 500-meter swim when he was found floating face-down in Lake Woodlands on Saturday.

An autopsy, conducted Monday by the Southeast Texas Forensic Center in Conroe, showed that Parnell drowned, but that dilated cardiomyopathy was a contributing factor, said Edie Connelly, Montgomery County Precinct 3 justice of the peace.

Parnell was one of about 900 competitors in the CB&I triathlon at Northshore Park in The Woodlands.

He had been training and competing in triathlons for 11 years, family members said, and this was his third year competing in the CB&I triathlon.

Survivors include his wife, Sharon, and son, Mason.

You Can Do It. We Won't Be Around to Help.

Cheap, but it pretty much says it all. The Home Depot in Bratt has been run off. I've got mixed feelings. It had a big and cheap selection, but wasn't local. Most of the employees were nice and helpful; some, not so much. The reason they gave for closing the store -- seems like $11 million wasn't enough -- just struck me as shameful. So I don't know that this was so much about a small town victory as much as corporate asshattery.

I'm just finishing up a very long day at work, so more later. But here's the AP story, by way of the Boston Globe:

• Home /
• Business

In Vermont, small shops beat Home Depot in customer battle

Wayne St. John (left) of the family-run Fireside True Value sold a lawn tractor last week to David Dunn of Dummerston. (Jason R. Henske/Associated Press)

Email|Print|Single Page| Text size – + By John Curran Associated Press / May 4, 2008

BRATTLEBORO - When a Home Depot set up shop across the street, Fireside True Value hardware store owner Wayne St. John knew it would probably take some of his customers away.

more stories like this

He and his brothers, who've operated their store for 35 years, had heard the stories about big-box stores and their low prices driving competitors into the ground.

So the store stuck to what it does best - good customer service, competitive prices, and a willingness to stock the hard-to-find parts that folks never seemed to find at the big building with the orange roof.

Four years later, it's Fireside True Value that's still standing.

"I've had a lot of customers come in and say 'You guys put them under,' " said St. John.

In truth, many factors played a role in the closing of Home Depot store No. 4552 and in the Atlanta-based home improvement giant's decision to close 14 other "underperforming" stores whose annual sales averaged about $11 million, far below the $36 million desired by the company.

Among them: Opposition from grass-roots groups that succeed in stirring up boycotts and bad publicity even when they don't stop the stores from opening.

"We've seen big-box stores defeated in over 200 communities in the last two years," said Stacy Mitchell, author of "Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America's Independent Businesses."

"Campaigns are proliferating and even if they don't succeed, the public education they do often has a significant impact on people's shopping choices after the store opens," Mitchell said.

In Brattleboro, an artsy southern Vermont town (pop. 11,741) known for its left-leaning sensibilities, Home Depot was a public enemy before it even opened the store in a former Ames department store 1 1/2 miles from downtown.

Small by Home Depot standards at 60,000 square feet, it was sandwiched in between two other Home Depots - one across the river in Keene, N.H., the other in nearby Greenfield, Mass. - both within a 30-minute drive.

BrattPower, a citizens' group, fought to keep the home improvement retailer out, saying its bargain prices and sheer size would siphon business from local businesses.

"This is not an orange-blooded town," said Al Norman, an antisprawl activist who has spearheaded campaigns against Wal-Mart and Home Depot in dozens of communities.

"Yes, it's a bad housing market. Yes, it was a bad location. Yes, it was a small location. But it was also in hostile territory."

Loyalty to existing businesses also played a role.

Brown & Roberts, a family-operated Ace Hardware store downtown beloved by locals for its creaky wooden floors, peg-board displays, and attentive personal service, couldn't compete with Home Depot's prices on some products, but many customers continued going there anyway.

"That first year, business was flat," said manager Paul Putnam, 59, who runs it along with seven other family members.

"We haven't had a banner year in their four years here, but we've managed to make it. Good customer service, having friendly, knowledgeable employees, that's always been our strong point."

Neither store changed its merchandising strategy or price structure to compete with the new store in town, believing that customers would stick with them. For the most part, they did.

Home Depot spokeswoman Jean Niemi wouldn't comment on the common traits shared by the towns where the stores will be closed. She said the lackluster sales were the bottom line.

Again.

I don't know, but I think 1,000 people swimming together might be too many. I'm wondering if the sport might not be better off with some sort of pre-qualifications across sports. Something like, you can enter if you've run a 5K in 24 minutes or less in the past year, or swum 500m in 10 minutes or less, that sort of thing.

Here's the story from the Conroe Courier:

Conroe triathlete dies

Elliott Cochran
Courier Staff

05/04/2008

Email to a friendPost a CommentPrinter-friendly

A Conroe resident died while competing in the swimming portion of the 2008 CB&I Triathlon at Northshore Park in The Woodlands Saturday morning.

Randolph Parnell, 51, an experienced triathlete, competed among 1,000 participants in the race. He died from undetermined causes in the swimming portion of the race, according to officials at press time.

Chris Nunes, director of parks and recreation for The Woodlands, said rescue personnel were present at the time of the incident, and information and details of the occurrence are ongoing.

“We’re still collecting a lot of information and debriefing our staff,” he said. “There were personnel on site as part of the race, including between 12 and 14 lifeguards in individual kayaks and on the shore, as well as The Woodlands Fire Department on one of their rescue boats.”

The triathlon included a 500-meter swim, a 15-mile bike ride and a 5k run.

Bret Strong, a participant in the event and friend of Parnell, said Parnell appeared to be prepared for the event, and was enthusiastic.

“I talked to him a little before the race and wished him luck; he seemed happy and ready to go,” he said. “We’ve known him and his wife and their son for 18 years now. When we first moved to The Woodlands, they were one of the first families we met.”

Parnell previously competed in the 2006 CB&I Triathlon, finishing 281st overall, and 25th in the male 45- to 49-year-old division.

The body was taken to Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Hospital.

Some Days Just Suck

And that's all I'm saying about that.

Pig Things, Part Two

But we're really not all screwed until we start stockpiling animals.

Courtesy, today's WSJ:

As Food Prices Rise, Shoppers Stock Up
By GARY MCWILLIAMS and DAVID KESMODEL
May 1, 2008; Page D1

Ross C. Powell has found a novel way to counter rising grocery prices. He started an informal food cooperative out of his garage.

The San Antonio project manager is currently stocking up on inexpensive beef, anticipating meat prices will follow dairy, egg and grain prices higher. "It's a hedging strategy," says Mr. Powell, a 48-year-old father of three. He recently installed a 22-cubic-foot freezer in his garage to go along with the shelves he built for deeply discounted food staples. Neighbors who once dismissed his frugal ways as overkill are now joining him to make bulk purchases of meat.

Even as rising food prices have triggered protests in developing countries, Americans are rediscovering the economic virtues of a well-stocked food pantry and storage freezer, and embracing discount and wholesale retailers for cut-rate meals.

Stockpiling staples such as rice, meats and canned soup is coming into vogue again as food inflation and $3.60-a-gallon gasoline have consumers cutting the frequency of shopping trips -- and loading up carts when they do shop. Sometimes shoppers are prodded by fears of impending food shortages, though none have yet materialized in the U.S.

The Department of Agriculture predicts a 4% to 5% increase in food prices this year, nearly twice the rate for 2005. The largest increases are forecast for fats and oils, estimated to rise 8% to 9%, and cereals and bakery products, projected to jump 7.5% to 8.5%. That's on top of existing increases: A dozen large eggs cost $2.20 in March, up from $1.63 a year earlier. White bread now costs $1.35 a pound, compared with $1.16 a year ago.

For most Americans, stockpiling fell out of favor decades ago as the rise of lower-price supercenters, wholesale clubs and discount chains curbed food-price inflation. Customers who made a trek to discounters -- Aldi Group, Costco Wholesale Corp., or Wal-Mart Stores Inc. -- no longer needed to stockpile. The new competition forced grocery chains to push down costs, helping to drive down food inflation through the 1980s and 1990s.

Today, the impact of some countries banning rice exports has prompted stores to limit purchases of certain foods, including rice and cooking oils -- and that has helped to trigger a return to 1970s-style stockpiling. Consumers witnessing food inflation in their weekly trips are responding by buying more than their immediate needs.

"It's not prices going up that kicks off this behavior," says John Rand, director of retail insight at consultants Management Ventures Inc. "It's the fact that prices go up in a predictable fashion."

Lynn I. McDermott, a 51-year-old Brewster, Mass., real-estate agent, has used a freezer for stockpiling heavily discounted frozen foods. "In the past, if it was a killer sale, I'd buy a few. Now, when they're on sale, I'll buy a lot," she says.

Pig Things

Got a call last night from a guy who can sell us three Yorkshire piglets, so I spent a couple of hours early this morning on the fenceline, trimming brush. I'll put the electric fence up this weekend and assemble a quick, pallet-shack for the beasts. Also have to get a trough and watering barrel. Lot of stuff to do.

On the goat front, the Southern Vermont Dairy Goat Association is right up the road from us. I've been doing some back-and-forth with them, and one of their members may be selling a couple of yearling goats. They wouldn't be ready for milking until fall, but ...

Need to rent a rototiller in the next week, too. We got flurries yesterday (!) and the last freeze shouldn't be for another couple of weeks, but we'll have to have everything in the ground by then. I've done just about enough hand tilling to last, oh, a lifetime.

Hoping to get back on the running track next week. Looks like physical terrorism is just about over.

A quick tip of the hat to Frances Bolles, Don's child (Don was the Arizona Republic reporter who was killed in 1976 by a car bomb planted by some major assholes, one of whom is 78 and asking for parole. And shouldn't get it). She's right about the cute little centerpiece in the Newseum:

She's married and has a son. She's a successful author and career development expert. Nearly 32 years have passed and still, at any moment, it's once again June 2, 1976. Like when she read that the recently opened Newseum in Washington, D.C., has her father's bombed out car on display.

“That is just grotesque,” Frances said. “I can't tell you what pain it is knowing that people are going to walk by and gawk. It reinforces the idea that my father is a footnote, and I rail against that. Over time, a victim is forgotten so that in something like a clemency hearing the focus goes to the person who is living rather than the person who was killed. My father was real. I don't want anyone to forget that.”

Back to the day job, aka making little rocks out of big rocks.