This is it. I am pulling myself together before I head out the door for my last day on the job. More to follow.

Belated Christmas Greetings and Wishes on the Day After the Day After!

I'm not sure why I held off with a Christmas posting until today. Could it be that I was thinking like the true believer, who held off sending out Christmas cards until today, thinking that he would save on the cost of postage, if the rapture occurred on the 25th?  I think not. It was the occasion of Christmas, that is, having children, children-in-law, and grandsons home for the weekend that put me in the mood to post a proper entry. It really was, guys!

I received high praise from a neighbor on the simplicity and the appropriateness of my outside decorations. Even though they were the product of my planning and implementation, he took care to thank both my wife and me. Since he is a long-married man, such as I, I figured he was playing it safe by complimenting both members of the household. It is always better to over-estimate rather than to under-estimate those responsible for a job well done in the areas of home maintenance, lawn care, holiday decorations and, for that matter, even the way a married guy dresses. I would include a picture of the outside decorations, if I owned a digital camera. That upgrade will come in the future--probably not before the seasonal decorations give way to the timelessness of the usual display of old stuff. Hey! There's a nail there--might as well hang something on it year-a-round. It is too far from the door to use it as a coat and hat hook.

The closer I get to the final day of gainful employment before retirement--December 30, 2011, the more I find myself questioning if my experience will be of any real value in addressing what lies ahead.

This is the picture that I referenced in my entry of December 9th.

I have given some thought to revising the free verse with which I captioned the picture.

Here's the latest version.

a helpful map

a sound canoe

adequate provisions

a strong bow paddler

skills sharpened by experience

if there be dragons

 

i be ready

The first Christmas card of the season is ready to be posted in the morning. The first Christmas card that we receive each year is sent by a former co-worker, whom I first met as a student intern (fieldwork student in social work language) in 1976 give or take a year. We worked together for some eight years before I changed jobs. It seems as if I can take the preliminary steps associated with the Christmas card venture, but the first card and letter does not get written until Jeanie's card arrives. As called for, the first card that I prepare for mailing is in response to Jeanie's. As would seem most appropriate. With the weekend upon us, I plan to have several more cards ready for posting come Monday morning.

With three weeks and one day remaining before retirement. I have decided to tape a picture to my office door with a bit of free verse. The picture was taken by my daughter on a father-daughter canoe trip. I am at the end of a portage facing away from the camera; the canoe has been reloaded; I am checking the map as an expanse of open water lies before me; the distant shore is just that--distant. My attempt at free verse reads:

a helpful map

a sound canoe

adequate provisions

a strong bow paddler

skills sharpened by experience

i be ready--even if there be dragons!





As Christmas plans are being crafted, thoughts of my impending retirement on December 30th are being overshadowed. I am not sure if that is a good way to ease into and through the transition or if retirement will explode during the final days of the final week of December 2011.
. . .
Yesterday, I met with my supervisor and her assistant to talk about the future of the position that I currently hold in the agency and what is to be done about a successor. I am curious to see how this process will eventually work out over the next month. I made a comment that I thought or hoped would be insightful and which seemingly was met with agreement by others in attendance, that is, I suspect there are forces at work within the agency under my radar, at least, trying to influence the design of my position and the selection of a successor. As a result, I expect my comments will play only a minor role. The final determinant may well be the nature of the folks, who express an interest in the position and actually submit an application.

It appears that winter has settled in with 4 inches of new snow and temperatures in the high teens this morning. The morning routine also included clearing the snow off the deck, steps, and driveway. The city crew was out early and plowed our rather inconsequential street before 7:00AM. I suspect that I was one of a very few residents out and available to greet the plow driver as we tackled much the same task with different tools. The snowblower is ready to go, but I hesitate to use at 6:00AM on a Sunday morning. If it had been a work day, I may have made a different choice; I certainly have in the past. Dealing with snow is a good chore with which to start the day. The only drawback is when it continues to snow, so there is more to deal once I have finished the first go-a-round and taken the time to get ready for my day job. I then know there will be an evening chore as well.

. . .

These days I find myself thinking a lot about religious freedom within the context of diverse societies. Such thoughts even occur while shovelling snow. Health care reform legislation has brought the issue to the forefront on the national level; there are also state issues; the pope is in Africa asking for tolerance yet setting undefined or ill-defined limits with respect to animists. The central question, in my view, is: who gets to define or set the limits on the acceptable variations of behavior? The human experience is very diverse, and one often thinks that their view is either the majority view or the view with the most intrinsic value. Pleas for the accommodation of individual conscience often appear to be very self-serving with persons asking or even demanding that their individual moral preferences be incorporated into law and policy. Is it unreasonable to ask the believer to make an accommodation, to accept the consequences of his/her own choices and behaviors, when these are in conflict with public policy, practice, and law? If the believer must forgo certain opportunities or privileges in civil society because of his/her beliefs, is that not reasonable? There are more questions than answers; there is more thinking to be done.

The syrup crew turned wood cutting crew has retired for the year. We finished up this afternoon with seven plus ranks of wood cut and split and stacked at the sugar house. I had started on Monday and the rest of the crew joined in on Friday and today. We were together on Thursday, but decided to take a hint from the rain mixed with snow weather to meet for our annual meeting to take care of the business of that which we do for enjoyment. With the exception of Thursday, the weather was most cooperative--sunny or only partly cloudy with temperatures near 50 degrees. One would do well to order up that kind of weather for wood making.

. . .

The past week has proved to be very invigorating on an emotional level, even though I feel its not so gentle impact on a 65 year old body. I hadn't been able to tackle the wood making project earlier in the summer, and as the summer became fall, the issues were both time and motivation, which kept me out of the woods. The double opportunity of a week of vacation at this time and the availability of the syrup partners fired up the motivation, got the job done with style and grace, and bolstered the spirit all-a-round. It is hard to beat an experience like this. I am looking forward to the 2012 syrup season and its mid-March start date.

Today made for a third day of wood making in weather with increased clouds and lower temperatures. At this time of the year, five or so degrees of change in the daytime high and full clouds which the sun could never break through makes for a very different work environment. I count the day as a day even though it involves some five hours including a break for lunch.

With no wood at the pile to split and stack, I used the chainsaw to buck up several trees that Rick had dropped earlier. In addition there was brush or tops to pile. I split whatever I cut to length and stacked it in the woods. I decided that the location was inaccessible for my pick-up. Rick has offered to use his tractor with a loader to get the wood to the woodpile.

I appreciate Rick taking the time to cut several trees down and leaving them lay for me to take the next step. It's not my property so I fret over the selection of which trees to cull and which to leave. The choices are based on aesthetics--a very individualized vision of what a sugarbush should look like--and forest management--promoting the health of the wood lot.

Vacation week! Well, four days of vacation and Veterans Day holiday on Friday.

The weather has been great for working in the woods splitting and stacking firewood for the 2012 syrup season. Partner Rick took responsibility for getting the wood down and cut to length and to the woodpile. My goal had been to have the woodpile replenished by the fourth of July. From my earlier posts everyone knows why that goal went unmet. As the summer and early fall unfolded, I simply didn't have the enthusiasm to tackle the task even when my schedule settled down. Taking on the splitting and stacking seemed to be a manageable task and a way of expressing appreciation for Rick taking responsibility for the other parts of the wood making process.

Partner Bill is expected to arrive tomorrow to spend a few days to continue the woodmaking and to participate in the annual meeting where we will settle accounts for the 2011 season and make plans for the 2012 season. The weather may turn sour for the next couple of days so we will adjust our activities as warranted. There are five full ranks of firewood and a start on the sixth, so we are in good stead. We try to have six ranks as we head into the fall and winter. Traditionally that has given us a two year's supply of wood for the evaporator and the cook stove. This past season we burnt up four ranks of wood, so we were looking at a short stack before the team effort to replenish the pile. We have also talked of expanding our operation from 175 taps to 200 taps; that also translates into a larger woodpile given the expected additional production.

In addition to making firewood, I took some time at the end of the day to sweep out the sugarhouse and tidy the place up. The place attracts considerable insect visitors during the summer. I hope they enjoy the accommodations before moving onto their final resting place. I unceremoniously sweep them out the door and off the stoop.

Before closing this post, I need to return to the subject of the weather. Any November day that is sunny with temperatures in the mid-40's needs to be relished and all the moreso, if one has outside work to do. I didn't even use the sugarhouse for lunch. Yesterday and today I sat on the tailgate of the truck and ate my peanut butter and jam sandwich. I removed a couple of layers--jacket and flannel shirt--and was very comfortable from a combination of physical activity and sunshine. If the weather turns sour, we will fire up the cook stove and have our annual meeting around the kitchen table. What more, the place is already tidied up.

Now we know what happens when one composes the post in word to be copied and pasted into the blog. It looks a little like free verse, if I correctly recall my high school English adventures in poetry. I surrender to the dictatorial attributes of technology--at least for the moment.

The clothes dryer is back together and running quietly.
For the past couple of years, it did its thing with an irritating squeak.
Since it was relegated to the basement from the very beginning, I guess I thought it was tolerable. Carol brought the irritant to my attention a number of times and tried various techniques to quiet the squeak, such as changing its
orientation by placing a thin board under its front feet. Finding myself in charge of the laundry
chores since June 1st may have moved me to do something about the
squeak. Or. Carol has resumed responsibility for the laundry as of last week,
so my motivation may have been to provide her with a more pleasant environment.
One should not dwell on either one’s own or someone else’s motivation for any
length of time; it will only end in cognitive dissonance and intellectual chaos.

Thanks again to RepairClinic.com, I was able to successfully tackle a household repair
project. It’s a great site. Search using a model number and the exact parts come up along with a video showing the breakdown
and replacement process. I replaced the idler or tension pulley and the belt. I
figured I could salvage the drum rollers by cleaning and lubricating the
shafts. As I was breaking the dryer down the door switch fell apart. I suspect that over the course of 24 years
and 2 months of the spring loaded door banging shut, the plastic housing of the
switch was compromised so that it simply fell apart when I removed the mounting
screws. Curiously, the replacement switch is of a different design. The website
noted that the part replaces Manufacturer’s Number 388322. It was reassuring to be holding in my hand
the housing of the broken switch with the number 388322 clearly visible.

The dryer has been down since the weekend, when I did the teardown, the diagnosis, and ordered the
parts. They came in today’s mail, and the dryer was operational, before I ate my dessert. It isn’t that repair and maintenance are a standard second supper course. I just
figured apple crisp and tea would taste better once the after-hour’s chore was
complete. Carol will be able to tackle the week’s
laundry tomorrow. I did ask if she wanted me to start on that task this evening.
She told me that I didn’t have to. I took that as a clear no.

I trust that investing $66.00 in parts in the old dryer will prove to be money well spent. I’m
thinking if someone replaced my tension pulley and switch, I just might be good
for a couple more rounds. Something about tightening the belt and powering up.

As I re-read the past few posts for the upteenth time, I notice that I had better pay attention to more than lay-out. Spell-check is great, but it is limited and can not help with the wrong form of the word (advise v. advice) and words that get mistakenly cut (intra-species v. intra-species communication). It is time to attack this challenge from a different angle or from more than one angle. Stay tuned folks, the campaign continues.

Rats! As one can clearly see from yesterday's post, the spacing strategy did not work. This means I will be indenting my paragraphs from now on. Let's see if that effort can also be subverted by some unseen force or formatting.

Carol took the plunge today and applied for Social Security Retirement Benefits effective 1-1-12. That means as my neighbor puts it "We be pensioners come the new year." In Mr. P's musings, he often wonders why certain words fall out of fashion and we all have to learn the new vocabulary. Has intra-species really been improved? Part of it may well be attributed to political correctness. I will grant you that some of those changes have been long in coming. Other examples make me think of the opening chapter of "The Virginian," where the distinction is made between smiling and not smiling when one calls someone an SOB. It has been some 40 years since I read those words. I think they have real merit, but I still haven't brought myself to try that advise out when I meet a new neighbor. Maybe when I am a little older.

Now what? I just previewed this post and found that the indents disappeared. Have the grammar gods changed the rules of written discourse? I'm not asking for much; I just don't want run-on paragraphs. My thoughts are specious enough already. I think it is time to sign off, take responsibility for what I can change, accept what I cannot change, and watch the Brewer's game.

Another day - another milestone.

Today I completed the on-line application for Social Security Retirement Benefits to start with the New Year. With each one of these steps anticipated with a certain anxiety and completed with a feeling of satisfaction, the reality of the pending revised state of affairs settles in. I only hope it is a good fit all around. A few significant details remain: medicare supplement insurance for myself and COBRA coverage for the spouse. I also need to work up a 2012 budget. It will be preliminary until some of the expenses are firmed up.

What makes for a good fit under the pending circumstances? It probably behooves me to settle on some criteria, otherwise my evaluation of fit will depend upon the whim of the day. Add a dash of lifelong impulsiveness and one has the recipe for trouble.

As folks can see from my last two posts, I have struggled with the spacing between paragraphs. The extra space between paragraphs is to compensate for not indenting. I don't know why it became a problem just then. I hope I have it figured out. Do you think it might be the doings of a high school English teacher reaching back from the beyond?

So! What does one do when they find an article in the British newspaper, The Guardian, on Wisconsin's governor and his risk of recall? Blog about it, I guess. There is, in my estimation, a more balanced view and more thorough coverage of the Palestinian push for a vote for statehood at the UN.

The Globe and Mail out of Toronto is also on my Favorites list. A recent article on the Canadian Wheat Marketing Board can be of interest to any of us who eat bread--whole wheat or white.

The National Catholic Reporter has also earned a spot on my Favorites list. It's articles keep the juices flowing.

It's time to see what Slate Magazine is up to today.

My note of June 22nd spoke of the 3 week mark of Carol's summer of hospitalization. The hospitalization and rehabilitative nursing home placement continued until today--one day shy of three calendar months. Keeping with the number 3, I guess it is appropriate to post a comment. I can't envision when the next 3 will occur and prompt another posting. The situation is essentially in a holding pattern for the next 6 or more months and then there will be additional surgery. One thing we have learned is that all deadlines are no more than rough estimates subject to revision and even reversal on short notice.

The old couple's household is once again intact. The only comment Carol made with respect to the appearance of the house after a three month absence was "It doesn't look like a bachelor pad." I was thinking, but didn't say it: "I wasn't trying to impress bachelors; I was trying to impress ladies." I need to wait and see what impact rehab had on her sense of humor.

I try to reflect on what I may have learned during these past three months, and the impact this experience will have on me here on out. I find myself summarizing the whole shabang with the observation: "When it comes right down to it, one is really very much on his/her own." It is not that friends and family are not helpful, but one has to be in a position to accept and make good use of that assistance. One can not always wait for someone to offer; there are times when one needs to ask for a little help and to be quite explicit about what type of help is being sought.

The retirement planning effort now has a whole new set of variables.

It is done. Today I submitted my letter of resignation making my retirement effective as of January 1, 2012. Now I will need to work on the items on my retirement checklist, so hopefully things will be in place come the new year. As I work on that checklist I suspect the whole business of retirement will become more and more real. For now it appears as a relatively minor occurrence when placed along side of Carol's continued hospitalization, which is now it its second month. This says a lot about perspective and the relative nature of things.

I have just spent some three weeks as the spouse of a hospitalized patient. The first two weeks were spent almost exclusively in the hospital with the exception of those nights spent in a motel trying to catch some sleep, showering, shaving, and changing clothes. Hospitals are not completely novel environments for me; I spent the first decade of my career working in one. I now work in an outpatient medical setting and find that the job takes me into hospitals and nursing homes on a moreorless regular basis. What was foreign or novel about the past three weeks was my role in this setting or context.

I found that I kept thinking about Army basic training and how my memory of those days and that experience was so familiar to what I was experiencing right now. I was in a role in which I had not previously been for more than one week. There was all kinds of uncertainty on all fronts as medical staff worked to stabilize one aspect of care after another. There was absolutely nothing that I could do to change the situation in which my wife and I found ourselves at the moment. And I was dead dog tired. I have often found that fatigue is a very interesting lens with which to view real time experience. I seem to lose the ability to contextualize the experience, to modify its impact, and most certainly to control or limit my emotional response to it and the immediate expression of that emotional response.

I can only surmise that the way in which I experienced the past three weeks and the experience itself (Is it even possible to separate the two?) will have a substantive impact on me well into the future.

Please don't assume that I am retired or that anyone else is for that matter. Just because I look old and what little hair I have is gray doesn't mean that my only responsibilities are getting myself out of bed in the morning followed by a little personal hygiene and getting dressed. Most everyone, who reads this blog, knows that I am not retired, which means I am venting about my experiences with non-readers. I suspect there is also a message for myself in all that: don't make assumptions.

There has been a slight change in the clean-up arrangements for the evaporator. On Saturday, the 30th, I packed the refilled L-P gas cylinder and the evaporator parts, that I had brought home to clean up, back out to the sugarhouse. (The recent rains had made it too soft to drive to the sugarhouse, so the pack frame was called out of temporay retirement and taken down off the nail in the basement.) The smaller of the evaporator pans has a small leak--an unsuccessful repair from late last season. It reopened at the start of this season, and we simply made due with it. A little syrup would leak out occasionally and become sugar and burn sealing the leak temporarily. We found out last year that the seal is dissolved by the sour sap, which resulted in quite a mess on the floor of the sugarhouse. This year I wanted to avoid such a mess. When I returned to the sugarhouse on Saturday, it was clear that our temporary fix was not working, so I emptied and disconnected the smaller pan to avoid any more flooding of the sugarhouse and to bring it home to clean. It is now in my garage in a kiddie wading pool. I am using some milk stone remover to loosen the scale. I applied some elbow grease to the project last evening, and it appears to be achieving the desired results. I will tackle it again later this week. Hopefully, with the additional effort the pan will be clean and ready for a return trip to the welder for another repair attempt.

This week I have been reading William Kittredge's Hole in the Sky. I am halfway through the book and find myself thinking that I will start over as soon as I finish it. It is a little like reading a foreign language in which I have very limited facility. I understand the story in terms of the facts and events, but the author's description of his emotional response to these facts and events is quite indecipherable. He has what appears to me to be a very obtuse style when he speaks of his subjective interpretations of and the meanings he ascribes to the events and fellow actors in his life. I don't think he is intentionally trying to be cryptic or enigmatic. At the outset, I thought I would catch on to the author's style after a chapter to two. Such has not been the case. His vocabulary is simple and common enough. What it is that eludes me eludes me still after 125 pages. It may simply be the brevity with which he speaks of these things. There appears to be an absence of adjectives and other descriptive words in his writing. It is mostly nouns and verbs in succinct declarative statements. Many of the sentences are grammatically incomplete which makes them mysterious at least to me.

Mr. Kittredge has an interesting story: he was in the Air Force during the Korean War and in graduate school working on a MFA (University of Iowa, Iowa Writers' Workshop) in 1968 during the Viet Nam war. (He had earlier earned an undergraduate degree in 1954 with a major in agriculture.) There was a certain parallel in those two conflicts especially as he experienced them. Between the Air Force and graduate school, he operated a ranch in southeastern Oregon. He was third generation rancher in that area. He speaks of the not so glorious side of fathers and sons and the choice of careers. Maybe what I thought was particular to the 60's is, in fact, typical of every age.

Now, am I being obtuse and enigmatic?

Clean up went well yesterday with full sun and temperatures in the 60's. It was just the kind of weather one prefers for an outside job which involves water. The taps were pulled and cleaned with a scouring pad to remove all organic material. The bagholders were disassembled and washed before being boxed up until next year. The filter can was washed. Part of the evaporator was disassembled and washed. The two pans (sap and syrup pans) were left with the last sap of the season to sour and dissolve much of the scale that built up during the season. (In 3 or 4 weeks, we will dump the soured sap and do the final clean up.) The evaporator stack was topped with an old bucket to keep the rain out. The collection buckets were washed along with the bulk tanks. The latter are stored inside during the off-season; they have an outside location during the season. The cupola doors were latched so that they are not rattled by the wind during the off-season. The syrup house was swept, and the garbage packed up and brought home. The empty LP cylinder was dropped off to be refilled. A final note was made on the calendar.

Mid-day today, the weather turned sour with rain and rain mixed with snow. It has continued into the evening and is forecast to continue through much of tomorrow. There has been some accumulation of snow with more expected. The wind has been gusting making for some winter-like conditions. How different from yesterday.

I finished late yesterday with a trip to the library to pick up some new reading material. More on that to follow.

We have called an end to the 2011 syrup season this afternoon after evaporating the last of the sap collected yesterday and finishing the last 2 and 3/4 gallons of syrup. We ended the season with a total of 47 and 1/2 gallons of syrup.

Clean-up remains--pulling the taps, dissembling the bags and bagholders, and washing all that stuff and more. We will tackle those tasks on Monday.

The snow and snow mixed with rain of last night and this morning with moderate temperatures helped mark the end of the season. There has been no sap flow since yesterday. Our sense is that any sap now will not be good for syrup,

When I returned home mid-afternoon, the snow had pretty much melted. The lawn appears to be considerably greener than it was yesterday before the snow. Moisture and nitrogen are probably responsible.

I need to make a trip to the library to replenish my reading materials. During the syrup season, I read a biography of Ted Geisel (better known as Dr. Suess) and a memoir by Susan Brind Morrow entitled "The Names of Things." Ms Morrow writes of her travels in Egypt and the surrounding countries in the 1980's and 90's. Her work is an insight into a very different Middle East than the one now making the nightly news. It was also a much more cordial place, at least for a European/American woman, who spoke the language, and embraced both the antiquity and the earthiness of the place.

It is easy to forget what day of the week it is. This is the last week of my syrup schedule, that is, the "day job" on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and general leave, aka vacation, on Tuesday and Thursday, which are then coupled with the weekend for syruping. I guess I am good to go as long as I make it to my "day job" on the right days.

Yesterday was a 12-hour day evaporating. We didn't gather sap at the end of the day choosing to leave it until this evening. Today we gathered 175 gallons of sap that had run yesterday and today. That means tomorrow will be a long evaporating day. Rick and I handled the collection today, so it was a workout gathering sap in five gallon buckets and hand carrying it all to the sugarhouse. Rick's adult children and very young grandchildren weren't available to help out today. Today we earned that end of the day beer--just one.

Friday morning when I return to my "day job" for the day, Rick and Bill will finish the estimated 10 plus gallons of syrup that we will have ready for the final bit of processing and bottling at that time. (Bill will be in town for a couple of days; the extra pair of hands are welcomed.) After that we will evaporate any remaining sap on hand and gather what may become available.

The forecast seems to bode well for a couple more days of syrup weather before we can expect overnight low temperatures above freezing along with some cold spring rain. It probably won't make for a very nice Easter weekend in terms of the weather. But I will welcome the end of the season; we've been at it since the 19th of March. It's been hard work and long days. I have lost a few pounds; I have acquired a bit of a tan; I have a sense that I am a bit more fit. Those are on top of a respectful volume of syrup "in the can." It is time to start thinking about next year, replenishing the woodpile, and other preparations.

If it is the end of the season, there will be clean up to do, which is a far from pleasant chore in the rain. Hopefully, we can schedule those tasks around the rain. There is bud swell on most of the maples so a bit of the poet's April showers/May flowers weather will result in bud break and a change in the sap, which means the end of the syrup season.

This afternoon we finished evaporating the remaining sap from yesterday and then collected 110 gallons of sap, which ran yesterday and today. We decided to call it a day rather to continue evaporating. I took the opportunity to rinse out the one bulk tank that we had been using most regularly. It appeared to be growing a bit of mold or bacteria and had an undesirable odor. A wash with a mild chlorine bleach solution and a thorough rinse seemed to take care of things. I have a 5:00PM meeting tomorrow night, so I will probably not get out to the sugarbush tomorrow. Tuesday is a vacation day, which will give me the opportunity to catch up on the evaporating, if there is catching up that needs to be done.

As we approached the 10-hour mark tending the evaporator yesterday, we decided to call it a day even though there are 40 gallons of sap remaining in the bulk tank. The resulting syrup is much darker when compared to our product from earlier in the season. It seems to taste fine, but the color is a bit of a disappointment. Despite temperatures yesterday in the low 30's and intermittent snow showers throughout the day, the sap did run. We plan to get together after lunch today to finish with the evaporating and later to collect yesterday's run and the expected run from today. The forecast continues to indicate the likelihood of runs for the next several days. Today's forecast calls for lingering snow showers this morning before clearing and temperatures in the high 30's. The flurries have come and gone since I've been up, that is, unless they come back again. As we have seen in previous years, Easter can be rather winter-like, which makes it a challenge to outfit oneself in the new spring finery often purchased for the occasion. Maybe that practice is no longer in vogue. My practice has been to work my way through the closet to find a dress shirt, tie, and sport coat--reclaiming items that have served that purpose in years past. Winter's footwear may have been cleaned up, but it is also readily available should the need arise. Yesterday, when I went out to shovel the driveway before heading out to the sugarbush, I found that a bear had gotten into the neighbor's dumpster and dragged three bags of household garbage into our yard so he, she, or they could picnic under the pine trees. Cleaning up that mess--garbage mixed with 3 inches of new wet snow--was the start of my day. This morning, it appears the bear revisited last night. The dumpster is tipped over, but there is no evidence of picnicking, at least in our yard. A blog entry from a neighbor made earlier today reports on a bear visit last night. A bird feeder on their deck provided a late night snack. I am congratulating myself on my good judgment; I took down the feeders earlier this week, when I raked the yard. Was that good judgment or just fortunate timing?

It certainly doesn't look like it nor does it feel like it, but it is syrup weather. We collected 200 gallons of sap late today; this is out first collection since last Saturday, the 9th. The run occurred yesterday and today. Tomorrow, we are planning on a long day tending the evaporator. The forecast for tonight and tomorrow calls for 3 to 6 inches of snow and blustery winds. It certainly will be a change from last weekend in terms of the weather. The sugarhouse is tight and provides ample protection from the weather.

I still have this week and next week on my syrup schedule, that is, with Tuesdays and Thursdays off. I am sure there has been no action in the sugarbush today. I haven't checked, and Rick hasn't called to say that I was needed.

I spent most of the day raking the yard. The neighbors were working on their yard this past weekend, when I was busy in the sugarbush, so I took the opportunity afforded by the day off to keep in synch with the neighbors. I finished up the front; the side yard is too wet and there still is a small snow bank. That is okay. After some six hours, I was more than ready to call it a day. The birdfeeder is down; the birdbath will take its place; a couple of lawn chairs are on the deck. With a sunny day and temperatures in the 60's, birdbaths and lawn furniture seem the more appropriate lawn fixtures. I finished my outside chores by cleaning the cab of the truck--a wipedown and vacuuming.

As the details of the 2011 federal budget, as contained in the current continuing resolution, become known, I find myself painfully disappointed with all three units of government responsible for the document. I sense that the final bill due later this week will be even more troubling. The second shoe, that may fall, is the bill to raise the national debt limit. If that gets encumbered with social issues and policy statements, it could be chaotic.

It looks and feels like the 2011 syrup season may be over. Over the weekend, we finished up everything that we had on hand. There was no sap flow on Sunday. The 60 gallons we collected on Saturday were quite cloudy, but it tasted okay. We worked until early evening on Sunday and finished the season, if in fact this is the end, with 32 and 1/2 gallons of syrup.

It was late in the day and two of threesome needed to be back to regular jobs and stuff today, so we scheduled the first clean-up of the season for the 19th, when we can all be together again. I plan to keep an eye on the overnight temperatures which are forecast to be in the high 20's late this week. I am curious to see if there is a flow at that time and if the sap is of syrup quality.

The ice went out of the bay mid-morning today. It simply disappeared. It must have been mortally weakened by yesterday's early morning rain and warm temperatures through last night.

The "almost syrup" from this morning resulted in 12 gallons, and 5 pints of finished syrup. Added to the 11 gallons and 1 quart finished earlier, we now have 23 gallons and 7 pints of finished syrup for the season total to date.

After evaporating the remaining sap from yesterday, we collected 130 gallons of sap late this afternoon. We will put that through the evaporator either tomorrow (Friday) evening or first thing Saturday or some part of the total on both days and times. If the weather cooperates and we enjoy additional sap flows, it could be a busy weekend in the sugarbush. Optimism springs eternal, even in the face of marginal weather forecasts.

Despite what appears to be rather marginal weather syrup weather, we experienced a nice sap flow Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. There are several gallons of "almost syrup" in the finisher, which Rick and I will finish later this morning. Then we will evaporate the last of the 90 gallons of sap that was collected yesterday, part of which was evaporated last evening.

The sap stopped running yesterday mid-afternoon. The cold temperatures of Monday night into Tuesday morning resulted in the Tuesday-into-Wednesday flow. I am not sure that it got cold enough last night to reset the process. I am hopeful.

There is not much snow remaining in the woods, so it is beginning to look like a new season. The red maples appear to be in bud swell or the initial stage of budding out. The sugar maples are typically slower to do so in the spring. Once that happens, the season will be over. The weekend forecast is calling for rain; rain with moderate temperatures may hurry the end of the season.

All in all, it has been a good season from any number of perspectives: syrup production, physical activity, companionship, outdoor experience, warmth of a wood fire, and tanning.

It appears to be quiet day in syrup country. It started raining or rain-mixed-with-snowing about 6:00AM today. The temperature is in the low 30's coming off an overnight low of at or just below freezing, which will probably make for another day without a sap flow. What flow there was yesterday "didn't amount to anything" (as Dad used to say, not necessarily about sap, but about lots of things) coming off a warm night Friday--warm in term of syrup making.

Yesterday, Rick and I finished evaporating the sap that we had on hand from Thursday and Friday. The "crew," in my absence, collected just under 100 gallons on Friday. During the day, also in my absence, Rick ran more than half of the 200 gallons of sap, that was collected on Thursday, through the evaporator. Yesterday, we put all remaining sap through the evaporator. We estimate that we have 6 gallons of "almost syrup" in the finisher.

Looking at the forecast, it now appears that it will be Tuesday before the weather cooperates and another sap flow can be expected.

By 9:00AM this morning, I had a fire in the evaporator and started work on the 100 or more gallons of sap remaining from yesterday. I finished that portion of the process by 3:00PM. Rick and I then finished and bottled 11 1/4 gallons of syrup. That is our production to date for the 2011 season. We started with almost 500 gallons of sap to produce that amount of syrup. The syrup looks very good in the jar--a rich red amber color and very clean, that is, without visible suspended sediment.

With help from two adult kids and one small grandson, we collected 200 gallons of sap from today's flow. Ah yes! There is work to be done tomorrow. But I will be back at my day job tomorrow morning.

We decided to call it a day at 6:30PM. Time to clean up, make myself supper, and do a load of laundry of syrup making clothes.

Rick and his son collected 200 gallons of sap this afternoon and then left for Rick's 65th birthday supper with family. I went out to the sugarbush around 5:00PM after a day at the office and ran half of those 200 gallons through the evaporator. I called it a day at 10:30PM. I plan to be back out in the sugarhouse around 10:00AM to run the remaining sap through the evaporator in anticipation of a collection late in the afternoon tomorrow. When the sap is running, it can make for some long days, which stretch into late nights, to keep up with the evaporating. In five and a half hours this evening, I put approximately 100 gallons of sap through the evaporator. With the size of evaporator we are using, that is about the best rate we can expect. It takes "tending to the business" to achieve that rate--keeping the fire stoked, regulating the levels of sap in the two pans, and defoaming as needed. Starting up the evaporator and shutting it down at the end of the day or night both take some extra time. We now have a nice amount of syrup in the finisher that is ready for the next steps--finishing and bottling. By my estimate, there should be six gallons of syrup, moreorless.

We collected 90 gallons of sap early this afternoon and ran it through the evaporator. I was home by 8:00PM. The sap continued to run so we are expecting an even larger collection tomorrow. I suspect we'll be busy through the weekend. I will try to make regular posts so that folks are updated and can share in the excitement.

I haven't quite figured out the time and date stamp for postings. I don't think I can reset or correct this information. The day and date are correct, but the time is off by two hours. I will be posting this entry at approximately 7:00PM. Folks can use this a reference to correct for the time of previous and subsequent postings.

This difference will explain what appears to be postings describing events in advance of those very events occurring. No, I don't have the capacity to predict the future.

I continue to wait for the weather to move into syrup season mode. While waiting, there are odds and ends to take care of. Rick or I or both of us have been in the sugarbush every day to check on things, pick up the bags that the wind took off their spiles, start a fire in the kitchen stove to keep the water jugs from freezing solid, complete a minor repair, or clean up here and there.

The days have been clear and sunny, for the most part. High temperatures have been closing in on the 30 degree mark. Overnight lows have been in the low teens. There has been some sap flow on some south facing taps, but the sap in the bags is frozen solid. It will take a few days of decent syrup weather before that ice melts. If we get a good flow before the ice melts completely, we will have to deal with "sap on ice." We've done that in previous years; it takes a little longer and a little more care to empty the bags while leaving the ice and avoiding damage to the bags.

The sugarhouse has been furnished and outfitted with castoffs and extras from our separate homes, such as pots and pans that spouses decided were no longer needed or appropriate in their kitchens. Some items from canoe camping outfits are now pulling double duty in the sugarhouse. A few years back, a paring knife with the tip broke off found its way to the sugarhouse. This week I decided to see if I could reshape the blade into a more customary profile. I brought it home so that I could work on it with the hand grinder and a file. By working slowly I think I was able to accomplish my objective without burning the metal and changing its temper so that it would become quite useless. The blade probably does not have the classic Chicago Cutlery profile, but it is a lot more functional.

The garage sale find of the summer of 2011 was a newer model Coleman gas lantern. I spent $5.00 on what appeared to be a dirty but intact lantern with the exception of two broken mantels. A thorough clean-up and new mantels made for an operational lantern. This newer model is much quieter than the older models that we have been using. The brightness is also adjustable--sort of a built-in dimmer switch. Best of all it lights consistently with relative ease. Our two older lanterns have been very temperamental. Maybe they will be shamed into performing better in the presence of the new young beauty. So far this season, I have used only the new lantern for a short period of time one evening. The old timers are gassed up and ready to go or to be given a go.

The forecast holds promise for a sap flow on Monday or Tuesday--the 28th or 29th. Things are ready.

Despite spring according to my read of the calendar, another wintery day dawns with temperatures in the mid-teens and a few flurries in the air. There has been no sap flow since mid-day Sunday. I will go out to the sugarbush later today to pick up the collection bags that the wind blew off their spiles. We did not receive the 12 or more inches of snow that was forecast earlier this week. We did have windy conditions, which have been known to take the bags/bagholders off the spiles. With a very limited amount of new snow, I know I can easily find the bags that have blown off. In previous years, the bags have occasionally been fully buried in new snow, which made recovery difficult.

There may be one or another small chore that will give me good reason to hang out at the sugarhouse for a time. I will probably start a fire in the kitchen stove. This may keep the water jugs from freezing solid, which I hope they haven't done already. There are overnight lows in the single digits in the forecast. There may be a risk of the water freezing. From experience we know that it takes a long time for a 5 gallon block of ice to melt. When that block is inside of a plastic jug, there is no way to put heat to it. Putting some heat into the kitchen of the sugarhouse during these days will hopefully keep the water in a liquid state.

I was out to the sugarbush on Tuesday in order "to check on things"--another one of those good reasons to do something that feels good rather than really needs to be done. I spent some time splitting kindling. We have a number of cedar fence posts contributed to the operation by one of the partners. They were purchased years ago for a fencing project that later didn't need to be undertaken. They were simply thrown up in a pile so over the years the weather has not been kind to them, which means they are not much good as fence posts at this time. We cut a number of them to length with the chainsaw and now split them as we need them for kindling. Splitting kindling provides me with the opportunity to hone my axe skills.

This week I started my syrup season schedule--something new for this year. Usually I try to schedule a week of vacation during the syrup season, but it is always a challenge to predict out two or three weeks what the work load will be like. So this year I am trying something different. I requested and received approval to take Tuesdays and Thursdays off for a five week period--March 22nd through April 21st. I figured I could work a late night on those days that I work my day job--Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays--sleep in a little on the days off before putting in a full day as needed to keep up with the flow of sap. Our goal is not to hold sap in the bulk tanks any longer than necessary to help insure good quality syrup and to make sure we have room for more sap should we experience some good flows back to back to back. We have two 200 gallon bulk tanks, and with 175 taps, we can collect in excess of 200 gallons of sap on a really good day. It feels good to be ready for the really good days. Even if they don't occur all that often, the anticipation and being ready feels good.

I am not sure what my moral philosophy teacher would say about the motivations in this post--good reasons, aka excuses, anticipatory good feelings, and actualized good feelings. The 70's guide of "If it feels good, do it" discounted as wanton hedonism appears to have an application, that I can feel comfortable writing home to my mother about, even if there is no chance my mother will read this post.

As expected and hoped, we collected a little more than 200 gallons of sap early Sunday afternoon. We fired up the evaporator and ran approximately half of that amount through, before calling it a day at 8:00PM. This afternoon Rick started on what remained; I took over after my day job and finished up. I was home by 9:00PM for a hot shower and a late supper. The bulk tank is now empty. The place tidied up. The kitchen wood box refilled. The evaporator inside wood supply replenished. One rank of the outside wood pile tarped to keep it dry. There is some "almost syrup" in the finisher.

Ah yes, the 2011 syrup season is underway.

The sap has not run since we collected early Sunday afternoon. Last night's low temperature was not low enough to reset the sap flow cycle. The forecast for tonight does not hold much promise. After that, the weather man has advised everyone to hunker down for a 36-hour winter storm. That means there is little chance of another run of sap until the end of the week. With the winds that are forecast, we will probably be walking the sugarbush a few times to pick up bagholders and bags off the ground and putting them back on the spiles.

In any case, we will be ready for another sap flow later in the week. We will be ready earlier, but we aren't in control of the flow only being ready.

The trees are tapped. Yesterday, Rick and I put our 175 taps in and prepared the sugar house for the 2011 season--our ninth. The weather was cooperative and the sap was flowing at a good pace by noon. We hope to be able to collect 150 to 200 gallons this afternoon and to run the evaporator.

It didn't freeze last night. The snow that was forecasted came as rain. Checking the weather on-line this morning would seem to indicate that the rain will be with us until noon or later. I am not sure what this weather means for sap flow. My suspicion is that it will taper off by the end of the day and not run until we have at least one night with temperatures in the low or mid 20's.

After several weeks of anticipation, having second thoughts about the season's plans, and impatience, the 2011 syrup season is a go.

The last of the Christmas ham is diced and in the pot with two packages of dried peas, diced onions, diced carrots, and diced red bell pepper with an eclectic mix of seasonings. Last evening I put the peas in water to soak; today after work, the dicing was done and flame was applied to the concoction.

So why pea soup?

I needed to focus on something real after my recent posts and struggling through James Galbraith's book. I checked out a second book at the same time that I checked out the Galbraith book; it was a work by Noam Chomsky. I decided to return it to the library unread and to look for a very different kind of read. I found Lisa Jones' work titled Broken. It tells of the experience of a non-Native individual on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. It speaks to just how different various travellers in this time and space experience America in the 21st century. So much of our environment is much the same: news, music, television, civil law, clothing styles, national politics, and the economy. On the other hand, the impact of these upon the individual and the meaning ascribed to these in the course of one's individual experience is so greatly varied. When one listens carefully and observes clearly, one comes to the awareness of an immense variation in the contemporary human experience. This opens us to the richness of the human experience. Let it not discourage us from the struggle for sincere and genuine communication. For starters, let us acknowledge that it is a struggle.

I need to continue with thoughts very much in the same vein as yesterday's post, and they are prompted by a quote of the local district attorney cited recently in the local newspaper. The district attorney was explaining why he would not be responding to the preliminary autopsy report and the likelihood that he would be filing charges in a particular case. I most certainly appreciate and applaud his reticence to speak before he has all the facts and the input of others, but I am rattled by his explanation. "...I'm not comfortable talking about it [autopsy report]. It goes from the pathologist to the coroner to a cop to me, and black might be turned into white by the time it goes through that,..." What is unclear might be made clearer by this process or shades of gray will hopefully become black and white--to continue with the same figure of speech. But black becoming white? I assume and certainly hope that the pathologist, who performed the autopsy was an experienced forensic pathologist, who was very aware of the importance of his or her work and the potential impact of his or her science and judgment. We can certainly expect the report to be thoughtful and disciplined and, taken in concert with the other investigators' reports, to provide for a coherent account of the event and supports the district attorney's decision to file or not file charges.



If black is capable of becoming white, are known facts driving this case? If not, what is? A quote from James K. Galbraith comes to mind: [persons in positions of authority] "...trust their own system of beliefs and their affinities of politics and class," rather than a reasoned examination of the circumstances guided by intellectual honesty tempered by a degree of personal humility. I posit that we are all subject to such narrowness of vision, which is not vision at all, but a form of intellectual blindness. The challenge that each of us faces is to refuse to be take this easy way out.

I can only hope that an honest read of the facts guides the local district attorney. And that intellectual honesty is my regular partner.

So the gentleman referenced in the entry of the 26th claims that a sneezing cow is a lot funnier than a coughing cow. I find myself trying to visualize what a sneezing cow would look like. What do I come up with? How about a 1,100 pound short-haired holstein-colored cat caught in a sneezing fit? Even if that ain't funny, one would be hard pressed not to stop and take note of what is erupting in the corner by the calf pen.

What we appear to have here is an application of poetic license, which goes by any number of names depending upon the context, for example, artistic license. "All is fair in love and war" also comes to mind. License allows us to step outside of the norm or the "rules" and to claim legitimacy for the stance that we then take. The simple juxtaposition of love and war make me uneasy. War, it seems, always works outside of the rules; the difference is who is held accountable. From Noam Chomsky's perspective only the loser is held accountable. Right now I am not able to come up with a descriptor or qualifier for love, to develop this thought any further.

If we can easily claim an exception or an exemption, that is, to exercise license, are there really any rules? If not, what is it that guides human behavior, if there is a guide at all? I need to separate guiding principles from norms of behavior. That leaves me with the distinction between universal principles and very specific, variable, and even conflicting norms.

As I write this entry, I find myself listening over and over to "Somewhere Out in Mud Brook" by Michael Perry and the Long Beds. I don't know what it is about the tune. Mud Brook is a real place--some distance south of the home place and east of Highway 40. The tune could well be describing a real McCoy. The character spoken of in the tune has found a way, that works for him, to sort through the universal principle/specific norm conundrum. Ah! The Sage of Mud Brook.

It has to be a red letter day when Michael Perry answers one's email. I am hesitant to reply to his reply; I don't want him to come to the conclusion that I just might be an electronic stalker. Oh, by the way, I am still waiting for Mika Brzezinski to respond to one of my emails--I only sent her one. Maybe Mika plays hard to get. Should I be flooding her inbox with lots of emails? No. I'd rather have an occasional exchange of emails with Michael.

For one, who thinks about making a new entry in his blog a lot more often that he actually does, I guess it is most appropriate to make an entry on my 65th birthday. I have also been mildly embarrassed into being more diligent to make entries by persons, who make references to previous entries in the course of casual conversation. It is as if they want me to know that they have read the existing entries and would like to see some fresh stuff. Although, they are too polite to come right out and say that. Well, that is what I assume they mean. Maybe the unspoken second half really is "enough already." I'm going with the positive affirmation and will try to provide folks with what they desire or with simply more of the same.

My daughter shared with me her copy of Jon Krakauer's book "Where Men Win Glory" (the Pat Tillman story) with the instruction that I ought to read it. We both appreciate the works of Jon K. He writes these meticulously researched works, where he establishes a case for an alternative narrative. It is as if he takes an event of which there is considerable common knowledge and plumbs its depths bringing to light an intriguingly fascinating set of details, which never see the light of day in the popular press. The Pat Tillman story is one such example, where everyone knows about the professional football player turned Army Ranger post 9/11 killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan. Ah, but that is just the tip of the iceberg seen on the distant horizon. Previously I have read "Into the Wild" and "Into Thin Air". This afternoon I picked up "In the Land of White Death" at our local library. There are two more "Eiger Dreams" and "Under the Banner of Heaven." I will look for "Eiger Dreams" as a future read, but I think I will take a pass on "Under the Banner of Heaven."

But let's turn back to "Where Men Win Glory." It is a tough read. Having served in the US Army as a conscientious objector with a tour of duty in Vietnam 1970 - 1971, when morale in the service was reportedly at its lowest, I was expected a much different accounting of the military experience in 2003 and 2004. With an all volunteer force as distinct from draftees filling the ranks during a very unpopular war and more than two decades for the powers-that-be to make the transition, I expected at least a more professional approach.

The real story in this book is the administration's blatant self-serving use of Pat's enlistment and his tragic death for personal and political gain with almost total disregard for the clearly evident facts, any sense of moral integrity, and one's responsibility to the law. Many of the participants had freely accepted the last of that list as their solemn duty attested to by a sworn oath. The author draws a clear parallel between the Pat Tillman story and the prosecution of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is only a further indictment of the alleged War on Terror, from the perspectives of both purpose and execution.


How does this relate to turning 65? Forty years ago today, I was spending my 25th birthday working as a lab tech at the 3rd Surgical Hospital, Can Tho, Vietnam. If anything, I was hopeful that the geopolitical world would be a different place forty years into the future. Now that I am in this place forty years into that future with a detailed portrayal of a substantive piece of the contemporary American experience provided by J. Krakauer, I don't see the change that I hoped for and I question what I have been doing for forty years that the current situation is much as it was then.

You know what I think Pat Tillman might say? "It was a helluva situation; it still is a helluva situation. But did you make an honest effort to be a decent human being in face of that?"

In addition to "In The Land of White Death," I also picked up Noam Chomsky's book "Hegemony or Survival" (subtitle: "America's Quest for Global Dominance") this afternoon. I am sure Pat would approve.

I am also heartened by what appears to be another velvet revolution; this time it is Tunisia's opportunity.