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Fri, 28 Dec 2007 14:25:15 GMT

Cold road

A chilly scene of winter, something many folks here in the Midwest are familiar with right now, though this photo was taken nearly a year ago.

I had taken a solo trek to Roundrock, thinking that my life was incomplete without having seen my woods with a blanket of snow. As I recall, by the end of the afternoon, I was seriously reconsidering how important that ambition was.

I took this photo on my hike out of Roundrock. Because of the ice, I had left the truck parked about a mile and a half away and had hiked in to our woods. That was fine since the physical activity of the walking kept me plenty warm. But the road was glazed with ice so I had to tromp through the tall grass beside it, which required me to lift my feet high with each step, out of the deepish snow and tallish grass. It was slow and tiring work. But I had to see my own forest filled with snow after all.

I think the cold scoffed at my ambition, for I remember feeling that the view of the snowy woods was not as inspiring as I imagined. I wandered about Roundrock a good bit, seeing the slopes and ravines and the ice covered lake. I tried sitting in the weak light to eat my lunch and drink me tea (unsweetened, of course). And all the while I remember being cold. If I stopped moving for very long, I began to shiver. Cold, with an hour hike back to the truck before I could hope to get warm again.

I didn’t linger in the woods that day, but I did think that if I stayed in the trees, it would have some protection from the icy wind that blew across my neighbor’s open field and sought any gap in my clothes. Walking in the snowy woods, bushwhacking in the snowy woods, proved about as slow going as striding through the tall grass had been, so despite the malevolent wind, I got myself on our road. I could walk straight out that way, without diverting around fallen trees or getting tripped by blackberry canes hidden in the snow.

The photo above is looking west. I’m not sure if you can see it but the left side of the roadway is filled with a trail of deer tracks. It looked as though a half dozen deer needed to get somewhere by the most direct round and marched in single file along the road. That would have left them exposed to predators, but could they have known that hunting season was long ended? Or were they, like me, more interested in getting to their destination than enjoying the forest? Far ahead in the photo is the little pond we have. When the deer reached this, they left the road and crossed the dam, heading back into the trees. Had it not been so bitingly cold, I might have followed the tracks to see where they lead. (But, really, where would they have lead? Probably just across miles and miles of snowy ground, and I’m sure I would have given up before following the tracks to some deer haven.)

Somehow I managed to get back to my truck that day, and I eventually found some warmth. I still want to see my woods filled with snow, and I’m sure I will some day, but I hope the conditions are less of a threat to my long term plans (continuing to live) when I can.

Missouri calendar:

• A snowfall acts as insulation, protecting the animals beneath.

Posted by: Roundrockjournal      Read more     Source

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 16:04:03 GMT

Cranberries and New England's fall staple

The cranberry has a starring role in the agricultural history of Massachusetts and New England. It’s still a major crop in Mass., as well as Michigan, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Maine and many other U.S. states and Canadian provinces. (Other states/provinces: don’t flame me ‘cuz I called them New England’s fall staple. I know you have them too. I just happen to live in New England!)

Around this time of year, the pea-sized red berries get a lot of attention. It’s harvest time, and a lot of folks drive the backroads of southeastern Mass., hoping to catch a glimpse of cranberries being harvested. And now’s the time that you start seeing fresh cranberries at the market, and of course Thanksgiving is sort of the Superbowl of cranberries.

There are four native species of cranberry in the genus Vaccinium, but it’s primarily the American cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon) that causes all this fuss. Blueberries and huckleberries are also part of the Vaccinium genus, which is part of the Ericaceae family that also includes rhododendrons, azaleas, heaths, and heathers. Lest you think I’m a botanical Latin name-dropper, I’m mostly mentioning it to make the point that due to their shared Ericaceae heritage, all of these plants share the need for soil with a more acidic pH than other plants.

In the wild, V. macrocarpon prefer moist, swampy soils, which is why they are cultivated in bogs. They are low-growing and shrubby, nearly a groundcover, with pink flowers that bloom in summer and leathery, evergreen leaves. They are well-loved by all types of wildlife; honeybees and butterflies love their abundant nectar and birds love their berries.

Native inhabitants called them sassamanesh, ibimi, or atoqua. It was European settlers that first called them crane-berries either because (depending on which tale you believe) they are a favorite food of cranes or their flowers are shaped like a crane’s neck and head. The Natives saved European settlers from starving to death by teaching them how to mix dried cranberries and deer meat to make pemmican, sort of an early trail mix, and legend has it that cranberries were served at the first Thanksgiving. (Yup–they cranked open a can and popped out a roll of can-shaped jelly, just like we do!!! Kidding.)

I do feel that cranberries are culinarily unappreciated–we seem to only eat them dried, or in muffins, juice, or the aforementioned can-shaped jelly–and even then only at Thanksgiving. There’s a world of ways to cook them, though…check out fellow blogger Geraldine’s cranberry “chip” cookies, which substitute dried crans for chocolate chips, or her recipe for cranberry mandarin Christmas loaf, a great substitute for fruitcake. And there’s a whole slew of recipes at the Cape Cod Cranberry Growers’ Association website, which has a lot of uses for fresh and frozen berries.

Where to get them? Support an organic farmer, and order fresh, frozen, or dried organic cranberries from Plymouth, Mass.-based Cranberry Hill Organic Farm’s online store.

More on cranberries in my next post, where I’ll write about cranberry farming methods. I’m hoping to visit some bogs this weekend, and if the photo gods are smiling, I’ll have some pictures.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia/Agricultural Research Service/USDA. Posted by: Caroline Brown      Read more     Source

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 00:16:41 GMT

Do You Abide By Dating Rules?

I've heard about all of these rules that are out there regarding dating. There is the "wait three days to call rule", for example, in which the guy is supposed to do the calling but he's supposed to wait three days before making the call in order to keep the girl interested. Although, in my experience, men don't actually wait three days. They tell you that they know they are "supposed to" wait three days .... which they tell you in a phone call made the night of the date or the following day. Perhaps that's what the real rule is and I just haven't been kept up to date.

In any case, there are all sorts of rules that are supposedly dictate relationships, rules about everything from what to wear to when to have sex. As for me, I've never bothered to learn the rules well enough to play by them. I'm kind of a "this is what I want, take me or leave me" kind of personality. But I hear that a lot of people play by these rules. So do you play by them? Are there certain ones that you play by and others you don't? And how do you decide? Posted by: Kathryn Vercillo      Read more     Source

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 02:59:31 GMT

I Really Don't Want Anything for Christmas

I love Christmas, maybe even more so than when I was a kid, because I get such a kick out of seeing my kids open their presents. But for the past few years I have been trying unsuccessfully to get people to stop buying me Christmas gifts.

Don't get me wrong. I want stuff just like anyone else. But I don't want much. And I don't generally want things that anyone would buy me for a Christmas gift. I usually want either big things that are too expensive for anyone to buy as a gift, or very small things that most people would think are insubstantial to give as a gift. No one's going to spring for a trip to Europe for me, and probably no one's going to think that Post-It Notes are a sufficient gift (despite my love of them).

What I don't want are things that clutter my life, like random electronic gadgets, or clothes that I like just enough to keep even though I wouldn't have bought them myself (and also would have some guilt getting rid of). I don't mean to be Scroogey about it; I appreciate the sentiment. I just don't want the stuff.

I've worked hard over the last year or so especially to try to rid myself of physical/mental junk, and I try to keep a running tickler in my head that pulls me back when I am tempted to buy something that will get limited use or that I know will cause me regrets later. Then Christmas comes, and the stuff shows up.

I have asked anyone buying for me (which is thankfully fewer people than it used to be thanks to my bad personality) to please either make a donation in my name somewhere, or buy me things like tickets to events-something that I'll appreciate but that will not occupy an eternal space in my physical surroundings. Sometimes these wishes are granted; other times they are completely ignored.

Is it somehow wrong to NOT want Christmas gifts? Is our society so attached to the gift-giving aspect of Christmas that to not want gifts is to somehow be ungrateful? I sometimes sense that reaction, and I can't tell if I'm a jerk or just an anomaly.

(The photo on this post is from krisdecurtis.) Posted by: Justin McHenry      Read more     Source

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 01:31:55 GMT

What Goes Around Comes Around

A panoramic view from inside a washing machine by Robert Serra.

More panoramic pictures at VRMAG. Posted by: Gerard      Read more     Source

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 01:44:23 GMT

Danger stump

When we first started coming to the woods, this stump was freshly cut. There was still bark on the trunk and plenty of spring in the bent wood. It was a dangerous stump indeed.

This stump is at Fallen Timbers, along the north property line. It was left by the loggers who had foraged the forest looking for trees they could sell as lumber. The prior owner had hired them to make what money he could from the forest before he sold it to us, I guess.

The loggers cut down many trees that they left behind. Most were hollow, which I guess is something you can’t reliably determine before you cut into a tree. This tree, on the other hand, was not hollow, but they left it behind too. I suppose it was too thin to become a good lumber tree, but that should have been evident before they cut it.

The trouble with this stump is that it is still attached to the tree, and the join is under tension. If one were to begin cutting at the bent join, the tree could snap back at the cutter with a great deal of force. Today the term “stump jumping” is used to describe a kind of mountain biking, but in pioneer days it referred to the sometimes unpredictably way a tree could fall or jump from its stump when cut. Lumberjacks could be killed when this would happen.

I don’t think that would happen with this tree. As dry as it is now, and with as much rot as it has gone through in the last decade, I don’t think there is much tension left in it. I think I could safely cut it free, but why? Nothing would be gained by dropping the tree to the ground. I suppose it would rot away sooner, but so what?

I think I’d rather visit this tree periodically and see how it is progressing on getting the job done by itself. Someday I may come to the woods and find it has broken free and fallen to the forest floor itself.

Missouri calendar:

• The Missouri Natural Events Calendar is blank for today.

Posted by: Roundrockjournal      Read more     Source

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:37:07 GMT

White Mane and The Red Balloon

Albert Lamorisse''s White Mane and The Red Balloon are screening at New York''s Film Forum through November 25 before floating out across the country in the coming weeks.

"The stories are simple, fablelike; the heroes are boys; the subject in each case is the purity and power of a child''s imagination; and the tone of both films is that of open-mouthed wonder," writes Terrence Rafferty in the New York Times. "Yet these movies are also shot through with a very adult melancholy, an awareness that life tends not to measure up to the glorious pictures in our minds. The young are enchanted by White Mane and The Red Balloon. Grown-ups, who know too well how fragile this beauty is, are likely to cry." Posted by: dwhudson      Read more     Source

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 10:15:46 GMT

Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium

"Mr Magorium''s Wonder Emporium was written and directed by Zach Helm, whose previous major credit was the screenplay for the Will Ferrell comedy Stranger Than Fiction, which envisions a sophisticated adult version of the same kind of magic," writes Stephen Holden in the New York Times. "But if the concept is ingenious, its execution is erratic. The story is arbitrarily divided into chapters of varying length that have no clear beginning, middle or end, and the movie''s narrative drive is sporadic."

"Everything is wrong with this film," writes Charles Mudede in the Stranger. "In it, zero is new; dead tired are its plot, imagery, themes, and acting. The movie wants to look and feel fresh, but it instead presents us with a series of heavy corpses: the corpse of the music, the corpse of the set design, the corpse of the dialogue. Even the special effects are not special." Posted by: dwhudson      Read more     Source

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 01:32:31 GMT

Oprah's YouTube Channel

Someone''s gonna get a lot of hits! And, the business woman is so smart, I can''t even post her video on here. HTML codes are disabled.

So, here ya go - Oprah''s YouTube channel.

For more daily new posts visit www.poponthepop.com Posted by: Joy A      Read more     Source

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 11:37:23 GMT

A Canadian visitor

My friend and co-editor at qarrtsiluni, Beth Adams, has yet to visit Plummer’s Hollow. But other part-time residents of Quebec fly over twice a year, and sometimes they drop in for a quick bite. This one did, and got a bit more hospitality than she bargained for. See the complete story Beth Adams.

*

It looks taller, now,
that little pine where the eagle
straightened her feathers. Posted by: Vianegativa      Read more     Source