Positive Thinking For A Wednesday Morning In The Waning Days Of Industrial Civilization...

A Desert Sunrise Beyond The Power Grid

Click on photo to enlarge - © jim otterstrom 2009/2010

Each new morning brings opportunities beyond the possibilities of yesterday.
There is a new story unfolding before us, a story borne slightly more visible with every passing day.
A story that lives beyond peak fossil fuel and Industrial Civilization.
How that story unfolds depends upon us...

jim otterstrom 6/2/2010


Below are some positive constructive thoughts, from Andrew MacDonald, for a Wednesday morning dimmed by the depressing gloom of the Gulf of Mexico tragedy.

Living the new story
by Andrew MacDonald

Published Wed, 06/02/2010 - 07:00
by Radical Relocalization

In this time of transition, two stories run through the culture. One is about continual growth and ascendancy. It's mainstream culture's story, the everyday world we're familiar with. The other is the as yet little known story of radical change and descent as we enter the time of necessary simplification - reskilling, retooling, relocalizing. The two stories compete out there in the public conversation of course but also in us and our personal relationships. It often hits me again how deep a hold the status quo's got. We're pretty much wired into it in our daily routines of shopping, speaking, working and living. It's current reality and it's everywhere and hard to see for that reason.

We've lived in that old story for a very long time and its back story - that growth is good and inevitable - is so in our bones, so embodied in us literally that new thinking doesn't affect it much. The Industrial Revolution and the turbo-charge provided by fossil fuel has strengthened these assumptions. We maintain them in small unnoticed ways. When we go shopping or to work, when we talk to friends - we're actors in a world where the script is still the old story about progress and growth and we bow to that story's conventions before we know it. If we watch TV or advertising, it's the old story, even if with some new lines. Importantly the old story is also the one the people we love are plugged into, including our parents and grandparents. Debunking it can seem disloyal to them. The need to be loyal to the story our family honored isn't noticed much either, but it's at the root of a lot of what seems stuck in our culture.

In short we're caught between a rock (the one that sustained us in the past) and a hard place - the challenging realities that we'll need to sustain us in the future.

So how do we move toward the new story? The new story tells of the descent to a world of less fossil fuel use, more localism, more community. It's a new world in which more is asked of us and more interdependence is needed between us; we really can't do it all alone. The new story stretches us personally to imagine new possibilities, exercise unused talents, to admit to ourselves and others what we really want. "Our past remains present, literally occupying us, til we go into & through it with our awakened, full-blooded presence" tweets Robert Masters. The rewards are high in the new story, so's the cost; it's out of our comfort zone.

I'll talk elsewhere about self-authoring the new story and writing a script that meets more of our needs but right now I want to focus on two practical supports for it that are renewals of our associative life. The first is doing community projects with others: gardening, sharing skills, utilizing local markets, working and building things together at the block level or its equivalent, generally building more local community and economy.

The second support takes the form of small groups that can act as micro-climates for the new story. I agree with Peter Block that "the small group is the unit of social transformation"! These explorations will happen eventually on their own given enough time. The trouble is we don't have much time. If we do nothing and coast, change will happen at what we used to call a glacial pace - a pace that glaciers no longer travel at. We'll need to be proactive on this one.

A small group is a practical help by reinforcing the social glue that connects the community and gets things done. It's also valuable in helping us adopt the new paradigm inside ourselves and see elements we just can't see on our own. It's a place where we can try things on for size, see how others are doing it, literally learn together. In the process, the new story becomes more real and embodied. Doing nothing tends to leave us, for now, in the context of the old story. (Sign up for Andrew MacDonald's newsletter for small group updates and support.)

But we do need to move quickly as possible into the new story now. We don't have the luxury of having the old story slowly come to pass over the next 20 or 50 years. Uh, no! Peak oil, financial implosion and climate change are happening now! And we can't just think our way into the new story by tacking some new thoughts in. The story doesn't live and breathe at the level of thought - especially not abstracted cyber thought. It's the spirit in which we move and talk.

More Essays and Ideas from Andrew MacDonald

FIVE YEAR BLOGGIVERSARY!

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2010 jim otterstrom

On February 26, 2005 I sat down at the computer and created Earth Home Garden out of thin air, and now 5 years have passed and this is my 659th post.

In many ways the blog is not what I had envisioned back then but it has also become something far more personal and meaningful for me than I could've imagined.

Earth Home Garden was conceived as a place where Peggy and I could share our ongoing experiments with living more self-reliant sustainable lifestyles---something we've had in common since we first met 30 some years ago---which we started focusing on more acutely over the past twenty years.

As it reads in our Blogger profile, "Earth Home Garden represents what we love in life; our bountiful planet, Earth, and all her natural diversity; our cozy little cabin Home, and the family it has sheltered for 29 years; and the Garden around us which nurtures so many native creatures and helps feed us as well".

So my intent was to write here specifically about nature, homesteading & food production on a small property; about do it yourself home maintenance, crafting and sewing; and about moving toward a salvage based personal economy where what we acquire is mostly used, second-hand, or recycled, whether it be household items or other materials. And, I have posted quite a bit on those topics.

However, it didn't take long for me to realize that Earth Home Garden also represents something more than that, because, also involved, is my oddball decision making process which has driven me to wholeheartedly embrace big changes in our lives, such as living car-free.

An innate sense that we are one with the earth (and the entire cosmos for that matter) tells me that what happens to our ecosystem also happens to me (and to those I love). Therefore my perception of our culture, and the world around me, is highly subjective, and I strive to make decisions accordingly. I've often been advised to be more objective but I believe, as author Barry Lopez suggested, that "the objectification of everything non-human" is what has allowed us to treat our world with such callous impersonal disregard.

Consequently, Earth Home Garden also became a place for me to bare my radical ecologist soul, and vent my frustration with the omnipresent destruction of all that which I hold so dearly.

Surprisingly enough, I've received as many enthusiastic or supportive comments on my sociopolitical diatribes and rants as I have on photos of nature & wildlife, or posts about pine-needle basketry, acorn processing, and gardening, etc., and I've made far more than a few friends here who I feel very close to.

For the past month I'd been contemplating ending Earth Home Garden with today's post, but after reviewing all the pictures, and some of the posts, I realize how much I still enjoy doing this when I find the time and energy.

Still, I must say, writing is like pulling teeth for me, it hurts until all the words are out there...

I love reading well written words, and I've learned over the years that those words are never going to come easy for me, but I'm often strongly affected by images---the fun part of blogging which I truly enjoy---so most of my posts are inspired by a picture. Somehow, when I look at an image that interests me, the words start coming along easier. It's why I became interested in photography in the first place I guess, so I might be able to express my thoughts or feelings with some clarity of focus.

I have my camera with me constantly and there are times, when the light is right and my head is clear, that everything is photogenic to me, and then several days may go by when nothing looks interesting at all. Because of this reality, I began going through my old photos, slides, and artwork to find material for blogposts when I'm not otherwise feeling inspired or creative.

For me, this happy accident of a method has added a depth to Earth Home Garden that weaves today, and sixty four years ago, together into an ever-evolving artful record now spanning much of my life.

And blogging in this way has reconnected me with many old friends and created new opportunities in my life, and the lives of my kids too. Our daughter is now living in Santa Barbara, working on a boat there, and attending college, partly because of a friend I reconnected with after posting some old pictures and stories on the blog.

Something else I've learned while blogging is that any kind of preconceived continuity is almost impossible to maintain because, "life is what happens while you're busy making plans", and some of the constant disruptions and distractions which come along can be long term life changing events for an entire family, such as the car accident our son was in 4 1/2 years ago that left him legally blind.

And, like everyone else alive these past five years, we've had much to deal with; family members battling cancer; my stepfather passing away from complications due to Alzheimer's Disease; our kids struggling in today's economy.

We've had the kids and their significant others, including the dogs, staying with us on several occasions. We have friends & neighbors in similar situations, or in economic dire straits, or with health problems, but much of this doesn't go on the blog because people don't want their lives made that public.

Then there's the normal social obligations of having friends, of being part of a neighborhood, and a community, and when you add all that to the everyday responsibilities of caring for your property, your gardens, your animals, and each other, it's often hard to make time for blogging, which is why this is my first post in almost a month. And why I'm often negligent too at responding to comments or checking in with my blog friends.

Once again, I apologize for that.

Still, all things considered, when I look at the mere 100 pictures (out of more than 700 posted thus far) which make up the composite photo above, and think about all the posts they inspired, about the lives, memories, and collective span of time they represent, I'm truly astounded that I've managed to post almost seven times that much content here in this brief but tumultuous 5 years.

My, how time flies when we're having fun!

Goodbye Farmer's Market...

...until next year

Click on photos to enlarge © 2009 jim otterstrom

Yesterday was the final Tuesday for our Farmer's Market this season and the vendors won't be back up here until next Spring. We'll miss having this weekly produce market just a block and a half from our front door.

Our garden is done for the year too...
...goodbye sweet summer.

C'est la vie!

Today Is The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life...

...How Did You Begin Yours?

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2009 jim otterstrom

Peggy and I have been sleeping on the deck, outside, under the stars, for the past few weeks. We wake up about 5 A.M. and have been alternating between long morning walks and bike rides around the lake.

This morning we left the house on our bikes, at 5:45, and found another beautiful sky waiting for us. We could see rain in the distance ahead of us so I stopped at Von's deli and asked for a plastic bag to put my camera in, just in case.

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2009 jim otterstrom

In the enlarged picture you can see rain falling over to the west of us, and, as we got over near Boulder Bay, the roads were wet but the rain had moved out ahead of us.

You may also notice a rainbow coming down through the clouds in the right side of the photo. It appears to be touching down near the Serrano Campground on the north shore, near the solar observatory, and sure enough, when we got over to the bike path that runs through the campground the ground was still wet.

Boulder Bay

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2009 jim otterstrom

As we rolled west the clouds moved to the horizon and blues skies opened above us.

Near The Dam, Looking Southeast
Click on photo to enlarge - © 2009 jim otterstrom

Shortly after crossing the dam, and heading back eastward toward home, we stopped for a water break at this overlook.

A Couple Of Hours Later...
Click on photo to enlarge - © 2009 jim otterstrom
Tuesday is the day our local little Farmer's Market sets up shop, just 2 blocks from our house, so after our ride we leashed up Dallas and headed over to pick up some fresh produce.




Click on photos to enlarge - © 2009 jim otterstrom

All this fun and we were home before 9 A.M. looking forward to working in our own gardens.

~We Hope You Are Enjoying Your Day~

Peace & Love
Jim & Peg

Greenhouse...

~TOMATOES~

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2009 jim otterstrom

Tomatoes on the vine in the greenhouse yesterday morning.

Our first tomato ripened last weekend and several more are about ready for picking.

Our train trip post is still coming but today is food co-op delivery day, so we'll be a bit busy for the next several hours. The truck just arrived!

Ecological Food For Thought...

The Progress Of Destruction

The Heart Of The Matter

Click on image to enlarge - © 2008 jim otterstrom

A friend once sent me a link to a composite photo of the nighttime lights of North America as seen from space.

She found the photo to be very comforting in the fact that she could see the lights of all the places in America where she had friends.

But I found the photo to have a somewhat opposite effect on my emotions.

It caused a discomforting knot in my gut!

I saw the lights as countless gaping holes in the biotic communities of the continent I call home.

The more numerous, and brighter the lights, the bigger the holes in the living diversity of the natural world.

To most people, I suppose, these lights represent progress in the development of humankind.

But, to me, they dramatically illustrate the destructive imbalance between human organisms and our environments.

Where there are lights, there are buildings, shopping malls, sprawling suburbs, monstrous cities, millions of acres of roads slathered in asphalt & concrete, factories, plastic, landfills & waste management facilities, power generation plants, sewage treatment plants, schools, hospitals, prisons, machinery, automobiles, internal combustion engines, wrecking yards, toxic chemicals, pollution, oil fields, corporate headquarters & the seats of governments, police stations, courthouses, military bases and nuclear weapons facilities.

Every second of every day the exponential growth of our human creation lays waste to more of the biosphere as our species races forward in its relentless destruction of the planet.

What we're doing to planet Earth literally mirrors what insects did to the ravaged leaf above. We are eating away large bits of our habitat, but, we have no other leaf, or, in our case, planet, to migrate to when this one is stripped bare.

The results upon the victim are similar to those of a plague of locusts or a rampantly malignant cancerous growth. And, unfortunately, our victim is this magnificent place we call home, the sole source of our sustenance.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Our imaginations are simply boxed-in, blinded by the overwhelming monolithic hierarchical structure of the civilization we were born into.

But things may be changing as more and more people seem to be realizing that the way we live just doesn’t work, and doesn’t feel good either.

Life on Earth is a vast assemblage of complex organisms, but we're all evolved from one single-celled common ancestor.

We are one family,

The Family Of Earth.

And, our species lays claim to sentience, consciousness, and self-awareness.

So, as I daily witness the continuing degradation and destruction of the biosphere, the loss of diversity, of natural habitat, and the species who live here, I can’t help but sense that these holes in our biotic communities are also metaphors for holes in our hearts. For the longing in our souls and our spirit. A longing to be whole, to be complete, to be home.

And I believe that some of us are beginning to understand this, and that many more feel it subconsciously.

Yes, the future may still hold a place for humanity, for the surviving descendants of the Agricultural, Industrial, and Petroleum Ages.

The Ages of Empire and World Domination.

Once the heavy burden of this all-consuming civilization is lifted off our backs, perhaps the collective memories of our DNA, our native intuition, will help us remember that there are many ways to live.

And certainly, among those ways, there are some which are sustainable, which would allow our species to continue living, in much more realistic numbers, through ages to come.

Are the lessons we're beginning to learn about our dysfunctional relationship with our environment guiding us toward imagining and desiring a Biocentric Age?

If so, then an Age Of Biocentrism could one day become reality, a sort of natural succession, as impellingly adopted as have been the aforementioned Ages of human history which have paralleled our ever-evolving consciousness.

A definition from Wikipedia

Biocentrism (from Greek: βίος, bio, "life"; and κέντρον, kentron, "center") is a term that has several meanings but is commonly defined as the belief that all forms of life are equally valuable and humanity is not the center of existence. Biocentric positions generally advocate a focus on the well-being of all life in the consideration of ecological, political, and economic issues. Biocentrism in this sense has been contrasted to anthropocentrism, which is the belief that human beings and human society are, or should be, the central focus of existence.

~

Nighttime Lights of North America

Click on image to enlarge - courtesy of NOAA

This is not the photo my friend sent several years ago. That one had an all black background.

But you get the idea...

~

Post Script

The leaf in the image at top is from a Hollyhock that's growing near a faucet in the garden.

It caught my eye, and my imagination, for several days before I realized what it reminded me of.

I decided to scan it and was then moved to write this post.

Nature, speaking through me, I guess you might say.

I chose today for this post to participate with Sonia in her Ecological Day at her blog, Leaves Of Grass.

For The Contrary Goddess...

Buddha and the Mushroom Click on photo to enlarge - © 2008 jim otterstrom

Fellow blogger, The Contrary Goddess, gave me a "tiny challenge" I couldn't resist.

"Name 100 species which live in your neighborhood", she asked.

Well, here's 117 native (or migratory) species which are residents or visitors to our own yard, and I've barely scratched the surface of the bird and insect visitors.

As I find the time I'll be adding the scientific names to the list below and will include links to various botanical websites for plant profiles.

Earth Home Garden Species

1. Common Yarrow

(Achillea millefolium)

2. Wild Onion

(Allium sp.)

3. Indian Hemp

(Apocynum cannabinum)

4. Rock-Cress

(Arabis pulchra)

5. Prickly Poppy

(Argemone munita)

6. Crimson Columbine

(Aquilegia formosa)

7. Narrow Leaf Milkweed

(Asclepias fascicularis)

8. Green Striped Mariposa Lily

(Calochortus invenustus)

9. Wild Morning-Glory
10. Indian Paintbrush
11. Ash Gray Paintbrush
12. Thistle
13. Miner’s Lettuce
14. Virgin’s Bower (Pipestem)
15. Wild Hyacinth (Blue Dicks)
16. Fireweed
17. California Fuschia
18. Stream Orchid
19. Fleabane
20. Yerba Santa
21. California Buckwheat
22. Pine Buckwheat
23. Sulfur Flower (Sulfur-Color Buckwheat)
24. Wright’s Buckwheat
25. Western Wallflower
26. California Poppy
27. Wild Geranium
28. Gilia
29. Rydberg’s Horkelia
30. Western Blue Iris (Blue Flag)
31. Granite Gilia (Prickly Phlox)
32. Mountain Aster
33. Humboldt Lily
34. Lemon Lily
35. Blue Flax
36. Brewer’s Lupine
37. Grape Soda Lupine
38. Dwarf Lupine
39. Giant Lupine
40. Tarweed
41. Pineapple Weed
42. Coyote Mint
43. Coyote Tobacco
44. California Evening Primrose
45. Anderson’s Penstemon
46. San Bernardino Beardtongue
47. Firecracker Penstemon
48. Bumble-Bee Penstemon
49. Scarlet Penstemon
50. Mountain Bugler
51. Showy Penstemon
52. Desert Blue Bells
53. Mountain Phacelia
54. Sticky Cinquefoil
55. Buttercup
56. Southern Goldenrod
57. Apricot Mallow
58. White Hedge Nettle
59. Stinging Nettle
60. Hedgehog Cactus
61. Beaver-Tail Cactus
62. Cane Cholla (Snake Cholla)
63. Prickly-Pear Cactus
64. Utah Service-Berry
65. Greenleaf Manzanita
66. Silver Wormwood
67. Great Basin Sage
68. Rubber Rabbitbrush
69. California Flannelbush
70. Fremont’s Bushmallow
71. Western Choke-Cherry
72. Antelope Bush
73. Sierra Currant
74. Rose Sage
75. Apricot Mallow
76. Snowberry
77. White Fir
78. Incense Cedar
79. Mountain Mahogany
80. Western Juniper
81. Jeffrey Pine
82. Singleleaf Pinyon Pine
83. Quaking Aspen
84. California Black Oak
85. Pygmy Nuthatch
86. White-Breasted Nuthatch
87. Mountain Chickadee
88. Western Bluebird
89. Steller’s Jay
90. Northern Flicker
91. White-Headed Woodpecker
92. Anna’s Hummingbird
93. Rufous Hummingbird
94. Western Tanager
95. Wilson’s Warbler
96. Yellow-Rumped Warbler
97. Mourning Dove
98. Acorn Woodpecker
99. Hairy Woodpecker
100. Violet-Green Swallow
101. American Robin
102. Black-Headed Grosbeak
103. Rufous-Sided Towhee
104. Band-Tailed Pigeon
105. Lesser Goldfinch
106. Dark-Eyed Junco
107. Cassin’s Finch
108. Mourning Cloak Butterfly
109. Giant Swallowtail Butterfly
110. Painted Lady Butterfly
111. California Sister Butterfly
112. Monarch Butterfly
113. Western Gray Squirrel
114. California Ground Squirrel
115. Merriam Chipmunk
116. Western Toad

117. Western Terrestrial Garter Snake

Connecting the dots...

...a letter from Erik

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2007 jim otterstrom

We got a very nice letter the other day from our young friend, Erik, who lives along Lytle Creek in the San Gabriel Mountains, about 65 miles from here.

Erik and his mother, along with his older sister & brother, have come to see our Native Plant Garden during the Big Bear Xeriscape Tour for the past couple of years, and the kids really love the gardens & the chickens.

This past July they stayed here most of the afternoon picking our brains and endearing themselves to us.

So it was great to hear from Erik, and today I'm mailing off replies to him from Peggy & I, including one of our pine-needle basketry starter kits, and 2 more for his brother & sister.

The kits include a coil of hemp twine, a large-eyed craft needle, a pine-needle guide (3/8"plastic tubing), a chunk of beeswax to wax the twine, a small bundle of pine needles (they have plenty of pine-needles in their neck o' the woods too), and complete instructions on making a small basket/bowl.

One of the most enjoyable things about Earth Home Garden, for Peggy and I, is watching how much fun kids have exploring the gardens and interacting with the chickens.

It's a regular occurrence for kids to come by and ask if they can go in and see the chickens and collect the eggs for us. They're also very interested in the hand pumps on the rainbarrels, the pedal-stone, the solar waterfall/pond, the hand plow, my big eco-friendly ant farm, and all the other wildlife that visits our place.

But it's especially rewarding for us when city kids, who've never had much exposure to country life, or nature, find some joy & magic in our little patch of Mother Earth.

Erik, however, is not a city kid. He's one of the more fortunate ones who lives in the rural foothills beyond the outskirts of town. His entire family has a budding interest in learning about sustainability, about living within nature, instead of upon her, and we admire their thoughtfulness and good energy.

ONE FOR BILL...

GET WELL SOON BILL!!

The Deck & The Margaritas Await Your Return

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2007 jim otterstrom

The guys next door, Grant and Bill, built this deck last month, finishing it just three days before Bill fell out of a tree he was trimming at his place down near the ocean.

Bill was only about 7 feet up when he fell but he landed very badly, breaking his back in several places, his neck, a couple of ribs, both wrists, and fracturing his skull.

The good news is that our friend and neighbor is going to be OK. The doctors say he's really lucky there was no spinal cord damage and he's home now, recuperating down at his full-time residence, after several weeks in the hospital.

The cabin next door belongs to Grant, and he and Bill use it for week-end getaways, nearly every week. Grant was up over this past weekend to put a coat of varnish on the deck, but Bill won't be traveling for awhile yet, so I thought I'd post this picture for him so he can see how nice the deck looks stained.

Bill has the carpentry skills, doing most of the work on the deck, and he and I much enjoyed gabbing and exchanging ideas as it took shape. We also had a blast christening it over Margaritas.

Peggy and I send our love, Bill...

GET WELL QUICK!

Getting A New Computer Bugs Me!

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2007 jim otterstrom

Where have I been all year?

Our old & slow 1999 computer was locking up on a daily basis, I was losing e-mail by the box loads, and the poor thing could barely play a CD anymore, much less a video or DVD.

Over the years I added all the RAM it could support, replaced the original 8 GB hard drive with a 20 GB drive, installed a USB 2 PCI card, CD/DVD burners, a second internal drive, card reader hubs, and two external 80 GB USB 2 hard drives until finally all the slots and ports were full and the antique 486MHz Pentium III just couldn't keep up anymore.

So, on January 3rd, UPS delivered a fast new computer (2.40 GHz dual processor) to our doorstep, and then I spent several days adding a Firewire PCI card, 2 Gigs of Ram (in addition to the 2 Gigs which came installed), a 3.5" bay hub 13 in 1 card reader, a Firewire 3.5" bay hub, a second external USB CD/DVD burner, the two 80 GB USB drives scavenged from the old system, and I still have a second 250 GB internal hard drive to install.

Phheww...

Then it was time to transfer files and programs.

Yikes!!!

After a few more days of saving files from the old machine to disks, and then, realizing that I didn't have a clue about how to move my essential programs into the new one, I broke down and called my computer geek buddy Tom. He came over to help me out last night and now I finally have enough stuff transferred so that I can blog again.

It's truly a love/hate thing with me and computers...

I love the creativity enabled by them, the access and democratic openness (for the time-being) of the internet, and I even rather enjoy installing hardware (it reminds me of working on cars in my younger days---without the grease).

However, installing and learning software is another thing entirely.

I hate the installation and registration processes, the steep learning curve of a good in-depth program, and, especially the complicated marketing, monitoring, security, copyright protection & surveillance schemes of corporations like Microsoft, Adobe, Apple and Symantec, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...

But I'm hooked* on the damned things just like I was on the automobile in previous decades and that bugs me!

So, right now I'm going to play with our new toy, err..., I mean do some work with our new tool!

;~\

* The radical Luddite in me is highly critical of dependence on such contraptions!

Was Our November A Canary In A Coal Mine? How Hot Might It Get In The Next Few Decades? You Tell Me...

Click on chart to enlarge - courtesy of Yahoo!/The Weather Channel

Warning!!

This IS a RANT!

...and not a very nice or funny one.

I knew we had an abnormally warm November here, I lived it, but the hair on the back of my neck stood up when I saw these Yahoo!/Weather Channel temperature charts!

If these numbers are accurate, and I'm assuming they are, we've just had one extremely freakish November.

In Big Bear City we surpassed our previous record high November temperature by 15° F.

FIFTEEN DEGREES!!!

And, not only that! We surpassed the previous November record of 74° on 22 of those 30 days, with seven days of 80°+ temps. And not one day of the month did we dip down to even the average low temp of 25°.

It was 89° on November 7th (88° on the 8th), fifty-five degrees above average, and just 5° shy of our all-time summer high of 94°.

All over town I hear people cheerfully saying, "Isn't this weather wonderful?", as they go to and from their X-Mas shopping destinations in their SUVs.
Yes folks, it's just lovely, and pretty soon you may not even have to battle the traffic that comes with living in a ski resort either.

Of course you won't have anywhere to work because Big Bear's economy is dependent upon the ski industry. So you'll have to sell your house and move someplace where there is work, but then your house won't sell because there'll be a glut of sellers and no buyers.

And, we may not need to worry about forest fires much longer either, because, with temps like these, the bark-beetles can just chew their way through the forest all year long. Who needs a forest anyway? Then we can just haul all that dead wood home to burn in the fireplace instead of letting the wildfires have it. But we may not need fireplaces to keep warm, we may need air-conditioning instead.

Ahhhhh.... Endless Summer!

So hop in those Escalades, Excursions, Navigators and Hummers folks! You know, the ones with the Jesus fish, the American flags, and the 'family values' oriented bumper stickers plastered all over ém.

Make all the trips you want to McDonalds, Starbucks, Carl's Jr., Taco Bell and Burger King . They all have drive-throughs and you don't even have to climb down out of the car to notice the weather.

Just sit there in your air-conditioning listening to Fox News, Rush Limbaugh or NASCAR results while you wolf down those mega-calories.

Even the Pharmacy has a drive through so you can refill your Prozac, Valium and Viagra prescriptions right from the driver's seat. And if you forget to have your hair cut, or your nails done, you can always make another trip. No worries! Because, thanks to oil subsidies, corporate welfare, and very creative economic policies, gasoline is back below $3 a gallon.

But the hidden costs are becoming more obvious aren't they?

Global Warming may be the most insidious, but what about that $350 billion of our hard earned money spent on the War in Iraq? Or the tens of thousands of human lives sacrificed, just so we can continue driving behemoth gas hogs around in circles all day.

Ooops! Sorry!
Do I sound a bit testy?

Perhaps I'm sick of hearing people say Global Warming is no big deal?
Or maybe I'm a little under the weather from breathing all those exhaust fumes on my walk to the grocery store yesterday morning, especially the diesel fumes?

Oh Look! I just noticed the first syllable of diesel is 'die', as in Die-Off!

I wonder what it feels like to be broiled?
Or what it's like to watch your children or grandchildren being cooked in a solar oven.

Stick around, the fun's just beginning...
...but the party's coming to an end.
Whether we believe it or not.

Pissed-Off?
Me?

Hey, it's my blog, and I can vent today if I want to!

Because our collective ignorance is infuriatingly pathetic and Peak Oil can't come soon enough for me...

...so you can consider this my exhaust, I certainly have to breathe enough of everyone else's!

Love, Peace, & Mercy Earthlings...

It’s looking to me like we're gonna need plenty of each!

The chart below shows the daily high and low temperatures for Big Bear this past November.

Enlarge it and compare them to the record highs, lows, and average from the chart above.

Click on chart to enlarge - courtesy of Yahoo!/The Weather Channel

Most of the folks who visit this blog are well-informed about Global Warming and are making big personal changes toward sustainable living. This post isn't meant for you.

It's for the masses who are either ill-informed or just don't seem to give a damn!

The people who say, "Isn't this weather wonderful?, Have a nice day, and a Merry Christmas"

They sound to me like Stepford Children.

All programmed to speak polite, meaningless, rose-colored gibberish.

Maybe I should apologize for another of my impassioned outbursts, but I'm not going to.

This is a real world we're living in, and I have a full spectrum of feelings about it, so there's little relevence in my simply posting pretty pictures every day.

Now I'd like to refer you back to some charts I posted last January which show the correlation between atmospheric CO2 levels and temperature. Click here to review the charts, especially the fourth one down which uses data from the past 160,000 years. Compare where the CO2 levels are right now with the historically corresponding temperature line.

Then you tell me. How hot do you think it might get?

A Friend To Everyone - Mike 'The Greek'

Click on photo to enlarge
photo by Gus Kirkpatrick 1999

Mike 'The Greek' Aspiotes is one of the most well-known and loved people in Big Bear, his huge heart radiates warmth through those smiling eyes, and a nicer guy you'll never meet.

Mike shared his good nature with our community from behind the counter of his 'Village Music' store for over 25 years, and is a loving father who always puts his kids needs first.

We've been friends with Mike for as long as we've lived here. Peggy & I went to concerts, and club dancing, with him and Cynthia, his ex-wife, when they were first dating. In 'Village Music' Mike created a safe hangout where people, yes even kids, could go in, touch, and actually play real instruments. If you were looking for a hard to find record or CD Mike would check with several distributors until he found it. Cynthia cut our family's hair, either at their home, or later, at her salon. We remember the births of their kids and witnessed Mike doing his part to raise them with a diligence and devotion that only increased after the marriage dissolved.

So it was extremely sad for Peggy and I to hear that Mike & Cynthia's 16 year-old daughter Athena was killed in a another car wreck the night before New Years Eve.

Athena was a passenger in the car with some friends when the driver lost control and hit a tree.

Another horrific event of 2005 has shaken our lives dear Mike & Cynthia, the loss of Athena breaks our hearts again.

TAGGED...

I've been tagged with a meme by Cindy M. of Woodsong, and, if I play along, I'm hoping one day she'll tell me about her camera and some of the tricks she's learned to get those incredible photos of hers.

So here goes.


Five Pet Peeves

1. Diesel exhaust blown in my face by passing vehicles when I'm walking or bicycling.

2. Litter and Litterbugs, especially those who come to visit a place for its beauty and leave their trash to defile that beauty, and their cigarette butts everywhere you look.

3. Suburban sprawl.

4. Motorsports.

5. People who kill animals for sport only and not for food.


Five Wild Critters I'd Like To See (in the wild) Before I Go (or before they do)
(parentheses mine)

1. Delhi Sands Flower-loving Fly (Rhaphiomidas terminatus abdominalis)

2. Mexican Gray Wolf (Canis lupus baileyi)

3. California Red-legged Frog (Rana aurora draytonii)

4. El Segundo Blue Butterfly (Euphilotes battoides allyni)

5. Cactus Ferruginous Pygmy-owl (Glaucidium brasilianum cactorum)


Five Moments In My Life That Changed Everything That I've Done Since

1. Something I did during the 1960s that I'll leave to your imagination.

2. Crashing my motorcycle in Malibu Canyon in 1978.

3. The moment I walked into Solley's Delicatessen and sat down next to my future wife and best friend Peggy Sue.

4. Being present and useful during the natural births of our two children.

5. The First Gulf War waged against the Iraqi people (which triggered a chain of actions in our lives & lifestyle that eventually resulted in the decision to not own a car).


Five Movies That Are My Life
(No movie is my life but I'll list five I really like)

1. Modern Times - Charlie Chaplin (A priceless treasure, hilarious, irreverent and tender all at the same time)

2. Salt Of The Earth - Rosaura Revueltas (Banned in the 1950s for its political content, this is the only American film ever to be blacklisted, and was selected in 1992 for the National Film Registry, Library Of Congress)

3. Lonely Are The Brave - Kirk Douglas (From the novel 'The Brave Cowboy' by Edward Abbey)

4. The Private Life Of Plants - David Attenborough (All six volumes are magical & fascinating)

5. Frida - Salma Hayek (So beautifully done, the film itself actually resembles the art of this strong, wild and extremely gifted woman)


Five People I'm Tagging (If you don't feel like being tagged you can untag yourself, I picked you guys because you're currently the most frequent visitors to EHG, and I sure hope being tagged doesn't scare you away.)

1. Madcapmum

2. Pablo at Roundrock Journal

3. Deb at Sand Creek Almanac

4. Stella at Musings On The Farm

5. Lene at Leaning Birch

Cheri's New Guitar...

Click on photo to enlarge

Friend and neighbor Cheri Williams playing her brand new Martin guitar for us on the deck this afternoon.
Cheri's soulful bluesy voice and tasteful rhythmic guitar are a real treat for us when she has the strength to play.
Cheri has a terminal disease of the pancreas which makes these impromptu performances even more special.
Cheri and Kenny Hamsley (see the entry below) have met only twice, but they instantly clicked, belting out several spine-tingling duets here during those two encounters.
We're working on the idea of making another CD, this time featuring duets with Kenny & Cheri, and they both would love to do that, but each has serious health problems which overshadow the scheduling of rehearsals and studio time.
So we'll just take it slow and see what happens.

Kenny, Live On The Deck...

Click on photo to enlarge

Our friend, singer & guitarist Kenny Hamsley, came over and played for us today.

The photo on the left was taken on our deck this afternoon, and, on the right, is the cover of the Georgia Boy CD I produced with Kenny in September of 2003.

I met Kenny at a bus stop in December of 2002, and, after inviting him over for dinner to hear him play & sing, I just had to get him recorded.

We recorded 18 songs (most of them in one take) during three sessions at Superchief Studios here in Big Bear at a cost of about $400.

Kenny has sold several hundred of these CDs at local clubs in the past 2 years and I was able to realize one of my lifelong dreams, to conceive, design, and produce an album with an unknown musician.

It was a great experience for both of us and the CD turned out great.

Below are the liner notes I wrote for the CD.

Kenny Dale Hamsley was born on January 6th 1953 in Unadilla, Georgia---42 miles south of Macon---where highways 41 and 230 intersect.
He was the 13th of 15 children born to Melvin and Alice Hamsley, and, at the age of 6, was given his first guitar---a gift from older brother Herman.
Kenny has 11 brothers and 3 sisters, all but one of which play musical instruments or sing, yet interestingly enough, neither of their parents were musically inclined.
Kenny's mother Alice gave birth to the first of her 15 kids when she was only 13 years old, and reached the ripe old age of 84, even after her husband Melvin died at 59, leaving her as the sole parent, and loving matriarch, of their very large family.

In his teens, Kenny fronted a 'Future Farmer's Of America' sponsored string-band, which he named the K-Hams Band, while attending Unadilla High School where he was also a notable quarterback for the Unadilla Blue Devils until 1970, when he enlisted in the U.S. Navy, training to be a Navy Seal.

By the age of 22 Kenny was back with a new version of the K-Hams Band, playing all around his part of Georgia, as the band cooked up their own steaming renditions of the best 'Southern Rock' of the day, adding some original songs to the mix as well. Reveling in the music of bands such as Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Allman Brothers, The Marshall Tucker Band, Alabama and the Doobie Brothers, the K-Hams Band worked all the local towns, including Cordele, Warner Robbins and Perry, where they were regulars at places like the Flamingo Club, The Commodore Lounge, Mount Chalet and numerous VFW halls.

Kenny also sang and played piano in church and, at his mother's insistence, performed often for the elderly at various nursing homes. "Those nursing home performances are among my best memories", Kenny said, "seeing the sparkle in the old folks eyes when we came to play for them".

Life, and the circumstances of reality being what they are, Kenny wouldn't find a lasting career in music, but he never stopped playing or sharing his rare natural talent with all who would listen. And while living in Big Bear City, California for the past two years, Kenny, when he's not pounding nails at some construction job, is still at it, gracing the front porches of a few fortunate mountain friends as he sips his vodka, plays guitar, & sings the hours into sweet oblivion.

Kenny is old school and his sensitive handling of songs by the likes of Merle Haggard, Hank Williams and George Strait can melt even the hardest of hearts, but he can pick the hell out of a guitar too, so just when you think you've had enough of them sad ol' songs, he'll lay into some old-time country pickin' or classic southern rock wicked enough to raise the dead.

Finally, after more than four decades of playing & singing, Kenny Hamsley is on CD, his first recording. I hope you enjoy this heartfelt down-home front-porch music as much as I do. Straight from the heart, this good ol' Georgia country boy, dedicates the CD to his daughter, Angelica Christina Hamsley.

What we recorded through musical kinship, is now passed along to friend and family, especially Kenny's siblings. So here's to the rest of the Hamsley clan!

Frank, Bob, Mary, Nell, Herman, Willy, Carolyn, Horace, Melvin Jr., Roy Elbert, Floyd, Larry Eugene, Ronald (Terry) and Benny (Butch).

Stanfield Marsh Jitterbug!

Click on photo to enlarge

Peggy, with our dear friend Brad (Stagerobber guitarist & botanist extraordinaire) and his lovely daughter Claire, doing the Stanfield Marsh Jitterbug to try and lure Dallas (The Wonder Dog & Spotted Owl Survey Mascot) into the picture but, of course, Dallas would never fall for anything that silly!

The Infamous Stagerobbers!

Click on photo to enlarge

The infamous Stagerobbers during an impromptu bluegrass jam on the deck at Earth Home Garden until the late hours of a Saturday night.

One of those rare & beautiful moments in life where a great time was had by all and the music was phenomenal.

Thanks guys, that was a special treat and a total blast!

The Stagerobbers In Big Bear

Click on photo to enlarge

Our friends in the The Stagerobbers bluegrass band play their second annual gig at a private ranch party here in Big Bear.

30,000 Pound Birdbath!

Click on photo to enlarge
We rescued this 30,000 lb boulder (our birdbath) from a housing development about 10 years ago.
It's roughly the size of an old VW bug with the wheels removed.
A friend of ours works for the company that was doing the excavating and asked if we'd like a nice boulder.
The bucket on the skiploader used to bring the boulder here was rated at 30,000 lbs capacity, and the boulder bent the bucket, so we're assuming the rock weighs at least that much.

Basket Case #1!

The First Graduate Of Jim & Peg's School Of Basketry.
Click photo to enlarge
Our friend Seana with her first pine needle basket. Constructed over a period of 30 days Seana estimates the she spent approximately 80 hours on the basket.