Philosophizing with a Hammer

Biography of the Day: Nikola Tesla

2012-01-31T12:43:00.000-08:00

Nikola Tesla, 1856 – 1943, was a complicated genius whose work, among other things, made possible our commercial AC electrical supply system, wireless communication, radar, remote controls, wireless power transmission, and spark plugs. Born in Serbia, he finished school early and went on to study electrical engineering in Austria. After three years, he dropped out and cut relations with his family. His friends believed that he had drowned. He moved to Slovenia, suffered a nervous breakdown, briefly attended a university in Prague, then went to work as an engineer in Paris and finally the US.

Offered a great deal of money to solve a problem for Thomas Edison, he did so. Edison broke his word and refused to pay him, so he resigned and worked for a time as a ditch digger as he continued his experiments. One of them was seized and torn down because of suspicion that it was being used by German spies. He once ripped up a Westinghouse contract that would have made him the world's first billionaire, because he thought that power should be free, and because he didn't want to deal with creditors if Westinghouse went out of business. He and Edison feuded until the end of their days, and it probably cost both of them Nobel Prizes.

Tesla was a sickly man with many quirks and phobias. He was fastidious about cleanliness and had a pathological fear of germs. He wore white gloves and declined to shake hands. He was physically revolted by pearl earrings, and obsessed with the number three (he circled buildings three times before entering, and wouldn't stay in a room without a three in its number) and with pigeons (he fed them daily with special seeds). He spoke eight languages, was a connoisseur of art, poetry, philosophy and food, was passionate about billiards, chess and cards. He was "sweet, sincere, modest and generous". He openly expressed disgust to overweight people, and sent employees home to change if he didn't like their clothes. He was painfully introverted, and yet a great showman. He memorized entire books. He never slept longer than two hours. He often spent more than two days straight at gaming tables, and once worked 84 hours without sleep. He was ambivalent about women, and none played a part in his life aside from a mysterious relationship with the daughter of J.P. Morgan. He claimed that chastity was an important component of his scientific abilities. He believed that man's sense of pity interfered with the workings of nature and advocated sterilization of the unfit to offset it.

In middle age, Tesla became a close friend of Mark Twain, who spent a great deal of time in his lab. In his later years, he became extremely sensitive to light and noise, converted to vegetarianism, decided that women were the dominant sex, and predicted that humanity would eventually be ruled by "Queen Bees". He believed that he was visited daily by a specific white pigeon that gave his life meaning. When it died, his work stopped.

Tesla died broke in a NY hotel room. His pallbearers were Nobel Prize winners. The US government seized his private papers and classified them Top Secret. He had been involved in a lawsuit claiming that he had invented the radio, not Marconi. Shortly after his death, the Supreme Court ruled in his favor.

Who imports food and who exports it?

2012-01-25T15:09:00.000-08:00

This information was condensed from a report by 'Stratfor Global Intelligence'.

Corn, rice, wheat and soybeans are the world's most important food staples.

Corn and soybean exports are dominated by the Western Hemisphere, and wheat by the Northern Hemisphere. Asia accounts for most rice, which is the most easily destabilized of the key staples due to its sensitivity to rainfall.

Ninety countries import corn, but only four export it in significant quantities: The United States, Brazil, Argentina and Ukraine.

The largest rice producer by far is China, but they consume most of their production domestically. The top exporters of rice in order of rank are Thailand, Vietnam, India, Pakistan and the United States.

Most of the wheat export market is dominated by ten entities: the United States, Australia, Russia, Canada, the European Union, Argentina, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Turkey and Uruguay. China is by far the largest producer of wheat, but as with rice, consumes almost all it produces.

The US, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina are the largest exporters of soybeans. China imports more than 60 percent of globally traded soy, and has been stockpiling in anticipation of future supply fluctuations.

Reading between the lines here, it's easy to see that America still "feeds the world". It's also easy to envision domestic unrest in import-reliant China when future food shortages and price increases occur.

Actual Emails from a Crazy Stepsister:

2012-01-23T12:35:00.000-08:00

"Sending God's Peace, Love and Forgiveness to open the hearts. Remember healing begins from within...when there is forgiveness, love moves in, when there is love, peace fills you ♥ Be open to receive...This is your gift!

Meditation to open your chakras with energy ♥ Enjoy

Imagine your energy body… see the energy flowing up and down your spine through your chakras.

Visualize your chakras as lotus blossoms with their petals all upturned and the energy flowing strongly to the point between your eyebrows.

Feel this visual increasing the flow of energy within you and all around you.

Feel that it purifies the energy flowing through you.

Now see the energy flowing down to your palms and out to the entire world."

"Feeling so alive, so awakened....moving further into a spirit of love and compassion...Inner peace and beauty...join me in this place of Oneness, you arewelcomed here. Shanti Shanti Shanti."

"Everyday I am invisible to all forms of low energies and negative influences in all universes, dimensions and realities. Are you?"

"I'm loving the road I'm on with God...inspiring, healing, peaceful ♥ Are you feeling the love? Breathe it into your being ♥ Send love to your day ahead and remember to stop and catch the miracles."

"Any cancer can be cured in weeks. The quacks are the medical doctors that only see $$$$ for cures and treat symptoms, not the source of what caused the illness which is emotional and held in the cellular memory. if they really cared they would use eastern medicine's that are natural. Yes cancer caused by emotions (and poisions) and so are many other illnesses and it's not hereditary (western medicine doesn't want people to know, they'd lose a lot money). I know many who have been cured naturally with herbs and freed themselves emotionally and it hasn't returned, and I know others that haven't been freed emotionally and it returned elsewhere in their body because of anger that they can't let go ofEveryday I allow all my cells to be at the perfect frequency of health & natural balance, and in alignment with Source energy. (Repeat and feel your cells heal). Namaste."

"I am in perfect alignment with Source energy with the correct frequencies of health for my entire well-being."

"I've begun my journey, it is taking me to where I am suppose to be. My spirit soars. I hold my own key. I love."

"Everyday choose to vibrate at the high frequencies of love, peace, joy and gratitude. Love from the infinite-self to attract true love: You will allow the love of your life to enter into your reality, or it will further deepen the connection with the love you are with. If the one you are with is not aligned with your true self of purpose, you will joyfully attract one that is.To grow further into our higher selves it is necessary to learn all the lessons from past mistakes in all lifetimes no matter how hard it is. Through forgiveness and love you will rise. Peace."

"God is leading me further down my path...moving forward as a Holistic Health Practitioner and into Bachelor of Spiritual Healing. Peace starts within us- we cannot bring to the world what we do not have to offer. Tears."

"My birthing into my higher self rises me out of the waters darkness into the light where I love myself and all creation unconditionally. ~~ Namaste"

"My morning routine was postponed and I'm felt out of sync. Totally gave myself a crystal chakra balance to make up for it....Ahhhhh! To enhance your quality of life, bring your vibrational energy into alignment with source energy. To have a transformation of consciousness and spiritual awakening is through God's love, peace, bliss and freedom. The Journey of Awakening is awakening to your full soul potential and to your Divine magificence...do you choose to awaken? Until you accept responsibility for where you are, your life will not move forward.

You are where you are ––-emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally and financially––-because of the choices you have made. Isn't it time to find out how you can improve your life? Message me if you are ready for a complete transformation. Shanti"

"Allow me to introduce you to your greatest enemy....meet your ego. EGO- Edging God Out Meet the devil."

"It is said that one does not meet their Twin Soul or Twin Flame until they have learned many lessons of love, loss and forgiveness through close Soul Mate relationships, that the heart is made resilient and strong through pain and loss, and must be so to face the intensity of being with the other half of their soul. Peace ~ Shanti ♥"

Improvised Pack Frames

2012-01-18T08:46:00.000-08:00

At one of Mors Kochanski's wilderness skills courses some years ago, I made an improvised pack frame from three sticks. Such a frame is an ancient concept that was re-invented by Mors' friend and mentor Tom Roycroft, who was an instructor at a Canadian Department of National Defense survival school.

'Ötzi the Iceman', the 5,300 year-old copper-age man who popped out of a glacier in the Italian alps in 1991, had something similar. His was a U-shaped rod of hazel with two cross-pieces of larch, bound together with grass string and with a hide sack attached.

This one's made from three Moosewood, or Striped Maple sticks. They're easy to work when green, and become quite strong when dry. You can see how the rope is routed to form shoulder straps and then hooked around the bottom corners to form a waist belt. This frame worked pretty well, but I thought it could be improved.

Here's version two. I found a nicely-curved persimmon branch (one of my favorite woods, beautiful as it ages and darkens) and a couple straight black spruce saplings. When I lashed them together with constrictor knots, I left the ends long to facilitate lashing on loads. The side sticks protrude enough beyond their lashing at the top to hang a canteen, pot or jacket from. A small crosspiece allows some adjustment for the shoulder 'straps' and adds strength and rigidity. My hiking staff (or any stick) fits in the small triangle it creates for carrying over-the-shoulder like a hobo's bindle-stick for variety. Haven't tried a tump-line, but that would undoubtedly work, too.

Here it is with my hiking staff run through the top triangle and propped up on a tree branch, ready to have a tarp thrown over it for a very quick shelter. Between the carrying rope and the lashing lines, there's plenty of cordage to secure things.

Ready for a hike with a wool blanket, Tyvek ground cloth, and an aluminized G.I. casualty blanket wrapped up in a canvas 'Zeltbahn', and with a teapot hanging on top. (A Zeltbahn is a triangular German shelter quarter that also serves as a poncho.)

If you load it so that a soft "bubble" protrudes on the inside, it's more comfortable against your back than just the sticks. Padding under the shoulder ropes also helps - I used an extra pair of socks on this hike.

I'm pleased with this, although I may make a third one just to refine the dimensions a bit more and to shave off a few more ounces with smaller-diameter sticks. The frame, groundcloth, tarp, wool blanket and aluminized blanket all together don't weigh much more than my winter hiking boots, and with a few Balsam tips as a mattress and a fire in front would make a very cozy shelter. I'll do an overnight in the near future and report back.

The Most Dangerous Cities

2012-01-18T06:19:00.000-08:00

According to the US Department of State, the ten most dangerous cities in the world in 2011 were:

1. Bogata. Kidnapping and drugs.

2. Juarez. Closing in on 3,000 murders per year. Used to be a fun place to visit when I was in flight school just yesterday.

3. St. Louis. We made the top three! USA! USA!

4. Port-au-Prince. The entire city is literally controlled by criminals. Been there many times, wouldn't want to get caught out after dark without a platoon of Marines.

5. Mogadishu. Banditry and rival warlords.

6. Caracas, Hugo's socialist paradise. It actually used to be a lovely city, now that hostility to Americans is officially encouraged, I don't even leave the hotel.

7. Port Moresby. As if the tsunamis, earthquakes and landslides aren't enough.

8. Grozny, Chechnya. Still rubble after the Russians destroyed it in the 1990's.

9. Santo Domingo. This one surprises me. They'll steal anything they can lift, but I've never felt personally threatened there.

10. Muzaffarabad, Kashmir. When the Pakis and Indians go at it with nukes it'll move to the top of the list.

According to the FBI's annual crime statistics report for 2010 (2011 hasn't been published yet) the most violent cities in America are:

1. Flint, Michigan

2. Detroit

3. St. Louis

4. New Haven, Connecticut

5. Memphis

6. Oakland

7. Little Rock

8. Baltimore

9. Rockford, Illinois

10. Stockton, California

I've been to fifteen of the above twenty cities. I've spent many days in seven of them. I lived for a decade in one of them. I have memories of standing on a hill in Stoney Creek park with my dad and watching Detroit burn during the riots of 1967. One of my best friends lives in St. Louis and I visit him at least once a year. We stay clear of East St. Louis, the rest of the city isn't bad. My job regularly takes me to Port-au-Prince, Caracas and Santo Domingo. I'm surprised New Orleans, Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia didn't make the lists, they've tingled my antennae as much as anywhere else. What they all have in common is a criminal, ghetto culture that's deliberately and actively hostile to Americans and/or whites. I wouldn't live within a gas tank's drive of any of them, even if it meant taking a low-paying job. Things can only get worse as high unemployment rates linger, inflation decreases purchasing power, welfare programs go broke and our leaders all the way up to the president encourage class envy and a sense of entitlement.

Simple ways to use whole wheat berries

2012-01-12T15:03:00.000-08:00

I think wheat is the most bang-for-the-buck as far as storage foods go. It's not just the "staff of life" and all that, it's inexpensive in bulk, versatile and easy to store, and with a longer palatable shelf life than almost anything but sugar and salt. Wheat does not need to be stored in a low-oxygen environment, but a couple weeks of such an atmosphere will ensure that no bugs are present. We pack ours in PETE bottles with oxygen absorbers.

I love fresh, hot bread, but hand-grinding wheat berries for flour is labor-intensive, time-consuming work.

So I've been using them in three additional ways:

Soaked overnight like beans, then baked into a bannock, usually along with rolled oats, too. Really good.

Soaked overnight, then boiled. An alternative to rice or barley. Tasty side dish with a little sea salt or hot sauce.

Sprouts. Soak and drain, then rinse a couple times a day until they germinate. Supposedly spouting enhances the nutritional qualities of seeds. If nothing else, it's variety.

"Portugal raids pension funds to meet deficit targets"

2012-01-10T03:52:00.000-08:00

That's a headline from the UK Telegraph, 2 Dec 2011

Why wasn't it front-page news all over the world? Why isn't Lisbon burning? Are the citizens of Portugal as oblivious to what's going on as we are? Maybe they just don't speak Bureaucrat, so I'll translate:

"The cabinet agreed to transfer the assets ... to the state balance sheet"

The people who actually owned the assets didn't agree. They weren't even consulted.

"The assets will be used to bridge a gap needed to meet the fiscal deficit target..."

I'd like to use someone else's assets to bridge a gap in my fiscal target, but I'm afraid of going to prison for what is commonly called "theft".

"This measure is more than sufficient to meet the budget deficit goal in 2011," said Helder Rosalino, secretary of state for central administration…"

Thanks, suckers.

"Portugal said it had informed the EU and IMF and assured them it would be a “one-off”. However the 2010 budget was met by shifting three pension plans from Portugal Telecom on to the public social security system."

They pinky-swear they'll only make you bend over once, even though they've already done it twice.

"The liabilities don’t count, yet."

This is what in the private sector is known as "accounting fraud".

Pay attention, Greece and now Portugal are traveling a well-worn path, and we're not that far behind them. Our national debt is now greater than our GDP, and if you pay income taxes, you are now a minority. 51% of us are riding in the wagon while the other 49% of us pull it. I've lost hope that we can avoid an economic disaster; the only question in my mind is how long we can put it off.

Use the time you have to learn as much as you can about being self-reliant, and to put away the things that will be more valuable than hyper-inflated dollars.

Natural Sea Sponges

2012-01-08T06:15:00.000-08:00

Started using natural sponges decades ago for cleaning horse tack. The softest and most dense are "silk" sponges from the Mediterranean. Caribbean silk and 'wool' sponges are pretty good, too, and less expensive. Then I gradually started using them for washing cars, and in the shower. Now I like to take one with me on camping trips, for bailing the last bit of water from a kayak or canoe, for bathing and then drying off, for applying white vinegar as a deodorant, for mopping up spills in a tent, etc.

They have a place along with clear plastic bags for procuring water in a desert. I've collected dew a few times just for giggles. Try it, it's surprisingly efficient - only a few minutes to fill a cup.

Sea sponges weigh less and are more versatile than towels. They feel better and work better than synthetics. They can be sustainably harvested. The only downside is that good ones are pricey. If you shop around on the internet you can find decent deals, but there are some retailers who are unscrupulous about grading. And of course you can't personally pick out the nicely shaped ones. If you get a color choice, go for dark. Light means bleached and therefore less durable.

We're hoping to take a vacation in Greece during the "window of opportunity" between when the Euro melts down and the dollar does. I'm nursing a fantasy about bringing home a suitcase full of perfect hand-selected specimens.

Book Review: Nothing to Envy

2011-12-28T22:04:00.000-08:00

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, by Barbara Demick

This is a study of the people of North Korea during the famine of the 1990's. In other words, a peek into the mindset of the most closed society in the world, combined with the psychology of starvation.

North Koreans are indoctrinated from birth to believe that their political leader Kim Il sung was a god, whose birth on a mountain under a double rainbow was announced by a swallow, and who rules in spirit for eternity. His son - the son of a god, obviously - Kim Jong Il , represented him on earth until his own recent death. It sounds silly to us, and of course it is, but then many Americans believe that a talking snake convinced the world's first woman to eat a magic apple.

North Koreans are also taught - and forced - to depend on their socialist government for everything, from shelter to food. Hunger drove them to defy the ruling elite and become self-reliant and resourceful. In effect, they reinvented the free-market economy. Not even one of the most intrusive governments on earth could repress the black market once people were reduced to eating grass.

So, how do people behave as the infrastructure of their society collapses? Hint: you are most likely to survive if you are chubby, selfish, young, female, and willing to lie and steal. The young, the old and the men perished, in roughly that order. When it got down to women, the sharing, the honest and the slender starved first.

Some of the lessons they learned the hard way may be valuable to us as our own government inexorably approaches defaults on its welfare programs.

When the electricity goes out for good and fuel becomes unavailable, it's better to live in the country than the city, the warmer south rather than the colder north, the coast rather than inland.

The most valuable commodity becomes food, of course. Clothes, books, firewood, medicines, and wheels for making carts are also much sought after.

Foraging for wild edibles becomes an essential skill. Small animals not normally considered food are trapped to geographical extinction. Thieves, gangs and street urchins must be guarded against. If one can't remain below the government's radar, then authorities must be deceived, eluded or bribed. Gardens are planted anywhere space can be made. Human excrement becomes the main fertilizer once animals and synthetics are unavailable.

Greece's New Diet

2011-12-17T06:55:00.000-08:00

As the economy continues to worsen in Greece, people are rediscovering the foods and recipes that got their grandparents through WWII.

In occupied Greece, an estimated 300,000 people starved to death. Pets disappeared, and the hills were stripped of wild greens and firewood.

Grapes (and raisins), olives, foraged greens and rationed bread became the nation's staples. Sugar and meat were simply unavailable.

We all suffer from the "It can't happen here" syndrome, but it can and it has. I still have some of my grandfathers ration coupons from WWII:

"Meatless Mondays, Wheatless Wednesdays, vegetable gardens and chickens in every empty lot."

We aren't that far behind Greece. It's time to get retro ourselves. Don't wait for well-mannered, caring government subcontractors to deliver MRE's to your neighborhood. Plant a garden, learn to forage, get a half dozen backyard chickens.

Judicial Activism

2011-11-06T05:55:00.000-08:00

Justice Robert Bork has opined that if we were to observe the Tenth Amendment of our Bill of Rights as it is written, we would wreck our federal system as it now functions.

Exactly! Let's get it done!

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

At least one of them gets it:

"Day-by-day, case-by-case, the Supreme Court is busy designing a Constitution for a country I do not recognize."

Justice Antonio Scalia

First (and probably only) Autoknives

2011-11-04T06:02:00.000-07:00

Just bought my first autoknives ("switchblades", for those whose knowledge of pocket knives is limited to having seen West Side Story). Both are "out-the-fronts", a Microtech Scarab and a Lightning. They're very similar, except that the latter is a quarter of the quality and a tenth of the price of the former.

I bought them only because the cantankerous curmudgeon who was arrested for possessing them and whose subsequent lawsuit against the state made them legal again is an acquaintance. And as a thumb-in-the-eye to the sort of people who try to regulate what I eat peaches with. Sort of like when I bought my first "assault rifle" just because Hillary said I shouldn't have one.

First impressions:

1. A fixed-blade is in every way superior. Cost, strength, durability, speed of deployment, quietness, reliability, utility, ergonomics.

2. There is an undeniable 'fun factor'.

3. I wonder how long they'll last, since everyone who sees them has to play with them.

4. It was worth it just to see the eyeballs bug out of my wife's friend from Massachusetts when she asked if I had a pocketknife to open a box.

Such knives are most often thought of as "fighting" or "tactical" knives, but they are the worst possible choice for such a thing. They're fun just-plain-everyday pocket knives, though.

Finally, a Machete that Works in the North

2011-10-14T17:52:00.000-07:00

Having done some bushwacking in Africa and South and Central America, I appreciate good machetes. They are to jungles what axes are to northern forests. They don't translate well to our hemisphere, though. They're meant for yielding, green vegetation, and they're made light so that they can be swung for hours at a time.

This is an Indonesian style called a "golok", and made by Condor Knife and Tool in El Salvador. It's got a relatively short (14"), heavy blade. Comes with a well-made leather sheath, and weighs about two pounds total. It'll fit in a pack, and isn't too awkwardly long on a belt. It'll zip through green hardwood saplings with a drawing stroke, and can be batoned through fairly impressive diameters. No idea what kind of steel it is, but it's hard enough to hold an edge without being difficult to sharpen. For clearing brush, building shelters and processing enough firewood for a tent stove, it's a pretty good tool. Works well as a drawknife, too. It's the first machete I've come across that I would consider carrying instead of an ax on my canoe camping trips.

The handle is walnut, and comes a little thick, so I've been reshaping it. After using it a while, the high spots become apparent and I file them down. Once it's comfortable, I'll refinish it. It's a very practical design that allows for a loose, non-tiring grip with no worries about it sailing out of your hand. It's got a full tang, so no worries about it breaking, either. Three brass pins and a brass-lined lanyard hole give it a classier look than any plastic handle could.

Long-Term Emergency Food Storage

2011-10-14T17:39:00.000-07:00

The information collected here comes from the USDA, Brigham Young University's Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Food Science, the Utah State University Cooperative Extension, and the Church of Latter Day Saints website on 'provident living'. Those crazy Mormons, they're really into food storage, and they're nice enough to share their knowledge with Pagans like me. I also learned quite a lot from a professor in the Food Science Department at Utah State, whom I contacted with some questions and who was very patient and helpful.

Long-term emergency storage foods are meant to keep you alive if you had almost nothing else to eat. That means water, wheat and other grains, legumes, salt, honey or sugar, powdered milk, baking soda and cooking oil.

According to the US gov, the average American man is 5'9" and weighs 190 pounds. The average woman is 5'4" and weighs 164 pounds. We average 37 years old, and eat 2,700 calories per day, which translates to 1996 pounds of food per year, including:

85 fats and oils

273 fruit

24 coffee

415 vegetables

56 corn

198 sweeteners

200 flour

32 eggs

16 fish

74 chicken

110 red meat

600 dairy products other than cheese

181 milk

30 french fries

23 pizza

24 ice cream

31 cheese

3 salt

In some places, the Mormons (who as I said above have made a very serious study of food storage) publish the following recommended amounts per adult per year:

Rice/wheat/corn: 180 kg (397 lbs)
Sugar or Honey: 30kg (66 lbs)
Salt: 4.5kg (10 lbs)
Dry Beans: 36kg (80 lbs)
Powdered Milk: 27kg (60 lbs)
Olive Oil: 10 liters ("extra virgin", i.e. unrefined. Shelf-life of about 2 years) and/or

Coconut Oil: ("virgin", i.e. unrefined. Shelf-life of about 5 years)

In other places, the Mormons recommend putting away 5 pounds of beans and 25 pounds of grains per person per month (that would be 60 pounds and 300 pounds per year, respectively).

For our family's planning purposes, we have settled on 5 pounds of legumes, 25 pounds of grains, 1/4 pound of salt, and 1/8 pound of baking soda per person per month. (Per year, that's 60 pounds of legumes, 300 pounds of grains, 3 pounds of salt, and 1.5 pounds of baking soda.) (Baking soda is necessary for cooking tough old beans and making sourdough bread, and is also useful for cleaning, brushing teeth, etc.)

We don't store a lot of sweeteners because we have our own beehives. We don't store water because we live on a clean lake - although we do have containers in case we anticipate the water becoming fouled.

We also stock up on necessities that require high technology and have a long shelf-life, like razor blades, medicines, soap, shampoo, paper towels, toilet paper, etc.

Probably the most effective and still practical long-term food-storage packaging method is with oxygen absorbers and metallized plastic (Mylar) pouches.

PETE bottles are more permeable to oxygen and moisture than metallized plastic, but still provide a good barrier and are recommended by the Mormon food storage people. PETE bottles are clear plastic made of polyethylene terephthalate. They will have a “1” in the triangular recycling symbol on the bottom, and will probably have the letters "PET" or "PETE" as well. Bottles made of other plastics, such as HDPE, are not suitable.

Mylar pouches and PETE bottles can be used with oxygen absorbers to store food that is dry (less than 10% moisture) and low in fat. PETE bottles that were made for liquids such as juice or soda will have proper tops for this purpose. They will screw on, and have plastic seals, not paper or foam. The oxygen absorbers will prevent insect infestations, and help preserve nutritional qualities. Oxygen absorbers are small packets that contain an iron powder. As the iron oxidizes, it absorbs the oxygen in the bottle, leaving the nitrogen behind and forming a partial vacuum.

1. Place a fresh oxygen absorber packet in each bottle or pouch. (Oxygen absorbers begin working as soon as they are exposed to air, so it's important to use them within about a half hour of taking them out of their original packaging.)

2. Fill with bulk dry products that are low in moisture and oil content.

3. Seal.

4. Label and date.

5. Store in a fairly cool, dry, dark place that is safe from rodents.

Storage at temperatures below 60°F is optimum, but usually impractical. Do what you can. Concrete floors will wick moisture to containers, so set them on something that allows air circulation underneath them.

Foods that are reported to last for 30+ years when stored in this manner:

Wheat

White rice, not brown.

Oatmeal

Lentils

Split peas

Dry beans

Pasta made without eggs (read the ingredients)

Corn

Non-fat powdered milk will allegedly last for 20+ years packaged with oxygen absorbers.

White sugar may harden when packed with oxygen absorbers, but can be bottled without the absorbers and will last indefinitely.

Ditto for baking soda, which is an important ingredient for preparing old, tough beans.

Salt will last forever without oxygen absorbers.

Foods that are NOT suitable for long-term storage:

Brown rice

Pearled Barley

Sesame seeds

Flax seeds

Nuts

Brown sugar

Milled grains other than oatmeal

What stored foods tend to lack is vitamin C. The good news is that we're literally surrounded by vitamin C, mostly in the form of things tea can be made from. Wintergreen, pine needles, hemlock needles, rose hips, etc.

Another thing that might be handy to know about PETE bottles is that they can be used for solar water disinfection by ultraviolet radiation. It's as simple as filling them with water and setting them out in the sun for a few hours. Not even glass can be used for that, since although it's transparent to visible light, it's opaque to ultraviolet radiation.

Shelf life is one thing, palatability is another. Thirty-year-old food could keep you alive, but you might have to be some kind of hungry to eat it. According to the aforementioned professor, properly packaged dry foods will remain nutritionally stable (except for vitamins) for "dozens of years", but begin to be unpleasant to eat after about the decade mark.

Our current tentative plan is to store salt, sugar and baking soda in PETE bottles without oxygen absorbers. They should last, for our purposes, forever.

Wheat does not need to be stored in a low-oxygen environment, but a couple weeks of such an atmosphere will ensure that no bugs are present. We store it in PETE bottles with oxygen absorbers. ("Hawaiian Punch" gallon bottles are our favorite containers. We don't drink it, but the folks at our local recycling center save them for us.)

Everything else is probably best in Mylar pouches with oxygen absorbers.

We also stock up on necessities that require high technology and have a long shelf-life, like razor blades, medicines, soap, shampoo, paper towels, toilet paper, etc.

After about ten years, we plan on using our stores - converting them to fresh eggs by feeding them to our chickens if nothing else - and replenishing them with fresh stock.

We'll probably never need to use them 'for real', but I'm glad we have them every time I see someone in the aftermath of a hurricane or earthquake shouting "Even if we have money there's no food to buy!" at a TV camera.

Live debt-free, have food put away, plant a garden and some fruit trees and bushes, assure access to water, reduce dependence on oil, have a bicycle and a patch kit, learn to forage. It's just common sense, which isn't very common.

2011-08-18T06:51:00.000-07:00

The latest peeps out of the incubator recognize a good mom when they see one. Hilarious to watch, they follow her around and run underneath when she crouches down. And this should be the definition of 'natural beauty' - looking good while squatting on chickens.

The True Cost of our Government

2011-08-16T18:14:00.000-07:00

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Federal government will spend 3.8 trillion dollars this year. State and local governments will spend an additional 1.6. The cost of complying with government regulations will add another 1.8, bringing our total cost of government this year to 7.2 trillion dollars. That is equal to every penny earned by every American from January first through august twelfth. The eight years of George Bush's presidency added 18 days to our annual sentence. The (so far) two-and-a-half years of Barak Obama's presidency have already added 27 days.

Our leaders no longer even discuss actually reducing our national debt, only how much deeper to go into it. If you've been losing sleep worrying that we might be heading for a fiscal disaster you can relax now, because it's here. Social Security is broke. Medicare is broke. The Obamacare freight train hasn't even hit us yet, and it's already broke.

Prediction: we'll raise taxes, inflate the currency, and then default on entitlements. The only question is when.

Speaking of entitlements, and to make matters worse, we've trained a huge percentage of our population to depend on social welfare programs and to think of work as an undesirable lifestyle choice. When the Mailbox Money stops arriving the inner-city people whom the politically-correct media refers to as "youths" will riot like they've done in Watts, Detroit, Washington D.C., Miami and New Orleans.

As politically-incorrect journalist Fred Reed puts it, "Imagine a black kid of seventeen in Detroit... He has never read a book, and never will. He doesn't know where England is, or Africa, or the United States. His mental world is small beyond the imagining of the literate. He has no grasp of government, and has never heard of any author. He cannot do simple arithmetic. He has perhaps never seen a checkbook, and will never have one. He doesn't watch the news. If he did, would not understand what he was seeing...

Of history, the kid knows only that blacks were enslaved by whites. He cannot approximate the dates of the Civil War... and cannot name a single country in Africa, but he knows that blacks were stolen from their homes and very badly treated.

He has in all likelihood never been out of Detroit, or perhaps his neighborhood. He has no contact with the larger society except through the police and television, where he sees whites leading glamorous lives in a wide world beyond his grasp...

He doesn't have a job or, if he does, it will be of a very low level with no future that he can see. There is a reason why cash-register keys in fast-food chutes have pictures of hamburgers and milk shakes instead of words, why the registers make change automatically. The kid in Detroit can't make change. Little commercial demand exists for the illiterate and innumerate who have very bad attitudes.

Which the kid has. He hates whites, whom he blames for all of his troubles and inadequacies. He hates Asians, who excel in school. It is an ugly hatred on a hair trigger and explodes readily in savage violence. The media play this down, hard, but what you pretend doesn't exist still does."

My daughters tell me I'm a racist for believing the above. In a way I'm glad that they're naive about the ghetto culture. But I saw the riots in Detroit and Miami with my own eyes. And you can turn on the news almost any night and hear about "flash mobs" of "hooded youths" - Madison, Philadelphia and Maryland in just the past few days.

I believe that the true cost of our government is going to be most of our savings, most of what we've been forced to invest in the Ponzi schemes of Social Security, Medicare and Obamacare, and large portions of many of our major cities.

The Way Things are in Venezuela

2011-08-16T17:00:00.001-07:00

These signs are in most of the restaurant and shop windows in the Caracas airport. A Columbian fellow translated for me and said that the Chavez government allowed the businesses to remodel and stock inventory, then imposed an onerous new social security tax. Those that can't pay are being nationalized. He thinks that was the plan all along. He also told me not to ask Venezuelans about it because they're very afraid of informers, who are rewarded with cash.

"La Nueva Seguridad Social cumple con los Venezolanos" - The New Social Security works for Venezuelans

"Empresa inspeccionada" - Examined business

"En Mora" - In default

Amazing how fast a beautiful country can go down the drain. I've seen it firsthand both here and in Zimbabwe.

Also interesting:

There was a Cuban flag flying at the airport.

There were Chinese petroleum engineers staying at the hotel.

How Far will Amoral Ambition take a Guy?

2011-05-27T17:45:00.000-07:00

When I was a Lieutenant of Marines, this guy was a Major in the same squadron. One of the most unscrupulous, Machiavellian people I have ever known, willing to use up subordinates, back-stab contemporaries, and tell superiors anything they wanted to hear. He would have sold his grandmother into sexual bondage to get ahead.

After I left the service, I don't think I ever gave him another thought. But I just read today that he's "Obama's favorite general". I'm at a loss.

There was a time when I thought Generals were demigods, with some sort of wisdom beyond ours.

And speaking of amoral ambition, there's Hillary sharing the photo op....

Honey Bees

2011-05-27T17:34:00.000-07:00

Almost all the bees in a hive are female, and only one of them, the queen, is sexually mature. These two hives came from Vermont. So most of the occupants aren't just immature females, they're liberal immature females consumed by righteous anger who don't shave their armpits. Every fall they evict all the males to starve and freeze. Sometimes they kill their queen and commit mass suicide. Sometimes half of them just up and leave. On their best days, they ignore me. Sometimes, for no discernible reason, they come boiling out on a mission to inflict pain. More than once my neighbors have seen me running around the yard screaming like a little Japanese girl being chased by Godzilla.

The advantage of pain-based training is that the learning curve is steep. The Department of education should station liberal Vermont girls with armpits that make them look like they have Gary Busey in a headlock in every classroom, to stab kids who make mistakes with little syringes of burning venom. Those delinquents would be ready for Princeton by about seventh grade. I don't know, maybe that's how China and India are churning out all those scientists and engineers while our kids major in 'Black Studies' and 'Gender Issues'.

Anyway, my experience with these hives combined with a careful reading of Winnie the Pooh has convinced me that bears are the predators that most of their defenses have evolved in response to. Anything that reminds them of bears sets them off, like "furry" clothing (sweaters or fleece), dark colors, rough handling and nocturnal prowling. When you mess with bees, wear smooth-textured fabric in light colors, do it close to high noon, and try to move like fluid.

If you open a hive at night, everybody's home and perturbed about being bothered after working hours. If you open a hive on a warm sunny day, most of the workers will be off gathering, and the nurse bees left at home will be relatively mellow. Even so, keep it brief. Bees are like snapping turtles and ex-wives: if you mess with them long enough, they'll find a way to get you. Plus, bee brood is sensitive to chills and dehydration. Instead of examining details in person, maybe take photographs that can be magnified and perused at your leisure.

Anyone Else Getting Nervous?

2011-05-08T17:44:00.000-07:00

Have threats to freedom been exaggerated in order to restrict freedom?

Are police powers being expanded for the pubic good?

Is an ignorant electorate enthusiastic about national socialism?

Is there a movement to disarm the citizenry for it's own safety?

Are we "bringing peace and democracy" to foreign countries that purely coincidentally happen to have, oh, I don't know, maybe lots of oil?

Are there truths you hesitate to speak because politically correct informers at work might turn you in?

Have we been trained to meekly line up and show our papers for things like travel?

Have you so been conditioned by intrusive regulations that you now obey even ridiculous laws?

Welcome to Germany in the 1930's.

Gear that Works: Swedish Reflector Oven

2011-04-26T12:16:00.000-07:00

Reflector ovens are designed for baking on a fireplace hearth or by a campfire. I've also had good results propping one against the metal side of my wood-burning tent stove. It doesn't seem to matter if they're shiny or dark, so don't bother polishing them, as some people advocate. Think of them as "trapping" heat rather than "reflecting" it.

My folding Boy Scout reflector oven is a flimsy, frustrating piece of junk. An antique we own is sturdy but bulky. My favorite is from Sweden, made by a fellow named Svante Freden. I bought it here:

http://www.bensbackwoods.com/servlet/Detail?no=285

It's an ingenious folding design, and his workmanship is outstanding. It's replaced my Dutch oven for almost everything but car camping. It's far lighter, and doesn't require coals - in fact, it prefers flames. It's the perfect size for a nine-inch pan. Biscuits or a bannock are ready in about ten minutes.

Svante Freden was kind enough to post plans for anyone who would like to build their own. Just Google "Do It Yourself Svante Freden foldable Reflector Oven". I've been thinking about building a large, non-folding version that could double as a food storage container, with a wooden cutting-board lid. I have no illusions about being able to match his quality of construction, though.

The Politically-Correct Term for Beavers

2011-04-25T17:07:00.000-07:00

On a canoeing website, a thread about beavers and beaver dams of all things became quite heated and personal. Thinking that it needed an injection of levity, I posted that the word "beaver" was now considered pejorative, and that the politically correct term was "vagina squirrel".

Not only did exactly no one appreciate the joke, but I was soundly excoriated for "foul language", and told never to post anything that shouldn't be said in front of wives and mothers.

Do those people realize that their wives and mothers have those V-word things? What do you suppose they call them? Do their mothers say "Doctor, will my bearded love oyster need an episiotomy?" Do their wives say "Children, it's time we discussed the cave of wonders"?

My new favorite walking stick:

2011-04-02T20:31:00.000-07:00

Is a blowgun. Although a casual observer wouldn't know it. There's a chair leg protector on the bottom (removed before shooting, of course), a wrist lanyard and a cloth-tape grip.

My curiosity about blowguns was piqued when a friend told me about killing a feral cat with a heart/lung shot from one. I had no idea that they were capable of such a thing without, you know, curare or poison frog juice or something. I have an interest in primitive weapons, but didn't know much about this type. My extensive experience shooting beans through straws in elementary school probably led me to write them off as toys. Took a more serious look at the adult equivalent and was amazed at the accuracy and velocity of blown darts. Those of .40 or .50 caliber might not be suitable for taking game, but larger diameters emphatically are. A dart going right through something the size of a cat was not a fluke.

Amused myself on a rainy day experimenting with different lengths of 1/2 inch inner-diameter conduit, which is actually about .62 caliber. A friend of mine has a Creek Indian blowgun, and that's about what it's bore is. Five feet seems like the minimum length for good velocity, six is better. Optimum likely varies depending on your lung capacity. Ideally you should probably run out of air just as the dart exits the muzzle. A mouthpiece is necessary, you just can't get enough oomph behind a projectile without one. Easy enough to fabricate from wood with a drill and a little whittling.

Tried a few variations on darts, like nails through pieces of foam and long wood splinters with the aft end wrapped in cotton. (Our southeastern Indians seem to have used primarily locust wood and thistle down, although I also found references to mulberry and white oak with feathers and rabbit fur.) My best by far were made with bamboo skewers from the grocery store, with paper cones super-glued to their bases. Also made some more durable plastic cones by heating an appropriately cone-shaped piece of brass on top of the wood stove and pressing it into a milk jug. Finally decided to save myself time and trouble and bought a variety of manufactured darts online, along with a commercial five-foot .625 blowgun. Money well spent, although the experimenting was fun and now I have the knowledge to improvise both darts and gun.

Steel darts with flattened tips - like miniature broadheads - are probably best for non-flying, non-burrowing critters on the ground. Very consistent and therefore accurate. They easily penetrate quarter-inch plywood, and after a little practice are accurate enough to hit cans consistently at ten to fifteen yards. They penetrate a little too well sometimes. It's difficult to pull them out of a tree without pliers, and it's easy to pin a squirrel to a trunk high enough to make retrieval difficult. They tend to zip through practice targets and continue on to parts unknown, leaving their plastic cones behind. Something like a phone book makes a good backstop.

Haven't shot anything live with the blunts, but they're good for target practice, and surely they have some hunting utility. At least you wouldn't worry about a skewered bird flying off for the bunny-huggers to find, especially since every dart automatically has your DNA on it. And they're easy to carry in a pocket. They hit with a pretty impressive thud and easily punch through two layers of corrugated cardboard. They'd be a fun way to train the neighbor's dog not to poop in your yard.

Bamboo darts are my all-around favorite. They penetrate squirrels, but not trees. Their length helps prevent chipmunks from scrambling down holes before they expire, and birds from flying off. A lot of the ones I bought were warped, but even those still fly well enough for practice and plinking. The straightest ones can be reserved for more serious targets. The shafts are biodegradable, and no worries about hitting one with the lawn mower. They float, which opens up some interesting target practice opportunities that won't result in lost, broken or even dulled darts.

There are some videos on YouTube of a guy using explosive darts made by taping two percussion caps back-to-back and then super-gluing them to the tip of a metal dart. He was blasting some fairly impressive holes through plywood. Looked like a really fun way to lose an eye - there's no telling where such a dart will rebound.

There are also videos of a guy shooting bluegills in shallow water. He ties a fifteen-foot length of fishing line from his wrist to the dart and loads from the muzzle. Looking forward to trying that when the ice melts. (If you shoot fish, remember to aim low because of the refraction of the water.)

If you look at photos of aboriginals shooting blowguns, you'll notice that they usually hold them in a way that at first seems odd, with both hands, palms up, right in front of the mouthpiece. Trying it made the reason apparent: by holding it that way, you are much less likely to move the muzzle inadvertently when you exhale forcefully. My accuracy decreases dramatically if I hold it like a rifle, with one hand further down the tube. Keep both eyes open and center the target between the two "ghost images" of the muzzle. Use your diaphragm for an explosive puff - it's even good exercise. Hold a spare dart between your fingers like the hunter above for a quick reload.

For gathering protein,a large-bore blowgun isn't quite in the same league as a .22 pistol, but not as far out of it as you probably think. And a lot less likely to attract unwanted attention. They're so quiet that sometimes a missed wee beasty will stick around to give you a second chance. Besides, you can use it as a tent pole, or to breathe your fire to life without getting down on your hand and knees in the mud and smoke. I'm trying to come up with a way to further constrict the flow of air for the latter purpose, perhaps a piece of metal tubing that will friction-fit over the muzzle and can be hammered partially closed.

The downsides are limited range, projectiles that are sensitive to wind, and being somewhat unwieldy to transport. The latter flaw could be obviated with a take-down model. You could probably take a two-piece, uh, hiking staff on a public bus to, ah, feed the pigeons in the park without anyone raising an eyebrow.

They're good fun, even indoors. You'll be a hit with your kids and your kid's friends. A simple stroll now becomes a hunt, with the attendant increase in awareness and purpose. It might be a productive way to pass time on a deer stand without alarming the big game, too. Seems like every year I get squirrels almost sitting on the barrel of my rifle.

Haven't figured out a good way to carry pointed darts yet. A leather belt quiver might be most practical. Commercial blowguns come with convenient built-in clips, but then there goes the pretense of a hiking staff. I like the idea of "urban camouflage" for a variety of reasons. Blowguns are banned in the People's Republics of Taxachussettes and Kalifornia, so it's about the only viable option for you poor guys other than voting with your feet and moving to a free state.

Encasing a six-foot length of conduit completely in wood might be a fun project. Rip a 2x2 down the middle, cut channels with a router table and a half-round bit, then epoxy it all together and shape the outside. The top of the "hiking staff" could be carved as a mouthpiece. An inch or so of the conduit could protrude beyond the wood at the muzzle and be covered with a chair leg protector. It would take a close inspection for someone to figure out it's primary purpose, and the increased heft would be conducive to a steady hold and good follow-through.

*This seems like a better way to make darts, from an old issue of Mother Earth News I just came across:

"To make the darts, all you have to do is lay one of the empty milk jugs on its side, and with the propane torch set at a low flame, carefully heat an area about the size of a quarter until the plastic turns clear. Then push the pointed end of the plumb bob into the soft spot and hold it there until the dimpled area clouds. Make several rows of cones in this manner (leaving a bit of room between each), and cut the dimpled wall from the jug. You can use a short piece of scrap tubing to separate the cones from the rest of the sheet. Just bevel one end of the conduit to a sharp edge, then place the plastic-points up-on your wooden block. Center the tubular cutter over each cone to be removed, and give the back of the tube a smart rap with the hammer.

Once you've freed a number of cones, it's easy to make darts out of them by pushing nails or wire stubs through the pointed ends from the inside. A dab of silicone sealant or clay set behind the metal will serve the threefold purpose of securing the point, sealing it, and giving the dart some necessary weight. A bit of research will help you to determine which combination of points and putty works best - though we're partial to drywall nails backed with silicone."

And a couple references to Cherokee blowguns:

"...turkeys, geese, ducks of several kinds, partridges, pheasants, and an infinity of other birds, pursued only by the children, who, at eight or ten years old, are very expert at killing with a sarbacan, or hollow cane, through which they blow a small dart, whose weakness obliges them to shoot at the eye of the larger sort of prey, which they seldom miss." The Memoirs of Lt. Henry Timberlake, pages 71-72

"The common killing range for small game is 40-60 feet. The Cherokee cane blowgun...is 9-10 feet in length and throws a dart of 21 inches length, having a piston of thistledown. The Cherokee stance is to hold the cane with both hands near the mouth, not with one hand extended forward as does (some other shooters)." Speck; The Cane Blowgun in Southeastern Ethnology; American Anthropologist N. 9, vol. 40, 198-204

Where to put money now?

2011-03-31T19:01:00.000-07:00

Next time there's a bear market, I'm probably just going to keep things really simple and put what's left of my retirement all in an index fund. What to do in the meantime is the problem.

Nothing constructive has come to me, but here's a summary of my random ramblings:

The stock market has doubled in the last 3 years and is just coming down from an all-time high. Seems like a good time to get out, not a good time to get in.

Precious metals likewise would have been good three years ago, but are also at an all-time high.

Serious inflation is at some point inevitable unless we stop deficit spending, and there's absolutely no indication that we will.

That makes debt a good thing IF you have an income that will keep pace with inflation. I don't have that.

A devalued dollar will favor companies who export, and hurt those who import. Trying to find export stocks, though, makes you realize how little the US exports these days. Apple would have been a great one last year. The whole world wants iPhones and iPads. But their stock is way up, too - another boat I missed.

Long term, oil and food prices are going to increase dramatically now that there are over 7 billion people on the planet. I just can't quite figure out how to invest in energy and food, though. Farmland?

Real estate and mortgage rates are low, BUT the ruling elite need money, and property owners are their bitches any time they want to raise taxes.

My Budweiser buddy says buy booze stocks - when times are good, people drink. When times are bad, people drink.

My banker neighbor says "tangible goods" that are not easy to manufacture and won't become obsolete or spoil and are easy to store are good investments, but what exactly are those? Gold is the obvious answer, but as pointed out above, that ship has sailed.

What will people want in the future that they can't make, that won't rot or go out of date, and that can be compactly stored?

Lord of the Flies for real

2011-03-06T08:58:00.000-08:00

There have been so many books and movies about the mutiny on the Bounty that everyone knows the basics. Although Hollywood has taken its usual license, the facts are very well documented and preserved in, for example, British Admiralty records.

Less well known is what became of a group of the mutineers who, along with some Tahitians who threw in with them, settled on a very remote tropical island. Pitcairn's Island, Nordhoff & Hall, is a historical novel fleshing out what is known of their subsequent fate. The book isn't particularly well-written, but the subject matter more than makes up for it.

It's a fascinating study of small-group social dynamics, especially if you precede it by familiarizing yourself with some biographical and geographical background. Tahitian nobles and serfs, British officers and rough seamen, men and women, Christians, Heathens and atheists, alcoholics and teetotalers, a mix of races, religions, classes, sexes and perspectives all stranded for perpetuity on a tiny island.

The island itself was a paradise with a benign climate and an abundance of easily foraged food and building materials. Life was too easy, and some of the men became preoccupied with a still. Spoiler alert: an orgy of rape and murder followed, and the best men didn't last long.

There are still descendant of those settlers living on Pitcairn's Island. It's one of those places I'd love to see for myself.

Interesting factoids:

The mutineers went through an interesting religious evolution, from atheist/Christian/Pagan to a mixture of the latter two. Their children were converted to the Church of England by visiting ship's chaplains but still kept incorporated some of their mother's Tahitian beliefs. Still later, Seventh-Day Adventist missionaries converted the island population en masse and imposed a strict code of no drinking, smoking or dancing.

The average island girl bears her first baby between the ages of 12 and 14.

Most of the adult men have been charged with sex crimes by British authorities.

The island has one of the last completely healthy honeybee populations on earth.

This is why I haven't blogged in a while:

2011-02-17T06:18:00.001-08:00

I borrowed a very good friend's pride and joy and did this to it. He's been very gracious, but I feel about three inches tall for letting him down. And there's a lot of fallout to deal with between the government, insurance company, recovery and repair people, etc. I'm still waiting anxiously to see what the final bill will be, and how much the insurance will cover.

The biggest lesson I've taken away from the experience: When an ambulance shows up and some bimbo with a clipboard tells you to sign a waiver refusing treatment: Don't do it.

She will:

A. Immediately release your name and address to the media along with her ambulance-bimbo interpretation of what might have happened, and,

B. Send you a bill for services you didn't need, want, request or use.

Comb Honey

2010-12-18T06:04:00.001-08:00

This is honey in it's natural state, still in the comb. The last thing to touch that honey was BEES. It hasn't been pasteurized, filtered, or adulterated with corn syrup.

Before the days of food and drug laws, before mechanical extraction equipment, this is what people meant when they said "honey".

The wax is edible. Some people even say it helps with allergies, because there's a lot of pollen embedded in it. Just spread a chunk of comb on a hot buttered biscuit and eat it all. Some people chew the comb like gum, then spit it out and save enough to make candles. If you drop a chunk of comb honey in your hot tea, the melted wax will float to the surface and you can skim it off with a spoon and save it. It adds up quickly.

Cholera in Haiti

2010-12-12T06:33:00.000-08:00

Cholera is a bacterial infection of the intestine, transmitted via contaminated water. In a nutshell, it's diarrhea so severe that death from dehydration can occur within hours. According to Wikipedia, "an untreated person may produce 10 to 20 liters of diarrhea per day." What a way to go.

My company has stopped travel to Haiti until the present epidemic subsides, but even once it does the illness will likely have become endemic. Figured it couldn't hurt to gather some knowledge before my next visit.

I was surprised to learn how widespread Cholera is in the third world, and how common it was in the US and Europe before the development of modern sanitation practices. The outcomes of battles and even wars were decided by "General Cholera".

Fortunately, treatment for Cholera or any other form of Montezuma's Revenge is simple and safe: Replace fluids and electrolytes with a mixture of water, sugar, salt and potassium in the proper ratios. Commercial "oral rehydration solutions" are available and a good idea for your home's medical kit. If you get caught unprepared, here's a homemade recipe:

1 teaspoon of salt
8 teaspoons of sugar
4 ounces of orange juice or mashed banana
1 quart of water

"Gee, thanks, mom"

2010-11-08T11:31:00.000-08:00

This kid's mom posted a rant on her blog titled "My Son is Gay", along with this pic of her five-year-old in drag for Halloween. She turned it into a media circus, and it's gone viral. Now she's making the talk show rounds, very obviously enjoying her fifteen minutes of fame. Reactions to her have been almost overwhelmingly positive. As usual, I'm going to take the dissenting view.

"Though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-speaking villain."
-William Shakespeare

This isn't about a little kid's choice of a Halloween costume. It's about his mom using him as a foil to aggressively push a personal agenda.

If the kid is gay, his own mother just outed him on the internet.

If the kid is not gay, his own mother just outed him on the internet.

He'll never have another classmate who isn't aware of this.

She should sign him up for karate lessons next, because junior high is cruel and the internet is forever.

Gear that Works: Uninsulated Metal Canteens

2010-10-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

For warm-weather canteens, I use clear PETE soda-pop bottles. Light, tough, recyclable and free. They can be used to purify drinking water, too. Set them in the sun for a day, and UV radiation will kill biological pathogens. Simpler and better tasting than bleach, iodine or boiling.

For winter, though, I like uninsulated metal canteens that can be set near a fire to warm water or melt snow*. (*Make sure the cap is loosened so steam can escape.) I came across these Italian military surplus six-liter olive oil containers that are perfect for the job. Heavy-duty aluminum with a two-piece spout. A large opening for filling and a small one for pouring. Both caps are attached with chains so you won't lose them in the snow. (I've lost a lot of things in the snow, up to and including a tent...) There's a bale for carrying, and one side is concave so they don't bump into your legs like round buckets do. The opposite convex side has a couple welded brackets that will facilitate strapping to a pack or sled.

They came with a button-on wool cover. I'm not sure what the cover's purpose is, other than to look cool and make handling more comfortable in freezing weather. Perhaps the insulation moderates temperature swings and helps olive oil store better. Or it's intended to be wetted for an evaporative cooling effect in hot weather. Or all of the above.

It occurs to me that when set around a fire, these tall cans would not only warm water, but also reflect heat. (Again, make sure the cap's not on tight, or you're building a bomb.) I'll test that theory in a couple weeks when deer season starts.

I may get a couple more to use for their design purpose, storing olive oil. I occasionally visit a shop that has first-cold-pressed extra-virgin in bulk. The proprietor tells me it stays fresh for about six months, we go through about a liter a month, and these are six-liter cans. If that isn't a sign from the gods, I don't know what is.

On the internet, these are available for $32 at Sportsman's Guide, and $79 at Deutsche Optik. Guess it pays to shop around.

It's National Kick-Out-Your-Girlfriend-Day in France

2010-10-10T06:26:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this from a sidewalk cafe near the Eiffel Tower. How cool is that?

There seems to be an epidemic of girls pulling their suitcases behind them all over the city. Many of them have excellent legs and long hair, and of course they all have that alluring accent, so I don't understand why they're being kicked out. Maybe it's not even really National Kick Out your Girlfriend Day, I may have leaped to that conclusion too quickly. That's what I do for exercise, leap to conclusions. Also push my luck.

Things I like about the French in addition to their adorable girlfriends:

1. They aren't afraid of responsible alcohol use. Okay, I'm not being particularly responsible right now, but even so, I'm not worried about being hassled. People are free to enjoy, say, a picnic in any public park with a bottle of wine. There is no need to sneak around to circumvent nanny-state laws. Yet I don't see any more drunks here than anywhere else. The people have learned to be responsible because they aren't treated like children.

2. They aren't afraid of dog germs, either. There are dogs on the subway and in the restaurants. Their dogs behave well enough to go everywhere because they're properly socialized, and they're properly socialized because they go everywhere. See how that works?

3. The French aren't legalistic. I rented a bicycle earlier, and there was no waiver to sign, no helmet to wear. People can sit on, say, the high stone walls along the Left Bank of the Seine if they feel like it, and no safety-Nazi will tell them to get off. And if they slip and fall, they won't hire an ambulance-chaser to help them sue somebody else.

4. They take food seriously. The bread, wine, butter and chocolate are as good as they get, and bargains to boot.

5. They walk or ride bicycles when it's appropriate. I have American neighbors who no kidding drive their cars to their mailboxes. And if you see an American adult riding a bicycle, and he's not dressed like Lance Armstrong winning the Tour de France, your first thought is that he lost his drivers license.

I overheard a couple other Americans here refer to the French as "surrender monkeys". Ironic, since America is in the process of surrendering in Iraq and Afghanistan right now. Declaring victory and retreating, more accurately, but same end-game. Just as we did in Korea, Vietnam, Somalia and Lebanon. I submit that we should not point fingers at the French.

Crazy JD the Barber

2010-10-10T06:13:00.000-07:00

For a decade I've been going to JD's barber shop. I call him Crazy JD because he's always got some bizarre conspiracy theory or something equally entertaining. He thinks Allah is really Satan. I enjoy telling him that the Muslim and Christian gods are the same, that only the prophets are different. He comes unglued.

I went in yesterday for a haircut on my way to work. He started by spraying something on my head. I asked what it was, because he'd never done that before. He said it made cutting it easier. Whatever he was doing after that didn't feel right, either, but I was too stupid to ask more questions. When he turned me around to look in the mirror, the &@()?! Had given me a "flat top", a bizarre 1950's style.

Me: "Jesus Tapdancing Christ, JD, I look like the eraser end of a pencil."

Crazy JD: "Don't use the Lord's name in vain. You always get a flat top."

Me: "I've never had one. I'd rather be dead with my old haircut than alive with this one."

Crazy JD: "I must be thinking of someone else."

Me: "Jesus Christ and General Jackson, I can't go to work like this."

Crazy JD: "Doesn't your uniform have a hat? Stop using the Lord's name in vain."

Me: "You have to do something. "

Crazy JD: "There's not enough left. Maybe let it grow for a week and I can fix it a little."

He ended up buzzing my whole head except for a little tuft on the top front. It looks like the back of a merganser's head. No, I will not post pictures.

Squatting in Style

2010-10-01T05:31:00.001-07:00

Knowing I'd have about a four-hour wait while my truck was being serviced, I took along my dog and a .22 pistol. There's a big patch of woods behind the dealership, and I figured I could spend the time squirrel hunting, plinking and foraging. Didn't get any squirrels. Only saw one, and it was too far away. In order for me to pot them with a handgun, they almost have to commit suicide. But gathered some puffballs and a bolete, ate some autumn olive berries, and filled a small backpack with exceptionally large red oak acorns. Came across some kind of fresh burrow. There were no tracks or bones outside, so I got down to sniff the entrance. Someone was home, and chattered at me. No idea what it was.

Came across a path with some odd wheel ruts, and followed it out of curiosity. It led to eight or ten tents scattered through a grove of white pines. No one seemed to be around, but they'd obviously been living there a long time. The ground was bare and packed hard. I was surprised by how tidy and organized it was. Shelves stocked with food, bags for trash, dedicated latrines. Bicycles, fishing gear, tables, clotheslines, charcoal grills, kid's toys, even two easy chairs. Most of the tents had tarps over the top of them for extra protection. There was a central fire ring with a radio in a tree nearby. They apparently drank a lot of beer, but credit where credit is due, they didn't toss the empties just anywhere. The only thing I saw that didn't impress me were a lot of shopping carts. Presumably they haul in supplies with them, and don't bother to return them.

I didn't stick around long, just snapped a couple pics and eased out of there.

Most homeless people seem to have drug and/or alcohol problems. Or they're just plain crazy. And there are supposedly meth labs here and there in the woods. But this didn't seem to fit those patterns. Every other "hobo camp" I've stumbled into was filthy and filled with trash.

I might go back again. It's the closest I'll ever get to making first contact with some jungle tribe.

Asian Cuisine: Autumn Olive and Bee Larvae

2010-09-12T13:43:00.000-07:00

Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) is an ornamental introduced from China and Japan that's escaped cultivation and become invasive. The berries are good fresh and as jam, juice and fruit leather. Once you learn to recognize it, you'll see it everywhere this time of year.

Bee larvae might be a little more difficult to come by. Having read that bears prefer larvae to even honey, and that they're considered a delicacy in Thailand, we decided to try some from our hive. Picked them out of the comb with a toothpick and ate them raw. Can't describe the taste because there really wasn't any. Might try stir-frying some next time.

Another dissertation on shaving:

2010-09-07T18:54:00.000-07:00

I have failed to make the leap of manliness required of shaving with a straight razor. I do alright on my cheeks, but if I use it under my nose or on my chin, I end up going to work with more cuts than an emo whose puppy just died.

My wife bought me one a few years ago, along with the basic accoutrements. I've made a sincere effort to master the art. I like the way it focuses my mind first thing in the morning - handling a straight razor near your eyes and throat will do that. I'm just not good with it.

But I have learned two things that have served me well since: How to sharpen stuff. Really sharpen stuff. And that an old fashioned brush and soap make a remarkable difference even with modern disposable cartridge razors. Now I actually enjoy scraping my face. It's still not something I'd do for fun in my spare time instead of canoeing or riding, but it's become a pleasant ritual rather than drudgery. It's taken me three-quarters of the average American male lifespan to break the code on shaving. Benefit from my experience:

Boys, you need - I don't use that word lightly - a good quality badger hair shaving brush. Not synthetic. Not the cheapest thing you can find on Ebay. You can pay a shocking amount for such a brush. Apparently badgers do not willingly part with their hair. But keep things in perspective, an eight-pack of disposable razor cartridges costs $20 these days. Buy quality and only cry once. You're going to use it every day, and it'll last for for a couple decades.

You also need a tub or puck of good quality shaving cream or soap. Again, not cheap, but they last a long time. Like approximately forever. Marketers couldn't have that, of course, which is why they convinced us we need aerosol cans of goo instead. Give traditional soaps a fair try, and you probably won't ever be happy again with canned gel.

Up until bottled water, multi-bladed disposable razors and canned gels were perhaps history's greatest marketing scam. King Gillette, the founder of the company that bears his name, didn't invent a razor, he invented a marketing philosophy: Make people think they need something, and make it disposable. Schick tried to beat Gillette at their own game, and the arms race was on. Now we have disposable cartridge razors with five blades and lubricating strips and vibrating handles with batteries, made of Krpytonite and blessed by the pope. I don't know how anyone can maneuver them, they cover half your face.

Old fashioned safety razors - the kind your grandfather used, with double-edged blades - are making a comeback. They're fun to use, the blades cost a tenth of what disposables cost, and there's no environmentally unfriendly plastic. Shaving with them is a bit of a lost art, but they're easier to master than straight razors. And you don't have to worry about sneezing and losing an ear. The blades are not "springy" and forgiving as are those in modern cartridges, nor do the heads swivel. So, slow down, use short strokes, remember that the angle is critical. And use NO pressure. None. Just think of it as wiping off the shaving cream. Don't expect to be baby-butt smooth after one pass. Splash more hot water on your face, lather up again - your brush will still have more than enough lathery goodness - and have a second go, and then a third. Think of each pass as whisker "reduction" rather than whisker "removal". The cumulative effect will be good.

Girls, your husbands/boyfriends/smolderingly sensual European lovers want these things. They just don't know it yet. Maybe let Santa know.

Daughters on a Rampage

2010-09-05T04:56:00.000-07:00

My college-age feminist daughters, filled with college-age feminist moral outrage, have joined the crusade to end pornography. I would think it was cute, except that the movement seems to be gaining some traction.

Where does erotica end and porn begin?

Who should have the authority to tell you what you may and may not look at? The sort of government bureaucrats who brought us the IRS and the DMV? Sanctimonious hypocrites with a religious agenda? Feminists who majored in 'gender studies' and see oppression in every shadow?

Because those are the folks who will concern themselves with the issue while the rest of us are busy earning a living.

Even if it's desirable to limit what people may look at, is it possible?

Last but not least, do they not understand that if it weren't for porn, the internet would still be just a few pencil-necked geeks sending each other bad jokes in Klingon?

Shaving as Therapy

2010-08-09T14:13:00.000-07:00

I've taken to "retro-shaving" outside on our deck, weather and time permitting. I use an old-fashioned badger-hair brush, a straight razor for the easy parts, and a WWII double-edged razor for the difficult parts. The outdoor lighting is perfect. The deck overlooks the beehives, I watch their comings and goings while I work up a lather. I bring along a suppressed .22 in order to pick off the chipmunks raiding our garden. (I usually get at least one, and the rifle's stock has become stained by repeated applications of shaving cream.) Ajax the Great Dane watches me intently. Liz brings me a cup of coffee and inspects.

If shaving outdoors with a straight razor and a wet badger, a big dog, bees, a rifle and a fancy redhead who anticipates your needs isn't manly, I don't know what is.

Politically Correct Insanity

2010-08-09T14:11:00.000-07:00

Just returned from a week of Cub Scout camp with my stepson. Never again.

The camp director looked like Jabba the Hutt with huge bugger-grip sideburns. I figure he likes the job because the only respect he'll ever get is from little kids who don't know better.

Most of the counselors were pimply-faced nerds on power trips. About half of them still hadn't come to terms with being gay. Their primary job was shouting "NO RUNNING!" all day, every day. That's right, running was not allowed. I'd like to meet whoever it was that decided it was both advisable and possible to keep hundreds of adolescent boys from running for a week.

Adult leaders had to sign a paper acknowledging affiliation with some religion. Any religion. The Cub Scouts are non-denominational now, which is a step in the right direction, but leaders are still required to believe in some deity. Think about that for a minute. They don't care which invisible friend you have, but you're required to have one. I wrote down "Dogist", hoping someone would ask me what it was so I could say "If I can't eat it or hump it, I piss on it".

The boys were constantly preached to about being green and respecting the earth. Yet every meal was served on styrofoam plates with plastic utensils and glasses.

We weren't allowed to strike matches. We could get the campfires ready, but only the pimply-faced gay Hitler Youths had the authority to light them.

No touching was allowed unless you were administering first aid. Some bimbo screamed at me for picking up a little hoodlum who was kicking another. She told me to apologize to him. When I declined she began shrieking "I AM ALPHA! I AM ALPHA! YOU WILL APOLOGIZE! DO NOT CONDESCEND TO ME OR YOU WILL BE TALKING TO THE CAMP DIRECTOR IN HIS TENT!" I am not making this up. I just walked away. She later got into a no-kidding catfight with another den mother. The boys were upset and crying afterwards. I explained to them that chicks are crazy and they might as well learn it now.

I confidently predict that most of the twenty boys in our pack will eventually be staunch Democrats because there's no logic in them and they feel entitled to handouts. We certainly didn't do anything to encourage self-reliance. Five will someday weigh over 300 pounds. One will never make it past working at McDonald's. Three will end up in prison. Actual conversation with one of them:

Spoiled Little Bastard: "I AM NOT GOING TO EAT THIS! YOU HAVE TO GET ME SOMETHING I LIKE!"

Me: "This isn't a restaurant. Eat what's on your plate, or don't eat it."

Spoiled Little Bastard: "I WANT TO GO HOME!"

Me: "I want you to go home, too."

Gear that Works: Linen Buckets

2010-07-13T14:10:00.000-07:00

I love these things. First encountered them in Zimbabwe years ago, where they were used because they kept water cool via evaporation. When they get wet, the linen swells and becomes stiff and watertight, and it's stronger than cotton. These particular ones are French army surplus. Bought them to keep in my car because they're better than plastic bags for picking fruit, mushrooms & etc. Today I noticed a bunch of ripe Staghorn Sumac seed heads. Stopped, gathered a bucketful, then steeped them in cold water in the same bucket. Strained through a cloth, added some honey, and had "Indian lemonade". I'll keep one in my daypack this hunting season and be able to bring a few pounds of acorns or hickory huts out of the woods every day.

Grub lists

2010-06-17T09:02:00.000-07:00

Packing and Portaging, Dillon Wallace:

Two weeks for two men, canoeing:

Bacon, 6 pounds

Salt pork, 2 pounds

Canned ham or meats, 5 pounds

Egg powder, 1 lb (equals four dozen eggs)

Milk powder, 1 1/2 pounds

Grease, 3 pounds

Fresh bread, 2 pounds

Flour, 12 pounds

Corn meal, 1 pound

Rolled oats, 1 pound

Rice, 1 pound

Baking powder, 1/2 pound

Potatoes, dehydrated, 3 pounds (equals 21 pounds of fresh potatoes)

Carrots, dehydrated, 3/4 pound (equals 3 pounds fresh carrots)

Onions, dehydrated, 3/4 pound (equals 3 1/4 pounds fresh onions)

Cranberries, dehydrated, 1/4 pound (equals 2 1/2 quarts fresh fruit)

Beans, 2 pounds

Peas, dehydrated, 1/4 pound (equals 1 1/4 fresh peas)

Coffee, ground, 2 pounds

Tea, 1/2 pound

Cocoa, 1/2 pound

Sugar, 5 pounds

Preserves, 1 pound

Lemons, half dozen

Limes

Prunes, 1 pound

Raisins, 1 pound

Salt, 1 pound

Pepper, 3/4 ounce

Standard Hudson's Bay rations, per man per day:

2 pounds of flour and 1 pound of salt pork, or

1 pound of pemmican and 1/4 pound of hardtack

Book of the Forest, Stewart White:

Provisions per man, one week:

flour 7 lbs.

pork 5 lbs. pork

tea 1/5 lbs.

beans 2 lbs

rice 1 1/2 lbs.

prunes and raisins 1 1/2 lbs

lard 1 1/2 lbs

sugar 1 1/2 lbs

oatmeal 1 lb

baking powder

pepper

salt

"This will last much longer if you get game and fish."

Paul Provencher (author of "The Last Courier du Bois)

bannock

bacon

fat (ghee)

salt

pepper

tea

flour

sugar (honey)

onions

Edna Calkins Price's (author of "Burro Bill and Me"):

two people for one month:

flour, 50 lbs

cornmeal, 10 lbs

beans, 20 lbs

honey, 10 lbs

coffee, 2 lbs

sugar, 2 lbs

oil, 1 gallon

salt

soda

onions

cocoa

dried apricots

salt pork

canned milk

canned bully beef

"When times were hard":

flour

coffee

sugar

grease

Meddling Neighbors

2010-05-14T06:09:00.000-07:00

Our busy-body neighbors have been making anonymous complaints to the Department of Environmental Services and the Division of Lands and Forests, trying to stop us from cutting trees or building anything on our 52 acres. This bogus sign oughta give them something to talk about.

In the News:

2010-05-06T11:40:00.000-07:00

Former Marine Chris Everhart was attacked by a black bear while camping with his sons in Chattahoochee National Forest. He couldn't get to his pistol. He killed it with a chunk of firewood. The Forest Service fined him $75.

This is the baddest dude since another former Marine, 62-year-old Dale "I got scratched up pretty good" Rippy, strangled a rabid bobcat.

I want to be on whatever team those guys are on.

Turtle Love

2010-05-04T06:52:00.000-07:00

The things you see when you don't have a camera:

It was too windy for open water today - whitecaps - so I decided to explore a swamp. The wind was perfect there, just enough to keep the blackflies to a minimum. While hauling a canoe over a beaver dam, something that initially looked like a large paper bag slowly fluttering in the wind caught my eye. As I got closer, I could tell that it was something alive, but I was within a couple yards before figuring out that I was looking at two huge snapping turtles in the throes of passion.

They were on their sides in mud, with their heads under water. First they were 'spooning', then there was a great deal of clawing and scrambling and they turned face-to-face. Probably trying out new things they just read in the turtle Kama Sutra. Eventually one of them - certainly the female - left in a huff. Maybe his elbow was on her hair. Maybe it was just that time of the month and she was crazy. Anyway, no snuggling, no post-coital turtle cigarette. He probably won't even call her. She probably gave him a bogus phone number anyway.

Heaved the cad into the canoe by the tail. Measured his shell with a dollar bill: 21". He was remarkably docile. Probably still basking in the afterglow. Let him go with a warning not to trifle with the affections of others.

It was amazing how quickly they could simply disappear in a couple inches of water by burrowing under the vegetation and soft bottom mud. On the way back a couple hours later there was no sign of them, but by probing in the same spot I found another, smaller one. I'm always slogging around in the mud foraging for things, I'm going to mind where I'm stepping a lot more from now on.

I need more friends

2010-04-11T15:55:00.000-07:00

Bought some 6" x 12" x 18' Hemlock beams for the cabin. Cut the notches to fit over the posts. Collected all the friends I could. We dragged them to the building site, but couldn't lift them into place.

How to catch dinner with dental floss:

2010-03-28T11:04:00.000-07:00

Been playing around with the "figure four deadfall" since Boy Scouts. However, they tend to be frustrating to set, and have a tendency to not trip when they should.

Have recently been experimenting with the "Paiute deadfall", and like it much better. It's easier to make, easier to set, and more likely to work. The trigger is more reliable, more sensitive, and faster.

There are some good videos online (some a lot better than others) and Google is your friend.

I made this one from some small serviceberry sticks and dental floss. It's on top of a rock frequented by the chipmunks that are raiding our garden. A smear of peanut butter on the long trigger stick is the bait. The lever stick is about six inches long, and the post stick about five. Seems just about the right size for chipmunks and red squirrels, and likely to work for anything from mice to gray squirrels.

Maybe a few of these belong in your pack on treks where you intend to supplement your diet by foraging, or when there is a significant risk of being stranded or lost. They're much lighter than Conibear 110's, and even lighter than snares. The posts and trigger sticks are so easy to fashion that you really only need to carry the lever/string/toggle assemblies. They don't get beat up the way snares do, so you can use them over and over.

I whittled a few on a rainy day, in front of the woodstove with good light, proper tools and warm hands. It was fun, and I'll have either them or the knowledge to duplicate them from now on.

Trapping laws tend to be strict, so be informed and careful. But don't wait until you're starving to figure out how to do all this stuff. You can practice without harming any animals if you use a weighted cardboard box instead of a rock. I went through a military survival school years ago and didn't catch anything for the first five days. If I'd known then what I know now, I would have been a lot more comfortable.

When you set traps, the more the better. Half a dozen minimum. Mark the location of each one somehow, AND draw a map. Otherwise you'll never find them all again.

A politician's promise:

2010-03-26T08:49:00.000-07:00

I phoned my NH state representative, Kate Miller, about some pending legislation (HB1693.)

She assured me that she'd support it.

The next day, she voted against it.

Where do we find such leaders?

My latest hero:

2010-03-26T08:42:00.000-07:00

In the late 1800's, an English-Cree halfbreed named Alexander Linkletter ran sixty miles in eleven and one half hours.

ON SNOWSHOES.

Why wasn't this front-page news?

2010-03-26T08:16:00.000-07:00

All the news outlets are reporting this, but always somewhere below Tiger Wood's return to golf and Jesse James' affair with a tattoo model:

This year, the Social Security trust fund will pay out more than it receives. The Congressional Budget Office did not expect it to pass that threshold for six more years. (The phrase "trust fund" is a misleading accounting device; it's really just a giant I.O.U., as the money has already been spent and it's a "pay-as-you-go" system.) Whatever you call it, they now expect that it will be depleted by 2037.

The Medicare "trust fund" is in even worse shape. It's trustees are reporting that it will be insolvent by 2017.

Both TARP and Obamacare were underwater the day they were signed into law.

Our leaders are smart people. They know that this entitlement spending is unsustainable. They know that bureaucracies don't change without a crisis. Are they deliberately creating a crisis? What's the change they want?

What's in your car?

2010-03-26T07:53:00.000-07:00

Gave my car a spring cleaning and reorganized the emergency equipment for the most likely exigent circumstances of the summer season.

This stuff will stay even while the weather is warm:

flashlight

tow strap

jumper cables

fire extinquisher

quart of oil

paper towels

duct tape

fuel filter

tools to change fuel filter (for my car: pliers, screw driver, 10mm nut driver)

rain poncho

pot

water
compresses, tape, gloves and scissors for first aid

saw

shovel

wool hat, mittens, socks and sweater

sleeping bag

cell phone charger

books

This stuff will come out until fall:

traction mats
ice scraper

parka

boots

Nu-Wick brand candles

Nutella (tastier than peanut butter)

hard tack

A Inflation Primer

2010-03-11T08:42:00.000-08:00

Condensed from the writings of John Silveira:

"Inflation isn't so much that prices go up—because that would imply that groceries and stuff like that have somehow become more valuable. Inflation is when money becomes less valuable so it takes more money to buy a sack of potatoes, a gallon of gas, or hire a babysitter. It's a distinction most people don't seem to get.

In fact, in cases where commodities become more valuable, it's usually a case of supply and demand. When there's increased demand for something, or the supply of something we typically use runs short, the price of it goes up. For example, if a bad winter wipes out much of the citrus crop, oranges become more expensive that year. When the crop returns to normal the next year, the price of oranges returns to where it usually is.

Inflation, on the other hand, is an increase in the money supply that exceeds the expansion of the goods and services available to buy.

Imagine a bunch of us are stranded on a desert island with a set of poker chips. We decide the poker chips are going to represent the total of goods and services on the island because we want to use them as money. Say some of us harvest coconuts and we decide each coconut should cost five chips. Next year there's a bumper harvest of coconuts. If there are too many coconuts, each one is going to be worth less than they were in the previous year because the people harvesting them are going to have a harder time dumping them all, so the price may fall to three chips apiece to encourage people to buy them. On the other hand, if there's a bad harvest, it's going to be harder to buy them, so if consumers want them they're going to be willing to pay more for them and the price will go up. Maybe they're going to be seven or eight chips each. But we expect the cost of a coconut to hover around the average price of five chips we pay for them in a normal year.

The cost of coconuts depends on supply and demand, surpluses and shortages.

A raft drifts in with another set of poker chips. So, we effectively double the money supply on the island. What happens to the value of everything?

The cost of each coconut is going to be doubled because there's now twice as much money—or poker chips—on the island.

Anyone who's been saving his poker chips for a rainy day is going to suddenly find his stash of chips have half the purchasing power they used to have. That's inflation: an increase in the money supply and a decrease in the value of each dollar.

If instead of more chips showing up, half the chips on the island suddenly fall into the ocean and are lost, each remaining chip would now have twice the purchasing power they previously had and coconuts would cost half as much, because we said the number of chips represent the value of all the goods and services on the island, including the coconuts. That's deflation; a decrease in the money supply makes each chip more valuable.

This may surprise you, but we've only had long-term inflation since the Federal Reserve was established in 1913 and they got control of our money supply. They have steadily increased the money supply faster than than the increase in the amount of goods and services that that money will buy. The result is that money has become worth less and less until, today, a dollar has about the same purchasing power as four cents had in 1913.

Governments like inflation. Governments like to tax us and inflation is a tax. Most people simply do not understand that.

Let's go back to the analogy of the island. As I said, if a second set of poker chips arrives, as they're introduced into the island's economy, the prices of everything on the island will begin to rise to reflect the number of chips. But before they do, the person who found the chips gets to spend them while the prices are still low. In effect, they're stealing the value out of everyone else's chips.

In the same way, when the government increases the money supply, without a corresponding increase in the amount of goods and services, they devalue everyone else's dollars—they're worth less and buy less as prices begin to go up. But government gets full value with this newly created money because they spend it first.

So, with inflation, they're stealing value out of every bill I have in my pocket.

Stealing is exactly what they're doing. Keep in mind that if introducing more money were harmless, the government wouldn't care about counterfeiters.

Inflation amounts to legalized counterfeiting. The same people who would scream at a tax hike or a new tax imposed on us, blithely ignore inflation because they don't understand that it's caused by the government and it's another tax. It's the ultimate withholding tax because it comes out of everyone's pocket even if you're in the underground economy. But the worst thing is that it discourages saving and investment.

We should try to invest our money somehow. But consider the effect inflation has on some types of savings, say a savings account, a certificate of deposit, or a U.S. Savings Bond. The interest paid on any of these is low. In fact, they're often lower than the rate of inflation. On that basis, the more you save the further you fall behind in purchasing power. But what makes it worse is that the interest paid is also taxed, that is, part of the imaginary gains you've made are taken away from you by the IRS. So, saving that way becomes a loser's game. The more you save, the further you fall behind.

Over the long run, even putting money into precious metals is a loser's game—that is, if you do it honestly. If you invest in gold or silver, it's a nonproductive investment; it doesn't even earn you interest. What gold and silver really do is respond to the value of the dollar and other currencies. The price of those metals will go up with the inflation rate so, over the long run, if you hold onto them you should theoretically break even in purchasing power. The problem is that when you sell your gold or silver the IRS sees your gain as a ‘real' gain and takes a chunk of it by taxing you. Thus, even precious metals are a losing position—unless you don't report the sale. As a hedge against inflation they're terrific, but they're not making you money in the way stocks, bonds, or savings accounts would in a stable and noninflationary economy.

Other countries have already experienced periods of hyperinflation. The German mark (after World War I) started losing value so fast that people were getting paid two and three times a day and they'd leave work each time so they could spend it before it lost even more value. If you didn't spend it right away, it was going to be worth a lot less in just a few hours. It got so bad that people not only spent their money as fast as they could, they often didn't bother taking their change.

Money was so worthless you couldn't buy heating fuel with it, so to keep warm many people took to burning the paper bills instead.

In Hungary, just after World War II, the Hungarian pengö lost its value even faster. Throughout July of 1946, prices tripled every day. What cost 1,000 pengö one morning cost 3,000 the next and 9,000 the morning after that.

Today, Zimbabwe is undergoing hyperinflation. Their hyperinflation started when the country's president, Robert Mugabe, took land away from the former white landowners to give to blacks who, unfortunately, were unfamiliar with agricultural practices. Crops failed and Zimbabwe began having problems feeding itself. As a result, food prices jumped and Mugabe started to run the presses to keep up with the price increases. Coupled with that was his decision to quadruple the pay of the police and the military (to keep their allegiances) without putting it in the budget, and the presses had to run even faster and longer to make up for these and other budget shortfalls.

There was a time when the Zimbabwean dollar was worth more than the American dollar. Today, it's possible to find 100 trillion dollar Zimbabwean notes, but no one wants them. You can't even bribe a Zimbabwean official with Zibabwean money.

Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia experienced hyperinflation in the late part of the 20th century. All of it was the result of government overspending; when the bills came due, unable to pay them with taxes, the respective governments ran the printing presses and got caught in that same vicious circle.

Whenever governments have accumulated extreme debts that they are unable or unwilling to raise the money to pay off, either with the sale of bonds or the raising of taxes, they often resort to simply printing more money by running the presses, whether it's the paper presses or the virtual electronic presses of the computer age that create electronic credits.

Governments have streams of commitments, and more often than not they're political promises politicians make to voters to keep themselves in power.

Neither inflation nor hyperinflation can exist without the government having a hand in it. Government is the cause of both inflation and hyperinflation.

At some point, the politicians may try to blame it on the ‘greedy bankers,' speculators, and black marketeers, but none of them can run the presses.

Consider our unfunded debts. These include the costs of Social Security, Medicare, national healthcare if it passes, the trade deficit, and the bailouts—for which trillions were manufactured out of thin air in a way a Zimbabwean strongman could only dream. We owe trillions in loans to foreign governments, most notably China. The responsibility for paying all of this off is being thrown on the backs of the young and those yet unborn.

There's no way we can keep this up. In fact, when the younger generations of voters come of age and they realize what we and the other older generations of voters have voted ourselves, and that we've saddled them with the onerous task of trying to pay off these unpayable debts, they may just welcome hyperinflation and screw us the way we've been screwing them, for example, by making our savings and Social Security payments worthless.

But not only do we have all this debt, a lot of our currency is overseas. Foreigners have been willing to hold American dollars for decades because it's been universally recognized and it's been considered stable. But, if all those dollars were to come back here and were spent in a short time, it too might lead to hyperinflation. It would be like the raft with a duplicate set of poker chips suddenly showing up on the island.

There will be winners and losers. The prime winners may be future generations, including those not yet born, whom we've been trying to saddle with all these debts. The last few generations have been the most selfish in American history. We've voted ourselves all kinds of benefits that are going to have to be paid by the young. But there's going to come a time when the young realize it. We can't hide it forever. And when they see what's happened, they're going to do something about it at the polls. As a result, it's likely to be the older people who are going to be hurt.

In almost every country where inflation has gotten out of control, many who had spent their lives providing for themselves with investments and savings found the purchasing power of their retirement nest eggs wiped out by the hyperinflation, the value of their savings stolen by a government. And those who watched their retirement disappear overnight had to return to the workforce in their old age.

The young are resilient and have their whole lives ahead of them. They may be better off if hyperinflation manages to wipe out the debts we've been trying to saddle them with.

Might hyperinflation help a lot of homeowners because it would allow them to pay their mortgages off with inflated dollars? Keep in mind that the recent bailouts went through despite polls showing the public was against them. It's because Wall Street and the bankers have Washington's ear. So, for better or worse, Congress is likely to step in and make laws saying mortgages and other loans, such as car loans and credit card balances, would be inflation-adjusted. That would be tantamount to another bailout.

Is there a way to keep prices down despite inflation, like wage and price controls?

They don't work. At best they do nothing, at worst they destroy businesses and jobs. By instituting wage and price controls, policy makers force sellers, under penalty of law, to sell their goods and services for money that is worth less and less every day. They force workers to work for less and less of a living wage. The result is that sellers may wind up selling goods at a loss and may go out of business while workers struggle because they can't pay their bills. So we have scarcity of goods, lost jobs, and a burgeoning black market. Even if the prices stay down temporarily while the controls are in place and the government threatens penalties, once the controls are lifted, the prices shoot up to where they should be. This is what happened when Nixon tried to impose price controls in the early ‘70s.

Price controls also force businesses to either withhold their products from the market or they force them to sell on the black market in order to survive. Goods including food and clothing often disappear from the shelves, and people walk away from their jobs to work under the table. Politicians are against black markets because they expose political policies for what they are—shams—and they can't tax them.

What could we have done differently to have prevented this? We could have voted differently.

How were we to know what was coming? You should have turned off the sitcoms. The problem with the American electorate is that it doesn't want to inform itself of what's going on in the world, but it still wants the right to vote.

Is there anything we can do now? Go back to the Gold Standard—it kept our money stable for over a century—and start paying our debts and stop expecting the as-yet-unborn to pay them for us. That's unlikely to happen.

So what do we do to protect ourselves? If we're lucky, we'll watch our currency inflate slowly and we can get rid of our dollars and turn them into hard assets. But I'm already hedging my bets. I buy hard assets, everything from junk silver coins and ammo for the guns I own to food and wine. I have lots of food, lots of wine. It's also good if you can get your hands on some stable foreign currencies like the Euro."

John Silveira

Landing a plane on ice

2010-02-09T13:48:00.001-08:00

If a very trusting friend ever asks you to land his bushplane on a frozen pond so he can take pics, you should go for it. More fun than a flock of sheep and no witnesses.

More critters visiting the deer carcass

2010-02-09T13:45:00.001-08:00

So far, daytime game camera pics of red squirrels, a variety of birds, a yellow lab, and two hikers. Night time pics of mice, raccoons, a fisher and now a bobcat.

Chupacabra Caught on Film

2010-02-06T05:55:00.001-08:00

Aimed a game camera at a road-killed deer and got some good pics of a fisher. The time stamp in the corner is correct except for the year 2025. It's not one of those cameras that sees into the future, I just set it wrong.

Clouds over the Bahamas

2010-02-06T05:52:00.000-08:00

When the conditions are just right, every little island and sandbar in the Bahamas has its own little cloud overhead.

Book Review: The Man who Lives with Wolves

2010-01-31T09:00:00.000-08:00

This narrative doesn't ring true. Some of the claims that author and subject Shaun Ellis makes are ignorant at best. The first glaring example was his description of the physiology of foxes when pursued by hounds. I even ran that one by my veterinarian, whose verbatim response was: "Total BS". His tale of living with a wild wolfpack for two years is simultaneously so incredible and so threadbare that it simply doesn't pass the smell test. No surprise, he complains often that scientists and biologists won't take him seriously. Speaking of things that don't pass the smell test, his perverse pride in not bathing or visiting a dentist becomes downright wearisome. His Native American "spiritual connections" are even more so. Co-author Penny Junor's previous books were unflattering exposés of celebrities and her father. She has no apparent qualifications for a book about wolves, and seems to have taken Mr. Ellis at his word with a minimum of vetting. The poor-quality photos of Ellis with caged wolves did nothing to corroborate his stories. His admissions, both tacit and explicit, that he was a drop-out and petty criminal who abandoned his families and cheated his employers fueled my doubts about his veracity, so I did a little online digging. The only credible interaction between Mr. Ellis and wolves that turns up is in an enclosure at a theme park/petting zoo in England. Shaun Ellis puts on a "daily howling exhibit", but the main attraction seems to be animated dinosaurs. He's currently making a good living as the star of TV reality shows filmed in the two-acre pen. The camera work must be difficult with the need to keep fences, litter, tourists and rubber dinosaurs out of the shots. Bottom line: He's a fraud, peddling phony research and mysticism to the gullible.

If you're squeamish, don't read this.

2010-01-26T09:03:00.000-08:00

A car in front of me hit a deer. It ran off on three legs. I marked the last place I saw it. By coincidence the driver was a boy I know. We gave the deer some time to expire or at least weaken, then set off to spoor it.

Quickly found where it had lain down, thrashed around and bled quite a bit. Then spent two hours and covered about two miles trying to puzzle out where it had gone from there. Lost the trail several times among other tracks, but by following individual trails for a distance we were always eventually able to find a speck of blood, or a spot where it had fallen, or where it had knocked off the brittle lower branches of pines. (Healthy deer are much more careful than that.)

At one point we came to someone's back yard, and the fellow was out on his deck with a pair of binoculars. I called to him, told him what we were doing, and asked if we could cross his yard. He told us that he had just seen the deer and that it looked fine, but that we could follow it if we liked. We almost quit at that point, but in retrospect I'm glad we persevered. I don't think he was looking at the same deer.

Happened across some other interesting tales in the snow, including a spot where coyotes had recently eaten another deer. The life-and-death dramas that happen every night in the woods are a lot more visible this time of year.

We knew we were getting close when we started finding spots of blood that hadn't frozen yet. The tracks started up a steep rise, and we came to a spot where the deer had fallen, then turned to go off at a downhill angle. I looked back at my young friend to tell him that it probably wasn't far ahead of us now, and realized with a start that I was looking right at it. It had fallen again, only about ten yards away. As soon as we made eye contact, it jumped up scrambling. I drew the pistol I usually carry for personal defense and fired four rounds. Ever see those videos of cops-and-robbers emptying their pistols at each other across the hood of a car without hitting anything? I've been to a number of shooting schools - military, law enforcement and civilian - and I practice and requalify regularly. But only one of my four shots connected. Handguns are far more difficult than shoulder arms to shoot well when the adrenaline is flowing. I was a good lesson for me.

Anyway, one hit was enough.

Turned out to be a good-sized doe with a compound fracture of it's right hind leg, and some massive contusions in several places.

Curious about how the bullet had performed, I went through the gut pile pretty thoroughly. Never found it, but I did find a tiny fetus.

By then we were tired and had no idea where we were. We didn't want to backtrack all the way to where we had started. We could hear occasional traffic, and dragged the deer down to that road. Once we got our bearings, we were surprised at how far we'd gone.

Finally consolidated boy, dented car and deer at his parent's house. His mother cooked the heart for us with onions and garlic, and his father sent me home with the backstraps, some home-made beer, and eggs from their henhouse.

The kid's an aspiring hunter. Too bad he got his first deer with a Toyota instead of a Winchester, but at least he learned some things about tracking, field-dressing and butchering.

It was a very satisfying experience to stay on those tracks like hungry wolves to a successful conclusion.

Everyone needs Three Hats

2010-01-22T14:52:00.000-08:00

And a baseball cap doesn't count for any of them. One for sun, one for cold, and one for rain.

My wife somehow manages to look cute in any hat, and I can't seem to look anything but goofy. Even the dog looks better in hats than I do.

I've given up on fashion statements and put function ahead of form. For sun, I still have the hat Uncle Sam gave me. It's seen the world. For cold, watch caps or government surplus. For rain, nothing beats the traditional sou'wester, not even a hood.

We're Getting Pretty Good at Building Igloos

2010-01-20T16:16:00.000-08:00

With wind-packed snow, all you need is a snow saw. That's rare around here, though, so most of the time we use molds, either purpose-made, five-gallon buckets, or coolers.

It's important to start on level ground and with a perfect circle.

The first few times are frustrating, and the roof will likely cave-in before you can finish. Stick with it, though, and you'll break the code.

I'm always surprised at how quiet they are inside.

Haiti's Earthquake

2010-01-16T17:02:00.000-08:00

Well, I volunteered to pilot a relief flight into Port au Prince. I'm not much of a humanitarian, it was more out of a sense of morbid curiosity and for the adventure. Tried to talk my emergency-room-physician-buddy into going along, but after similar trips to Afghanistan, India and Nepal, he's had enough. Packed a hammock, water filter and work gloves and waited for a plane to be dispatched. It never was, though. Haiti's airport simply can't handle all the relief traffic that's pouring in. I'm writing this from the airport in San Juan, and it's busier than I've ever seen it before with planes that waited over Haiti for a turn to land until they ran low on fuel, then diverted here. Heard other planes on the radio diverting to Los Americas in the Dominican Republic and Providenciales in Turks and Caicos.

So I'm just following the news. I'm willing to bet that, just as with the relief effort after the Indian Ocean tsunami, mountains of supplies will rot before they can be distributed. Well-meaning people are donating record amounts to charities that will spend most of it on more fund-raising, salaries and other "administrative expenses". Giselle Bundchen gave 1.5 million to the Red Cross. The reporter said "She can afford it", which struck me as downright rude. Maybe I'm just protective of Giselle because I know we'd make a good couple. President Obama has pledged an additional 100 million in aid, which means that about 90 million will end up in the pockets of corrupt politicians.

Haitians being interviewed on the news are mostly angry that they aren't being rescued quickly enough. They're in dire straits, but the attitude still seems shockingly ungrateful. Like New Orleans after Katrina all over again, they seem to choose victimhood over self-reliance. Especially in a region plagued by hurricanes, you'd think people would have had the foresight to keep some supplies squirreled away. Even the poorest families have the means to keep some water and beans in empty pop bottles or something.

Supplies are piling up alongside Port au Prince's single runway. Distribution is a problem since many roads are damaged and there's a lack of fuel. Communications are poor, hindering the coordination of efforts. Injuries are becoming infected, and the usual post-disaster diseases will be making an appearance soon. There are reports of gangs with machetes stealing relief supplies.

What can we take away from this? Tens of thousands of Haitians are without shelter, water, food, light, medical supplies, sanitation, transportation or security. What would be useful if such a disaster occurred where you live? Tents, jerry cans of diesel fuel, paraffin lamps, candles, firewood, bicycles, medical kits, non-perishable food, the means to purify water, a latrine or sawdust bucket, defensive firearms, and the knowledge to use all of the above.

Update: I guess I'm more human than I thought. Pics and video from Haiti are keeping me awake at night. I'm still on a list to fly in there, but haven't been called yet.

2009-12-31T13:07:00.000-08:00

My beautiful blond bride, my petite pretty petunia, my cute cuddly cucaracha, is stranded by the latest snowstorm. So it's me and the dog for New Year's Eve. What do you do when your New Year's date has a hairy face and farts all the time? Well, you don't go public. So we headed for the woods, started a fire, and made sourdough bannocks.

Whisk these dry ingredients together and put them in a plastic bag:

1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp salt

Optional:

A little powdered milk
Flax seeds

Whole wheat flour instead of white

Brown sugar instead of white

Rolled oats

Cinnamon
Whatever

When you've got a nice fire going, melt ghee in a pan. (Butter or oil will do if you haven't made ghee, but they aren't as tasty and they burn much more easily.)

Swirl it around to grease the whole bottom and sides of the pan.

Pour the excess melted ghee into the plastic bag.

Add an egg if you have it.

Add some honey if you have it.

Add enough sourdough starter to make a thick mud.

Squish everything around in the plastic bag until it's mixed.

Pour it back in the now-greased pan.

Cook S-L-O-W-L-Y. Careful, or you'll burn the bottom.

When it's almost done, prop it up in front of the fire and brown the top.

If you try to tip it up too soon, it may droop a bit, as this one has done, or worse.

Hot home-made bread for dinner, and you didn't even get flour on your hands.

Happy New Year everyone. My resolution is to seek out the dark forces and join their hellish crusade. Also to get outside more often instead of just reading about it.

How's this for a heavy-duty wanigan?

2009-12-31T09:41:00.000-08:00

Always on the lookout for anything that will make car and boat camping comfortable for my wife and convenient for me, I bought this at an online surplus store for $80 (but then had to pay $50 shipping). According to the UPS document, it weighs 65 pounds. Hate to think what the government originally paid for it. And then they never used it, it was brand-spanking-new-still-in-the-box.

I'm always haunting surplus stores. Buying cheap surplus is like getting a tax refund. It's like making lemonade when life gives you lemons. Our governing elite steals our money with the threat of violence, pays exorbitant prices for stuff they'll never use to the contractors who make the most campaign contributions, then allows us to buy it for pennies on the dollar.

This is supposedly a "medical storage container". Very heavy-duty double-walled aluminum with three dividers/shelves welded inside. Two of the sides come off and unfold into tables. Rubber gaskets make it airtight. It'd float if it wasn't overloaded. Even has a pressure-relief valve in case I set up a base camp on Annapurna.

These would have been perfect furniture when I was a starving college student and a single military guy, moving every few months and putting my stuff into storage for deployments. The M.A.S.H. motif suits my taste in home decor. Anything that helps organize and store all my crap suits my taste in home decor. Might have to do something about the sickly pale green color, though.

I'll keep this packed with non-perishables and utensils, ready to put in the back of the pick-up truck and go. A tent with a woodstove, cot, and one of these will be more comfortable than my college dorm ever was.

I had plans to build a wood wannigan, but I suspect that the materials would have cost about what this did. Not to mention construction time, slopping paint everywhere and hitting my thumb with a hammer. Wood is warm and traditional, but you gotta like storage containers that are proof against everything from ants to floods to fire to Cub Scouts. Besides, mice would chew through wood the first night at deer camp. They even eat our soap if it's not in a metal container. I might start sleeping in a metal container if another one runs across my face at night.

First snow-camp of the season

2009-12-29T11:55:00.000-08:00

The large lake we live on freezes very late, so I thought I'd get one more night of canoe camping on an island. To make the most of the short days, I launched and loaded the freighter canoe the night before. Next morning, there was a ring of ice around it. Got that chipped off without damaging anything, but then the outboard wouldn't start.

I can take a hint. On to Plan B. Loaded the car and drove towards another favorite place. By now it was snowing hard, and the roads were slicker than snot on ice. Came to a hill the car just wouldn't climb, even with brand-new snow tires. Tried to go back, but couldn't climb the hill I'd just come down, either. Stuck in a little valley on an infrequently-traveled dirt road until a snow plow came along. One of those times when Mother Nature chooses the campsite. Dug out a parking spot off the road, and Ajax and I were on our way.

He carries the heavy stuff in his pack, I pull the bulky stuff on a sled. Found a decent spot, cut a pole for the tent and three smaller ones for a tripod to support the stove pipe. Pitched the tent. By then, snow had buried everything. Lost the little tarp I put over firewood, and never did find it. Note to self: Be more organized, and paint little things orange.

Went off with the sled and saw for firewood. Lucked into a couple dead standing Hop-Hornbeam trees, the King Kong of firewood.

Had hoped to pop a squirrel for dinner, but saw only one and didn't get a shot.

Fortunately, being a pessimist, I had pre-loaded the aluminum Dutch oven with left-over pork roast, ghee and garlic. Warmed it up on the stove and it was delicious. Ajax drooled all over my sleeping bag waiting to lick the pot.

A front passed during the night, dropping the temp to 8*F. The tent stayed so warm that I spent most of the night stretched out on top of the sleeping bag, but a strong wind (30 mph, I learned later) developed and kept the tent flapping. Didn't get much sleep, although that's normal for me the first night of a camping trip. Sleep comes much easier on subsequent days. The stove pipe came apart once and filled the tent with smoke, but I was able to reconnect it fairly quickly.

Next morning went hunting again, but saw nothing. Not even tracks. Nothing was moving in the wind and cold. The temp had been just below freezing when we left, so I'd dressed for cold/wet conditions instead of cold/dry, and was wishing I'd worn mukluks and snowshoes. Another note to self: Don't trust Mother Nature. What a bitch.

Tree limbs were coming down in the wind, so we decided to skedaddle. Chipping out the frozen tent and slogging to the car was a bit of an ordeal. Then to top it off, the car door locks were frozen.

It was a good early-season shake-down.

The World's Coolest Name

2009-12-26T15:45:00.000-08:00

I'm in the Dominican Republic tonight. A fellow running for office has a billboard by the hotel. His name is "JESUS MERCEDES". Conjures up images of a messiah in an SL350 convertible. It's going to be my rock-star name if I ever learn to sing or play an instrument. Maybe I'll kill him and assume his identity. Maybe I'll just sign I.O.U.'s with it.

Canoes vs. Kayaks

2009-12-19T12:45:00.000-08:00

If you're going to be hopping in-and-out, or transporting cargo, or fishing, or jump-shooting ducks, a canoe is the utilitarian pick-up truck of human-powered watercraft.

For seaworthiness and covering miles in big water, go with a kayak.

In a canoe, you feel like you're on the water. In a kayak, you feel like you're in the water.

Behold: The Chicken Bunker

2009-11-29T05:23:00.001-08:00

Built a sod-roofed, earth-sheltered chicken coop in the hope that it will be visually unobtrusive, warm in winter and cool in summer.

"Foods that will Win the War"

2009-11-29T05:16:00.000-08:00

During WWI, America and Canada were exporting as much wheat as possible to our starving European allies. The U.S. Food Administration campaigned to reduce domestic waste and consumption. "Waste in your kitchen means starvation in some other kitchen across the sea". In 1918 it published a book called "Foods that will Win the War". I adjusted some of its figures for today's population:

"A slice of bread contains a bit less than three-fourths of an ounce of flour.

If each of America's 20,000,000 homes (112,000,000 homes today) wastes one slice per day, the country is throwing away daily over

14,000,000 ounces of flour (78,000,000 ounces now) —over 875,000 pounds (4,900,000 pounds), or enough flour for over a

million one-pound loaves a day (5.6 million loaves now). For a full year at this rate there would be a

waste of over 319,000,000 pounds of flour (1,786,400,000 pounds) —1,500,000 barrels (8,400,000 barrels)—enough flour

to make 365,000,000 loaves (2,044,000,000).

As it takes four and one-half bushels of wheat to make a barrel of ordinary

flour, this waste would represent the flour from over 7,000,000 bushels (39,200,000 bushels) of

wheat. Fourteen and nine-tenths bushels of wheat on the average are raised per

acre. It would take the product of some 470,000 acres (2,632,000 acres) just to provide a single

slice of bread to be wasted daily in every home."

Average yield-per-acre has increased to about 50 bushels today, largely due to agricultural methods that are unsustainable in the long run. Nevertheless, it would still "take the product" of some 784,000 acres "just to provide a single slice of bread to be wasted daily" in every American home.

When something as unimportant as a slice of bread is multiplied by our enormous population, it staggers the imagination.

Soaked and skunked, mostly

2009-11-17T10:35:00.000-08:00

Opening morning of deer season at a buddy's farm in Missouri, I saw a small buck and a doe. Strangely, the latter was following the former. (It's almost always the other way around, especially this time of year.) The bag limit is one buck with at least four points on a side, and unlimited does. Watched them for a while hoping something better would show up, then picked off the doe when they started leaving. The next morning I hunted in the same spot, and was entertained by a red fox feeding on the gut pile. Left for lunch, and when I came back the gut pile was entirely gone. A pack of coyotes must have discovered it in the couple hours I was away. They didn't even leave a scrap of stomach contents. That night I passed on a small doe. After that, days of unending rain, and not another deer sighting. Glad I put meat on the ground opening day.

Healthcare Reform Revisited

2009-11-08T21:22:00.001-08:00

The House of Representatives passed it's healthcare reform bill last night. According to the CBO (Congressional Budget Office), it will cost between 17% and 20% of your pre-tax income. Even assuming that their estimate is accurate - the cost estimates for every other entitlement program have been wildly optimistic - that's not a bargain I'd leap on with the fury of a thousand jungle beasts. But it will be mandatory. You buy the insurance or you pay a fine, citizen.

What's driving health care costs can be divided into four behavioral categories:

1. Patient behavior: We're our own worst enemy. Most medical problems are self-induced. If America put down the cigarettes and Twinkies, there wouldn't be a healthcare crisis. The House's bill does not address personal responsibility at all. On the contrary, it will force those who choose healthy lifestyles to subsidize the chainsmoking hogbodies who don't.

2. Healthcare provider behavior: Doctors and hospitals want to make as much money as they can, plus they're forced by the threat of lawsuits to practice "defensive medicine". They order high-cost, low-value tests and procedures because there's no incentive to economize, they'll be sued into the stone age if they miss something, and, well, they're greedy. There is nothing in the bill whatsoever to encourage healthcare providers to use economic common sense.

3. Lawyer behavior: Lawyers make their parasitic livings by finding mistakes and assigning blame. See above. The House bill completely ignores the issue. Why is the subject of tort reform ignored? Just a wild guess, but maybe because our president is a lawyer married to a lawyer and our vice president is a lawyer married to a lawyer? And somehow the Trial Lawyers Association has become the nation's second largest "campaign contributor"?

4. Insurance company behavior: Greed yet again. They're in business to make money, not because they're humanitarians. And they do so by charging as much as possible, and paying out as little as possible. Why aren't we going to a single-payer system that simply eliminates insurance companies? Could it be because the largest "campaign contributor" - I know you were wondering who was in first place - is the F.I.R.E. (Financial/Insurance/Real Estate) industry?

Congress is a legislation vending-machine. If lawyers and insurance companies put enough money in at the top, the legislation they want comes out at the bottom. To add insult to injury, congress has already exempted themselves from this "reform". It's for us serfs, not our masters. You know those guys who keep getting busted with sacks of money in their freezers and such? Yeah, them.

Keeping an Old Car Running

2009-11-08T21:12:00.000-08:00

Replaced the beat-up plastic skidplate under the engine of my VW Jetta with a heavy-duty aluminum aftermarket model called a "Panzer Plate". It looks as ruggedly cool as it sounds. Wish I had a whole car made like it. I'm all atwitter in anticipation of bashing ice chunks at 70 miles per hour on I-93 this winter.

A Moral Dilemma

2009-11-08T21:08:00.000-08:00

A large, fancy car in a public parking garage was taking up two spaces. There were no other spots reasonably available, so I shoehorned my little commuting car in next to it. When I returned, the fancy car's space was empty, but the driver had apparently expressed his displeasure by folding in my side-view mirror and keying the side of my car.

Two days later, I noticed the same car, parked the same way near the same spot in the same garage. I recognized things in the backseat as well as the make, model and color.

It took me several long moments to decide whether I was a turn-the-other-cheek kind of guy, or a payback-is-a-bitch kind of guy. What would you have done?

I went with payback. It was sweet. I hope it wasn't bad karma.

Havasupai Indians

2009-11-03T07:50:00.000-08:00

Hiked into the Havasupai reservation. It's a fantastically beautiful oasis at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

The ancient Havasupai were nomads who traveled distances that would have impressed a wolf, and lived on cliffs that would have impressed a lizard.

Now they're obese diabetics addicted to meth and alcohol. They live in government housing, with what amounts to a giant extension cord draped into the canyon for electricity. They milk tourists and look for things to be offended by.

If you get a chance to visit Paris with a personal interpreter, go for it.

2009-10-25T06:34:00.000-07:00

My daughter is spending a semester studying French at the Sorbonne. She's renting a room on the Left Bank, a couple blocks from the Louvre, from "Madame". I went over to visit. We ate snails and duck gizzards at sidewalk cafes. Took in historical sites ranging from the Roman Empire to the Reign of Terror. Watched the Eiffel Tower's new light show. Walked Madame's dog along the Seine, and were then invited in for tea. Madame's house and almost everything in it look to be older than the United States. The dude with the 'do and the armor in the painting was some ancestor of hers. A couple others were on Lafayette's staff and were present at the battle of Yorktown. She was eleven years old when Germany invaded France during WWII. Her parent's house was looted and burned, and she rode out the rest of the war in Morocco. She told us about a friend who is "an old lady" who smuggled downed Allied pilots from Belgium to Spain for the Resistance.

Ever wonder where all the hippy-chicks went?

2009-10-21T16:51:00.001-07:00

They're pretending to be Indians now. Pudgy middle-aged women hanging out at pow-wows, weaving "dream-catchers" with colored yarn and spouting incomprehensible phony spiritualism. They call themselves things like "Earth Mother Bear Spirit".

How to Store Diesel Fuel

2009-10-15T10:15:00.000-07:00

An Israeli Jerry can. The irony.

Both of my vehicles are diesels. They get better mileage than comparable gas vehicles - the VW TDI averages 50 mpg and goes 700 miles between fill-ups. Diesel engines last about twice as long as gas engines - they tend to operate at lower RPM's, and their fuel has superior lubricating properties. They're more reliable, with no spark plugs, no ignition coil, no distributor, no plug wires, and no oxygen sensors in the exhaust system. They could run on heating oil in a pinch, although that's illegal because heating oil isn't taxed.

Diesel is less volatile than gasoline, with a far longer "shelf life". And it's much, much safer to store. Gasoline is more dangerous than dynamite. (I recently read the blog of a fellow who stores cans of gasoline in an apartment closet. Wouldn't be surprised if he wins a Darwin award some day.)

I try to keep a small supply on hand, and think old-fashioned "Jerry cans" are the best storage containers. They're rugged, stackable, easy to pour from, and they don't "breath" like plastic containers. A dozen Jerry cans equals 3,000 miles in my car or 1,020 in my truck. Of course, our nanny state has made them illegal because they don't have child-proof caps or CARB ("California Air Resources Board") compliant spouts. "Pre-ban" Jerry cans are still sometimes available at surplus stores with the warning that they are not to be used to store fuel. What can I say.

I will share the results of my internet research with you, because I love you all:

There are two common problems with storing diesel fuel:

1. It begins to oxidize as soon as it leaves the refinery. Gums and sediments that clog fuel filters form. The process can be slowed by keeping it cool and by adding stabilizers.

2. Water, usually from condensation in the empty part of the storage container, is the medium for algae growth. A slime that will again clog fuel filters results. Adding biocide will prevent algae growth, but better yet is to keep it in a sealed, full container and in a stable temperature to prevent water from condensing in the first place.

Those who store large amounts of diesel for long periods (deep water sailors, the military, nuclear power plants with back-up generators) periodically test and "polish" their fuel, filtering and adding additional stabilizers. For us little people, rotating stocks is more practical, but funnels with built-in filters are available.

Exxon's website says that: "If you keep it clean, cool and dry, diesel fuel can be stored 6 months to 1 year without significant quality degradation. Storage for longer periods can be accomplished through use of periodic filtrations and addition of fuel stabilizers and biocides."

Chevron says: "those who store diesel fuel for a prolonged period, i.e., one year or longer, can take steps

to maintain fuel integrity. The steps below provide increasing levels of protection:

1. Purchase clean, dry fuel from a reputable supplier and keep the stored fuel cool and

dry. The presence of free water encourages the corrosion of metal storage tanks and

provides the medium for microbiological growth.

2. Add an appropriate stabilizer that contains an antioxidant, biocide, and

corrosion inhibitor.

3. Use a fuel quality management service to regularly test the fuel, and, as necessary,

polish it – by ﬁltration through portable ﬁlters – and add fresh stabilizer."

BP says: "Under normal storage conditions diesel fuel can be expected to stay in a useable condition

for:

• 12 months or longer at an ambient of 20ºC.

• 6-12 months at an ambient temperature higher than 30ºC.

As diesel gets older a fine sediment and gum forms in the diesel brought about by the

reaction of diesel components with oxygen from the air. The fine sediment and gum will

block fuel filters, leading to fuel starvation and the engine stopping. Frequent filter changes

are then required to keep the engine going. The gums and sediments do not burn in the

engine very well and can lead to carbon and soot deposits on injectors and other combustion

surfaces."

Cenex says: "If storage exceeds one year, testing is recommended."

Diesel fuels are blended for different seasons and regions. "Summer" diesel may cloud or gel at cold temperatures.

From BP: "Always purchase fuel to replenish stocks in the winter season. This will

ensure that the fuel will not cause wax problems whatever season it is used."

According to Exxon: "Non-winterized diesel fuel will not generally cause problems as long as temperatures are at or above 10°F."

So the basic strategy boils down to:

1. Buying "fresh" fuel (the quotation marks are because it's probably already several weeks old by the time it works it's way from the refinery to us consumers).

2. Topping off storage containers, leaving just enough headspace for expansion and contraction, but not much for condensation.

3. Keeping it dry and cool. Heat speeds deterioration, temperature swings will cause condensation.

4. Adding a stabilizer to slow oxidation if storage in warm temperatures or beyond a year is anticipated.

5. Adding a biocide to prevent algae growth (or better yet, keep it in a sealed, full container and in a stable temperature to prevent water condensation in the first place).

6. Rotating stocks every winter.

7. When in doubt, filtering. The "Mr. Funnel" plastic fuel filter funnel from Amazon.com has a good reputation. (The same funnel is marketed under several different names but for a lot more money.)

Interesting historical trivia: "Jerry cans" are so-named because they were originally designed and stockpiled for the German Wehrmacht during the build-up to WWII. Transporting and storing fuel in combat conditions was a critical problem as armies became mechanized, and Jerry cans were a secret project ordered by Hitler. They can be stacked with little wasted space. Their three handles allow easy carrying by either one or two people. The small built-in air space allows for expansion while minimizing condensation, and ensures that they'll float even when full. A traveling American engineer recognized the value of the ingenious design and stole three of them during an adventure that reads like a spy novel. They were subsequently delivered to America and Britain and reverse-engineered. I've also seen French, Swiss and even Israeli copies.

My wife comes from hardy stock.

2009-10-13T13:18:00.000-07:00

The headstone on the left belongs to Christina Gortner, one of Rudy's great great great great great great (six "greats") grandmothers. On the right is that of John Jacob Hill, her husband. Rudy is sulking because he wanted to play his video game.

This is being written as we're camping and exploring in the Muncy valley of Pennsylvania, looking up some family history. The earliest white settlers here were Gortners (also spelled Gardners, Gertners, and etc.) and Hills, both lineages being ancestors of my lovely bride.

A father and son who shared the same name, John Daniel Hill, were both captured by indians. They were taken to Canada, where the father starved to death and the son was murdered by them. Joseph Hill Sr., their brother and uncle, respectively, was also captured but escaped and later fought in the revolution of 1776.

George Gortner was Rudy's great great great great great great great (seven "greats") grandfather. He fled Germany on account of the calamities of the Thirty Years War and settled here on the north side of Muncy Creek, about a mile and a half from it's outlet into the West Branch of the Susquehanna, in 1773. He spent five years clearing a farm on the good bottom land before being killed by Indians. We have four accounts that vary in details. In what seems the most credible, he and a friend named Christian Merkel were inspecting his corn crop after a Sunday dinner. Several indians laying under the bank of a stream fired on them, killing the former and nicking the latter's ear. The Indians went on to kill another man named Clark about two miles upstream, then departed for parts unknown. Christian Merkel had been a colonial ranger during the French and Indian War, and was then the captain in command of the garrison at Fort Muncy, to which he escaped. He returned with a party of his soldiers and buried the scalped and mutilated body of his friend in an unmarked grave close to where he fell. As near as we can figure, there's a shopping mall on top of him now. The valley was then "abandoned to the savages" in what became known as "The Great Runaway". All the settlers who remained in an attempt to tend their crops were killed "without exception."

Christina Gortner was one of George Gortner's daughters, She was engaged to John Jacob HIll when he enlisted in the Continental Army, and waited almost eight years for him to return. An interesting entry from Christina's diary: "When we moved here in 1773 then and afterwards the Indians were civil and friendly, and on the upper part of the place they had lodges or what was called an Indian town. We used to go to see them often and had no fears. Their diet consisted of almost anything they could get. One day we were there and a squaw with several kits around her seemed to be much interested in something covered up in the hot embers. Soon she removed it. It was a land tortoise with the bottom side up. After removing the flat shells she raised the contents carefully and preserved the broth and drippings in the shell and divided the fleshy parts between her and the children, to the latter sparingly. She then raised the shell and between whiffs and audible sips and ahs, she made the broth all her own; but not without boxing each papoose that came near enough, coaxing for just a little."

John Jacob Hill was one of Liz's great great great great great (five "greats") grandfathers, born May 9th, 1750 in Windsor Castle, Pennsylvania. In the Pennsylvania archives, he is listed as a captain in the Berks County Militia. He was a shoemaker until the revolution broke out, when he enlisted in the Fifth Regiment of the Continental LIne. He endured the winter at Valley Forge, and reenlisted after General Washington's famous speech there. He witnessed the "sort of mutiny" that General "Mad Anthony" Wayne ended by barring the way and saying "You can only proceed by crossing my dead body". In the end, John Jacob served a total of seven years, six months and twenty days, and campaigned in seven states - New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Among the many battles he participated in was the crossing the icy Delaware to attack the Hessians on Christmas Eve. At the end of the war, he was "permitted to carry home with him his musket with which he never parted." He took up shoemaking again, as well as farming and beekeeping, and settled down with the Christina Gortner mentioned above. Although disabled "from exposure during his protracted army life", he refused to apply for the pension he was due, saying "I have enough, and we now have a free country." (He would undoubtedly be appalled to learn that nowadays he would be considered a dangerous criminal for enjoying the freedoms he fought for.) He died on January 9th, 1824, six days after his wife passed away.

The Last of the Garden Harvest

2009-10-06T11:50:00.000-07:00

In a year when almost nothing did well, these two standbys are still producing: Heritage raspberries and Blacktail Mountain watermelons.

I planted the former a couple decades ago. We cut them back to the ground every year. They're still going strong.

The latter are an open-pollinated variety, cannonball-sized with orange-red meat, and very sweet. We save the best seeds from the best fruits every year.

9mm vs. .40 S&W vs. .45ACP

2009-10-03T16:54:00.000-07:00

It's a tired argument, but it keeps popping up.

I used a .45 in the Marines. I am issued a .40 now as a federal officer. I usually carry a 9mm as a personal CCW.

Urban myth says that .45 ACP hits like the Hammer of Thor, 9mm Parabellum is inadequate, and .40 S&W is some sort of compromise.

In reality, with the recent advances in bonded bullet technology, they are statistically identical in terms of real-world performance. All deliver, depending on the load, somewhere between 300 and 500 foot pounds of energy. (Which is about the energy of a thrown baseball, by the way.)

As for diameter, of course bigger is better within reason. But the unexpanded diameter of a .40 S&W is less than 5 hundredths of an inch greater than a 9mm. A .45 ACP is 96 thousandths greater. Do you really think you'll hit many more blood vessels and vital organs with that extra 45 thousandths or 96 thousandths? And remember that you're giving up magazine capacity to get it.

One of my closest friends is an emergency room physician as well as a shooting enthusiast, and we've had conversations about things like this. He says he can't tell a difference in wounding effects. His standard joke when someone really presses him about which is the most lethal is to say "a shotgun".

The military uses full metal jacket (FMJ) bullets because they're limited by the Geneva convention, and concerned with different tactical problems than us civilians. They routinely shoot through helmets, body armor, walls and vehicles at relatively long distances. Civilians, on the other hand, are usually at or near contact range in a defensive encounter, and would have a hard time convincing a jury that a fellow a ways off and on the other side of a wall was a threat.

So: Any of those three calibers with modern, good quality bonded hollow-points will perform about as well as the next, and as well as a .357 Sig or any other reasonable defensive handgun cartridge. Magazine capacity tips the scales for me. I'd rather have a 9mm or a .40 than a .45, because ammunition is like tokens at the arcade: The more you have, the longer you can play.

9mm Parabellum: 300-500 foot/pounds of energy, .356 bullet diameter

.40 S&W: 400-500 foot/pounds of energy, .4005 bullet diameter

.45ACP: 400-500 foot/pounds of energy, .452 bullet diameter

Wild Edibles: Pears

2009-10-02T17:44:00.000-07:00

Okay, maybe "feral" is more accurate than "wild". From a neglected tree on an old farmstead. I picked up about 30 pounds of fresh drops, while others fell all around me. I could easily have picked up a couple hundred pounds. They're delicious, with almost no insect damage. They're laying in Sheep Sorrel, by the way, so I ate some of that, too. It was a good combination.

Gear that Works: Silky "Katanaboy" Folding Saw

2009-10-02T17:39:00.000-07:00

This is a very large folding arborist's saw - the blade is 20" long. I was a little tentative about buying one, as with shipping it came to $140. Fortunately, it was a good investment. It's been pruning our trees, and will be replacing the bow saw for this winter's camping trips. It's a little heavy at two pounds, but cuts significantly faster and more efficiently, has a longer reach, is easier to maneuver into tight spots, and more compact to transport. It's also safer, as there's no temptation to put your hand alongside the blade, even to start it. When folded, the blade is completely covered, with no separate guard to fiddle with or misplace. It sectioned some fair-sized red maple and hop hornbeam logs, both dry and green, with no trouble.

Book: Butterflies in my Stomach

2009-09-27T10:02:00.000-07:00

Butterflies in my Stomach, Ronald L. Taylor.

About the human consumption of insects, direct and indirect.

It also addresses our irrational food prejudices, e.g., most westerners are repelled by the idea of eating bee larvae, yet relish bee vomit (honey).

I can't really recommend slogging through most of the book but there were some interesting tidbits. Here's a six-sentence synopsis:

Humans, especially vegetarians, consume quite a lot of bugs without being fully aware of it. For example, the FDA permits up to 20 maggots per 100 grams of canned mushrooms, and ten insects plus 35 insect eggs per 8 ounces of raisins.

The most promising insects for use as food are termites, bee larvae and pupae, beetle grubs, grasshoppers, crickets, and almost any freshwater aquatic insects.

The legs, wings and heads may be pulled off. Roasting is the easiest way to cook them. They can be powdered and mixed with water or other foods if that's the only way you can keep them down.

Moving a Big Rock: Exercise and a Primal Sense of Accomplishment

2009-09-23T14:27:00.000-07:00

This rock has been an annoying hazard off the end of our dock since we bought this house. I mentioned it to a friend, and he loaned me an amazing machine called a "Tirfor Grip Hoist". It amounts to a super-heavy-duty-come-along. Bought a nylon tow strap made for tanks from a surplus store, strapped the Grip Hoist to a big oak tree, wrapped logging chains around the rock, and moved it a couple hundred feet, half an inch at a time. From where it's been since the last ice age to where it'll be until the next one. Took all day and was the kind of workout yuppies in California pay a lot of money for.